The Order of Disorder (Snakes & Daggers #2)

CHAPTER ONE

I DON’T DREAM anymore.

Or maybe I do and just don’t remember. All I know is that I close my eyes and the world goes dark, and when I open them, I’m still here.

The clubhouse. Billy. My old life.

Back in the old days, Billy used to send me to whatever room was empty when he wanted to sleep with someone else.

But now I sleep on a futon beside his bed, like a dog.

A thick black leather collar wraps around my neck.

Billy makes me wear it at all times. When he takes me somewhere, he clips a leash to the front ring and parades me around on it.

I’m never out of sight of either Billy or his VP, Silas. Never alone. Never free.

“Never again,” Billy said when he slipped the collar on.

At least it’s quiet—for now.

The room is dim, lit only by the weak orange glow of a lamp in the corner. My blanket smells unwashed—like damp and other people’s bodies. I keep it pulled tight around me anyway. It’s the only thing I have.

Above me, Billy breathes slow and even, curled around the girl he brought back for the night. I don’t know her name. Don’t care.

She giggled when they came in. Glitter on her cheeks. Sheer shirt and no bra. Her laughter faded when she saw me. Her smile fell when she realized I wasn’t leaving.

“Wait,” she whispered, as Billy peeled her shirt off and started undoing his pants. “Is she just…staying here?”

Billy didn’t even glance at me.

He grabbed her hips. Pulled her in. Palmed her tits.

“Of course she’s staying,” he said with a cruel grin. “She belongs to me.”

I have to hand it to her. She rallied fast. Lifted her chin and didn’t look at me again. It’s amazing what some girls will ignore just to be with Billy.

I turned my face to the wall and drifted away while they moaned and cried out. Not listening, but not sleeping. Just another day, another night.

I feel nothing.

“You were always mine,” he told me the first night. “You just forgot. That’s okay. I’ll remind you.”

He reminds me whenever he feels like it, just to prove that he can.

Sometimes it’s when he brings a girl back like this. I think he enjoys the horror on their faces when he moves on to me next. Other times it’s when we’re alone, and I get the feeling he’s hoping for something. Some sign of life. Some flicker of what I used to be.

Sometimes it’s fast and brutal. Sometimes it’s slow. It’s not about pleasure—not for me, anyway. It’s about ownership. Reclamation. Making sure I know I’m still his.

But he’s losing interest. I can feel it. Whatever spark he thought he was going to reignite isn’t catching. I don’t cry. I don’t beg. I don’t react. And he hates it.

My indifference is the only power I have left.

The girl in his bed lets out a sleepy sigh and I hear the sound of bodies shifting. It makes me remember what it was like to be held—to sigh and curl into someone.

I press my lips together and fix my eyes on a crack between the plywood boards that make up the room’s walls, trying to ignore the ache that never goes away. I count the breaths it takes to keep my hands from shaking.

Ryder is gone.

Dead.

I watched him bleed out in the dirt and couldn’t stop it.

And now I’m back here, beside the man I can never escape.

I hear a telltale rustle of sheets.

The girl moans softly. Billy says something low, just a scrape of air against her skin, and she giggles.

I stare harder at the crack in the wall.

Not again.

Soon it’s the wet sounds of kissing. More moans. Another giggle.

“Put your hands behind your back and be a good girl for me,” Billy grumbles.

“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes, Billy—”

“Say it.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He makes a satisfied noise. A smug, filthy sound he always makes when he gets his way.

The mattress shifts, and then I hear him spit. The slick sound of skin on skin.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, baby,” he mutters. “I wanna feel your hot, wet pussy around me.”

She whimpers. “Please…please…”

The headboard slams the wall.

Once.

Twice.

A choked scream tears out of her.

Billy laughs.

“Tight little cunt,” he groans. “Goddamn.”

The slap of hips on flesh fills the room. She squeals, then moans, then sobs something that might be his name.

He fucks her like he’s trying to knock the headboard through the wall.

I just lie there, wishing I could cover my ears. There’s no point, though. It doesn’t help.

He growls something low, and she babbles yesyesyes.

Then there’s a loud smack. A slap.

Her squeal is half-laugh, half-shock.

“You like that?” he pants.

“Yes! Fuck—do it again…”

“Such a filthy little whore.”

Another slap. Then another.

Her breath hitches. Her cries climb.

“I’m gonna come,” she gasps. “Oh my god, Billy—don’t stop!”

“Not yet.”

“Please—”

“You come when I say.”

He slows his thrusts and it gets quieter. I hope maybe they’ll finish that way and go to sleep.

“You think you’ve earned it?” Billy growls. “After acting like a fucking brat earlier?”

“Please, Daddy.”

“I want her to hear you come again,” he says, low and dark, and I know he means me.

The girl laughs nervously.

“She doesn’t mind,” Billy says. “Do you, Max?”

But I don’t say anything. I keep staring at the wall.

“Yeah,” he growls. “She’s all wet between the legs listening to you get fucked, baby. Wishes it was her.”

He grunts, the bed creaks. The movements get faster and louder.

She lets out a series of high-pitched gasps all in a row.

He grunts. “Come for me. Come on my cock like the good little slut you are.”

Then she screams. A theatrical imitation of an orgasm, and I think to myself, He doesn’t even know.

Billy lets out a low groan. “Fuuuck—”

The girl cries out.

“Fucking take it,” he growls. “Take every goddamn drop.”

“Yes—yes, Daddy—fuck, I can feel it—”

He roars like the orgasm is tearing him in two, and then his breath punches out of him in ragged bursts as he rides it out.

“Good girl. Fucking perfect pussy. Jesus Christ.”

Finally, there’s stillness.

Panting breaths, but it’s almost over now. I can tell by the sounds that Billy is rolling over and collapsing.

“You’re a fun fuck,” he murmurs. “Next time I’m going to make her watch us.”

I flinch, but I don’t move.

He’s not saying it for her. He’s saying it for me.

To remind me that I’ll always be his, even if he doesn’t want me anymore. Even if I’m lying on the floor like a breathing corpse. That there’s no escape.

Ryder would’ve burned the world down to keep me from ending up here.

But he’s gone. And I, unfortunately, am not.