Chapter 8
Tico
“What the fuck?” the woman with the sultry voice hisses as Taco rounds a corner and then I hear him curse.
I round the corner just in time to see the woman do some fancy handwork and she easily disarms Taco before pointing the gun at me since I still have mine raised.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demands.
Taco gives me a confused look but raises his hands in a placating gesture.
“My bad,” Taco drawls out.
I fight not to smile, and apparently, so does the mystery woman because the corner of her mouth twitches.
The woman is a small thing, probably barely over five feet tall with fiery red hair that’s pulled back into a long braid.
She’s wearing a fitted t-shirt and shorts that show off her toned, muscular figure.
Not muscular like a body builder, but it’s apparent she works out a shit ton.
How was a little woman like her able to disarm Taco so quickly?
The woman has a myriad of tattoos decorating her skin, and the combination of the viper on her arm along with the scarring on her face gives me pause. I’m sure I’ve seen them both somewhere before.
However, it’s her eyes that stop me in my tracks. Blazing emerald-green eyes stare me down. Eyes that seem like they can see into my blackened soul and see how much blood is on my hands. Which, for the first time, I feel uneasy about someone knowing exactly how much blood is on my hands.
A little squeak of fear has me tearing my gaze off the mystery woman to the teenager behind her.
The mystery woman shifts slightly as she widens her stance, shielding the young girl as much as she can.
The teenager peeks over the first woman’s shoulder and her eyes widen in fear before she quickly ducks behind the woman again.
“Who. The fuck. Are. You?” the woman demands again and I cock an eyebrow at her.
“Question is, Vicious, who are you? You’re on club property which means you are the trespasser here, not us.”
Her brow wrinkles in confusion, but before she can speak, Daemon and another man come out from the back room.
“Whoa,” Daemon calls out. He quickly steps in front of the two women, facing towards me and Taco as he raises his hands.
The woman holding the gun makes an irritated noise, but Daemon ignores it. The other man pulls the younger woman behind him and my chest tightens when I see her clutching his arm so hard her knuckles turn white.
“Prez, these are my sisters. Please put the gun down.”
“Sisters,” I drawl out, trying to remember him talking about them, but nothing is coming to mind. I honestly thought he didn’t have any siblings. My gaze goes back to the woman holding Taco’s gun and still has it aimed at me.
“Em, you can trust him. He’s nothing like Scooter,” Daemon tells the older woman as he looks over his shoulder at her. She gives him an incredulous look, but Dameon doesn’t back down. “Seriously, Em. None of us in the club would ever hurt a woman intentionally.”
Choosing to trust Daemon, I holster my gun. “If they did, I’d personally rip their patches off and skin off their club tattoo before their asses were beat black and blue. Then they’d be tossed out of here.” If they live, I mentally add on, but the little, vicious, hellcat doesn’t need to know that.
“We’ll see,” is all she replies with.
Taco and I share another confused look. She turns the safety on the gun and turns it handle first, holding it out towards Taco.
I turn my glare on Daemon, causing him to stand taller under my scrutiny. “Want to explain why you went off grid without telling me and disappeared for a day?”
Before he can explain, another whimper draws me to the younger woman who I find peaking out from behind the second man. My chest tightens when I see her face is black and blue.
“They’re why I had to drop everything and leave.
Ember called me. They’re from the same club I grew up in.
Shit went down involving Pyper,” he says as he gestures to the younger woman, “and Em had to get her out before they’d both be subjected to what normally happens to women in that club.
Since I couldn’t get to her right away, I called Reese to help get them out. ”
“Chingar (Fuck),” I curse, knowing exactly what their fates would have been.
Shortly after he patched in, Daemon told me his background and everything the Chrome Vipers MC do to women and girls that are born or come into the club.
They’re broken and trained to become the perfect submissive slave.
Usually as a sex slave. If they fought, they were beaten or even killed.
The club wasn’t always like that, but after Dameon’s parents were killed, everything started going sideways.
My gaze returns to Ember. How did she evade that fate? There’s no way a group like that would have let her get so muscular or get tattoos if they really did want her to be a slave. Unless they were using her for something else? And why does she seem so familiar?
“Em’s a tattoo artist, among other things. I told her if she ever got out, I’d have a job waiting for her. I offered them the apartment upstairs to stay in for as long as they needed it.”
I nod in agreement. If it were my sister that was stuck in that fate, I would have done that same. Well, scratch that. I wouldn’t have left without her in the first place. So why did Daemon leave them?
“Sometimes, it’s easier living with the devil you know,” Ember says quietly.
I look over at her in confusion and she gives me a small, tight smile.
“I could see the question on your face. Why didn’t Duncan, I mean Daemon, take us with him when he left?
At the time, I was fifteen and Pyper was eight.
I had no idea how I’d be able to support and take care of Pyper if we left.
At least there I knew we’d have a house over our heads.
We’d have food, clothes, and heat. If we left, we’d be starting completely over. ”
Anger flares in me. “You shouldn’t have had to take care of her. You’re her sister, not her mother.”
Her face softens for a moment before it hardens. “I know, but sometimes, people aren’t given those choices. I did what I had to do to make sure Pyper got as much of a normal life as possible and not the life of the other woman or children in that hell hole.”
“And what was that? What exactly did you have to do?”
Daemon and Ember look at each other, both of them smirking, but it’s Daemon that answers me.
“You saw it for yourself the other night,” he says and I frown.
Wait.
“Viper. You’re one of their fighters.”
Her smirk deepens and my gaze snaps down to her arm.
That’s where I remember her and the viper tattoo from.
I look over at Taco and he’s got the same surprised look on his face that I know matches mine.
From the damage Ember did the other night to that other chick, Taco’s lucky as shit she didn’t pull out all her moves when she disarmed him.
Not that Taco’s a slouch in a fight, but it was clear that she had good training.
I turn back to Daemon, leveling him a silent, hard look, and he dips his chin in understanding. We’ll hash out the rest of this mess with him disappearing later, but that’s not shit that I want to go down in front of the women.
“Alright. What all do you need?” I find myself asking, which surprises me, but that same pull I felt the other night is still there. Only now, it’s stronger. And hearing her story has me wanting to protect her from her demons.