Ace: Devil’s Nightmare MC Read online

  Ace: Devil’s Nightmare MC

  Lena Bourne

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Also by Lena Bourne

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Six Months Ago

  Stormi

  Silence. Complete and utter silence is all around me. Silence like only these predawn hours can hold. My tiny gold-plated watch is smashed, so I don’t know exactly what time it is, but I’m sure it’s almost day. The summer sun is probably starting to rise outside. I wish I could see it, but there are no windows in this small, bare, wood-floored cell that smells of piss, shit, old blood and fear. The only time I see dawn is when I’ve stayed up all night and today’s dawn will be no different. Yet it’s worlds different. Because as soon as they let me out of my smelly, windowless cell, this will be the last dawn I’ll ever see.

  And this is the last peace and silence I’ll ever get to enjoy. Soon they’ll come and drag us out of this smelly room in this stuffy shed they’re keeping us in. Soon they’ll kill me. My best friend since forever, Brenda, is curled up in a ball in the corner of the room. She might be sleeping, but I doubt it. She hasn’t spoken in hours. Josh’s screams from earlier are just a distant, yet echoing memory.

  The memory of his screams is the only thing marring the silence. That and the refrain of Abba’s Mama Mia, the song that was playing in its modern, dance remix version when they burst into our motel room in Vegas almost ten hours ago. I wish the last song I’ll ever dance to had been a better one.

  Both straps of the gold-tasseled dress I was gonna wear to the club last night are torn, and the bone of my ruined strapless bra is poking a hole in the soft flesh of my left breast. Luckily the dress is tight enough to stay up with no straps and no bra. Both got torn when they dragged me outside and tossed me into the back of the waiting van. Or maybe that happened later, when Horse tried to tear it off me before taking what I wouldn’t give him willingly, in the back of the van on the long ride from Vegas to San Diego. His brother and one of the other men took a turn too.

  This ruined dress is the last thing I’ll ever wear.

  It’s the dress I’ll be buried in. If they bury us.

  If I’d known this would be the last dress I’ll ever wear, I’d choose a nicer one.

  I wish it was at least still whole.

  I wish they’d hurry up and get on with it.

  The silence and the waiting is growing unbearable with every tick of the seconds hand of my watch.

  I shouldn’t focus on that. Not when these are the last minutes of my life.

  The bruise on my left cheek where Horse punched me feels like a heavy stone resting against my face. Blood stopped flowing from my split lip awhile ago, but the metallic taste is still lingering in my mouth. I got both of those for not telling them where my share of the money I stole was.

  I lied. I told them I spent it all. They didn’t believe me. But it’s the only answer they’re gonna get. Brenda and Josh both returned their share of the money, and yet they’re right here with me, waiting to die.

  My sister has my share of the money we stole. It’s good I didn’t tell them where it was. At least that way my death won’t be for nothing.

  I wish I could speak to my sister one last time, to say goodbye to her, because I sure as hell won’t see her in heaven. We came into the world together, but we never thought we’d leave it together. She was always supposed to go first.

  The panic that overwhelmed me when they locked us in here has subsided, but it’s rising again. I screamed at first, and my hands are still sore from banging my fists on the door of this cell. But I didn’t cry. I feel like crying now, but I won’t. Tears are useless and I won’t die crying.

  Thudding footsteps—leather soles hitting badly laid wooden flooring—are approaching now. There’s more than one set of feet coming, the thudding accompanied by muffled, gruff male voices. They’re coming to kill us. I wish I had more time.

  “Brenda. Brenda, wake up,” I whisper while shaking her shoulder roughly.

  She gasps and leaps up, then stands there swaying. It’s a rough awakening, but still better this way than if I’d let them wake her. I think. I hope.

  The door to our cell slams against the wall as it opens, and Brenda shakes and jerks again. I think I do too, but I don’t know.

  “Good, you’re awake,” the old guy in the doorway says. Horse is standing behind his right shoulder, glaring at me like he’d like to choke the life out of me slowly. I think he might get the chance.

  “Let’s go. On your feet,” the old man growls. The patch on his cut reads President and he looks like an older version of Horse. This must be his father. Horse bragged long and hard about having a powerful biker president daddy while we partied in Vegas. He also bragged about the briefcase full of money he was hand delivering to him. Then proceeded to drink himself unconscious, while trying to get me to fuck him, leaving the briefcase unattended. That was three days ago. Now daddy is here to clear up his mess.

  Two guys drag the half-conscious Josh down the hall past my cell.

  The twenty thousand dollars we stole from Horse is a lot of money, but how is it enough to get killed by the president of an MC club for it? Why didn’t Horse and the guys with him just finish the job right there in Vegas?

  The question is stuck in my mind as they drag me and Brenda out of the cell. Horse is gripping my upper arm so hard it starts throbbing painfully before we even reach the gravelly, dusty lot outside. The answer doesn’t matter. Dead is dead, and my death awaits at the end of the ride we’re about to take. I was wrong about it being dawn. It’s still pitch dark outside, sunrise not even a hint in the sky. A white van with its headlights on and the back open is waiting for us, waiting to take us to our death.

  Josh seems to have realized the same thing. His face is a bloody mess, and he’s slumped over, his feet dragging on the gravel, but he tries to fight anyway. He throws his entire weight against one of the men holding him. They both go down in the dirt. Somehow, Josh’s aimless trashing gets the other man under him. They’re both landing punches, the skin on skin thuds echoing eerily in the nighttime silence.

  Two other guys grab Josh’s arms and pull him off the man on the ground. Horse curses and releases me, strides over to the action, the yellow light of the headlights washing over the black barrel of his gun for a second, before his killing shot rends the silence and Josh’s face becomes nothing but blood. He’s dead before his body hits the dirt again. Brenda screams. I want to scream too, but no sound escapes my throat.

  “Not here, Horse, you goddam idiot,” the President hisses. “This is our back yard.”

  Yet he’s so calm about it, not fazed at all, despite Brenda’s continuing screams. Convincing this guy to let me live is my only chance to stay alive. I suddenly see that clearer than any dawn.

  “Please, sir,” I say, grabbing his forearm and dropping to my knees in the gravel at his feet. “Please let me live. I’ll pay you back. I’ll get you every cent I owe you. I’ll make it worth it to you—”

 
; He snatches his arm from my grasp, the annoyed look on his face growing more severe as he glares down at me.

  “And how are you gonna do that, bitch?” he asks.

  “I’ll do anything, I’ll work for you, I’ll do anything,” I plead.

  Brenda is on her knees beside me, looking up at the man beseechingly too. “I will too. Please don’t kill us. Please.”

  I’m still not crying, but she’s sobbing loud enough for the both of us. I thought I wouldn’t beg, but here I am. On my knees. Pleading with the man who just killed my friend. And I keep on begging in a desperate voice. Dead trumps pride. Dead is dead. What was an idea before is now Josh’s limp and disfigured body, the gravel soaking up his blood. I don’t want to die over a briefcase of money. I don’t want to die at all.

  Something lightens in the old man’s face. It’s not pity I see there now, not even close, but it’s not the black hatred that Horse’s face is still caked with either. The old man is thinking about it. He’s considering it, and if I wasn’t so breathless from begging for my life, I’d be holding my breath right now as I wait for his answer.

  “I guess there’s no point wasting a couple of beauties like yourselves,” the man finally says, the barest hint of a chuckle in his voice. He turns to Horse with the coldest smile I’ve ever seen. “Plus, they can be a daily reminder to you of how useless you are. I can’t even trust you to transport a briefcase of money from point A to point B.”

  The hatred on Horse’s face grows blacker. The old man grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet, his face real close to mine. “You belong to Roadside Sinners MC now, and you do what we say.”

  I should feel relief washing over me, but instead I’m still stuck in black dread for my life.

  “For…for how long?” I stutter.

  The man’s harsh laugh makes me shiver. “For as long as I say.”

  “I mean, how will I know when my debt is paid?” I ask, even as I curse myself for endangering the tiny hope of living I won.

  But my sister needs me. She needs me to come back to her alive. My life isn’t worth anything if that’s not an option for me.

  The man chuckles and looks over his left shoulder at another old man. “Look at her negotiating.”

  The gathered men all laugh, including Horse, though in his case it looks completely forced. The old man doesn’t even spare him a glance.

  “How about this?” he says as he turns back to me. “You do what you’re told, and I’ll give you a hundred a week for your trouble. Let’s see how fast you can pay me back the twenty thousand.”

  He laughs. The others laugh too. And I almost tell him that’s not fair, that I only owe him one third of that, but I manage not to say that.

  “And Brenda?” I do say.

  “She can have the same terms,” the man says and laughs some more.

  “OK, good,” I mutter. They all laugh with him, making snide remarks about how much more fun keeping us around will be and how they’ll make sure we earn our weekly allowance.

  Then the smile disappears off the President’s face like it never was. He orders his men to clear away Josh’s body, while two guys lead Brenda and me toward a looming, dark, rectangular building at the far end of the lot.

  I will get out of this. I might have sold myself into slavery, but being a slave is better than being dead. I will survive this. I will get out alive.

  1

  Six Months Later

  Stormi

  Dawn. My new favorite time of day. I never cared much for it until I almost saw my last ever one. Now it’s become the only time I have entirely to myself. The bikers of Roadside Sinners MC—the club I’m now pretty much enslaved to— are all always asleep by dawn, the streets of this sorry town are usually empty, and no one knows or cares where I am. At dawn, I can almost imagine, almost believe that I’m still free.

  The vast, light pastel-blue ocean stretching out before me, and the soft whispering of the waves as they lick the nearly white sands of the beach look and feel like freedom too. That’s why I come to this beach as often as I can. I need the reminder of what freedom feels like, because I’m starting to forget.

  Lately, I’ve begun wondering if maybe death on that cold predawn day would’ve been better. When I wonder that, I shut down my mind and think of nothing until the thought fades. That usually works, but not always. Most of the time, I still believe I’ll survive this, that I will be free again, that I will still live a life worth living eventually. But sometimes the black mood lingers for hours, sometimes for days.

  I don’t know how to escape, and I know I’ll never pay off my debt.

  Sure, they give me money, but they make me pay for my keep at the clubhouse out of the one-hundred dollars a week the old man promised me. They also dock me for every perceived mistake I make. Some weeks I’m lucky if I get ten dollars.

  But out here, on this empty sandy beach, watching the day’s light win over darkness in hues of yellow, pink and orange, over the vast ocean, those petty daily concerns of mine always fade easier. I should just run away on one of these mornings. Go back home and lay low, get a boring job, lead a boring life, spend my life by my sister’s side.

  But if they find me, they’ll find my sister too.

  And that’s the thought that always stops me before I can even start gathering the courage to try and escape.

  I’ve been sitting here, calling my sister for the past half an hour. I’ve been sitting so still for so long that the pricking of the sand against my bare thighs has moved beyond annoying to painful. My sister’s not picking up. I’m trying not to fear that something’s wrong.

  I have at most another half hour before I have to get back to the clubhouse. Old man Griff is an early riser, and he doesn’t like not knowing where I am at all times. I’m his prisoner whether he pays me or not. I’m his prisoner for life.

  I chase the thought away by dialing my sister’s number again and focusing hard on the dial tone. The money Griff pays me is the only reason I can have this phone to call her when I can. If I hadn’t made the deal with him—however pointless it actually was—I wouldn’t even have that.

  “Stormi?” my sister asks breathlessly after the ringing almost rang itself out again.

  “Yes, Misti, it’s me,” I say quietly.

  “Good. I was afraid I was too late picking up. I had my phone on silent,” she explains, growing more and more breathless the longer she speaks. It’s because of her heart.

  Her sweet, kind heart has been giving out since the day we were born. The money I stole from the Sinners was for the operation she needs, the one that’s her last chance of reversing the disease that’s been claiming her life since birth. The one insurance won’t cover because it’s still experimental, and at twenty-seven she’s also considered too old for the procedure. Her growing breathlessness scares me. There’s wheezing in it.

  “How are you?” she asks.

  “I’m fine. How are you?” I choke out past the worry and the sadness that’s lodged in my throat now. I don’t mention I’ve been calling her for the last hour. She’ll see the missed calls and feel bad then. I don’t need to hurry that along.

  “When are you coming home?” she asks with an edge in her voice.

  I was wrong before, someone does care where I am; my twin sister Misti cares about that a lot. And she’s the one person I can’t tell anything about it.

  “Soon, babe, I’ll be home soon,” I tell her, putting as much false heartiness into my voice as I can. I’m sure she hears the fakeness of it. I hope she won’t comment on it today.

  “There’s just something I gotta take care of first,” I plow on, forestalling getting called out on my bullshit. “Did you get the money I sent you?”

  “Yes, I did,” she replies in a breathless whisper.

  She doesn’t add that the money I manage to send her every week is less useful than a drop in the ocean where the operation cost we’re saving up for is concerned. I’ve been sending her all the money I get from
the Sinners, since I’ve already admitted to myself that I’ll never pay off my debt to them, not in money anyway.

  “I set up a fundraiser page online, like you suggested,” Misti says and pauses to take a deeper breath. “Money’s trickling in. Slowly but steadily.”

  “Awesome, that’s awesome. How much is there?” Lately the radio and TV news have been full of heartwarming stories of good Samaritans raising enough money to save people’s lives via online fundraisers.

  “Almost five hundred,” she informs me and I can just hear her smile.

  Misti needs another five thousand dollars for the appointment with the specialist who will tell her if he can do anything for her at all. So far we’ve managed to scrape together fifteen, and that’s including the money I stole from the Sinners. At this rate her heart will give out before we even have half of that.

  “You have to advertise,” I tell her. “You have to ask people to donate, everyone you meet, at the animal shelter, at church—”

  “Stormi, stop,” she interrupts. “Just come home. I miss you and I want to spend time with you.”

  Before I die. She didn’t add that, but I heard it clear enough anyway. Too clear.

  “I’ll get you the money,” I say loudly, making a promise I no longer know how to keep. “I’ll send you some more today.”

  “Just come home, babe,” she says. “You’ve done enough. I know you’re in a bad place, I can hear it in your voice.”

  “No, I’m fine. It’s just so early in the morning. You know me, I’m still half asleep,” I lie and chuckle, trying to sound as full of life as I can. As full of life as I used to be.