35. Luna

35

Luna

My wrists ache from being bound behind my back. I try to shift in my seat but can’t get comfortable no matter what I do.

Grimm sits beside me in the backseat of the truck. His arm is draped around me, and I have to hold back my desire to vomit every time he rubs the peak of my shoulder with his thumb.

A prospect is driving. They don’t talk, and the silence is unnerving.

“Don’t worry, doll. Once you learn to cooperate, this will all get much easier for you.” Grimm’s eyes gleam as he looks at my hands tied behind my back.

He leans in, kissing the side of my head, and my body tenses.

I went willingly because I knew if I didn’t, things would get worse, and I needed a chance to figure out a way out of this. But now I think he’s misinterpreting it as me being compliant, and his affection has my skin crawling.

“How much longer?” I ask.

His thumb trails up and down the bare skin on the back of my neck, and it sends a chill through me.

“Almost there.”

We haven’t been driving long, but we’re well outside the city, where all the desert looks the same. It reminds me of the road that leads to the Twisted Kings clubhouse, but this one goes in the opposite direction. I don’t know what awaits me, but it can’t be good.

Finally, a pinprick of lights comes into view up ahead, and then they start to multiply the closer we get. Buildings scatter the desert, and a long fence surrounds the property. It extends so far that I can’t see the end of it in the darkness.

Only one thing is clear as the truck pulls to a stop at the gate—the large devil’s skull with flames in the center of the iron rods.

Grimm must have brought me to the Iron Sinners compound.

The truck rolls through the gate, and my heart hammers. This is worse than I thought. Of all the places they could have taken me, this is the one place I’ll never get out. And one place the Twisted Kings can’t go.

It would turn their war nuclear.

As much as my heart aches for Ghost, wishing this had played out differently, all I can do now is hope that I can figure my own way out of this. I thought this was about a job, but Grimm never intended to let me go. I need to fix this before Ghost tries to come for me because he’ll just end up getting hurt if he does.

In the dark distance, a gunshot rings out, and it makes me jump. The moment I flinch, I regret it because Grimm pulls me closer. He holds me against him, and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on its ends.

Home .

I should have known when he used that word that this is what he meant. A place with no escape, and the one place he knows the Twisted Kings won’t breach to save me. A place he belongs because he’s turned into someone as sick as they are—someone as disturbed as his father.

I watch the clubhouse get bigger on our approach, and my stomach turns. The Twisted Kings get a lot of crap for the illegal things they do as a club, but they’re nothing like the Iron Sinners.

The Twisted Kings have certain moral lines they refuse to cross, and they protect their own. Anyone with them is there by choice. Iron Sinners don’t see their club that way. The women here aren’t like the patch bunnies back at the clubhouse. Most are brought here unwillingly, and the ones who try to leave are drugged and caged.

Reina lost a friend to this club once, so I’ve heard all the stories. Women who do walk back out don’t leave the same. They’re used until they’re a shell of who they were.

I wiggle against the handcuffs, but it’s no use. My heart races as the truck stops, and Grimm climbs out first.

He grabs me by the arm and pulls me across the bucket seat, not caring that he’s rough or that my hands are bound behind my back. Grimm yanks me out of the truck, and I stumble as I land the wrong way on my ankle.

My steps are unsteady, and each one hurts, but he doesn’t slow as he pushes me ahead of him to the clubhouse steps.

Grimm shoves my back when I walk too slowly, pushing me inside.

The clubhouse is large but in disrepair, and it smells like smoke and something else awful. Urine, maybe?

The Iron Sinners are partying, but it’s nothing like I’m used to seeing at the Twisted Kings compound. To my left, a group of bikers are sticking needles in their arms, and a girl in the corner looks dead or damn near close to it. Eyes follow me as I’m pushed through, and when they skim down my body, there’s nothing flirty about it.

They’re predators.

The things I know they’ve done to women send every nerve in my body on high alert.

Looking up at Grimm, I try to wrap my mind around the monster he’s become. I always knew his father’s blood ran through his veins, but I hoped he’d never actually become him. He looked out for his brother once. He looked out for me.

How did that become so twisted?

Grimm guides me into a quieter room, where the music is muffled so it doesn’t numb my ears. A man is sitting on a couch with topless women flanking his sides as Grimm pushes me to stand in the center.

“Prez.” Grimm nods at Titan, who hasn’t taken his eyes off me since I walked in .

Titan’s dark hair is buzzed to his scalp. He has tattoos covering his arms and neck, with the Iron Sinners symbol on the center of his throat. I’ve never met him in person, but I’ve seen pictures. And now I know they do nothing to capture the unfiltered evil that bleeds out of him.

“You’re prettier in person,” Titan says, smirking at me. “But I’d prefer you blonde, so we’re going to have to wash that shit out of your hair.”

I roll my shoulders back, not liking that it even matters to Titan. Grimm made it sound like I was being brought here for him, but Titan insinuates something different.

“You’ve caused me and my men all sorts of trouble.” Titan looks up at me from where he’s sitting, narrowing his eyes. “I expect you to make up for that.”

“She will.” Grimm grabs my arm tightly. “Won’t you, baby doll?”

I grit my teeth, not answering.

Nothing I say will do me any good right now. If I’m not careful, my tongue will just get me into more trouble.

“A quiet little mouse.” Titan sneers. “I’m going to have fun making you scream.”

Grimm chuckles, showing no sympathy for the situation he’s put me in. If anything, Titan’s threat has excitement flashing in his eyes. I suppose that’s what it takes to be one of them.

Heartless.

Soulless.

Disgusting.

The girls sitting at Titan’s sides tuck against him. Their eyes are hazy as their eyelashes flutter. Whatever drugs they’re on must be intense because they don’t seem fully aware of what’s going on around them.

“What do you want me to do with her, Prez?” Grimm tugs my arm, and it knocks me off balance.

My ankle twists again, and I wince in pain. The reaction has Titan’s eyes gleaming.

“Put her in my room,” he says to Grimm. “You know the rules. You can have her once I’m done breaking her in.”

Grimm nods, dragging me behind him as I try to resist. But with my hurt ankle and bound wrists, I have no leverage.

Titan’s words play in a loop as Grimm tugs me through the party. Everyone is wasted and high. I can barely breathe through the cigarette smoke.

Grimm pulls me around a corner and down a long hall. We pass a door, and I hear a girl screaming, but from the pitch, I get the feeling it’s not out of pleasure. She screams again, and my blood chills.

“Please don’t do this.” I try to resist as Grimm tugs me along.

Grimm chuckles, stopping at a door at the end of the hall. “Don’t pretend you don’t want this, baby doll. You were their slut for a year. Now you get to be ours.”

“That’s not what it was.” I stumble as Grimm pushes me into the room.

With my hands bound behind my back, I can’t catch myself, and I fall face-first onto the bed.

“Not yet.” Grimm grabs me by the hair, pulling me up, and tears sting my eyes. “Titan will want you over here first. ”

Grimm pulls me by the hair. I wince when my weight lands on my ankle as I stumble to follow him. I must have rolled it, and his rough handling of me isn’t helping.

But my ankle is the least of my worries when I see where in the room Grimm is taking me.

In a corner is a space where the carpet has been ripped out, so it’s just concrete. There’s a hook in the center with an iron chain attached to it.

“No.” I try to pull back, but it’s no use. “Please don’t. You don’t want this. You wanted to protect me.”

“I am protecting you. I’m making you one of us.”

Grimm pulls me to the ground, removing my handcuffs, only to replace them with the shackles that attach me to the concrete. My arms are in front of me now, but the chain has no give, so I can’t get my hands more than four inches from the ground.

I try to kick him as he grabs my ankles, handcuffing them together. He tightens it so it digs into the one that’s swelling, and I wince.

“I thought I was here for you.” I think of anything to say that might turn this around.

With Grimm, maybe I have a chance. Maybe I can remind him of the flash of good I remember when we were kids. But if he leaves me at the mercy of Titan, this is over.

“You are here for me, doll.” Grimm grabs my waist and pulls me in, licking the side of my neck.

He drags his fingers over my lips, and I try to turn away as bile rises in my throat.

“But this is how it works.” Reaching down, he grabs me between the legs, and a tear slips down my cheek. “ You want to be my bitch; you need to show my president you’re worth keeping around first. So be a good girl when he and his officers get here. The better you take them, the quicker you’re mine.”