Chaos Bound (Sinner's Tribe Motorcycle Club #4)(3)

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 f*cking bed with your legs spread wide, your * 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 f*cking 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.