Prologue
Nyx
“WHY THE FUCK are you doing this to me?”
The scream had me frowning at Steel. “Is this guy a dumb fuck or what?”
“It’s the blood loss,” Steel reasoned. “It’s all leaving his head, meaning he’s more stupid than usual.”
I scowled at the logic. “Isn’t that how an erection works?”
Steel shrugged. “Same difference.”
As I eyed my handiwork, I muttered, “Not sure this goes under the same caption as an erection, bro.”
When he snickered, I grabbed one of Haune’s hands and selected a fat finger. “These filthy fucking paws have touched something they shouldn’t have. That’s why I’m doing this, you cunt.”
His eyes widened. “No! No! I’ve been good. I haven’t done anything!”
“Bullshit,” I snarled. “Little Jessie Dresden? She’s nothing, huh?” When he blanched, I whispered, “To you, I’m God. I see all, hear all, know all.” I pressed the blade to the digit and sliced it off. Blood instantly spurted, drenching me in the spray, but as he writhed, screaming in agony, all I could do was smile.
“Unluckily for you, you have nine more fingers to go,” Steel noted, looking up from his phone. The irritating soundtrack to a game sounded, but I blanked it out.
Haune’s screams reached a peak then. “Help me!” he shrieked, his desperation culminating in a wet patch on the front of his pants.
“Ain’t no one gonna help a sick fuck like you, Sammy Boy,” I told him, satisfaction loading each word. “Just like no one can help Jessie now. No one except me.”
And with that, I grabbed another finger and sliced off the fat chunk of flesh and bone.
My night’s work was only just beginning.
Fuck me, I had the best job in the world.
One
Nyx
“TODAY, City Hall revealed that the police are treating the death of Samuel Haune as a homicide. This is the seventh murder of a known sex offender in three years within the state.”
When the news came on the big screen TV in the bar, an immediate hush settled over the room.
Sixty bikers—most of them so drunk they were wobbling on their feet—made a fuck ton of noise, but the second Link switched on the news that had a “Breaking Story” banner running along the bottom of it, everyone shut the hell up. A miracle in itself, but nothing compared to what I left behind in the tiny town of Bridgeton, New Jersey.
One less fucked-up piece of shit walked the streets tonight.
Because of me.
Sure, Satan’s Sinners were involved too, and all the work that went down, all the logistics prior to the main event, weren’t organized by me, but the kill?
That was all mine.
“Mr. Haune was a known pedophile, whose release from prison triggered public outrage. He refused police protection, ignored advice against returning to his hometown, and had received several death threats since his release from incarceration.
“The Chief of Police confirmed the authorities are seeking a link between the murders, and are also conferring with other states for similar vigilante-style homicides. As it stands, detectives are looking for witnesses who might have been in the vicinity of the Johnson Reeves playground yesterday around 2 AM.
“A few people spoke with us today and recalled the gruesome sight of what they could only call a lynching—”
As the story switched to videos of interviews with witnesses, the silence remained for a second before a bunch of hollers soared around the bar. I grinned at the noise, then let Rex, my Prez, grab me by the arm so he could pump our fists into the air as we celebrated our twenty-ninth slaughter. Twenty-two of which hadn’t been linked because they’d gone down all over the US, with only seven here in New Jersey.
Sure, we’d get arrested for our crimes if we were discovered, but I considered it a fate worth testing, and knowing what they did about my past? The Sinners did too.
We were an MC. A one-percenter club that was bad to the bone, but we didn’t fuck with kids. Kids were sacrosanct within our ranks, and we protected them. Didn’t matter if they belonged to one of the brothers or not, we defended them when the legal system didn’t.
As the party started up again, Rex mumbled in my ear, “You need another tattoo.”
My smirk of satisfaction widened. “Sure as fuck do.” My back was a patchwork quilt of tattoos that were linked to the deaths of twenty-nine monsters who’d raped, abused, beaten, and/or killed children.
The first one represented my own monster. Well, mine and my sister’s. I’d survived that cunt, but she hadn’t.
And I’d made that fucker pay. Just as I made them all pay. The thought alone had me cracking my knuckles. Survivor’s guilt had morphed into a rage that would never be appeased, forged from a grief so strong that thirty years after her passing, I still mourned her as much as I had the day I’d found her swinging from the rod in her fucking closet.
“You’re going to run out of space soon,” Cruz pointed out from behind the bar. He was pouring beers as fast as my brothers were shoving their glasses at him, while Sin was ‘helping’ by handing out tequila shots, except for every two shots he poured, he took a guzzle from the bottle too. Not that I begrudged the fucker his poison—he’d been the one to help me string Haune up. He deserved a little respite.
“That’s a problem I can deal with,” I stated grimly, staring down into my shot glass. When Rex slapped me on the back, then gripped my shoulder, I asked him, “Did everything else go down alright last night?”
He cocked a brow. “Did I call church?”
I winced at the quiet reprimand. “No.”
“Well then, all’s good, man.” The handsome bastard’s grin twisted along his jaw. “Enjoy your success. You earned it, bro. That fucker…” He whistled. “Squealed like a pig.”
“I know.” Satisfaction sang through my veins. “Made him pay.”
“You make them all pay.” Rex cut me a look, and I knew, deep in his eyes, there was concern buried within those baby blues.
“I’m okay, man,” I assured him quietly, uneasy at the sight. I knew he cared, but his concern, today at any rate, wasn’t necessary. Of course, it wasn’t like you could switch that shit off and on. We weren’t kin, but we might as well have been. Rex loved me like we were family, and in a way, we were.
Rex, Steel, Link, Storm, Maverick, and I had all been raised on the compound at one point or another. We’d grown to be brothers, and it was only a twist of fate that saw us all sitting on the Sinners’ council, but that twist meant that every man in the MC, be they on the council or just a regular brother, had my back where this crusade of mine was concerned.
“You’re the opposite of okay, man,” Rex argued with a grumble as he eyed the deep amber of his beverage of choice—JD. Neat. No rocks. He could put away a bottle of that without feeling the pain the next day. “But you’re nowhere close to rabid, so I’m cool with that.”
Unable to stop my snicker, I slammed back some tequila and retorted, “You going to put me down if I go wild?”