Page 14

E lla Rainwater wasn’t sure how she was going to keep running, but she had to. The Devils were probably looking for her as she stood on the side of the road, talking to a stranger. There was no way that she’d go back with them—she’d die first because living in a cage for the last six months was unbearable.

She wasn’t sure who she could trust, and when Razor pulled over to the side of the road, she was sure that he was one of the Devils. He looked the part with his tattoos and bad-boy biker vibes. When she realized that he wasn’t with the Devils, she wanted to take him up on his offer of a ride, but the men she had known for the past six months would never do anything for her out of kindness. was sure that there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in any of those men.

She felt like a first-class fool for letting her guard down while out with a few of her girlfriends. They wanted to go to a second club, and all she wanted to do was go home and get some sleep. Her shift started at seven in the morning, and as an ER nurse, she needed to bring her A-game. She wouldn’t be able to do that if she was out all night drinking and dancing.

drove home and parked in her allotted spot in front of her apartment building. She quickly looked around, and noticed that there was no one else around, and why would there be? It was almost one in the morning, and everyone with any sense was asleep in bed. But she didn’t look close enough at her surroundings, and when two men popped out of the shrubbery in front of the building, she knew that fighting was her only recourse. She screamed, kicked, and flailed around, trying to get free from them, but that was a fruitless endeavor. One of the guys pressed a cloth to her mouth and nose, and she knew that she’d be out in just seconds. As a nurse, was sure that there was no escaping chloroform, and she was correct. When she woke up, she was lying on a dirty concrete floor in a cage that wasn’t much taller than she was.

She had heard about other Indigenous women being taken against their will, and they either were found dead, or gone forever. The speculation around town was that they were taking the women to sell them off at auction. The sad truth was that most indigenous women weren’t found, and most didn’t even have anyone looking for them. They were the faceless, nameless, expendable women that no one cared about—and now, she was one of them.

Most of the women being held by the Devils were in and out of their prisons within weeks—some even days. She envied them until it was her turn to go to auction. Day after day, her captures bragged about being able to get a lot of money for her. They were correct, men spent a lot of money for a woman with her skin tone and long dark hair. What they didn’t count on was that she’d fight like hell when they tried to touch her. was sold off three times at auction and each time, she was returned in under twenty-four hours for being a bitch. The men claimed that she was too difficult to have to deal with and asked for their money back. Her captures didn’t like having to give a refund to her buyers, but she didn’t give a fuck. She didn’t like being sold off and having disgusting, old men try to touch her.

sunk her teeth into the first guy’s right cheek, drawing blood. She refused to let him kiss her, and when he leaned in to take what she wouldn’t freely give up, she bit him. Being backhanded by the asshole was worth the pain, and when he returned her, she thought for sure that the Devils were going to kill her, finding her not worth the effort of having to auction her off again. But they didn’t. Instead, they set up another auction, and she was sold right away.

She nearly castrated the second guy when he got his dick out of his pants and told her to give him a blow job. He wasn’t going to be able to sexually function for a while, and that gave her some sick pleasure. He took her back to the Devils and they tossed her back into her cell. was sure that this time she had gone too far, but the third auction proved her incorrect once again.

The third guy was careless. He had left the knives out and when she got hold of one, she slashed his arm open when he tried to touch her breasts. He needed stitches and delivered her back to the Devils on his way to the ER. She sat in her cell for God knew how long after that. guessed that the third time was the charm, and she hoped that they’d leave her alone, but she was wrong.

A guy showed up at the warehouse where the Devils held their women, and when he stood in front of her cage and said that he wanted to buy her, she felt sick. Her only option was going to be to hurt this guy enough that she’d have time to escape, but she was sure that the Devils had warned him about her inappropriate behavior. His smile was mean, and from the way that he looked at her, she was sure that he was used to getting his way.

He paid for her, and they left immediately. She watched out the window the whole drive to his place, trying to memorize every detail. knew that she’d need to know those details to make her escape because there was no way that she planned on going back to the Devils—ever. This time, she had to do much worse than bite or maim the guy. No, this time, she had to break her oath to do no harm. As a nurse, she knew exactly what she’d have to do to hurt the new buyer enough to buy her time to escape. waited until the guy was sleeping and did what she had to do, but that didn’t mean that she felt okay with stabbing the guy in the chest. She was pretty sure that she hit his right lung, which was no easy feat. She worked the knife around his ribs and when she heard the hissing sound, she knew that she had hit her mark.

Letting him use her body was the price that she had paid. There was no other way to gain his trust. was just glad that it didn’t take very long to do so because if he climbed on top of her one more time, she’d lose her mind. Giving up her body wasn’t easy, but losing her mind wasn’t an option. If her plan worked, she would be going back to her old life, leaving the past six months in her rearview, and for that, she’d need to try to forget the nameless faces that treated her like dirt. Hell, they treated her like less than dirt, and forgetting them would take time.

“Hey,” her new savior shouted at her, bringing her back to the here and now. She must have ignored him the first few times he tried to get her attention. “I’ve been trying to talk to you. I need to know where I’m dropping you off.” That was a good question and one that she had no answer for. Ideas ran through her mind—the airport, a train station, or even a bus station, but all those places would require her to have money, and all she had was the clothes on her back.

“I’m not sure,” she almost whispered. “I don’t have any money and I’m not sure that I even have a place to live anymore,” she admitted. After six months, she had to believe that her father would have given up her lease and put her stuff in storage, or worse, got rid of everything.

“Why wouldn’t you have a place to live anymore?” he asked.

“Because I’ve been,” she hesitated, trying to figure out how to say that she was sold off to be some asshole’s sex slave. “I’ve been away for a while.”

“Like, prison away, or out of town on business away?” he asked. She looked down at her body and back over to him. How could he believe that she was out of town on business? She looked like she had been living on the streets for six months, not living in a nice hotel with three square meals a day.

“I wasn’t away on business or in prison. I don’t want to talk about me anymore,” she insisted.

“Okay, how about you tell me where you lived?” he asked. “We can drive by your place and see what’s going on,” he offered. She couldn’t go back there. The Devils had abducted her there and they would probably look for her there first. The only way to stay out of the Devil’s cage again was to come clean with a total stranger. Maybe she was putting her trust in someone who would only end up screwing her over, but she had no choice.

“I can’t go back there,” she admitted. “They’ll look for me there first.”

“Who are they?” Razor asked.

“It’s not safe to tell you,” she insisted. didn’t want to get anyone else involved in her mess, especially the good Samaritan who picked her up on the side of the road.

“It’s not safe for you or me?” Razor asked.

“It’s not safe for either of us,” she sighed and wondered how much she should tell Razor, and how much she needed to keep to herself.

“How about if you tell me what’s going on, and I’ll try to help you figure out where you need to go,” he said.

sighed, knowing that she wasn’t going to get much further in their conversation, and she was sure that Razor never lost an argument or a debate. “Fine, I was abducted about six months ago,” she admitted. Razor nearly slammed on the brakes, causing her to grab the dashboard.

“You were abducted?” he asked as though he didn’t believe her the first time.

“Yes, just let me get this out,” she ordered. “An MC called the Devils kidnapped me in front of my office building, took me to some warehouse, and put me in a cell. They sold me off at an auction three times, and then, they privately sold me to buyer number four. That’s when I was able to escape.”

“Wait, why did they auction you off three times?” he asked.

“That’s a long story, but the men who bought me kept returning me. Apparently, they didn’t like pain.” She was proud of herself for putting up a fight, and the smug smile on her face was proof of that.

“You hurt them?” he asked.

“Well, it was that or let them rape me,” she spat. “I decided that hurting buyers one through three was a valid option.”

“What happened with the fourth buyer?” he asked.

“Um, I think that I killed him,” she admitted. “I’m an ER nurse, so I know a few tricks about how to hurt someone, and even take them out permanently.”

“You mean, you know how to kill someone,” he corrected.

“Well, yes, but tell a cop that won’t bode well for my case,” she teased. Razor made a U-turn at the closest light and started for town. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Down to the precinct,” he admitted.

“You can’t just arrest me,” she insisted. “I was kidnapped, or did you not hear that part?”

“I heard it,” he assured. “And I’m not taking you down there to arrest you. I’m going to take your formal statement, and then, I’m going to get you set up someplace safe.”

“You don’t have to do all that for me,” she insisted.

“Yeah, I do,” he said. “Remember, I’m a cop, and I’m trained to help people.” She knew that trusting Razor might not be a good idea, but for the first time in a long time, he gave her just a little bit of hope, and that was enough for her.

Razor (Road Reapers MC Book 4) Universal Link-Coming soon!

You also won’t want to miss the new release of The Last First Kiss Series in stand-alone books! Book 4, Theirs to Take, releases on March 27, 2025! Here’s a sneak peek!