Banshee (Silver Shadows MC #8)

Prologue

“YOU STUPID WHORE!”

“I’m sorry, Pepper. I won’t say a word, I swear!”

Lying on the floor curled up in a ball, I covered my head with my hands while my husband kicked me again and again. The coppery smell of blood was heavy in the air. My blood. This was not how I expected to celebrate my anniversary.

An anniversary I never asked for.

“GET UP!” he screamed as spit gathered in the corners of his mouth. He reminded me of a rabid dog. This wasn’t the first time he’d hit me, but I feared it would be the last.

As I pushed to my knees, Pepper grabbed my hair and dragged me to my feet. He shoved me against the wall, with his hands on my throat. I clawed desperately at his hands.

“You’re fucking worthless, you know that? Your own goddamn family didn’t want you. Your sister was the prize. She’s the one your father cares about. Why do you think he sold you off to the Death Dogs? For information about her. Too bad she’s fucking dead.”

The back of his hand slapped across my chin. My eye was already so swollen I could barely see. There wasn’t an inch of my body that didn’t hurt. When he let go of me, I dropped to the floor in a heap. Breathing was hard. I was convinced my ribs were broken. I knew my arm was.

It wasn’t the first time.

But as the darkness closed in, I knew it was the last.

The sound of beeping thrummed in my head. My brain pulsed with every high-pitched chirp that echoed in the room. The smell of antiseptic and iodine assaulted me as I squeezed my eyes shut.

I was still alive.

Tears welled up as anger surged inside me. The bastard couldn’t do anything right. He should have killed me. He was so fucking incompetent.

“Irene.” My body tightened in pain as I heard his voice. “I know you can fucking hear me, bitch. When the doctor asks you what happened, tell them you were fucking mugged.”

His fingers dug into my hand, but I didn’t cry out. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I’d learned to be silent. Silence was safety.

“Open your goddamn eyes so I know you’re fucking listening to me. You stupid cunt.”

Only one eye would open; the other was so swollen it didn’t move. I turned my head to look at my husband, and nausea roiled through me. He held my hand in place as he leaned in.

“Do something right for once in your pathetic life.” The door to my room opened, and in an instant he changed. “Baby, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Pepper stood, still holding my hand in his, and turned to the doctor with a fake smile. “She’s awake, Doc.”

“Mrs. Davids, do you know where you are?”

I nodded.

“Can you tell me your first name?”

I tried to open my mouth, but my jaw wouldn’t budge. I lifted the hand in the cast and touched my cheek gently. The brush of my fingertips caused me to wince, and I made the mistake of looking at Pepper.

His eyes portrayed a malice so evil. I swallowed against the bile rising in my throat, threatening to choke me. I started panting, and the doctor rushed forward.

“Take it easy, Mrs. Davids.” He inserted a needle into my IV, and I faded back into the darkness, Pepper’s threat running through my head.

The next time I woke, there was a different doctor reading my chart. A woman.

“Hello, Irene.” Her smile was kind. “My name is Dr. Robinette. I am going to take you for a few tests if that’s alright?”

I nodded. Still unable to speak with my jaw wired shut.

“Let’s get you taken care of then.” The door opened, and another woman dressed in scrubs held it open.

“Is the transport ready?” Dr. Robinette asked.

“Waiting downstairs.”

“Good, let’s go.”

Dr. Robinette pushed the bed through the door and down the hall. No one questioned where she was taking me. Not even me. We entered the elevator, and neither woman spoke; instead, we all watched the numbers descend, as they lit up and darkened, until we reached the basement.

I had been in this hospital many times over the past three years. Tests were done upstairs, not in the basement. As we sped closer to the double doors that led outside, my apprehension grew.

I tried to look at the two women, but the more I turned my head, the more the nausea threatened to take over.

“Relax, Irene. We’re here to help,” Dr. Robinette assured as she rubbed my arm.

“Slyce, get the door.”

Slyce? That was the woman’s name? Slyce wheeled my bed into a waiting ambulance, and a young girl with pink hair turned to look at us over her shoulder.

“Kytten, is everything ready?”

“Ready to go, Val. Once she’s secure, I’ll pull out.”

She’s driving?

A child?

“No lights or sirens; we don’t want to draw attention,” Dr. Robinette, or Val, said.

“You’re no fun.” Kytten pouted.

Dr. Robinette looked at me as she held my one good hand.

“I know you’re scared. My name is Valhalla.

I am the president of the Nyght Nymphs MC.

We’re here to get you to a safe place where you can heal, and then we will get you a new identity and a place to live.

We’ll set you up with a career and make sure your husband can never find you. ”

“You didn’t explain all this to her before we kidnapped her?” Slyce asked.

“There wasn’t time. She’s been in and out of consciousness for over a week. And we didn’t kidnap her. I assumed she wouldn’t want to go back given this isn’t her first visit, only the worst.” Val looked down at me. “Was I wrong? Do you want to stay?”

I shook my head vehemently as I squeezed her hand. I needed her to see the desperation on my face.

“I didn’t think so.” She rubbed my hand, and my stomach settled. Relaxing into the mattress, I closed my eyes. Peace, mixed with a relief only women who had lived the way I had over the past three years knew, swept over me. For the first time in ages, fell asleep without fear.

“Sleep, Irene. You’re safe now.”

June 2023, Diamond Creek, Nebraska

“I don’t know anything about flowers,” I cried.

“It’s okay, Aspen. This is a small town; you can learn as you go.”

“Until someone asks me to make bouquets for their wedding.”

I looked around the store. The grand opening was tomorrow, and I had no idea what I was doing. I’d gone to college as a business major, so running the business didn’t scare me. But I didn’t know squat about flower arranging.

Thankfully, Val hadn’t asked me to grow the flowers. There were suppliers for that. I could handle the inventory, the record keeping, the orders. I was an organized person. Detail-oriented with a bachelor’s in business accounting.

What I wasn’t was creative. That was my mother. She could make anything look beautiful. I missed my mother. Val was strict, so I couldn’t contact my family. Not yet, anyway.

Not if I wanted to stay hidden.

I should have told my mother the first time Pepper hit me. My father would have loaded up his men and gone to war. But the Death Dogs had too many members. They outnumbered the Gods of Mayhem two to one.

People might fear my father’s club, but numbers don’t lie. Numbers were what I knew. So, I kept my mouth shut to protect my family.

We’d already lost so much.

“Aspen?”

I spun around to look at Kytten. “Yes?”

“Stop fretting. What about putting up an advertisement for someone creative? Maybe you could hire a young girl who has a passion for flowers?”

“Maybe,” I sighed. I didn’t understand why Val was so insistent on a flower shop. I understood I couldn’t do something in accounting; it would be too risky, but flowers?

“You’ve got this!”

With a heavy exhale, I smiled at Kytten. I wished she could stay. I liked her. She was sweet and kind, always so happy. Like a ray of sunshine after a storm.

I used to be like that. A long time ago, before my sister disappeared. She went off to college when I was eight years old and never came home.

My family was never the same after that.

Now, nothing would ever be the same again. I now lived in a small town in the Midwest, with no family, no friends. I didn’t even get to keep my name. Not that I wanted to.

I hated the name Irene. My parents took the whole mythological god thing too far.

My sister and I were both named after goddesses.

Why my brother wasn’t named after a god, I didn’t understand.

Maybe it was because they knew he would run the club one day.

He’d gotten his road name early on. And Zeus wasn’t the kind of name you gave a baby.

“I’ve got this,” I whispered. Everyone wished for a fresh start at some point in their life, right? This was mine. I was safe and free; that was what mattered. Anything beyond that was just the cherry on top of the sundae.