Chapter 13
Gabriella
Now
I walked down the hallway, feeling as though I were walking through a fog, my movements heavy and sluggish.
It should have been so simple. So easy. All we needed to do was smile, serve the drinks, and be polite.
The bikers should not have been so rowdy that early. They shouldn’t have been so… handsy.
But the girls should have known. I told them what would happen. I told them the consequences of disobedience.
I shook my head as I came to my mother’s room, wanting to free myself of the images before I entered.
My mother was fragile at the best of times. The past two years with Nico in charge hadn’t been easy on either of us. But my mother was struggling not just with the current situation, but everything she had lost too.
Her husband had been president of the Riders. Then her son. Both died at the hands of the Devils. And then Nico came along, and she thought with him being my cousin—the son of her own husband’s brother—that her position here would be more or less unchanged.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Nico wasted no time in establishing himself as the new president, and with that came all of his new rule changes.
Within an hour, he had declared me his old lady. Within a day, he had his new rules implemented, half of the old ladies murdered, and me and my mother under lock and key.
Visions flashed before my mind—my mother being smacked whenever I disobeyed. Her body tied to the wooden beams on the ceiling, sobbing as she was viciously abused by Nico and his group of sick followers.
Nico knew the one way he could keep me here, the only thing forcing my hand, was my mother.
She knew nothing else. And whilst Natalie would whisper in my ear, telling me Vienna would save me, my mother would never go for it.
This place was all she knew. The Riders were all she knew.
And though we were worlds away from the Riders my dad once ruled, we were still her home.
This place, the members, the club, and all its rules… they were her safety net.
And so I obeyed. I listened. I trained.
And I fucked up each and every time.
Raising my hand to knock at her door, I froze as the assault on my senses washed over me.
Drip, drip, drip…
The blood dripped from her cold fingers, running down the greying skin and dropping to pool on the floor.
The laughter. Her body still jerking as the men continued to use her.
The girls screaming.
Their screams coming to a violent end, silenced in the middle of their wails.
The smell of their fear. Their sweat clinging in the air, mixed with anger, humiliation, and ultimately… defeat.
The snap of bones. The tearing of clothes. The grunts and groans as they satisfied themselves on the shame of the innocent.
“No,” I whispered to myself, shaking my head.
The rally hadn’t been a success. Not in the slightest. And I had an hour with my mother before Nico summoned me. He had already grabbed my elbow as I tried to usher the remaining girls out of the clubhouse. He told me that I would be punished for this. That their failures rested on my shoulders.
With a shudder running through me, I raised my hand and knocked on the door, plastering a huge smile on my face, stretching it wider than was natural, as my mother called me in.
“Oh, darling,” my mother said as soon as she laid her eyes on me.
An hour didn’t give me much time to change, and so she was seeing me in all my glory.
Drip, drip, drip…
The blood. I desperately tried to stop the flow of her blood.
Slap!
The sting of the hand around my cheek as punishment.
The tearing of clothes, the girls screaming…
The grunts, the laughter, the animalistic, feral noises as they fucked—
Stop it!
“I’m fine, Mum, I promise,” I told her, crossing the room and climbing into the other side of her bed.
“How many?” she asked. I didn’t need her to explain.
“Three,” I whispered. “It would have been more, but I managed to get the rest of the girls away.”
Three lives lost. Three mothers had now lost their daughters. Three fathers now without their pride and joy. Those women were friends, nieces, cousins, girlfriends… and now they were nothing.
And in their final moments, they had been fucking slaves.
“Gabby… you know Nico—”
“I know,” I interrupted with a shaky nod, trying my best to smile through my tears. “He’s already told me he’ll be coming for me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed, pulling me close and wrapping her arms around me. Her nails were digging into my shoulder as she cried, her heart breaking once more.
I knew there was no point in joining her. Breaking now would only make it more fun for Nico. If he came to me and saw me with a puffy face and red eyes, he would see it as a challenge to hurt me worse. He would know that the rally had affected me.
As I hugged my mother back, I couldn’t help but think of how different things would be.
As I stroked my fingers up and down her spine, murmuring words of comfort, I wanted to lash out.
I wanted to blame her. She had allowed this to happen.
She knew what Nico was capable of, and she hadn’t protected me when Dad died.
When Damien was murdered by that fucking bitch Rachel.
But she hadn’t. She had kept me here, and allowed all these things to happen. I wanted her to hurt for that. I wanted her to feel regret. To know it was her fault.
And then I’d look at her—her sunken cheeks, the bruises that were never given enough time to fade before new ones joined them. The cracked teeth, split lips and black eyes, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t blame her when she was just as much of a victim as I was.
“It’s okay, Mum,” I soothed. “Nico doesn’t hurt me. Not really. I’ll take my punishment, and then I’ll come back to you. We can do each other’s makeup and talk, just like old times. We can stay up all night doing each other’s hair and laughing about everything and anything. How does that sound?”
“Perfect, darling,” she replied with a sob.
Because we both knew I wouldn’t be returning to this room tonight.
We both knew that when Nico was done with me, I wouldn’t be capable of going anywhere for a while. And when he was done, he would be straight back to this room himself, unleashing onto my mother all the violence he hadn’t given me.
Because Nico had other ways of punishing me, and it wasn’t by being on the receiving end of his fists.