Page after page, I tried to concentrate and actually comprehend the words in the disastrously long book but it was no use. My eyes grew heavy and Korn's album ended, replaced by Disturbed's The Sickness. I truly didn't remember much of anything else after that until I'd settled into REM sleep and a loud pop woke me up.
The iPod was off, my bedroom light was still on, and I peeled my cheek from the page where drool had bonded me to the dreaded novel I'd attempted to read all evening. My heart slammed against my chest as if seeking escape but where was there to go, exactly? More importantly, what the hell was that noise and where were my parents?
I sat up quickly in bed and gathered myself before scooting off and tiptoeing towards the double doors to my bedroom. Literally a few feet away from reaching them, one of the doors flung open, hitting me in the face. I staggered back before I met the cruel, cold blue eyes of Brad Decker. He grabbed me by my arm and frog-marched me down the stairs.
The scene below I couldn't have prepared myself for no matter how hard I tried. My beautiful mother was naked, blood smeared her body, her hair disheveled while one of her eyes was swollen shut. Her bottom lip was split and there was a painful gash against her left cheek.
At least she was alive, which was more than I could say about my father.
He lay out next to her, on his back, his steel-blue eyes opened yet gazing into nothingness. A bullet hole tore through the upper part of his head, blowing out hair, skin and brains. I turned away and vomited on the pristine marble floor before sobs wracked my body and caused me to shake with violent tears running down my cheeks.
"Well, well … we found one we can use-"
"Brad, no!" Mom shouted in a panic as she continued to shake her head back and forth. "Please … not Mags. She's just a child . . . she didn't know what was going on. It's not like I can't get the money Riggs stole from you back. All I have to do is place a call to Angelo."
The biker stroked my hair as I continued to sob, snot and tears co-mingled as I tried to quiet myself. I had to be strong for my mother. She was the one suffering right now. They'd obviously raped and beaten her; she had so little left. If I cared anything about my family, I wouldn't be concerned about my own emotions right now. I could save the tears for another day.
"Here's the problem, Sophia," another biker I knew to be as Nel began, "I know Abandonato. He's thick as thieves with that nigger, Raymond Jackson, up in my area of the state. Do you honestly believe he's going to pay back what your old man owes? He stole two million dollars from the club. Think about it . . . that's why he's lyin' in a pool of his own blood. What happens if Angelo says no?"
Mom cried silently, tears falling from her gorgeous amber eyes in waves. "He won't. I swear to God Angelo loves me, and he would do anything to save Magnolia and me. He won't say no."
Nel looked at Brad. The moment Brad shook his head, I screamed, if only to block out the noise of the bullet piercing my mother's skull.
"Come on, let's get the fuck outta here before the cops show up." Brad continued to grip my arm painfully as he led me out of the house.
A black cargo van waited out front and I was quickly thrown into the back with Brad as Nel climbed into the driver seat and took off.
I didn't know what to think at the time. I only knew my life would never be the same again. My parents were dead and no one would ever know what happened to me.
I died that night too. On the inside at least even if my heart continued to beat and I still breathed. It was a lesson taught early on to me in life. Some of the most horrific events can be unleashed on the human psyche but our bodies continue to function and we remain.
If I could have gone back in time, I probably would have found a way for them to kill me too. It was a better alternative than what they had in store.
Brad brushed a calloused hand through my long sable hair with its chestnut highlights. "You're a very valuable commodity indeed. Worth hell of a lot more than two mil. You're gonna pay off what your parents owed us."
"How?" I questioned.
His other hand not in my hair grabbed my breast and squeezed gently. "How do you think?"
I began to sob again despite not wanting to show an ounce of weakness to these animals. "Please don't . . . I don't wanna be a sex slave. I'm only thirteen."
"Who ever said anything about a sex a slave you dumb bitch?" Nel questioned from the front seat. "Nah, you ain't gonna be doin' no favors for no one except Brad and me. We'll teach ya. By the time you're fifteen, you'll know how to take a DP like a pro."
"D . . . P?" I looked from Brad to Nel and back again. "What's that?"
Brad laughed in my ear, his breath smelling of whiskey and cigarettes. "That's when my cock is fuckin' your tight little cunt and my brother has his cock up your ass, fuckin' you so hard, you think you'll be seein' God but it ain't nothing but stars. You belong to us-you're our property now to do as we see fit. Never question an order and you'll be able to work your way outta servitude. Make somethin' with your life."
I didn't like this plan at all but my choices were limited and like an animal trapped behind a caged door, I had no other options.
Christ to God, I never understood why Maya Angelou wrote a book about a caged bird singing but I was starting to wise up now. My life would only get more difficult, and whether I wanted to believe it or not, I was not only fucked but caught in a tangled web my parents weaved.
There wasn't anywhere else for me to go.
I'd officially reached the bottom and I hated it with a passion.
Part One
Trapped Prey
Twelve Years Later
Chapter One
Magnolia
I hated Las Vegas with a passion though unfortunately, not only was it my home base but the city where I collected my cash and found out about any upcoming jobs. My place of employment was, technically, Decker Repair & Auto though that was merely a front for the White Knights MC Vegas chapter.
I wasn't a member of the fucked up Neo-Nazi white supremacist club-thank God-but I did work for them on a freelance basis. There wasn't really a pretty or polite way to say what I did for a living but then again I wasn't a "bite your cheek and shut the fuck up" type of girl either. After spending seven years as Brad and Nel's personal sex slave, I'd been forced to endure three abortions. The only live birth-a little boy, who was given to one of the old ladies up north who couldn't have children-produced the only real family of mine that remained alive.
I'd suffered countless degrees of depravity locked in a box; compartmentalized in my mind, hidden in a secret place I never visited. Anxiety, depression and feeling sorry for myself were first world luxuries-though surrounded by-I couldn't afford. Not if I wanted to stay alive, intact as a fully functional human being as opposed to a ghost of my former self. It would have left the average person suffering from post traumatic stress disorder like a motherfucker yet apparently, I'd numbed myself to all that shit.
I was a contract killer and very good at what I did.
Too good in fact.
It didn't help my hatred for the male sex was legendary and although women weren't too high upon my priority list either, I could handle myself with a weapon or without one. I knew how to hide razor blades in my mouth, gouge someone's eyes out and other ingenious ways of making a human being suffer. I'd learned from the best, after all.
Brad and Nel murdered my family when not long after I turned thirteen years old and bound for high school. I'd skipped a grade in school and had been an honor-roll student, not that it mattered much anymore.
Stockholm Syndrome is a bitch. The two twisted fuckers and their old ladies became my family. I watched Marian Decker, Brad's daughter, grow into a striking young woman and leave the family home. She attended the University at Lake Tahoe and had no intention of coming back to Vegas.
Not that it bothered me. My life was one of solitude and a lot of time spent in my fucked up head. I didn't rely on anyone else to find happiness and the only time I felt any emotion at all was snuffing out a human life. It was jacked up-I knew that. It certainly wasn't normal behavior someone my age should have exhibited but my humanity died the night my parents were taken from me. I truly didn't know what it was like to feel normal-whatever normal was. It was simply a concept they used in the real world for people who could act their way through life and fake it until they made it. That wasn't-nor had it ever been-me.
I strode past a couple of the WK members in the clubhouse and walked directly to Brad's office. I wasn't there to make chit-chat and I sure as fuck wasn't a sweet butt. I might have earned my place in the club on my back but I didn't service any man now unless it's what I wanted to do.