Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
RYANN
“Daddy, please, help me,” I cry, reaching for him.
Only he’s not there. He’s never there.
“Please, Daddy, I need your help,” I shout, tears streaming down my face.
“Your daddy can’t help you this time, Ryann. You’re mine, and this time you aren’t getting away.” The sinister voice laughs.
“Who are you?” I scream, shrouded in darkness. Spinning around, all I see is darkness. There’s no light. None.
“You know who I am.” The laughter stops, and a hand grabs me by the throat. “You know who you are to me. Mine. My slave. I’m your Master, and you’ll do your best to listen. You know the consequences if you don’t.” That hand tightens, squeezing, and I feel my life seeping from me just like . . .
I bolt upright, panting for breath, and look around only to feel the color drain from my face. This can’t be right. Nothing around me looks familiar. The walls are dirty, and there are bars on the windows. My breathing increases rapidly as I glance down to see the damp floor and mattress beneath me.
I’m definitely not in my room. I try my best to remember what happened to me and how I got here. I remember going to the store. It was my day off, and I wanted to get a few things we needed at the house. Nevaeh and Maverick were gone for off somewhere together, and it was about time. I knew Maverick had a thing for her and her the same for him. So, I went to go stock up on what we needed. Afterward, I decided to grab something to eat on the way home and . . .
Oh god, the wreck.
Someone had run me off the road. I tried to keep my car from swerving, but I couldn’t and hit the ditch. I don’t remember anything after that. Not until waking up here, wherever here is.
My stomach plummets as a bad feeling seeps in like ice freezing my veins. The last time I was in a room like this . . . I squeeze my eyes shut, not wanting to remember, but that memory never leaves me. I’ll never be able to forget the times I wished for death when held captive and raped by a man who wanted to use us all as breeders.
For the past two years, I’d done everything in my power to put it all behind me. I refused to let it beat me. I wasn’t giving him or anyone else that power.
No.
Yet here I find myself again.
It’s all I can do to control my breathing, as I’ve learned to do, especially in the past year. With everything I needed to know, I was going to be able to move forward, but only with the right state of mind.
I also wanted to be in the right head pace to be able to have the one thing I wanted most.
Well, not a thing, but rather a who.
Sabotage.
I didn’t care he was seventeen years older than me or that his daughter was the same age as me. All that mattered was the way he looked at me. The intensity in his gaze always had a way of making me feel like I’ve got butterflies fluttering in my stomach. Not to mention the thick hair and beard that he pulls off incredibly. The bonus is the few speckles of silver at the sides.
Okay, so some might say I’ve got a daddy issue because he’s so much older than me, but it’s not the case. The man is seriously just that good-looking. Add into the mix that’s all him, the way he uses his mouth and tongue. Oh, and that tattoo that runs the length of his right arm and on his chest. He’s seriously hot and makes my insides melt.
Any time he’s around, I want to launch myself at him.
About a month ago, I’d gotten drunk at the clubhouse with my friends, who are ol’ ladies of several of the other members of the club. I ended up in his bed, and it was amazing, every part of what we shared. He didn’t hold back with me. He’d given me everything I needed him to give throughout the whole night.
Then morning came, and the way he looked at me, I just knew he regretted it. So, I brushed it off like it wasn’t a big deal. It hurt. I mean, it seriously hurt making it out to be nothing more than two friends hooking up. I wanted to stay with him. To keep on keeping on with what we’d been doing.
Unfortunately, we didn’t. I got dressed and left. I still saw him around. He didn’t hide away, and neither did I. We just didn’t really speak much.Before that night, though, I shared some of my past with him. He knows I’m from Florida. He knows I have a family, a brother, a mom, and grandparents, and he knows that my dad died in a wreck.
One very similar to the one I was in. I had been in the car with my dad that night. He just picked me up from Florida State, where I was going to school on a sports scholarship for softball. I used to have a wicked fast pitch, not so much anymore. The plan was I was coming home for the weekend to help my dad and brother throw a surprise party for my mom. We didn’t make it there. A truck ran us off the road, and we went through the guardrail down into a ditch. Dad died on impact, or that’s what I want to believe, but I looked up the details online of the accident not long after the club saved us. They mentioned he’d been killed by a shot to the head.
According to the papers, my brother and mom were still looking for me. I couldn’t bring myself to let them know I was alive. I figured it was best they didn’t know. I mean, technically I’m not the same anymore. Or I don’t think so, at least.
The sound of a door creaking open catches my attention and pulls me out of my thoughts. I look in the direction to see a man who I recognize almost instantly.
“Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he says and leans against the door frame, smirking down at me.
“What do you want?” I demand, not letting him scare me. Not this time around.
“Don’t worry about what I want, Ry-Ry, I’ll get that soon enough, but I figured it was time we got reacquainted.” The way he says this sends a shiver of trepidation down my spine.
“I’m good on the reacquainting, Roy,” I sneer, his name a bad taste in my mouth.
Unlike Peyton and Nevaeh, I wasn’t taken and sold the same way they were. There was a broker who took them and sold them. For me, it was Roy. Roy was an ex-boyfriend who I broke it off with in high school. He didn’t take it well and became stalkerish. Or he tried to until my big brother stepped in. Ryland, yep, our names definitely rhymed. I blame my mom for it, he and his friends beat the shit out of Roy and forced him to back off.
Ryland is five years older than me and used to be extremely protective. When he was eighteen, he joined an MC, he had a thing for motorcycles, maybe that’s why I loved them myself. Also, my dad was a biker at heart, though he didn’t belong to any club. He just rode every chance he had. He did, however, have friends in the club Ryland joined, so we’d go on weekends to cookouts.
I knew the club’s name and knew the Toxic Warriors were friends with them.
“Why am I here, Roy?” I ask him.
“Considering I saw your face on a site saying you were up for auction, I couldn’t let that happen, not this time around,” Roy remarks, shrugging his shoulders and tucking his hands in his pockets. “I wanted you to suffer the last time, but since you somehow managed to get away and ended back up for auction, I figured I’d keep you this time around.”
“Ugh, I don’t think so,” I snap, getting to my feet, a bit wobbly at first. Once I have my footing under control, I meet Roy’s gaze with a glare. “You aren’t keeping me.”
“Ry-Ry, you should know me by now. When I want something, I always get it.” He laughs and steps closer.
“You should have learned your lesson when Ryland kicked your ass all those years ago,” I say sarcastically.
It’s been only two years since I was rescued. Before that, I was with ‘Master’, who in turn bought me from Roy after he held me captive in a room very similar to this for a year and a half.
There’s no way I’m going to let him keep me here. I’ll find a way out.
“You bitch,” Roy growls, slapping me with the back of his hand with enough force to cause me to stumble backward. “You would think you’d have learned your lesson repeatedly by now.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t pay attention to jacked-up lessons very well.” I spit out the blood as I sneer back at him.
With him stepping closer to me, I realize he’s left the door to the room wide open. If I can make the right move, I might have the chance to get away from him. But I’ve got to time it right.
Unlike Nevaeh, I wasn’t taking boxing lessons, but that didn’t mean I didn’t take a self-defense class Milo and his partner, Jasper, offered.
Roy steps deeper into my space, looking ready to grab for me. Instead, he gets a knee to his groin. As he doubles over, I bring my knee up once again and knee him in the face.
There’s no wasting time to relish the joy of this. Instead, I rush around him, ignoring his pained shouts, and run like hell. Outside the room, I dart down a long hall into a bigger room. There’s a rusted old door cracked open, and the sun is filtering through. Hearing Roy coming, I rush for the door and out into the daylight.
My heart races as I look around, recognizing where I am, and swallowing the fear threatening to choke me. I know exactly where I am, and the only place safe for me is just up the road. It almost feels too easy, escaping Roy like this. He made it so I could get away. Regardless, right now, I don’t care.
My only thought is getting to the only place, the one person who can help me right now get back to where I belong.
Sweat runs down my face, and I feel the blood caked to my face from the wreck still sticking to me. My body hurts more than ever. I want to just find somewhere to rest, but I’m nearly there.
Roy had brought me back here, right outside Tallahassee. The only reason I recognize where I am is this is the abandoned industrial park where my dad brought me to learn to drive.
It’s also about a ten-minute drive to the motorcycle club my brother is a part of.
On foot, it takes a lot longer than ten minutes. It’s even longer with the need to stay out of sight. There’s no way I’m about to let Roy, as dumb as he is, get a hold of me again.
By the time I reach the gates that have the club’s emblem on the front, I’m exhausted and more than ready to pass out.
“Can I help you?” a guy roughly my age asks from the other side of the gate.
“Ryland. I need to see him,” I say weakly.
“Babe, don’t know anyone by that name,” he states, furrowing his brow as he takes in my appearance.
“Please, get Ryland. Tell him to warn . . .”
“What’s goin’ on here?” another man asks, making his way from somewhere on the other side of the gate. This guy I recognized from back when I was in school. I remember they called him Pike back then. His gaze comes to me, he blinks and blinks again. “Fuckin’ hell. Get this gate open,” he orders.
The guy manning the gate rushes to the side and presses a button. I stumble forward as the gate clears, and Pike moves into my space, scooping me in his arms.
“Tell Ryland to warn them,” I mumble, my head becoming fuzzy.
“Warn who, Ry?” Pike asks.
“Sabotage and Viking, warn them, keep Vaeh . . .”