War (Kings of Sin MC #2)

15. Princess

CHAPTER 15

PRINCESS

I clasp the phone to my chest, hiding the message on instinct.

Go tell Callan. Go tell Callan. Go tell Callan.

No.

Footfalls sound from down the hall, and I take off running, bypassing Callan’s bedroom and heading for the garage.

Rushing inside, I crouch behind one of the bikes and hold my breath. The door opens a few moments later and Callan walks in, Monster by his side. “Bikes?” Monster asks. My heart skips a beat.

“No. SUV in case we need to go to Mallick’s house and stick him in the trunk,” Callan says, tossing a set of keys to Monster. They climb into one of the SUVs, and the shutter shifts, lifting with a clanking sound. Light bleeds in, kissing every corner of the space. I move around the bike to keep myself obscured. As soon as they’re out of sight, I rush to the cabinet, stealing Kitty’s keys.

My mind screams at me as I climb into Kitty’s SUV and bring the engine to life. I’ll get answers from him, then I’ll decide whether to text Callan our location.

Picking up my phone, I type back.

Me: Where?

As I pull out of the garage, my eyes dart left and right to make sure Callan left the compound. I slowly bring the car to the gates. A pulse of apprehension thuds through me, and I hit the radio to drown out the rising panic.

Creaking metal signals the gate doors widening, and I tap nervously on the steering wheel until there’s enough space to get through.

Consciously, I keep my speed low, the idea of ending up behind Callan raising the hairs on my neck.

Vibrating startles me. “Fuck, calm down.” I will myself, checking the incoming text.

Tyler: Your motel.

My heart kicks a heavy rhythm, and my palms begin to sweat, causing me to almost drop the phone. The motel. Has he been there looking for me or staying right under our noses?

Flitting my thumb over the keypad, I type back. On my way.

Fear trickles into my veins as the reality of what I’m actually doing settles in my brain.

Tyler isn’t a man you underestimate, and I’m handing myself over on a silver platter without a weapon. I scan the car, opening the glove compartment, and shuffle some papers around. Nothing. Sliding my hand under the seat, I check the rim in the hopes Kitty or Tim hid a gun there.

“Dammit.”

Darting my eyes from the road to the phone in the cup holder beside me, I notice a compartment. I lift the lid, a grin raising my cheeks. A small switchblade sits amongst a handful of coins.

I love you, Kitty.

I shove the blade into my shoe and take the exit to the motel.

Daylight begins to dim, the setting sun casting orange and pink through the sky over the motel when I pull in.

Shifting the car into a parking space, I roam my eyes across the lot, my fingers drumming on the wheel. Rows of beige doors stare back at me, and a kid shouting at his mom at the vending machine grates on my frayed nerves. I grab my phone and type:

Me: I’m here.

Making sure the switchblade is secure, I turn the engine off and step out of the car. Traffic whizzes past, and people stand at the lights waiting to cross. Everyone is going about their ordinary lives. I envy them.

Tyler: Walk around the motel. I want to make sure you weren’t followed.

I read his text, and my eyes shift over the doors and windows of the motel rooms. No movement.

“Just pick one or have nothing,” a woman barks at the kid standing in front of a vending machine as I walk past. I offer her a tight smile and tuck my hair behind my ear before folding my arms, keeping my phone tightly in my grip to call Callan if I need to. Rounding the side of the building, goosebumps pebble my flesh. Trashcans line the graffiti-covered walls. The space narrows into an alleyway the farther I inch down it, my gaze focused on a truck idling a few feet from the exit.

Air rips from my lungs when movement sounds behind me. Before I can turn, a hand fists my hair, shoving me toward the wall.

I grip at the wrist holding me, scratching and clawing while I squirm. I try to wriggle free, my mind going blank.

“Predators look for women wearing their hair down, Princess,” Tyler growls in my ear. My phone is wrenched from my hand and tossed to the concrete. Yanking my head back, he glowers down at me. “Gives us something to grab.” I blink up at him.

“I came to you, Ty.” I wince. “Alone. Let me go.”

“I let you go once. I’ll not make that mistake again.” His face contorts just before he shoves my head into the wall, stealing my sight, sound…consciousness.

* * *

A dull thud pounds across my skull. Blood stuck to my eyelashes congeals at the corner of my eyes as I peel them open.

Tyler.

It takes me a few seconds to remember what happened. I jerk forward, panic seizing my thoughts.

No. No. No.

I can’t move. Bindings bite into my wrists. My arms are pulled taunt behind me, and my ankles sting against the ropes keeping them strapped to the chair I’m sitting on.

Where are my pants—and shoes? The knife.

This can’t be happening. Callan is going to be so mad that I went to meet Tyler alone.

I yank at the ropes, trying to free myself. Dread creeps up my spine. “Tyler!” I scream out into a vast room. My voice bounces off the walls before dying.

Where the hell am I? The scent of damp mold prickles my nose. The patterned carpet at my feet is soaked from a crack in the ceiling a couple feet away. A pipe juts out of the crack, dripping a slow drizzle. Grand light fixtures that might have once been beautiful hang broken from their cables. The lights flicker on and off, buzzing with a dim orange glow.

“Tyler!” I shout again, searching the room for him.

Stacks of chairs stand abandoned along a partitioned wall. An overturned blackjack table with a leg missing is pushed up to a set of glass doors.

A crashing sound cracks through the air like a gunshot. My gaze dashes to the source. The door Tyler came through has serrated shards of glass for a window. “Where am I, Ty?” I seethe, jerking in my seat.

“You were too young to ever see this place.” He holds his hands out, turning a full circle with a wildness in his eyes. “My old man had big plans for our club. This casino was going to be the first of many.”

Casino. I look around with new sight. A circle bar to the right, stripped back to its wood structure. I wonder what it looked like before it was left to ruin.

“Where are my pants?” I growl as he gets closer.

He tsks, jabbing a finger toward me. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

“What should I be asking?”

Moving behind me, he brushes my hair from my shoulders, and my spine goes ramrod straight. His nose burrows into my neck as he murmurs, “I’ve missed your skin, Rogue. Do you know you have this really faint birthmark on the back of your neck?” His skin on mine feels wrong. A betrayal to Callan. To me.

His tongue glides across my skin like a slug, and then a sharp jolt of pain courses through me as his teeth bare down, piercing my neck.

“I love how you taste.”

“Why am I tied to a damn chair? I came to you, Ty.” I force as much calm into my voice as I can muster.

A snarl rumbles up his chest as he shoves the chair and moves around to face me. “Because I don’t fucking trust you.” He grabs my face, squeezing my jaw until I whimper in pain. “How could you leave me, Princess?” His fingers leave my chin and whip across my cheek, whirling my head to the side. A throb pounds across my cheekbone. “How could you betray me after everything we’ve been through? You belong to me!” Trailing his hand from my jaw to my throat, he breathes in sharply through his nose. “I claimed you long before you even knew what your body could do to the men around you.”

I gasp and sputter, trying to suck oxygen into my lungs as his fist tightens. “I love the sound you make when I wrap my fingers around your throat, Princess. It’s the same sound you make when you come.”

Air floods in as he releases me, burning my lungs. I heave, welcoming the rush. I need to steer him away from the topic of us. The bulge in his pants coils my muscles, igniting a blaze of disgust through me.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were with Harley the night she died?” I wheeze.

Tyler paces the floor, the carpet squelching beneath his boots. He rolls his neck and places his entwined hands behind his head with his elbows jutting out. “It’s because of that stupid bitch that we’re in this shit.”

“What does that mean?”

“My old man had the right idea getting in with a bigger club, but he was a fucking rat. Our pres, the man I looked up to, who taught me that brotherhood and loyalty were earned, was a rat.” Shaking his head, he kicks a box into the air. A scattering of wrappers rains out of it, fluttering to the carpet.

“He was using this place to wash money, but he wasn’t business savvy,” he says, jabbing a finger to his head. “The feds were onto this place like flies on shit. It didn’t last three months.”

I heard rumors about a small, abandoned casino when I was in college. Students used to hold illegal parties here. I had no idea it belonged to the Devils.

“He should have done the prison time. He turned rat instead.” A manic glow in his eyes makes the blue seem almost white. Dark circles welt beneath them.

“Did my dad kill him?” I close my eyes, absorbing everything he’s saying.

“Your dad brought the information to me. He knew what needed to be done and wanted me on board. Came to me out of respect for our relationship. He was like a second dad to me.”

“So you killed him?” I screech, rocking the chair to try to get loose. I want to rip his eyes out.

“No one else knew about my dad—and it had to stay that way!”

“I hate you,” I spit out. “I fucking hate you!”

Rushing toward me, he wraps his hand around my throat, tilting my head to look into my eyes. There’s nothing left of the man I knew in them. But the man I knew never really existed.

This man is Tyler Stratham.

A ruthless, cruel murderer.

It’s who he’s always been.

“My dad was wrong.” The side of his face hooks into a sinister grin. “Respect isn’t earned. It’s taken.”

“You had a bullet wound,” I grit out through clenched teeth. “When you went back to the brothers and spun your lie.”

“It had to look believable.” Releasing me, he walks over and drags a duffle bag from behind a pillar.

“So, you killed them both—the men who raised you?” Sickness burns in my stomach as newfound grief courses through me.

“They were as shocked as you.” He bends down and unzips the bag, rummaging through it. “I made it quick.” Standing, he turns to me with his brow crushed, eyes shining. “They didn’t suffer.”

Tears scald my cheeks, the truth lashing out and stinging like the crack of a whip. Tyler killed our dads to take over as club president.

“I took care of your mom, you, Harley.” He closes his eyes on Harley’s name, his twitching wrist capturing my attention. Panic douses me.

“Are you going to kill me too?” I choke out, my throat closing around the stone lodged there. Lifting the knife in his hand, he gets on his knees before me, places the blade on the carpet, and rubs his palms up my bare thighs.

“Do you know how much I love you?” he implores. And I think he believes his words. “I would have been a good husband to you, filled this stomach with babies.” He places a kiss to my abdomen. “My old man said I wasn’t capable of love, but what the fuck did he know?”

“You have me tied to a damn chair half-naked, Ty. That’s not love.” The tips of his thumbs skirt the line of my panties, brushing beneath the hem. I flinch, ice washing over me. I attempt to scoot away, but there’s nowhere for me to go.

“What about you?” he muses, licking his bottom lip. “You came with a knife in your shoe. Are you going to kill me, Princess?”

Visions of me stabbing him run a dark reel through my mind. Killing my dad would warrant blood for blood. But I don’t know that I’d be able to follow through with it. Something inside me cares if he lives or dies.

“No.” I sag in relief as he removes his hands from my underwear and swipes at a tear paving its way down my cheek.

Leaning in like he’s sharing a secret, he whispers, “You’ll want to kill me when I tell you what happened to Harley.”