I’d even been able to relax somewhat with Micah and Marcus being out of my sight. Well not completely out of my sight but next door when the hottie neighbor is out there. For some reason my boys love going over there and sitting with him on the porch or watching him work on something in the yard or his bike.
I’ve yet to speak to him. Probably out of fear. He’s a big guy and the last guy I’d been with pretty much kept me captive for years. Stupid mistake going for the bad boy my senior year in high school. I’d luckily managed to finish school before the twins were born. If not for the school having had their classes set up to do certain courses the first semester and another set of courses the second semester, I’d have been screwed. The way it was, I’d graduated right before they were born.
Now Titus is banging on my front door, I wish Ryder, my neighbor, I’d learned his name from Marcus and Micah, was home. If he were, I might have been able to slip out the back door and make it to his house without Titus seeing me.
“Won’t tell you again, Brielle. Open the damn door or I’ll break it down,” Titus shouts and right now I’m grateful to have put the boys in school. At least there, I know they’re safe eight hours a day.
Taking a deep breath, I think of what my options are as Titus’ pounding on the door becomes relentless. Open the door, have Titus get his hands on me or make it out the back door and hopefully to my car without him seeing me.
Mind made up, I grab my keys and the burner phone I’d kept by the back door just as the front door is kicked in and Titus spots me. A wicked smirk crosses his features, “You think you’ll make it out that door?”
My fingers begin to tremble clutching the keys and phone in my hand.
I grip the doorknob tightly in my hand at the same time keeping my gaze focused on Titus.
“Uh, Brielle?” he chuckles.
“P–Pl–Please leave us alone, Titus,” I plead, tears choking me.
“Not happenin’, ma vilaine. You belong to me, Brielle, so do those boys, granted I could give a rat’s ass about them. But they are the only thing I have as leverage over you to keep you in check. Now come here like the good putain you are,” Titus snickers, wagging a finger between the two of us.
Gripping the handle on the door tighter, I release a shuttered breath and flip the phone in my hand open and press the one key that is programmed into the phone. I put everything down on the counter and move toward Titus. I don’t want to, but I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my boys.
Marcus and Micah are the only two people in this world I give a damn about, and I’ll die protecting them from the man who helped create them.
Chuckling, Titus snatches ahold of my left arm the instant I’m within reaching distance. “You have caused me quite a bit of trouble, ma vilaine. I want nothing more than to put you out of your misery, unfortunately it seems you have protection wrapped around you this time. Meaning I can’t kill you right now. Not without causing a war between us and the fuckers you decided to gain help from. Doesn’t mean I won’t teach you a lesson.”
The first impact of Titus’ hand against my face has me seeing stars as I cry out. I’d have fallen to the floor if it wasn’t for the grip he still had on my one arm.
“Stupide move, Brielle, thinking I wouldn’t find you. You screwed up when you put those two fuckers in school.” I know I shouldn’t have but damnit they need an education and to be able to be around kids their own age.
Titus releases his hold on my arm as another slap of the back of his hand meets the side of my face. This time I stumble backwards into the counter. He doesn’t say anything else as he steps forward, snags my hair in his fist, and pulls me into his front. “Time for that lesson, ma vilaine.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming out as he steps back and throws me against the table. My head hits the corner of it and my vision blurs as I topple to the floor. Titus is on top of me and his hands rip my shirt open as I weakly try to fight him off me. Once he has my front exposed to his gaze, a malicious grin contorts his features as he pulls out a knife and slides it along my skin until he reaches my stomach where he thrust the blade in to the hilt, leaving it there.
I cry out in pain from the sheer pain as Titus stands over me. “If you think I’m done with you, you’d be wrong. I’ll be back and don’t think anyone can keep me from you, Brielle. You fuckin’ belong to me and I intend to make you feel every little thing I do to you. This is just lesson one.”
With this Titus reaches down, grips the handle of the knife and twists it further into my stomach causing me to scream. “Yeah, ma vilaine, scream and know this isn’t the end. And if you run again, putaine, I will fuckin’ kill you without hesitation and take those boys and sell them to Delancy, who will make sure they are sold to the highest bidder.”
Standing back to his full height, Titus kicks my leg with his steel toed boot sending a sharp pain through my body.
I close my eyes in pain as I try to concentrate on the movement of Titus’s boots as he walks away.
God, what did I ever do to deserve going through this? Better yet, what did my boys do? They don’t deserve this kind of life.
Tears prick my eyes as my vision blurs and darkness starts to take over.
Chapter Two
Ryder
Since the day Nora, Breaker’s ol’ lady was kidnapped, none of us knew whether we’d have a war or not with the Toxic Warriors MC. Chains had reached out to Viking, their Prez, informing him of what went down with the men of his club.
Viking didn’t intend to go to war with us. According to what he and the rest of his club knew, was that Granger needed help rescuing his girl and he paid the club for assistance. None of them knew it was our club who were protecting her from the psycho himself.
His VP, Ice, Granger’s cousin admitted to the fucked-up choice in not looking into the information more.
From what I know of their club, they’re ruthless in keeping their shit together and not letting anyone fuck with them.
“Hey, Ryder, do you want another beer?” Tiny, my nephew Chains’ ol’ lady asks.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” I mutter from where I was sitting on the stool at the bar near where she was working.
Over the past couple months since we found out that her and Nora were both pregnant, my nephews have been in overprotective mode. Chains especially. I’m sure it’s due to his parents being killed and he intends to keep that from ever happening to Tiny and the twins she’s pregnant with. Crazy how things happen.
I’d ended up raising all four of my nephews from the time they were kids. Because of my two selfish vindictive cunt of sisters my brother and his wife were killed, and my niece was sold to none other than the man who became the governor of Louisiana. Due to being deployed at the time, I’d been too late to stop the adoption, but I wasn’t too late to stop my sisters from killing their own sons. They’re now sitting pretty in an institution up in Virginia where they’ll never see the light of day again. One filled with people who need to disappear but don’t deserve to merely die, but rather suffer in the depths of hell as they say.
“Here you go,” Tiny says, smiling as she places the beer in front of me.