Cash (The Black Roses MC #6)

Prologue

Cece

“Today is a good day, daughter,” my father says at the breakfast table as he finishes the pancakes on his plate.

He’s already asked for seconds of the pancakes and thirds of the bacon.

It’s as though when my husband isn’t here, he feels free to be as gluttonous as he wants.

If Otto were present, my father would be grateful for the meals I cook with Otto’s provisions, and he would never dream of asking for more.

That’s the way of life on this compound, though. Or homestead, as they like to call it. In reality, it’s a cult in the Nevada desert, just shy of the Arizona state line.

I’ve never been immune to the not-so-subtle whispers from the residents of the small town we would have to visit on occasion.

I’d heard the word cult bandied about many times growing up.

The horrified look on my mother’s face when I asked her what that word meant was something I’ll never forget.

She told me we were living as God intended—not the sinful way others existed.

She made our way of life sound glorious, but I soon came to realize it was anything but.

One day, while I was alone in the store, I asked the woman behind the counter where we were on the map.

She looked at me with an odd expression and pointed to the town about thirty minutes from the compound I lived on.

A smile stretched across my face. I knew where we were.

It was a small thing, but never having known anything outside the compound I grew up in, discovering that this place really did exist somewhere gave me a tiny bit of comfort.

Like I was really here in this world and not trapped in a nightmare—even though I truly am.

That was the day the thought crossed my mind. I could actually leave. There were places, cities, and other towns. I could run away like my sister Lucinda had. Maybe she was living a happy life in a town somewhere on that map. Maybe someday I would meet her there.

“My coffee is getting cold, Cecilia. I hope you take better care of your husband than me,” my father barks, startling me out of my daydream as I wash the breakfast dishes.

“Sorry, Father.” I grab the pot of coffee off the stand next to him, refilling his cup with my head down. If he thinks even for a moment that I’m being defiant by keeping my chin raised, he will report back to my husband, Otto, and my punishment will be…not worth it. My punishments never are.

When Otto started coming around, I was a naive little girl.

My mother had passed away about a year prior, and I’d had to grow up quickly in her absence.

Since my sister had run away by then, it was up to me to take care of my father and his house.

Never in my wildest imagination did I think an elder, let alone the congregation’s leader, would take an interest in marrying me—especially at sixteen.

They all seemed so old. They had to be well into their fifties or sixties.

Otto wasn’t the oldest living man on the compound. In fact, he was considered young for the position he held at fifty-three. His father was the leader before him, so I suppose he was born and raised to follow in his footsteps. But like I said, I was a naive little girl.

That naivety was smashed into a million tiny pieces on my wedding night while I lay in the marriage bed and Otto rutted into me like a dog in heat as I cried in pain and begged him to stop.

That was the first night my husband punished me with a slap to the face that split my lip open.

But it certainly wasn’t the last time or the worst.

These last couple weeks without Otto here have been a godsend, though I’m not entirely sure I believe in any god at this point.

But I’ve had a reprieve, and that’s the most I can wish for.

It’s not as though some celestial being sitting on a throne in the heavens is going to save me now.

No one has, and I don’t expect that to change.

“Your husband returns today,” my father informs me, and it feels as though a pit has dropped in my stomach. Of course, Otto would never deign to let me hear those words from his mouth, but he would tell an elder—the role my father earned by giving me away to the head of our community.

“It’s a blessed day then,” I say, like any dutiful wife should after such a long absence from her husband.

“And he’s bringing a sheep back to the flock,” he says as I turn to set the coffeepot back on the stove and return to the dirty dishes in the sink.

“Oh?” There’s only one sheep that has ever made it out of here. Alive at least. One girl tried to run before my sister. She was caught and punished. There’s an unmarked grave somewhere on the compound with her body lying six feet under.

“Your husband and his son have found your sister. She’s on her way back to her rightful place to be Jasper’s wife, as it was always supposed to be.”

My hands begin to shake in the soapy water. I knew he was going to tell me it was Lu before he opened his mouth. It couldn’t have been anyone else. But for one single split second, I was hoping it would be someone else—anyone else—even though I knew it was impossible.

Before Lu fled the compound—when she was seventeen and I was fifteen—she was going to be married off to Otto’s youngest son, Jasper.

There aren’t many men who scare me at this point.

I’ve met and have been brutalized by some of the worst. All at the discretion of my husband, no less.

But Jasper? He makes my blood run cold every time his beady gaze lands on me.

I know what to expect from my husband and the disgusting bikers he makes me entertain.

It’s awful in ways I could never describe and rarely let myself think about.

What’s inside Jasper is something else entirely.

If I believed in the devil the way we’re taught to, then Jasper would be evil incarnate.

And that’s why Lu ran. She saw what her future would hold with him as her husband and refused to live what would most likely be a very short life with him.

When she left and he married another girl that the elders picked for him, they couldn’t conceive.

It wasn’t more than a few years before there was an accident with a rifle, and his wife was shot and died.

Honestly, I’m still not sure if he was responsible for her death or if she turned the gun on herself.

There have been many times I’ve wondered if I would meet the same fate, since I have yet to conceive a child with Otto. And the thought of taking matters into my own hands and leaving the earthly plane hasn’t been far from my mind over the last couple of years.

“If there’s anything I can do to bring her back to the fold and make her see the error of her ways, I’m more than happy to, Father,” I say.

Though I am heartsick at the idea of my sister being captured, I’m desperate to see her.

Desperate to wrap my arms around her. If there is a god, then maybe she was sent here as a second chance for me to make a different decision than the one I made all those years ago when I chose to stay.

Chose to believe the teachings of Otto and the elders.

I have to get out of here, and this time, my sister and I are going to find freedom together.

“I’m sure that would make your husband very happy. I’ll speak with him about it.” My father rises from the table and throws his napkin on his plate. “I have preparations to make for Lucinda’s return,” he says, then heads out the front door.

When he leaves, I collect his dirty plates from the table and bring them to the sink.

Lu’s back.

A smile stretches across my face.

And together, we’re going to find a way out of this hellhole once and for all.

My hands tremble as I walk up the steps of the church where my sister is being held.

I kept myself busy baking bread, desperately trying not to run to the church the second I saw the truck carrying Lu, my husband, and Jasper through the town square.

Otto came to the house briefly and told me that my father suggested I help Lu see the error of her ways.

He decided that my father made a wise recommendation, and Otto told me to prepare something for Lu to eat and find her a change of clothes that were more appropriate compared to what they brought her here in.

He was giddy when he swept into the house, and that was something that both confused and terrified me.

When I open the old wooden door of the church, the hinges release a high-pitched squeal due to years of use and the dry desert climate.

Looking around, I don’t see my sister or anyone else.

Have they moved her somewhere else? Is she already gone again?

The questions swirl as my head whips from side to side, looking for her.

“Lu?” I ask, my voice echoing off the walls.

A head with a tangle of black hair pops up from one of the first pews. So different from the light-brown hair she had when we were younger.

“Cece,” Lu says, covering her mouth as she stands. She runs toward me, and I drop the clothes and food I brought her as she launches herself into my arms.

“Cece,” she says again with a teary voice as though she can’t believe this moment is real. I can hardly believe it myself.

We pull apart slightly, and her hands wipe the tears from my cheeks like she used to do when we were children. Lu was always there to wipe away tears, bandage scrapes, or tend to cuts and welts from our father’s punishments.

“I thought I saw you earlier on my way through town,” she says, her eyes roaming over my face.

“You did,” I reply. I’d snuck away from the house when Otto came back, figuring if I got caught, I could make up some reason as to why I wasn’t in the house waiting for him.

All I knew was I had to lay eyes on Lu. “I didn’t want Otto to see me, though.

If he thinks I’m excited to see you, he’ll become suspicious. ”