Dark Surrender (Sacred Sinners MC: Nomad #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

With a frustrated growl, I slap my sister’s bloody hand away. “Dee, fuck off with that, will you? I’m not touching it.”

We don’t have time for her psychotic antics. We need to leave. Any moment now, the bikers staking out this farmhouse are going to rush in and find us, and that’s the last thing we need to deal with—big, testosterone-fueled men with guns. What a terrible combination.

Of course, the bitch rolls her eyes heavenward, wraps her fingers around the appendage in her palm, and punches me in the shoulder.

Blood drips from her fist onto the sleeve of my leather jacket as the man writhing on the floor passes out.

I growl at her, but what little good that does when she opens her hand again and offers me her favorite keepsake with a too-bright smile.

Knowing the faster Dee works, the faster we can get the fuck outta dodge, I sigh long and hard, and with the tippy tips of my fingers, I pinch the freshly severed dick and carry it over to the small pink cooler covered in stickers, where Dee totes all her keepsakes.

“You’re lucky I love you,” I hiss after I kick the plastic lid closed and head to the attached bath to scrub pedophile from my skin with the bar soap on the edge of the grungy, porcelain sink.

Dee, not one to talk much, whistles as she works, and I smile.

I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. It’s nostalgic.

The entrance song to The Andy Griffith Show is the same tune our father whistled when he did what we do—cleanse the world of evil men.

Only he was much less picky about his choices.

As long as they were male and breathing, they were all vile in his eyes and deserved the same end—carved up and turned into worm food.

Thankfully, Dee didn’t quite follow in his footsteps, and I’m too soft for their kind of murder. Or that’s what Dad always said when he was busy—

Nope. I’m not going there. Not now.

Shaking my head, I rid the thoughts of him, use a towel to dry my hands, and wipe the man’s blood from my jacket before rejoining Dee in the bedroom.

Crouched over the body of her kill, she carves out his eyeballs as I check the window for any sign of the bikers we’ve been three steps ahead of for the past few months.

This farmhouse came up as a possible trafficking site just last night.

An old friend of ours, who’s got the inside scoop, drops me a message anytime she has a lead.

Sure enough, three men were shacked up here with two children.

Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the disturbing details.

Those kids are safe now, sitting together in their bedroom downstairs, while their captors have expired.

This one’s the last. Dee always savors the last.

“You have five more minutes, sis. Then we’ve gotta jet,” I announce when I’m confident it’s not dark enough for the bikers to show up yet.

After months of noting their patterns, they’ve become predictable, never infiltrating before dusk.

That’s why we always eliminate the offenders before they do, leaving the survivors for them to care for.

Which they will. They’re great like that.

Resting my shoulder against a wall, with a view of the long gravel drive, I wait for Dee to finish.

Blood pools on the aged hardwood floor and soaks into the frayed edges of an old rug.

It sticks to the bottom of her boots as she steps around her latest prey and gestures to his open chest and the rope of intestines curled in a makeshift ball over his groin with the tip of her knife.

“Did you learn this from the live streaming you’ve been watching?” I nod to the corpse, not the least bit grossed out. When you’ve seen as many dead bodies in as many ways as I have, it takes a lot to turn your stomach. The metallic scent of blood rarely registers anymore.

Dee’s bright smile says all I need to know as she wipes the blood from her blade on the nearest curtain before sliding it back into its sheath at her hip.

See, I was right. Dee watched that man again, the masked one with black soot on his face, as he dismembered men in creative ways in a concrete room.

Dee has been a fan of his for years. I don’t watch his live streams much, but if her cell signal holds out, she never misses them.

If our father were still alive, despite his hatred of the male species, he probably would have watched the streams with her and enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on who you ask, he’s gone, and has been for some time now. It’s just me and Dee against the world.

Wanting to get the hell out of here with a quickness, I gesture for my sister to wash up in the bathroom as I collect her cooler.

Once we meet in the hallway, there’s a little extra pep in her step as we jog down the old farmhouse stairs to the main floor, where I hand her the cooler.

“Meet me by the quad. I’m gonna check on the kids. ”

Dee grips my forearm, and the furrow between her brows and her hesitation are sweet. She doesn’t want to leave me unprotected, but I’m fine. I have a gun and know how to use it. Plus, the kids are the only ones left breathing, and they’re not gonna pull anything.

Turning her by the shoulders toward the kitchen doorway, I swat her behind and laugh. “Giddy up. We gotta go.”

Her annoyed sigh fills the space as she does what she’s told and leaves me to pop my head into the bedroom where I locked the kids. They jump as I open the old, creaky door, but I keep my distance as they huddle, with tear-stained cheeks, on the twin bed.

Lifting my hands so they know I come in peace, I speak softly. “Someone should be here soon. They’re nice. They’ll take care of you.”

The little girl’s bottom lip wobbles as she nods just once.

“Take care,” I whisper as I back out, hating how scared they must be. But they’ll be okay. Someway. Somehow. The bikers will see to it.

I meet my sister by the quad just as the pink watercolor sky dips below the tree line. With a little squeal of excitement, I hop on the back, making the quad bounce. She glares at me good-naturedly over her shoulder.

Today, we saved children, and my sister quenched her bloodlust.

Tomorrow, I have to work like everyone else.

“Onward,” I sing, pointing to the forest behind the farmhouse.

Dee nods, and off we race back to our everyday lives, where we don’t keep severed dicks in a cooler.