Chapter Two
SAIGE
Heavy rain beats down on my shoulders as I stand above one hell of an ugly fucker sprawled out in front of me.
I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty sure his femur should be behind the muscle and not protruding out of it and pointing up to the sky.
His arm is at an odd angle that can’t be comfortable, and the road rash across his cheek has left a flap of skin hanging off his cheekbone, billowing in the wind as he hollers and wails for help.
Yeah, that won’t be coming.
“You made some mistakes in life, Creep, or should I call you Mark Strivers?” I taunt as I walk closer to him, my boots crunching on the gravel median.
We’re on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, where Creep here thought he could outrun me on his bike.
It didn’t work out too well for him, considering the mangled state his body is currently in.
“That’s right, I know your legal name. Let’s see, charged with aggravated rape and sodomy with a deadly weapon, multiple counts, robbery, kidnapping, assault, the list goes on and on.
You’re an evil fuck, Creep.” I got to give it to him, even though he’s in critical condition, he still slumps forward and starts to army crawl away from me.
Like that would save his life. I’ll be taking it before his injuries do.
“Where ya going, Creep? You get to pay your penance now.”
“Who the fuck are you?” he yells as he stops his meager attempt at an escape and looks up at me. His eyes are near black, red rimmed, and soulless, empty as the night stretching in front of us.
“Don’t you dare look at me!” I yell as I step onto his forearm, grinding my boot down onto him, the crunch of his shattered bones melding with the hoarse scream ripping from his throat.
Birds flap from their perches, flying off on the wind, and I’m jealous.
I don’t want to be in his presence, either.
“Look at me again and I’ll rip out your eyeballs and feed them to you,” I seethe, my voice low, calm, and lethal.
“Fuck! Stop!”
“I bet that’s what those innocent women yelled while you were taking them against their will.
” Anger and rage steamroll through my veins as I think about the horror they must have faced at his hands.
I’ll never be able to bring them peace or justice, but I can make sure no one else ever meets the same fate at his hand.
I kick him hard in the shoulder, forcing him onto his back.
“You don’t deserve to continue to breathe.
This was going to be a quick death, but I’ve enjoyed watching you suffer because of your own stupidity.
” I don’t waste any more time, pulling my knife from my thigh and squatting down to his side.
Creep tries to roll back over, but he’s not fast enough, the sharp blade pressing into his neck with precision, cutting open his throat like a water balloon.
Blood rushes forward through the wound, spreading it wider as crimson liquid mixes with rain and floods the ground beneath him.
I watch as Creep bleeds out, the life draining from his black, cold eyes before returning to my bike for my tools.
Even though I’ve completed my task, there’s one more thing I have to do.
I pull out the small metal prod that I had custom-made, a delicate willow branch, and I begin to heat it up with my small torch.
Once it’s good and ready, the metal glowing bright red in the evening light around us, I squat back down and yank up Creep’s shirt.
The front side of his body seems to have taken the brunt of his crash, and I’m surprised he lived as long as he did.
Ignoring the way his ribs are rearranged, I press the metal into his chest, right over his heart.
The scent of damp, dank earth, metallic iron, and burning flesh assaults my nose as his skin sizzles and chest hair burns.
Once I’m satisfied with my brand, I return to my bike, but no less angry than I was before I found him.
It won’t bring back my family, but maybe I’ve saved another from living the life I’ve been given.
The incessant blare of my phone continues to ring while I stare up at the spinning ceiling fan of my bedroom.
Shadows dance across the white paint as I try to focus on counting the blades as they whip in a circle.
The phone finally stops for a split second before the ringing starts right back up again.
I just wanted one slow morning, especially after the night I had, one morning to sleep in and forget the outside world exists.
So, naturally, why wouldn’t my phone start going off before I’m ready for it to?
The world never sleeps, and apparently, its mission is to make sure I don’t either.
I pull the phone off my bedroom nightstand with force, yanking the cord from the charger port, and bring it to my face, looking down at a familiar name staring back at me. I click connect and bring the phone up to my ear, not saying anything.
“I’ve got what you’ve been waiting for.” His cheerful but serious voice breaks the silence. I sit up fast, the quick change in position making me lightheaded, his words registering, the magnitude that they hold gripping my heart.
“No. Please don’t play with me, Seb. Be sure.”
“Honey, I’m more than sure. I’m looking at his mean mug right now. Damn, he’s a pretty one though, isn’t he?”
“Focus!” I snap at my former colleague, who’s also become my only friend. “Read it to me.”
“Better than that, I just emailed it to you. He’s going to be traveling solo. Not taking a single bodyguard or whatever they call it.”
I throw my legs over the side of my bed, stuffing my phone between my ear and shoulder while I quickly shimmy into a pair of jeans, pulling them up over my butt.
“Where is he now? Give me more, Sebastian!”
“We aren’t going to get anywhere with you talking to me like that, babycakes, and you know it. Try again.”
I grab the phone from my shoulder and tap the top of it against my forehead while I take a deep, controlled, steadying breath. Sebastian is a lot of things, but patient isn’t one of them.
“Seb, I am opening my laptop right now. Will you please give me the Cliff Notes version while it wakes up? I would be so thankful.” I give him my best rehearsed, most fake voice I can muster, even though I want to shake the shit out of him for not quickly getting to the point.
“Much better, love. He’s currently back on the compound surrounded by the rest of the brutes. But my guy says that this murderer—”
“Vigilante.”
“Right. Vigilante, has made such a dent recently that it’s put everyone on edge. All the presidents in the area are meeting to talk shop about what to do about the big bad wolf slaughtering all their sheep. Tomorrow.”
I laugh at his analogy. While Seb talks, I navigate to my email and open up the file.
Sure as shit, the man responsible for my family’s death is looking back at me.
I’ve spent countless hours staring at his face, memorizing his features as he’s aged over the last decade, waiting for the day he screws up and I can cash in.
He’s never alone, always traveling with his men.
Like a pack of hyenas, they’re always together.
I guess guilt will make you paranoid and untrusting.
If he’s even capable of feeling such emotions.
Could I get the jump on him with a few of his men around?
Probably. I’ve done it before to men bigger than him.
But I don’t just want to kill the president of Hell’s Heathens.
I want to prolong it. Slowly starve him, make him hurt, bring him back from the brink of death, only to push him right to the edge again.
I want to make Camden Young beg to be put out of his torment.
I’ve waited a long time to get vengeance, and I can’t fathom that I could finally have it at the tip of my fingers.
I study his face, the sharp jawline covered in light two-day scruff, his high cheekbones, and the dark features of his eyes.
A tiny twinge flutters somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach.
I push it down hard, refusing to let a human piece of me rise up.
The innocent girl who had ambitions and dreams and hope for a beautiful future died right along with my family.
And Camden Young and his Heathens are responsible.
“Your guy is on the inside?”
“Yep!” he smacks, popping the ‘p’. “He’s a member of another club, said all the presidents are meeting, no entourages allowed.”
“You’re sure this is legit? I’m not walking into a trap?”
“Baby girl, do you think Seb would do that to you? I don’t just love anyone, and unfortunately, I happen to love you. You know too much, so I have to keep you.”
“Like that time you called me to take you to the ER because a pickle got stu—”
“Nope! No! I thought we promised not to talk about that?” he interrupts.
Sebastian and I met in law school and became quick friends, even sharing a studio apartment for the last few years of school.
He went on to become a bigshot attorney, and the only thing I took away from criminal law is that it’s fucking pointless and built by design to protect the guilty.
There is no justice served. No peace that comes to survivors even if the criminal is proven guilty.
Nothing can take away their pain. Nothing can bring them the peace they once had before it was so brutally stolen from them. I would know.
My first kill was an accident. I was walking to my car after grabbing a bottle of wine from the convenience store, rounding a corner, when a voice floated on the wind, a familiar Irish lilt that had the hairs on my arms prickling.
“Yeah, it’s over. Fuckin’ eejits, the lot of ’em.
” There’s a long pause, and I can’t help but move closer to the dark alley the voice is trailing from, something dark and primal calling me to him.
“Yeah, I hear ya, I’ll try not to be so messy next time.
But the girl had a big mouth, even stuffed with me cock, she wouldn’t be quiet, had to do somethin’. ”
I fucking knew he did it, but with no living victim, no witnesses, and no hard proof other than Coner Kelly showing up on CCTV footage leaving the bar with her, we had nothing to charge him with.
There was no DNA found and no concrete proof.
But Coner sat in front of us, smug and nonchalant, answering our questions with such passive regard to what we were implying, that I knew he was guilty.
Coner is a ranked member of the Druids of éire Motorcycle Club, a group similar to the one that was responsible for taking my family from me.
They reject modern-day societal rules and instead live by their own brutal code of brotherhood that somehow convinces them it’s okay to be a sadistic, evil fuck.
They have no business walking this earth.
Especially not if the judicial system isn’t going to protect innocents and seek out justice.
If there is even such a thing. I chose law school so I could put men like Coner behind bars.
But the fantastical dreams of a little girl who thought she knew how the world worked have been crushed by reality, and my goals have pivoted.
“Oh, she was a tight, wee thing. Lass squealed like a baby pig when I fucked her. Dinna mean to choke the thing to death, but shite happens. It’s no worry, they got nothin’ on me. I’m still clean as a whistle.” Coner’s laugh hits my ears and caresses over my body like a thick, heavy disease.
The rage that bubbles at the pit of my stomach surges forward, a heat washing through my veins and igniting me.
He hurt her. An innocent woman. Raped and took her life with his own hands.
The fear she must have felt, the pain as he violated her body and murdered her.
My vision darkens at the sides, narrowing everything around me.
They have no business on this earth.
I’m moving before I realize it, pulling my pocketknife out of my purse and flicking open the blade.
Coner’s back is toward me, giving me the advantage.
The next thing I know, I’m on his back, slicing the blade of the knife across his throat, ear to ear, pressing in with all my strength.
The wound gapes open, blood rushing forward like a dam breaking.
Coner silently gasps, his sounds coming out as muffled gurgles as he drowns in his own blood.
He slams us back into the brick wall, pain shooting up my spine from the impact.
When Coner sinks to his knees, I finally let go of his shoulders, stepping around him as he grasps at his neck, his eyes wide with fear.
As I watch the life drain from his eyes, his body collapsing onto the ground in a pool of his own blood, I realize I’m smiling.
The world has one less evil sonofabitch now.
Did disgust with myself wash over me? No.
Was I consumed with guilt? Also, no.
Maybe I’m no better than them, but at least I’m purging the earth of evil rather than inflicting it.
It was in that moment that I realized I wouldn’t make a dent in ridding the world of these evil men as a victims’ rights attorney.
But I could like this. Coner Kelly was my first, the only man I’ve killed without leaving the mark of Willow behind on his cold, dead body.
“So, what’s gonna be your plan? You gonna, you know, do your thing?”
“Oh, I’m going to take care of it. But this time I’m going to do it slowly.”
I’m going to kidnap Camden Young and make him wish he had never been born.