Killa (UNHOLY SAVAGES MC #1)

Prologue

KILLA

My body vibrates with an indescribable need to wreak havoc on the scumbag awaiting sentencing.

If I had the ability, I’d shoot laser beams through the back of his head with my glare. Not once has he turned around to face his victims’ families.

He’s not fucking man enough to do that.

Instead, he stares forward, avoiding eye contact with anyone in the packed courtroom while being guarded by pigs who are stopping us from delivering the justice we deserve.

Security has never been so high, and I’ve been in the courtroom way too many times than I care to count to know that.

With the tension high, we knew me being here would draw attention back to the club, but Savage is trying his best to keep us out of the law’s line of sight. Therefore, we chose not to wear our cuts today; it’s not like the pigs would have let us in here wearing our patch anyway.

So, I sit here raw and vulnerable as ever, missing an integral part of me, and not just my sister, Alisha.

Armed guards line the back walls, gripping their guns as if ordered to remain on high alert.

They’re expecting trouble, but who can blame them?

The media circus surrounding this case has been insane.

This trial has made history, with numerous missing women’s and men’s body parts being littered throughout our town.

A severed ear was discovered with the earring I bought her for her eighteenth birthday.

The only connection to my sister in the case, and before I knew what was happening, they’d presumed her dead along with a dozen other missing persons.

They’ll find no trouble from me, though, which is a change. All I want is justice and answers—something that haunts me when I consider I may never receive them.

“You good, brother?” Warrior asks, and I dart my focus toward him. With his brow furrowed, his bright-blue eyes scrunch, studying me, and I have to swallow back a knot of emotion that’s been slowly forming all day.

Warrior is our VP, my brother, not by blood, but by choice, and my childhood best friend, so naturally, he’s the one I chose to join me in the courtroom today.

Our brothers wait outside the courthouse in support.

I’m not sure what the hell they thought we were all gonna do here, and as much as I like the idea of popping one off in this sick scumbag’s head, I have other plans for him.

Plans I’ve spent hours, nights, weeks, and months formulating, and although I’m as close as I’ve ever been to him, he’s never felt so far away.

With the anguish and hatred of all families involved, the atmosphere is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

My knuckles ache as I pump my fists, determined to rein in my temper to see his sentencing through.

From the moment my sister went missing, I had a deep-seated feeling it wasn’t of her own doing. There’s more to it than meets the eye. Secrets are being hidden, and that sicko is at the center of them. I sense it.

Sure, Alisha had demons; we all do. Growing up in the MC life isn’t for everyone. There’s no choice but to remain untouched by the evil that lurks beneath the surface of civilian life.

It tears the weak apart from those with a specific kind of strength, where only the strongest can survive in this brutal world without losing themselves completely.

I’m afraid Alisha lost herself completely.

That she became someone she’s not. Addicts do crazy shit when they’re desperate, and the last time I saw her, she was desperate.

She suffered like the rest of us, growing up in the Unholy Sinners, our mother chapter.

Sinner exited with a wad of scratch and has since rebuilt his club on his own terms in the next town over.

He chose to keep a lot of the original Unholy laws, which were a bone of contention between our prez and him—yet another reason I know I chose the right side.

Not a prayer would I ever be okay with auctioning off my kid for power; that wasn’t the kind of president I wanted to follow.

That’s not a world I’d choose to live in, and for once in my miserable life, I had a choice. From then on, Savage became my president, and to this day, as a mark of respect, he insists on us only using his title of president during church.

“Wish the screen weren’t there.” I nod toward the bulletproof screen protecting the scumbag. He doesn’t even have the balls to turn and face us. I haven’t gotten a glimpse of his face yet; only on the television did I see an image of his mugshot.

The face of a man so evil that he became the mask of nightmares for many.

That goes for me too.

I lie awake at night, wondering what he did to her.

Did he sell her?

Did she plead and beg for him to stop as he and his sick friends took turns abusing her?

They haven’t let us in to witness the trial, so everything we’ve heard has been through the media—the whole twisted truth. The gory details of how he tortured victims before finally discarding them.

Men and women.

Some say, they were victims of a Mafia auction house on the West Coast; others say, senior members of society used them, and it’s all one big cover-up, with Benjamin Charles being at the center of it.

Hunter, our tech guy, disagrees. He believes Benjamin might have been a collaborator and no doubt took part in the warped demise of the victims, but he sure as hell didn’t orchestrate it. And I believe him.

Benjamin Charles is the key to my answers, but he’s un-fucking-touchable.

“We’ll get him, brother,” Warrior states, and I want to snort at how he thinks that is possible. The prick will be held in high security after the amount of evidence linking him to missing men and women and their brutal demise.

My leg bounces and I exhale, trying to calm the inferno rising inside me. I want to be here to witness him being sent down, at least; they owe me that much.

To redirect my focus, I look around the packed courtroom, and the people present—the news commentators, the press along with the familiar family representatives, and those who chose to keep their anger and sorrow hidden and instead, have thrown themselves into the trial.

Sniveling mothers dab at their faces and noses; fathers look lost on how to comfort them. How do you comfort a grieving mother who’s heard of their innocent flesh and blood’s torture, of their last minutes begging for help while he callously reveled in it?

My gaze latches onto a young woman sitting away from everyone else, barring the suit beside her.

He looks like a fucking bodyguard—his back ramrod straight, muscles bulging from his shirt, and the way he grips the back of her chair has my focus sharpening.

It’s almost like she has her own seating area.

I quickly assess the room again. Everybody else is crowded together; I had to growl at some poor fucker to grab these seats.

I assumed the crowd was due to the spectacle of the trial, but now, as I eye the bare seats surrounding her, it becomes obvious those seats are empty for a reason, and I can’t help but wonder why.

Perusing her, I take her in from head to toe, and my cock pays instant attention.

Her thick blonde hair is pulled into a messy ponytail, and she chews on her fingernails like it’s her last meal.

She’s so transfixed, she probably doesn’t realize she’s licking the gloss away from those pouty lips as she gnaws on the tip of her finger.

I wonder what her lips would taste like.

Something fruity, I bet. I lick my lips at the thought.

She’s stunning.

Leaning forward to get a look at her front, I can’t help but be mesmerized by her tits on display in a low-cut white dress and a denim jacket. Her dress finishes at her bronzed knees, and I have an overwhelming urge to push up the fabric and expose her panties.

She’s everything the club whores are not. Innocent looking, naturally pretty, and I bet she tastes as sweet as she looks.

“Think it’s the sister and their family liaison officer,” Warrior rumbles, and I jerk at his words.

What the fuck?

I clench my jaw. His goddamn sister. Why the hell haven’t they told me about her before now?

He has a sister.

She wasn’t mentioned in the media.

I narrow my gaze further. My muscles pull tight, and a pain shoots down the side of my face as my jaw locks.

He has a fucking sister, but mine is still out there, decomposing somewhere. While this piece of shit remains tight-lipped on her and so many others’ whereabouts, the human trafficking ring, auction houses, and so much more.

“Hunter told me, ’bout her,” Warrior adds, and I continue boiling inside.

I grind my jaw, and fury unleashes in my veins. A fucking sister who must know something. How could you be oblivious when they went through his property and uncovered so much evidence? Just how much does she fucking know?

She’s here to support him?

What kind of woman is she? The whole innocent thing—it’s clearly an act.

“You look like you wanna rip her head off,” Warrior whispers in my ear.

I tilt my head toward him. “That’s because I do.” Then I focus back on the woman as if she’s going to up and leave without me having a chance to commit everything about her to memory.

“You think she knew?” I ask despite knowing the answer already. Somehow, I feel it in my gut. I know Alisha, and I know she’s calling for me to find her, and that piece of shit sitting idly in the public seating with her little lap dog–liaison officer knows something.

She has to.

“Course she did,” Warrior tacks on. “Don’t live with a sibling like that, oblivious to his sick operation.”

I nod, grateful he’s confirmed my suspicions.

“She needs to pay too,” I mumble, meaning every damn word.

Warrior slaps me on the back. “Don’t doubt it, brother.” Then he tilts his head for me to face the front.

“All rise.” The judge enters the room, and it seems like only yesterday we watched on TV when he was found guilty on all counts. Now my heart thunders to hear the verdict of how long the son of a bitch will serve. Somehow, I get to my feet and, as if on autopilot, sit back down when instructed to.

My entire body trembles with anticipation.

Warrior’s eyes are on me, although I don’t acknowledge him. I can’t. My ears fill with the heavy thump of my heart, and my blood pumps wildly. The sensation is unlike anything I’ve experienced. It’s like I’m unraveling at lightning speed, my body and mind no longer my own.

I breathe deeply, squeezing my eyes closed.

When I open them, her emerald eyes penetrate my soul, and an electrical current courses through me, leaving me breathless and gasping for air.

Something slams my heart back in its rightful place, causing it to kick-start.

Her lips part as she gazes back at me, like she sensed the jolt as well.

She sees me.

Did she see all my brutality? My darkness coupled with my strength.

She turns away, and our connection is broken, like it was never there at all.

The unease in the room is palpable. The silence hangs in the air like a deadly promise as we await his fate.

“Benjamin Charles, you are a danger to society. An abominable person, a heinous monster who knows no bounds. You have left a trail of devastation in your path, and it pleases me to hand down a sentence for the horrors of your crimes, which will be punishable to the maximum extent. Following on from your guilty verdict, for all counts of the indictment, I imprison you for the remainder of your natural life without the possibility of parole, and I will be seeking the death penalty.”

My lungs deflate, and I choke on the judge’s words.

The room erupts in shouts of jubilation while I remain seated, stunned. I should be happy, relieved, and full of joy. Instead, I’m numb. The fucker gets to live; for now, at least, but I don’t get my sister back.

I don’t get a damn thing because he stole that from me.

He stole her.

And now we have to wait again in hopes he receives the punishment he deserves—death.

It’s too good for him. We have contacts who can make him suffer, but it all feels redundant. What I really want are answers, then I want to rip him apart like he did his victims—limb by limb.

I stare at the back of his head, and he finally turns, but not to face us, not to face the victims’ families, to face her.

He blocks us out as if we mean nothing to him, like we’re invisible.

I sharpen my gaze on the sly fucker and his little bitch of a sister.

I’m sure he was good-looking before we paid some of our associates to rough him up, and yet, he doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by his broken nose or swollen face.

His lip twitches at the corner of his mouth, and when he speaks, I hear every word despite the noise and chaos around me.

“Remember what I told you. Remember my promise,” he says to her, and she nods without emotion.

The prison officers lead him out, and with each step he takes, my answers get farther away.

When I turn my attention back to the woman, she’s on her way out of the courtroom, with the guard dog right behind her.

“Killa, whatever you’re thinking, man. Don’t do it,” Warrior groans.

“I’m thinking I want answers, brother.” I stare at the door as it closes behind them. “Yeah, I want answers, and I’m going to make that bitch pay for their twisted sins.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He palms his face, getting to his feet, and I stand.

A fire has been lit inside me. Only this time, it will rage until I destroy every living creature associated with Benjamin Charles.

Every damn one.

And I’m going to enjoy each second of doing it, starting with her.