Sin & Suffer (Pure Corruption MC #2)(16)

Nobody—regardless of their crimes—deserved to be so thoroughly broken.

“Remove the hood,” Rubix said, gathering me tighter against him. The hollow of my back burned as he ground his belt buckle against me.

Every part of me demanded to struggle and run. Everything about him repulsed and petrified me but I swallowed back the insane pressure to fight and stood stoic. On the outside, I looked queenly and unaffected but inside the pulsing of my blood and the panic whooshing in my ears drove me faster into madness.

Cobra grinned. “With pleasure.” With one hand, he held the girl’s bound wrists in front of her naked body, somehow propping her up, and with the other ripped off the hood.

Blonde hair once the color of sun-warmed wheat was now matted and stained pink with blood. Her eyes were like broken moons in a face butchered and swollen.

I didn’t recognize her.

But wait …

The longer I stared, the more my memories tugged at some vague recollection. She’d been there. She’d been in the truck when we’d arrived at the scene of mutiny with Arthur and his men. She’d stood in line with me as we all stripped and delivered ourselves into Pure Corruption’s control.

I sucked in a breath.

Rubix laughed softly. “So you do remember her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re doing or what you want me to say, but I won’t do it.” My heart was tied to an anchor, slowly sinking deeper and deeper into desperation.

“You do know and you’re far too bright not to see the point I’m about to make.”

No!

I would’ve sold every worldly possession to save her.

But I was bankrupt.

Cobra slapped the blonde girl, dragging her forward and kicking the back of her legs so she slammed to her knees before me.

She screamed, her shattered kneecap excruciating.

It ricocheted around the room like a voice boomerang, ringing in my ears.

My stomach convulsed.

Instant sobs escaped her mouth. She looked up and our gazes locked—hers full of begs and pleas while mine were no doubt bleak and desolate.

“Arthur Killian, my useless treasonous son, stole this whore from Chainsaw’s bed. Do you know who Chainsaw is?”

I shook my head, unable to tear my eyes from the girl.

She trembled. Every rib stuck out from malnutrition. How long had Rubix held her as a captive? It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks. How had he damaged her so swiftly?

“Chainsaw is an honest member of Dagger Rose—he earned this bitch when I gave her to him as a gift for pleasing me. However, she was stolen and given to the president of a Club past our borders.” Rubix’s voice grew angrier the longer he spoke. “Not only was she given as a token, but it also solidified an agreement between the Night Crusaders and Pure Corruption.”

My brain tripped in its urgency to understand. There was so much Arthur had been planning—so many carefully laid parts to his overall vengeance. Why had he stolen women from his father’s bed and given them to other presidents? What did he hope to gain?

Rubix shook me. “My son tried to buy the Night Crusader’s loyalty. He made them pledge their allegiance to fight against me when the time came, all for the price of a girl and a few measly dollars.”

Art had paid men?

My mouth fell open.

He’s creating an army.

An army to destroy any enemy who’d supported his father and ruined his life.

No, not just his life.

My life.

Tears swelled behind my eyes. All of this: Art’s thirst for revenge and his obsession with retribution was all for me—for what they’d broken the night I disappeared.

Rubix snapped, “He enlisted other Clubs to fight against us. He went against every code and took the coward’s way out of hiring other people to do his f*cking dirty work. But it didn’t go the way he wanted.”

Rubix forced me to stand over the girl, bending me as if I were her judgment and executioner.

Cobra smiled, fisting the blonde girl’s hair and jerking her head back. Her throat strained, exposing translucent skin and blue veins.

She was so close. So terrified.

I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to save her so desperately.

“This is what happens to those who defy me.” Rubix thrust his erection against my lower back as Cobra reached behind him and withdrew a hunting blade.

“No!” I fought. “Don’t!”

Slamming my head back, I tried to make contact with Rubix’s nose. But it was no use.

In a horrible heartbeat, Cobra dragged the sharp knife across the girl’s neck, slicing sickeningly deep. Her blood fountained from the wound, red—the color of love and valentines spritzed the air with metallic mist.

She gurgled and twitched as her life force drenched my half-naked body, staining my hair, my eyelashes, my lips. I bathed in her blood. I wore her death like a mortal sin.

Every part of me rebelled. I wanted to throw up. I wanted to hide. I wanted to bite and tear and kill.

But all I could do was be there for her as she faded before my eyes. Every pulse of her heart spewed more hot crimson down her front, slowly pushing her into a deep, dark sleep.

The room remained silent. No one coughed or laughed or spoke.

And that final moment, when the last pitiful beat of her heart sent her from living to dead, a spark, a tingle, an all-knowing sixth sense radiated out like a chime.