Chaos Bound (2 page)

He was going to have a woman he had wanted for years, he’d said.

A girl he’d tasted once and never forgotten, he’d said.

The daughter of the sweet butt who had inconvenienced him by dying in his bed.

A replacement for the woman Holt had snatched away with his ridiculous sacrifice that had landed him in Viper’s dungeon and opened his eyes to the fact the Sinners were not the loyal brothers Holt thought they were.

All of which meant Viper didn’t need Holt any more. He would be working out his stress between the poor girl’s soft thighs. His whip would taste her smooth, creamy skin. His chains would circle her slim wrists. Her blood would stain his sheets. And he would drink the nectar of her screams.

Today was a bad day. The worst of all days. There was no pain Holt didn’t feel, no breath he didn’t fight for, no beat he didn’t have to squeeze from his heart. Today he wondered if there would be a tomorrow because even revenge was losing its battle to sustain him.

Holt stared at the cut on the wall. The Sinner’s Tribe patch was barely visible in the thin light that shone through the outer door. He remembered the day Jagger had given him that cut. The bar filled with his brothers, chanting his road name, “T-Rex.” The pride that swelled his chest when Jagger threw the cut over his shoulders. And later, the emotion that welled up in his throat when his best friend, Tank, gave him the dagger. It had been the best day of his life.

His chest seized, and he gritted his teeth. This is why he fought back the memories. Nothing hurt more than emotional pain.

Light flickered against the wall, and the door scraped open. Holt drew in a deep breath and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light.

This was it. The last day had finally come. He felt no fear, no longing, and no sadness. Nothing but regret that he hadn’t had a chance to exact his revenge. If he’d been a praying man, he would have prayed that this would be the end of his suffering. But he wasn’t. So he closed his eyes, and he made a wish.

His wish didn’t come true.

“Fucking bitch.” Viper shoved a woman into the dungeon so hard she fell to the floor. “You’re mine now, and you’ll damn well learn to behave. Blame your mother for dying with a shitload of debt. Your new place is in my fucking bed with your legs spread wide, your pussy wet, and your mouth open only to suck my cock. And if you ever try to pull that kind of crap on me again, you’ll be joining your fucking mother in her grave.” He slammed the door shut, plunging the room into darkness.

For a long moment, the woman didn’t move, and Holt wondered if Viper had hurt her. He opened his mouth to speak, but, with his tongue dry and swollen, no sound came out.

An ear-splitting scream filled the dungeon. He heard the rasp of her breaths, fists on metal. Through the thin light streaming beneath the door, he could make out the barest outline of her body as she let loose a string of curses that would put even the most hardened biker to shame.

Holt wanted to go to her, tell her she was wasting her breath. No one would find her in Viper’s dungeon. And even if someone heard her cries, no one would come to her aid. But with his wrists manacled and one ankle chained to the floor, he couldn’t move. Weak from hunger, thirst, and loss of blood, he couldn’t even rattle the chain to let her know she wasn’t alone.

Sobbing, the woman bent down and slid her fingers under the door. She cursed again, filthy words interspersed with such rapid breaths he wondered if she would hyperventilate.

“It’sokayit’sokayit’sokayit’sokay.” She curled up beside the door for a few minutes, muttering to herself. And then she sprang up, her hands sliding over the door and the wall beside it, searching, shouting so loud Holt’s ears rang. “Help.”

She still hadn’t turned around, and he thought this was a dangerous thing. If she had any sense, she would protect her back. But this woman wasn’t thinking about the dangers in the dungeon. Between sobs and shouts, she railed against Viper as if she couldn’t contain the fire inside her no matter how hard she tried.

If he could have moved his lips, he would have smiled.

Finally, she found the light switch, and the naked bulb overhead flickered on. Holt squinted as his eyes adjusted the light. Viper kept him in darkness save for the days he came to visit, and on those days Holt didn’t want to see what Viper had in store for him.

He must have made a sound because she whirled around to face him, hands raised, eyes wide. Her gaze flickered over the implements on the walls—whips, chains, iron bars, knives, axes, and all manner of torture devices Holt had never encountered before but with which he was now intimately familiar—the hooks in the ceiling, the toilet in the corner that was just far enough for his chains to reach, and the blood stains on the floor.

Not all his blood. There had been another man in the dungeon when he’d first been captured. A dark-haired Devil Dog who had made the mistake of sleeping with one of the Black Jacks’ old ladies. After beating the poor bastard to death, Viper left his body on the dungeon floor and moved Holt to a different dungeon in a different location where Holt was subjected to everything he’d witnessed and more. When Viper returned Holt to his original cell, the Devil Dog was gone, and everything had been rebuilt as new. But the horror was old and endless.

Finally, the woman’s gaze fell on him. She gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Holt tried to make out her face, but with his eyes swollen and crusted with dried blood, and unused to the light, she was nothing more than a blur.

“Ohgodohgodohgodohgod.” She took one step toward him, then another. When she crouched down in front of him, he managed to widen his eyes enough to see her clearly. She was slim, and small, with long dark hair, and a heart shaped face. He couldn’t discern the color of her eyes, only that the color shifted as he watched, and her gaze was deep with sympathy when she met his stare. It had been so long since he’d seen a woman, she looked almost ethereal with her pale skin and fine features, but her cheek was badly bruised.

Easy to break. Viper could crush her neck with one hand, and yet she seemed angry, not afraid.

“You’re alive.” She reached out and stroked his cheek.

Holt jerked back at her gentle touch. Instinct. Borne of constant pain from every touch he’d endured since the last day he’d seen the sun.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, throaty. He’d forgotten about the beautiful things in life. Soft things. Gentle things. Sights and sounds. Tastes and touches. She was all of them wrapped up in one sweet package.

“Viper thinks you’re dead.” Her brow furrowed. “I heard him talking with his men before he brought me down here. They’re planning to get your … you and bury you somewhere.”

He listened to the lilt of her voice, watched her lips move. Felt a stir of happiness that he had the chance to behold beauty one last time on the eve of his death.

She stepped closer, inspected his bare torso, the cuts and bruises, welts and burns. She choked when she saw the whip marks that crisscrossed his skin, and pain flickered across her face.

“Viper did this to you.” A statement, not a question, and not one that he could answer, but this close he could see all the bruises on her face, a cut on her temple—Viper’s handiwork on her beautiful skin.

Rage, the only emotion he had left, coiled in his breast, along with a curious desire to protect the beautiful woman from Viper’s wrath. He jerked his hand, tugging against the manacles on his wrists, and the chain clanked, drawing her attention.

“He’ll kill me if I let you go.” She glanced around the dungeon, her gaze resting on the Sinner’s Tribe cut pinned to the wall with Holt’s dagger. “You’re a Sinner.”

Holt shrugged. Once upon a time he was a Sinner. Now he wanted nothing from the club except their destruction.

She stared at the cut, and then her gaze flicked to Holt. “No one hates the Sinners more than the Black Jacks. You’re their only threat to dominance in the state. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

So was he. After months of torture there was little about the Sinners he hadn’t shared with his captors. But Viper was a sadist at heart, and he’d clearly taken more pleasure in Holt’s pain than he would have in Holt’s death. At least until he found another distraction.

“If I help you, the Sinners will owe me,” she mused. “Maybe they can hide me or protect me. Maybe even work out a deal so Viper leaves me alone.”

He shook his head, wanting to explain to her that he was done with the Sinners, but she was already searching the dungeon, her hands brushing over the racks and cinder block walls. “I don’t suppose he left the keys.”

Holt grunted and tipped his chin to the door. Of course Viper had left the keys to the cuffs. Just like he’d installed a light switch in the dungeon. Nothing drove home the hopelessness of the situation as well as leaving the tools for escape just out of reach.

The woman followed his gaze and grabbed the keys from the nail near the door. “Let’s think this through…” She twisted her lips to the side, the keys dangling from her fingers.

What the fuck
? This wasn’t the time to think. It was the time to act. The guards might be back any minute, and freedom was within his grasp.

“Keys.” He blurted out the word, gestured to the cuffs.

“Just wait.” She held up a hand. “Would it be better to leave you like that so when they walk in, they see you chained, but I’m waiting behind the door to knock them out?”

Was she fucking serious? Had she seen the guards? There was no way a woman her size was taking out even Viper’s smallest man.

“Keys. Now.” His voice was hoarse with disuse and the abuse of constant screaming, but she understood him.

Without hesitation, she unlocked the cuffs. Her hair brushed over Holt’s arm, sending a peculiar wave of sensation through his body.

“Can you stand?” She stared at him in consternation and Holt nodded. The chains gave him enough freedom to reach the metal toilet affixed to the floor and to stretch his legs—a freedom he had used to exercise when he was alone so that when the day came he would have the strength to exact his revenge. Except the last beating had been so bad, he hadn’t managed to do more than crawl in days.

“So what’s the plan?” She toyed with the ring on her finger. “Even if we get through the door, we still have to cross the clubhouse grounds, evade the guards, get through the electric fence, and find a way to town. Or out of town since the Black Jacks own Devil’s Hills.”

Holt pushed himself to stand, and his legs wobbled. Viper had fed him just enough so he would have the strength to endure the torture, but he’d had no food or water for the last few days. Now he knew why. Dead men didn’t need to eat.

But he didn’t need to walk far. Once he had the guard’s gun, he just had to make it to the clubhouse and into Viper’s lair. The woman would have to fend for herself.

“What do you think?” She looked up, and Holt sucked in a breath. Now that he was on his feet, she looked even smaller, maybe around 5′4″, with gentle curves on a light frame. Definitely no match for any of the Jacks.

How could he leave her to fend for herself? And yet, how could he not? The thirst for vengeance had sustained him for the three long months he’d been imprisoned. Revenge burned bright in his chest.

“Dagger.” His harsh tone startled her, and he felt instantly contrite, but she rallied quickly, fear giving way to curiosity.

“Where?”

“Wall.” He gestured to the cut, and she reached up and worked the dagger free, then caught the cut before it fell.

Turning the cut, she read the patches in the faint light. “T-Rex. Is that your road name?”

“Was.” He swallowed, trying to wet his swollen tongue. “Name’s Holt.”

“I’m Naiya.” She returned with the cut, but Holt shook his head and took the dagger instead. He had plans for that cut. He had visions of tossing it on the bonfire that was the Sinner clubhouse after he’d made every last Sinner pay for their betrayal, for leaving him to rot in Viper’s dungeon.

“Probably too painful to put it on,” she said, misunderstanding.

“Help me … door.” A plan formed in his mind as she gave him her shoulder to lean on, her body shaking with his weight. For a moment his conviction wavered. She was too small, too slight, to support him, and no doubt she would freeze the moment someone opened the door. And then what? There was no way he could make it across the grounds on his own.

“Come on, Holt.” She straightened and took a step forward. “Pick it up. We don’t have all day. I’ve got things to do, places to go, and Sinners to meet. And we still don’t have a plan. We can’t just rush into this without thinking. That’s how people get killed.”

A sound came from his mouth, and it took a moment before he recognized his own laughter.
Christ.
She was something else. Imprisoned in Viper’s dungeon with a man who had been left for dead, and she was cracking jokes.

She half-walked, half-dragged him to the wall beside the door, and Holt sank down to the cold, stone floor. Damn legs. How the hell was he going to ride?

He turned the dagger over in his hand, and emotion welled up in his throat. In the first few weeks after his capture, he had imagined his rescue again and again, and always Tank was leading the charge. More than a friend, Tank had been like a brother to him, and his betrayal hurt most of all.

“So, how about I think of a way to lure the guard back in here, then you distract him so I can jump him and knock him out?” She squatted down beside him. “I read that in a romantic suspense book when the hero and his buddy are kidnapped and locked in a room. Of course, those books all have a happy ending. Not sure if it will work out in real life.”

Even if Holt could have talked, he wouldn’t have known what to say. Except for Arianne, Viper’s daughter and now, after an incredible betrayal, the Sinner president’s old lady, he’d never encountered a woman as cool and collected as Naiya. No screaming or crying or sobbing. No balking at the risk of trying to escape. She was calm, focused and determined to plan their escape out to the nth degree. As if life ever went according to plan.

Holt had learned that lesson the hard way. If life went according to plan, the Sinners would have beat down Viper’s door the very day Holt sacrificed himself to save Evie’s life. .