He is showing how truly sick and twisted he is. The curtain has fallen, and the window is wide-open. He’s hiding nothing—not the true extent of his insanity, his inability to love, or his desire to hurt Mom, hurt me, hurt Saint. He really is a living, breathing monster. A creature of the night come to life from the pages of a horror story.
Mom’s head lolls back as another gut-wrenching scream splits the air. Her voice is hoarse, her vocal cords as battered as her body. Anger whips through me, replacing the blood flowing through my veins, coating my eyes in a layer of sheer rage. I react on instinct, whipping my Strider out and lunging at Sinner before anyone can stop me. I jump up onto the bed in my boots, grabbing his head and yanking it back.
“Call your animals off,” I growl, pressing the blade of my knife to his throat. “Or I’ll gut you like the disgusting pig you are.”
“You feel good pressed up against me,” he says, pushing his ass back into me, as if I don’t have a deadly weapon lined up against his skin. “Come join the party. You can replace my useless whore.” His lips pull into a sneer as he looks over Mom’s bruised and bloodied body before pulling his cock out of her.
The asshole sodomizing Mom thrusts his hips forward, eyeing me like I’m his next meal. “Get your filthy dick out of my mother or I’ll cut it off and stuff it down your throat until you choke.”
He smirks, thrusting harder into Mom, as if I’m no threat, and I’m so sick of assholes ignoring me and underestimating me.
In a lightning-fast move, I reach around, yank the dagger from my back pocket, and throw it at him, watching it embed in his shoulder with grim satisfaction. I could easily have stabbed him in the heart, and I was so fucking close to throwing caution to the wind, but there are too many lives at stake, and I need to be smart about this.
As much as I’d love to slaughter all of them, and hack them to pieces until they don’t resemble anything close to human, all that will achieve is a life sentence behind bars, and sure death for my guys, so I rein my anger in, reminding myself their time will come. These bastardsaregoing down.
The asshole staggers back, off the bed, stumbling over something, roaring as his fingers wrap around the dagger, and he pulls, hissing between his teeth as he yanks it from his body. Blood spurts from the wound as the dagger clangs to the ground.
Galen darts forward, retrieving it, grinning when he spots the angel emblem on the handle. Galen gave me a set of daggers as a peace offering a couple weeks ago, and I knew they would come in handy, so I’ve taken to carrying a few on me at all times.
The creep moves aside, nostrils flaring as he glares at me, and I spot the dead body at his feet for the first time. I’ve never seen the man before, but he looks young enough, no older than thirty if I had to guess. He’s wearing The Sainthood leather cut, and his fingers are curled around a gun, for all the use it was to him. His glazed eyes stare vacantly into space, and dried blood surrounds the bullet hole between his eyebrows.
I think this must be the guy Saint hired to keep an eye on Mom. If Sinner figured out why he was here, that spells trouble for Saint, so I pray that secret died with him.
The other two perverts climb off the bed, standing back and waiting for Sinner’s instruction as the dick with the face ink presses his hand to his shoulder, attempting to stem the flow of blood. The look he pins me with promises a world of retribution, but I’m not worried about him.
“Caz,” I call out, keeping my knife pressed to Sinner’s neck. “Get my mom down.”
I expect her to protest, even if she is barely coherent, but she doesn’t object. Her tired green eyes lift to mine, and all I see is relief and a world of pain in her gaze.
“I really wouldn’t do that,” Sinner coolly states as Caz climbs on the bed. “You know the punishment for disobeying your president.”
“This isn’t official Sainthood business,” Saint snaps from behind.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sinner replies, sounding far too calm for a man with a knife pressed to his jugular. I exert more pressure on the blade, feeling the moment it nicks his skin. He doesn’t as much as flinch, and that irritates the fuck out of me.
“Leave the woman,” the bald asshole hisses as Caz moves to untie Mom. “You heard your president.”
“You know what I’m capable of,” I tell Sinner, pressing my blade in farther. “And I don’t need much encouragement to kill you. Continue pissing me off and see how that ends for you.”
A dark chuckle rumbles from his chest. “I can’t believe I had you pegged all wrong. You are truly magnificent, sweetheart. See how hard you make my dick.”
“I’d rather not. I’ve no desire to be reacquainted with the pizza I just ate.”
He chuckles again, and I hate that I’m entertaining him. I forcibly remind myself of all the reasons why I can’t kill him, because I’m so close to doing it.
“Get Giana down,” Saint says in a barely restrained voice, blatantly ignoring his father’s instructions.
Theo helps Caz free Mom from the chains, and they lift her off the sling, carrying her over to the couch. Galen grabs the blue blanket from the chair, covering Mom with it.
“I don’t know what you hoped this would achieve,” Saint says, coming around so he’s facing his father. “Or why you persist in pushing my buttons.”
Theo comes up behind me, placing his hand on my arm and urging me to step back with his eyes. “Your mom needs you,” he whispers, and that’s about the only thing he could say to me at this moment.
Reluctantly, I remove my knife and jump down off the bed.
Sinner climbs off the bed, smirking as he walks toward me.
Saint pulls me into his body, wrapping his arm around my waist, keeping me close while Theo stands on my other side, facing up to Sinner like he dares him to hurt me.
