Cutter 5: Red Sin Mc (3 page)

Didn’t anyone
understand that I had better things to do?

Like drink away my
sorrows.

“Cutter,” Ace
said, moving toward me and taking the bottle out of my hand. “This is Alexis,
she came here looking for you.” He glanced at the girl again. “She really needs
to talk to you about her sister.”

I went to reach
for the bottle but Ace handed it off to Blaze who handed it off to Heather who
tossed it behind the bar. Ugh, that game had been funny when she’d done it to
Blaze. When she did it to me? Not so much.

I turned my
attention back to the girl. She was staring at Ace’s muscles now like they were
painted on. God, if he didn’t get her out of here soon she was going to start
drooling all over the fucking floor. I shot Ace a frustrated look, he could at
least act like she existed. I’d always thought he was too fucking picky. Sure,
she wasn’t flashy but she was cute enough, he could at least hit it a few times
to make her feel better. I would have.

“Okay, kid, I’ll
bite,” I said looking at her. Up close she was younger than I originally
suspected. Still, she was legal. Ace could be so damn selfish. “What do you
want?” I grabbed a toothpick off the bar and turned it over in my mouth a few
times before spitting it onto the floor.

Alexis stared at
the toothpick with wide eyes.

Krusher watched
her gaze and bent down to pick it up. “Littering is a series offense that is
punishable by law in the form of 90 days in jail or a one thousand dollar
fine.” He shot Alexis a wink and threw the toothpick across the bar where it
landed with a clean thud straight into the garbage.

“None of that is
even true,” Heather said to Krusher.

“Don’t wink at
her,” Ace said to Krusher.

“Why do you spend
so much damn time correcting him?” Blaze asked Heather about Krusher, an
accusing tone in his voice like she had betrayed him. “Why do you care so much
about him?”

Ugh, why the fuck
couldn’t everyone just leave me alone?

“ENOUGH!” I
snapped, standing up from the bar and shoving the stool across the room with my
bloody hand. “CAN’T ALL OF YOU JUST UNDERSTAND THAT I WANT TO BE LEFT THE FUCK
ALONE?”

The place was
silent, everyone staring at me, but I could have cared less. Now they all
wanted to shut the hell up, after they’d already pushed me to the limit.
“Forget it,” I mumbled, turning around and heading toward the door at the front
of the building.

I needed to get
away from them and everyone else in the world.

“Cutter, wait!”
Ace called.

“Let him go,” I
heard Blaze tell him.

“Grace!” The young
girl called out. “Please, it’s about Grace!”

I stopped in my
tracks and swung around. “Grace?”

And suddenly it
all made sense. That skin tone, those eyes, the way she took a few steps
forward trying to gather up some courage. She even walked like her sister.

“Grace,” Alexis
said. “Grace is my sister and I need your help.”

And for the first
time in two weeks someone had my attention.

Chapter Three

GRACE

I knew something
bad was about to happen even before Clause turned the T.V. off and snapped his
head around to look at the door. “Did you hear that?” He asked me paranoid. We
both listened for a second and when nothing further came he shook his head. “I
thought I heard something.”

I had, too.

But it was tough
to know since Clause had done this four times since Lance left a few hours
earlier. He was starting to really freak me out. He’d called whoever the heck
was running the show and asked permission to move me, but he hadn’t gotten it.
Whoever it was had assured Clause he would take care of Lance, assured him he
wouldn’t be coming back for a round two.

Clause still
seemed uneasy and it made me uneasy.

“I don’t
understand why you’re so nervous, if your leader said he would handle it, wont
he handle it?” The idea of someone not doing something that whoever was in
charge said in a brotherhood was foreign to me. Cutter would never put up with
something like that.

“You would think,”
Clause said, pulling back the curtain and glancing out the window. “But
sometimes Lance does what he wants no matter what anyone tells him. Finding out
I ran to brothers higher up might just piss him off even more.”

“You mean he
disobeys and lives to talk about it?” I chuckled. “What kind of people do you
have running this club of yours anyway? Sounds to me like they don’t have much
control over the members.”

“Shhh,” Clause
said as he stepped away from the window. “What was that?” He crossed the room
and looked out the peephole into the hallway, stretching his eyes back and
forth to make sure he got every inch possible in the frame.

“I think you’re
being paranoid,” I whispered.

He backed away
from the door and sighed. “Maybe you’re right, I think I’ll call some backup
just to be sure, though.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started
typing in a new number.

He didn’t get far.

The door to the
room was kicked in within seconds and four men charged in out of nowhere. Lance
was the last one in and he slammed the door behind him, a grin on his face.
“Honey, I’m home!”

They had Clause on
the floor within seconds, both of his guns in their hands and his body being
held down by Lance’s three goons. Clause wasn’t pussy enough to look scared but
I knew that he knew this wasn’t going to end good for him. He wasn’t weak and
he wasn’t a pansy but he was outnumbered and four against one would never be a
fair fight. Even for the strongest of men. He shot me a sad half smile, telling
me it was okay.

And for a second I
believed him.

And then the first
blow came.

Straight across
Clause’s head and blood fell to the carpet.

I’d seen a guy
knocked out before, punched hard in the face. But not like this. Never like
this. You would think seeing people murdered in front of me would prepare me
for this scene but it didn’t.

At least when you
shoot someone it’s fast.

This started slow
and I could tell that it was going to end just as slow.

They started by
taking turns digging their boots into his body, each stomp going harder and
harder into his flesh. Lance was the leader, ordering them around about what to
do and when to do it.

Each time Clause
cried out he laughed.

I held myself
together the best I could, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing
me cry but when it neared the end I couldn’t hold back any longer. “NO!” I
screamed out over and over again.

Lance came close
to me and grabbed me by the back of my head. He brought his lips toward his and
kissed me hard on the lips. He brought his fingers up and pried them between my
lips, forcing them open and sticking his tongue inside. He tasted like smoke
and stale burgers, the smell alone made me want to lunge up the contents of my
stomach.

I tried to push
him off me, but he pushed my hands behind my back.

When he finally
pulled away a second later he grinned, giving me one last lick across my face.
“Damn, slut, you taste fucking good.” He pecked at my lips. “We’re going to
have some fun tonight.”

“Fuck you!” I
screamed, pounding my fists against his chest.

“Oh, you will,” he
said. “Trust me.” He pulled on a fist full of my hair and cracked my head back
around the floor on the other side of the room where Clause was getting his
body smashed into the carpet. “HARDER!” He yelled. “KICK HIM HARDER!”

I could hear some
of his bones cracking loudly.

“Stop! Please!
He’s had enough! He’s had enough!”

“Look at all that
blood,” Lance said. “You see it? And do you hear that? Do you hear him
whimpering like the little bitch he is?” He pushed my head toward Clause
harder, causing my eyes to pop out of my head more. “That’s your fault,” he
hissed. “You did that to him.”

Tears filled my
eyes.

“How does that
make you feel? To know that because he defended you it’s going to cost him his
life?” He let go of my head a little and threw his head back, laughing loudly.
“Stop,” he called out. “Stop.”

The brothers came
to a holt, listening to their commander and chief.

Lance dragged me
over to Clause. His body was covered with blood; I could barely even make out
his face. He let out a few low moans, probably some of the last things he would
ever say. My heart stung, Lance was right, this was all my fault. I was the one
who’d made the dumb decision to come here in the first place. What had I
thought would happen?

I was such an
idiot.

The more I thought
I was growing up, the more I stayed the same.

“Now, since this
is your fault, you’re going to be the one to finish him off,” Lance whispered
in my ear. “I want you to be the one who gives him the last blow, the last
person he’s going to see before he goes to hell is you. The last thing he’s
going to hear is the sound of your voice as he takes his last breath, the woman
who ended his life.” Lance sounded happy, he was taking pleasure in watching me
cry, taking satisfaction in blaming this whole thing on me.

I forged out of
Lance’s grasp and threw myself down next to Clause’s body, running my hands all
over his fucked up face. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whispered over and over
again. I was getting his blood all over me but I didn’t care, I was too upset
to care about anything other than him.

Hours before he
had been my least favorite of Green Grove’s members and now, now I just wanted
him to be okay because the truth was none of the other brothers who had been
watching me over the past few weeks would have done what he had. None of them
would have stood up to Lance like that, none of them would have gotten him out
of here and off of me. No, they would have looked the other way. They would
have let him have his way with me.

Lance grabbed me
and yanked me back up toward my feet. “Okay, okay, that’s enough with the
dramatics, girl.” He shook my body back and forth like a plastic toy. “Let’s
just get on with it.” He padded my leg hard. “Step on him right here,” he said
pointing to the center of his own forehead as an example. “As hard as you can
until I tell you to stop.”

I shook my head.
“I can’t, I can’t. I won’t.”

Lance kissed me
again. “You can do it, baby, and you will. And then,” he whispered, pressing
his hand hard into the small of my back and running it up and down the skin
inside of my shirt. “Then we’re going to go over to that bed and you’re going
to give me the ride of my life.” He backed away and waved his hands around the
room in a circle. “AND THEN YOU'RE GOING TO GIVE MY FRIENDS HERE THE RIDE OF
THEIR LIVES ONE BY ONE!” He screamed out loudly.

Cheers and hollers
erupted all over the room.

“WHAT DO YOU SAY,
BOYS, YOU WANT TO RUN A TRAIN ON OUR NEW LITTLE FRIEND HERE?” Lance moved
closer to me and tore my shirt down the middle, revealing my bra and shoving
his hand over one of my boobs. “I PROMISE YOU THEY’RE REAL!”

Hoots and hollers
rang out around me.

“Yeah, Lance!
Let’s nail the slut!”

“Take that bra
off!”

“Show us her
pussy!”

“Look at the
fucking slut enjoying this!”

Lance laughed the
harder I tried to fight and gave me another deep kiss; this one was really wet
and hungry. He was getting worse, more aggressive, he wanted me and he wanted
me more than he had before.

“I promise you she
tastes as sweet as pineapple,” he said to the others when he pulled away from
me. “But first thing is first.” He shoved me toward Clause again. “Do what the
fuck I told you to do and finish the pussy off.”

I looked down at
Clause whimpering and knew right away I couldn’t do it. There was no way I was
going to let them think that any part of this was okay with me. I’d rather die
myself than help them kill someone who had only been kind to me. I didn’t care
what they did to me, nothing could be worse than the pain I was feeling by
being away from Cutter anyway.

I spun away from
Clause’s body and spit directly in Lance’s face and then made a run for the
door. I actually made it all the way there but the handle was locked when I
tried to jiggle it open. The only way to open it was with a key, a key that I
didn’t have.

I tried to kick it
open but only managed to get a few blows out before Lance had his paws on me
again, dragging me backward and throwing my body down on the floor hard.

He dug my spit out
of his eye and looked down at me, chuckling. “Oh, you’re going to wish you
didn’t do that.” He motioned for his brothers to move forward, closing in on
me. “Whoever makes the bitch cry the loudest gets a special reward at the end.”

And then the
beating began.

Chapter Four

CUTTER

Grace’s little
sister sat at the bar, a diet coke and a bowl of peanuts in front of her. She
kept turning the straw paper over in her hands over and over again. Half of the
time she was sneaking glances at me, curious about the man who her sister
belonged to. The other half of the time, she was sneaking glances at Ace;
curious about the man she couldn’t seem to get out of her head. Not that he
seemed to notice.

“So,” she said slowly,
picking up a peanut then setting it back down a second later. “You and my
sister are like… a couple or something like that?” She looked me up and down
with an unsure expression on her face.

I didn’t really
blame her for being skeptical; I wasn’t exactly looking my best these days. I
ran my hands over the untrimmed stubble on my face and half smiled. “Yeah, or
something like that.”

She glanced around
the bar, taking it all in. “And these people are all your… your… your biker
army?” She practically choked on her words, her nerves taking over for a final
time.

Ace chuckled from
the other side of me and Alexis turned red.

She was definitely
Grace’s sister.

“These are my
brothers,” I corrected her.

“Right, but you’re
like their leader?”

I shifted the way I
did every time anyone brought up my status in the club. It wasn’t something
that you were supposed to willingly talk about with any outsiders. Especially
ones who were as innocent as Grace’s sister.

“Yeah,” Blaze
said. “He is.” He put his hand on my shoulder, coming to my rescue the way he
always did when something happened that I might get uncomfortable or lose my
cool about.

Krusher huffed.
“Well, he’s not all of our leaders.”

“And not all of
you are my brothers,” I growled back.

Krusher laughed,
unoffended as always.

“Then you have to
help me!” Alexis cried, tugging on my arm. “You have to help me find my sister!
I think the police have taken her away and locked her up!”

Suddenly, she was
brave and wild, jumping off her stool and tugging at me like I was the big
brother she had never had. “Please, Cutter, something is really wrong with her,
I know it.” Tears started filling up her eyes. “She’s in danger, I can feel
it!”

I glanced at Blaze
and Ace for a little help.

“I can feel it,
too!” Heather cried out before either of them had a chance to react. “I’ve been
feeling it for weeks just like you have!” My little sister said to Grace’s.
“What we need to do is take matters into our own hands, hold a protest down at
the police station! We’ll see how long they want to keep her once the local
news gets involved.”

Oh, for fucks
sake.

Alexis’s eyes grew
wide. “You really think that’s necessary?”

“Of course, it
isn’t necessary!” I told her. Great, just what I needed, another little sister
that Heather was able to get just as worked up about nonsense as she was. “A
little help here?” I asked, glancing at Blaze.

“On it,” Blaze
said, picking Heather up by her elbows and pushing her toward the back door,
the way he always did whenever she put her nose in our business and started
talking nonsense about things she knew nothing about.

“Alexis,” I said,
pulling her attention away from my insane little sister. “I really appreciate
the fact that you were willing to come down here and talk to me. Trust me, I
do, I know that couldn’t have been an easy decision to make. But, the thing is
that I don’t think your sister wants to be found. She’s shut off all
communication with the outside world.” I looked away from her eyes, the eyes
that reminded me too much of Grace.

“That’s one of the
reasons I know something is wrong!” Alexis grabbed a hold of my sleeve again.
“She wouldn’t do that, she would have at least said goodbye! I know her! It’s
always just been me and her ever since… well, since I could remember.”

I picked up a
random bottle of beer and started drinking, suddenly feeling more miserable
than before. Like I didn’t feel like a big enough piece of shit as it was. Now,
I had to worry about breaking up her family, too. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

I could feel Ace
tense up beside me in disapproval.

Krusher let out a
low whistle and looked away.

“What?” I snapped
at them, taking another swig of my beer. “What do you want me to do? I’m the
damn reason she took off in the first place. Nothing I can do can help her.”
Who the hell were they to judge me, anyway? They knew nothing about what the
fuck I was feeling right now.

Or what I had been
feeling for weeks.

“But you aren’t!”
Alexis pleaded. “I don’t know what went wrong with the two of you but I know
that if Grace was trying to let go of something she would come home to do it,
she wouldn’t just go off on her own.”

I shook my head.
“That was before she met me.” I looked down at her huge eyes, begging me for
help, any kind of help. “I changed the way she looked at things. I changed the
way she looked at the world.” I ran my fingers back and forth over my throbbing
temple. “Like I said, I can’t help you. Please, just…” I trailed off. “Just go
away.”

“Won’t you even
try?” Alexis whispered. “I’m sorry, it’s just, everything is such a mess at
home. My mom barely sleeps she’s so worried, and that cop keeps showing up,
demanding to know where Grace is. He won’t stop and it’s just, it’s making
everything worse. I know that I’m just some kid to you, but please, can’t you
even try?”

I could feel Blaze
next to me, having handled Grace. And suddenly I was very aware of all three of
their sets of eyes on me, studying my every move and twitch. Blaze, Ace, and
somehow Krusher were trying to be my voice of reason.

“Of course, he
will try,”
Ace
said from next to me, sitting up.

“Yeah,” Blaze
nodded. “Someone told me a long time ago that if you can still try then it’s
never really over.” He nudged his shoulder into mine, using my own words of
advice against me.

“Great!” Alexis
squealed. “Thank you!”

“No!” I said
forcefully. “NO!” I glared at Blaze. “I said no! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!” I
growled at her, not caring anymore that she was Grace’s sister because the
truth was having her here just added to my pain. The cops didn’t have Grace,
that didn’t even make any sense. And neither did anyone else. Grace was gone
because she wanted to be. That was something that I had to deal with, and the
sooner her sister started to deal with it, too, the better off she would be.

Alexis sighed.
“Fine! I’ll go, but I’m telling you that I need your help and if you care about
my sister at all then that should mean something to you.” She placed a small
white card on the bar. “This is my number, I’ll be in church this afternoon,
but you can call me anytime after three.”

Ace chuckled at
her church comment.

It had been a long
time since Ace believed in anything.

I was starting to
feel the same way.

“Please,” Alexis
said one last time before she turned around and walked out of the door. I
listened to her footsteps leave the building and closed my eyes, imagining how
Grace would react if she had known her sister had come to me for help and I’d
turned her away.

My brothers and
Krusher were silent, all of them probably thinking the same things that I was.
I could live without Grace but I would be a nightmare and if there was a
chance, even a little one, that she still wanted me the way I wanted her then
didn’t I have to fight for it?

I didn’t care
about the dumb deal she’d made with my father, I didn’t care that he was an
asshole who manipulated everyone around him to get whatever the hell he wanted.
I would protect Grace until the very last breath if it came down to it.

“Anyone feel like
going to pay a visit to a douchebag cop?” I sighed.

Ace grinned. “Hell
yeah.”

“That a boy!”
Blaze said, shoving me in the shoulder the way he always did when he was proud
of me. “I knew you’d come around!” He ruffled my already messy hair like I was
his little brother who’d just hit his first home run. Or gotten a taste of his
first pussy.

“I’m in,” Krusher
said, dropping the bag of chips he’d starting to munch on. “Causing some bodily
harm to cops is my favorite kind of bodily harm to cause.” He grinned with a
newfound glisten in his eye.

Blaze and Ace
glared at me.

“Sure,” I
shrugged. “I mean
,
you can do whatever you want,
right?” I got up from my spot at the bar and grabbed my leather jacket off the
stool next to me, swinging it over my shoulders. “You’re the one who’s in
charge around here, Krusher, what with all the secrets you keep.”

“Great!” Krusher
said, ignoring the digs about my twin. “Let’s get moving then! Where I come
from we spend less time talking about the shit we do and actually do it!” He
grabbed his own jacket and headed toward the front door like he was the one
calling the shots.

I rolled my eyes
and vowed to deal with him once and for all once I figured this shit out with
Grace. Blaze huffed and puffed next to me, complaining. I threw my hand over
his shoulder the same way he had done to me only seconds before and grinned.
“That a boy!”

“Real cute,” he
mumbled.

Twenty minutes
later we were in front of the cops house that had been hanging around Grace’s
house looking for her and bothering her family. I’d had his address since the
first day he stopped over but I was under the impression that it had been an
isolated incident, one that involved him leaving them alone for good after. It
was a scare tactic cops used sometimes, showing up somewhere one time just so
that they could scare someone into thinking they were in trouble and find out
what they knew.

I swung the front
door open and threw my legs down onto the pavement, I wasn’t in the mood to
drag this bullshit out, I was too pissed off for that. I took each step toward
the front of his house like I was on my way to an execution that I’d been waiting
years to see and I couldn’t be a fraction of a second late.

“This seems well
planned out,” Blaze said from next to me.

Ace laughed.
“Yeah, not our best home invasion.”

“Plan?” Krusher
asked. “What plan? The plan is that we pound down the door, get in there, and
beat the shit out of this pig.” He scoffed. “There’s no plan they say.”

Blaze sighed. “I’m
so glad Krusher acts like he’s part of our crew now.”

“For real,” Ace
said. “Don’t you have your own band of brothers you should be taking care of?”
He dodged past Krusher so that he’d be the last one through the door.

All three of them
sounded like echoes to me, like distant voices somewhere playing in the back of
my mind. “Can all of you shut the hell up so that we can get this over with?”

I dodged up the
front porch and kicked in the door as hard as I could. The side of the wood
cracked loudly and the door caved in easily. I drew my gun and entered the
front hallway forcefully.

A few children and
a woman were in the living room, they started screaming and running in all
different directions when they saw me. “Ace,” I demanded. “Do something with
the kids.”

“On it,” Ace said,
taking off after them.

I heard footsteps
flying around rapidly above us and motioned for Blaze to follow me, Krusher
followed even though I didn’t motion for him to do shit. I took the steps up
two at a time, not wanting to waste any time. The longer I took to get up
there, the more chance there was that he would find and pull his weapon. Or put
a call into his family in blue.

We checked the
first two rooms with no luck and then found the great detective in the third,
fishing under his mattress for what I could only assume was his gun.

“Don’t you even
fucking think about it,” Krusher barked. He had produced a huge gun out of
nowhere and had it aimed right at the cop’s head. “Step back! STEP THE FUCK
BACK! NOW!”

For the first time
since we had taken Krusher that night I could see the leader in him. His voice
was hard and demanding, challenging anyone to disobey him. He had a wild look
in his eyes, one that looked red with rage and had zero sympathy.

The cop backed
away from the bed, holding his hand up in the air. “Who are you? What do you
want?” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked back and forth between
the three of us and then realization crossed his face. “Wait a minute, I know
you!” he said, looking between Blaze and me. “I know both of you!” He tried to
run past us, panic setting into his bones. “MY CHILDREN! PLEASE, MY WIFE!”

Krusher knocked
him backward with the top of his gun. “
your
kids are
fine and they’ll stay that way as long as you behave yourself.” He backed up
toward the door, glancing up and down the hall to keep look out.

I wasn’t in the
mood to talk. I kicked the piece of shit in the stomach instead, causing his
body to fall from hallway down on his knees to all the way down. Next, I took
my head and pistol-whipped him across his fucking head. Light red blood started
zooming out of him. I sniffed the air, enjoying the stench of his veins
splattering out all around him. I hit him again and there was more oozing. His
blood was light, too light, like no one else I’d ever hurt before.

“Okay, okay,” he
cried out, covering his face with his hands. “You have my attention, you have
my attention. What do you want? You want money is that it? I don’t keep much in
the house but I have some! I have something!” He pleaded, looking up at me.

Krusher snickered
from the hallway. “Money we have.”

“Then what? What
do you want?” His eyes darted back and forth between the three of us then
paused on Krusher again. “Aren’t you wanted?” he stuttered. “Isn’t there a
warrant out for your arrest?”