The Riders and the Rebel (Verona Falls Riders #2)

Chapter 1

CAMILE

I thought we could start our date all over again…

Ledger’s words ring in my ears as the man himself circles the wooden chair I’m tied to. I scream against the disgusting gag that’s been shoved into my mouth, and my eyes flood with tears.

No, no, no. How is this happening? I thought—no, I’d hoped—Ledger had been gone for good, but here he is, right in front of me. I stare into his blue eyes, fringed with dark lashes, terrified about what his words mean.

Who are the other two men in the room, and what links do they have with Ledger?

How the fuck did they get onto the compound?

I’d been certain the place was locked down tight, but clearly it wasn’t as well guarded as either myself or Jack thought.

Not if men can so easily breach the security and carry me away in the night.

“You don’t seem pleased to see me, Camile,” Ledger says with a smirk. “You don’t want to hurt my feelings, now, do you? Not after last time.”

He lifts the flashlight again, deliberately shining it directly into my eyes so I’m forced to squeeze them shut.

I twist my face away, trying to hide against my shoulder.

My joints are aching from being tied in the same position for so long, and my hands are numb.

I’m only in the thin sleep shorts and camisole set I’d worn to bed, and my feet are bare.

He reaches out and tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. I jerk my face away again, but there isn’t much I can do to stop him.

“I wish I’d been able to tell you what was happening with your family that night.

It would have brought you down a peg or two.

You think you’re so fucking special, don’t you?

Camile Montez, the cartel princess, so pure and untouched.

I saw the way you turned your nose up when you realized we were getting a burger and not going to some fancy restaurant.

What a fucking spoiled little bitch you are. Well, that stops now.”

He trails a finger down the side of my cheek, tracing the line of my throat to my collarbone, and then lower to cup my breast over the top of my camisole.

I regret wearing it to bed and wish I had something more substantial on.

To my dismay, my nipple puckers and tightens, and he rolls his thumb over it and lets out a grunt of appreciation.

His touch horrifies me.

I scream against the rag and yank away from him, dislodging his hand.

I pull at my bonds and rock back and forth, trying to loosen myself from the chair.

I feel it going before it does, the chair legs losing contact with the floor.

I do my best to right it again before it hits the ground, but gravity wins and I slam down hard onto my side.

My left arm takes the brunt of the impact, but I also hit my hip, knee, and ankle, and the side of my head.

Pain blooms white-hot, and I squeeze my eyes shut, willing it to subside.

I let out a groan against the rag, wondering just how the hell I managed to make this situation even worse for myself.

Am I being punished? Some kind of divine retribution for no longer being the good girl?

After all, I’ve had sex with both Ace and Rook.

I’d then planned to leave them without a word to go and find my family, despite all the warnings from Jack about how dangerous that would be. Seems it didn’t even matter.

Danger caught up with me anyway.

My shoulders shake with my sobs. My tears mean my nose is blocking up, and a fresh hit of panic punches through me as I struggle to breathe.

I need to calm down and stop crying, but I feel so utterly hopeless and lost. It’s as if everything has been torn from me—my family, my place at the college, and the tentative new home I’d been forming with the bikers.

Ledger must see that I’m struggling for air, as he leans over and unties the material around the back of my head and pulls the gag from my mouth.

The dirty rag clings to my dry tongue and the corners of my lips, like it doesn’t want to let go, but then finally it’s gone.

I gasp, taking lungfuls of sweet oxygen, tears dripping over my nose and running down the side of my face.

If I had hoped for gentleness, I don’t get any. Ledger just stands there and laughs.

“Now, now,” he says. “Wouldn’t want you to die on me.”

I regain enough breath to speak. “You already tried to kill me,” I spit at him. “You fucking shot at me.”

“Oh, silly girl,” he mocks. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Did you really think I was that bad a shot? I was just trying to scare you. To get you to stop running.”

At the time, I remember thinking he was a terrible shot.

But it seems from what he’s saying that wasn’t the case.

If he’d wanted me dead, I would be, which makes more sense.

After all, I’d wondered how he’d get away with murdering me when everyone back at the college knew I’d gone on a date with him.

Yes, he could have claimed I’d run off into the woods, maybe fallen off the side of a cliff or something, but all eyes would have been on him.

Serious questions would have been asked.

Unless he hadn’t cared about those questions. Unless he’d figured he’d have been long gone before anyone noticed me missing.

Something else strikes me. His voice sounds different—he’s speaking English, but the rhythm is familiar, the soft rolling ‘r’ like my own. The American accent he’d spoken with prior to now has vanished, and I realize he must have been putting it on.

“Who are you, really?” I ask.

“My name isn’t Ledger Marks. It’s Ledger Sanchez.”

A squeak of shock escapes me as ice pours through my veins. “No!”

He gives a slow smile, flashing his perfect white teeth like a predator. “Why would I lie about that?”

This can’t be happening. I’d kissed him—ugh.

I stare at him as hatred burns in my gut, searing through the chill that had settled there and giving me new determination that I won’t go down without a fight.

Sanchez is the name of the cartel who murdered my father and sent my mother and brother into hiding.

Although it’s a common name in Mexico, it can’t be a coincidence.

I’d considered that he might be a plant by them, but not that he actually was one of them.

“I’m the youngest of our family,” he continues to tell me. “The only one who hasn’t already been married off.” He leers at me, and his gaze rakes down my body. “The one who needs a wife.”

Understanding dawns. When one cartel clan takes over another’s territory and business, it’s all too common for the unwed daughters to be forcibly married into that family.

Now, that daughter is me. ?Híjole! I’m going to become Ledger Sanchez’s wife and be forced to be a part of the family that slaughtered mine.

“I’ll die before I marry you.”

“Not. Going. To. Happen.” He leans over me and punctuates each word with a jab of his finger to my ribs, hard and painful.

I groan, wishing I could curl into a ball to protect myself, but I’m still tied to this goddamn chair.

I still don’t fully understand how he got me out of the compound. He couldn’t have done it on his own, and from the look of the two big, silent men still standing in the background, he didn’t. They don’t look like cartel men, though.

The cartels are powerful back home, but here, on American soil, I’m not so sure.

Would they have been able to break into a biker compound without help?

Would they even risk it? The one percenter clubs are feared, and Jack’s chapter might not be huge, but the overall size of the network he can call on across the country is pretty damn big.

I did some mild Googling about the man and his lifestyle a while ago.

It might have been a bit obsessive of me, but it means I know they have hundreds of bikers who would help from affiliated chapters across the United States.

Thinking about Jack makes my heart ache and my breath feel as if it’s coming through a straw. I miss the compound already and wish I was back there.

Will Jack and the others realize I’m gone? Will they be going crazy to get me back, or will they be relieved that the person causing all the stress in the compound is finally out of their hands?

I want to believe they’ll come looking for me, but then I think of something else.

If Ledger is smart, he’ll have also cleared my belongings out of the room.

If he did, there’s a good chance Jack and the others won’t know I’ve been taken.

They’ll think I’ve done what I’d been threatening all along and run to my family’s safehouse.

The horror of that realization sinks in.

It will mean no one is looking for me. I’m in this on my own.

I’ve taken the Riders’ protection of me for granted.

I fought them about it, but they were only trying to help.

Now I’m getting to experience what it would really be like if I were on my own, and I regret every time I fought with Jack when he was being protective.

I should have cherished that care, and now I miss it the way you miss the sun on your skin when it goes behind a big, ugly cloud.

Ledger bends over me and grabs the chair. With me still in it, he hauls it back upright. The sudden movement gives me whiplash. His strength would be impressive, if not for the fact he’ll be using it against me.

“You’re going to be my wife and join our family,” he announces. “It’s non-negotiable, and I will have so much pleasure in taking what is mine, but that’s not the only reason I’m keeping you here. You have information that my family needs.”

Shards of ice skitter through my veins. “I’ll never tell you anything!”

“We’ll see about that. You can make this easy and come right out and tell me the location of your family’s safehouse, or you can hold off as long as you can and give me the excuse to have some fun with you.

” He paces around my chair again. “Honestly, I don’t care if you hold out on me a little, let me enjoy myself, because by the end, you will tell me where that safehouse is.

In fact, you’ll be begging to spill your secrets. ”

I clench my jaw. “I’ll die first.”

He laughs. “You do seem fond of threatening to die on me. Let me repeat, I won’t let that happen. You’re going to be my bride, remember? My sweet, innocent Camile.”

Should I tell him that I’m no longer as sweet and innocent as he thinks?

I’m tempted to let him know that I had two different men’s cocks inside me last night.

That I screamed with pleasure as I came.

I’m tempted to throw it at him just to see the look on his face, but doing so will be a death sentence.

I’ve grown up aware of how my value resides in my virginity.

It’s completely fucked up, but in our society, it’s true.

That stupid piece of flesh, that can get broken in ways other than sex, is still used to determine a daughter’s worth in many of the most traditional families within the cartels, much the same as it still is in some of the Italian mafia families.

If I tell him, he’ll most likely reject me.

It’s not that I want Ledger to make me his wife, but if he thinks that’s off the table, he’ll torture me to try to get the information from me, and, when he realizes that’s not going to happen, he’ll kill me.

Hopefully, if he thinks I’ll be his wife, he’ll not hurt me in a way I’ll never recover from—at least not physically.

I remember on the night of the date, how he’d seemed perfectly happy to take me against my will. I guess in his mind, losing my virginity to him through violence doesn’t count, which means there’s a good chance he’ll still feel the same way now. The possibility fills me with horror.

He leans close, so his cheek grazes mine, and lowers his voice.

“I can’t wait to get inside your pussy. Don’t think I’m going to be gentle about it either.

I like to fuck hard and rough. I’m not sure I’m even going to be able to wait until we’re husband and wife, but then I guess you’ve figured that out anyway from our last encounter. ”

I cringe away from him. “Don’t touch me! You make me sick.”

“Say that again, because I like it. I like you hating me and being sickened by me. I’m not bothered at all about whether you desire me.

I don’t care about making it good for you.

You’re nothing but a thing to me, and I’ll do whatever I want, my soon-to-be wife.

When we’re married, your body belongs to me, and I will use it any way I please, whenever and wherever the desire takes me.

You will never get to say no to me, do you understand?

If you try, I’ll make it ten times worse.

I’ll fuck your pussy and your ass and your mouth, until you’re nothing more than my cum-filled bitch, and then I’ll do it all over again.

And don’t think I’ll be faithful to you either.

I’ll happily go out and fuck some other whore, then come back to you and make you suck my dick while it’s still covered in her, and you’ll thank me for it.

You’ll be my slut behind doors, while on the outside, when we’re in public, you will be the adoring wife who smiles and is polite and says all the right things.

And if I even see you look at another man, he’ll be dead, and you won’t sit down for a month. ”

Fresh tears roll down my cheeks because I know every word he says is true.

Ledger hasn’t finished. “I’d hoped to take you back to Mexico before we are married, so we can perform the ceremony with my family present, just as it should be.

But don’t be mistaken in thinking that I won’t marry you here, if I must. If it looks like you’re going to be trouble and I won’t make it into Mexico on time with you, then I have contacts here who can wed us on American soil. ”

My voice is a whisper. “I’ll never be your wife. I’ve already told you, I’ll kill myself first.”

I repeat my threat, but it sounds empty and hollow even to my own ears. I don’t want to die, but I would spend every moment trying to get away, or planning and plotting for a way to end him, and escape.

He tuts at me. “Stop it with the suicide threats. No, you won’t. I see how much you want to live, Camile. I see that fire in your dark eyes. You’ll fight to live with every inch of your soul, and I’ll enjoy putting out that spark. Now, tell me where your family’s safehouse is.”

I shake my head and brace myself for what comes next. “Never.”