AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Crimson blood pools below him, spreading across the table, and seeping into the wood as it flows from a head wound. My heart pounds in my throat—racing so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t give out right here. Lunging forward so fast that my chair slams into the back wall, I reach for him—desperation clawing under my skin.
No. He can’t be dead.
His lifeblood pumps between my fingers as I put pressure on the wound, blue eyes staring up at me—lifeless. Eyes so like Trinity’s that I shudder and bite my tongue to hold back a sob. She’s going to be devastated. My arms shake, and my body trembles, but a brutal certainty sits in my gut.
We’re going to lose him. I’m going to lose him…
“Quick, help me stop the bleeding,” I beg, looking up and into Charming’s face. It’s stark white, as pale as a ghost, but he steps forward to follow my orders before my father instantly barks him back.
“Leave him. Both of you,” he says. His voice is quiet now, cold and lethal as he stalks around the table. He’s everything I hate, everything I never wanted to become. My fingers slide down to Venom’s jugular, searching for a pulse. Even the faintest flutter would have me defying my father—but there isn’t anything.
The urge to scream and howl at the unfairness of it all fills me and burns in my veins. Pirate must die for his sins. But right now, he’s the king. And I don’t even belong at his table.
Stepping back, I slide my hand to my holster—my empty, useless holster. And my heart shatters when I let it fall in surrender.
“This maggot thought he could leave the MC. Leave his brothers,” Prez snaps, grabbing Venom’s lifeless body by the hair. His dark, bloodshot eyes bore into me. He knows. My mouth is drier than a fuckin’ desert. “Does anyone else in this room want to leave?”
His gaze tracks across the room, stopping on each member. Some shake their heads no; others stare at the floor uncomfortably—but it’s clear absolutely no one else is going to say a word.
“Never, Prez! Breakers until our last breath!” someone yells, and others take up the call, shouting and stomping. But my mouth refuses to move, frozen under the weight of Venom’s death. My mind reels.
“What about you, Legacy? Are you a brother or a body?” Pirate asks, pulling his dagger from its sheath and offering it to me—blade first. “Cut his patch off. It’s yours now.”
His order cuts me to the quick, sharper than the dagger that slices my palm as I grasp it. Shaking, I take the weapon from my father, fighting the urge to bury the blood-soaked tip right in his throat. But that’s exactly what he wants. He’s testing me. Practically goading me into showing my disloyalty—turning me into a body.
What choice do I have? There’s no way out.
Blood makes my hand slip as I turn the weapon, and with a gulp, I reach forward to cleave the Vice President’s patch from his cut. Sliding back and forth against the sharp metal, the threads split almost immediately, releasing from the leather with a low hiss.
As soon as it’s off, Pirate and Lash tear the vest from the dead body, letting him fall unceremoniously to the floor. Completely unconcerned by the congealed blood turning black on the table or the splatter that covers the wall behind me.
“Good bitch,” Pirate mutters under his breath, reaching out to clasp my shoulder in what looks like a fatherly gesture but is cruelty incarnate. He grips my graze wound, clamping down so hard that I see stars—but not a single fuckin’ sound passes my lips. Strength is the only way out of this.
And Pirate’s taught me how to take pain better than most.
“You ever think of leavin’ again, and you’ll be the body,” he growls in my ear. “And your punishment’s not over. I. Own. You.”
All the hair on my body stands up, and a shiver slices down my spine. I barely manage to hold back a gag. Bile rushes up my throat. My breath comes in pants, and I stagger under the weight of it all. Pirate pulls his dagger away and then slaps me on the cheek.
“Legacy for VP! All in agreement,” he hollers, and ‘Ayes’ echo around the cavernous room. Swirling around me, swamping me, and threatening to take me under. This is it. There’s no getting away. No life without the MC. No college. No happily ever after with Trinity.
I should have known. Never should have tried. Now I’ll be nothing more than his puppet. A toy for him to abuse and use however he sees fit—just as it’s always been. But it’s worse now.
Brother or body…
“And now, I have a special treat for all of you,” he announces, clapping his hands together like a kid in a candy shop. He spins merrily, ignoring the blood on the walls and the dead brother on the floor, bringing Venom’s cut to the head of the table. He lays it out flat, and we all wait with bated breath.
The room is so taut with tension that it might shatter. A roaring fills my ears.
And then the door flings open, hitting the wall hard enough to make it bounce back, blocking whoever just came in.
But the excitement coming from Pirate turns my veins to ice.
Alarm bells ring in my head.
And then I see it, a strand of long blond hair.
Fuck. No. No. No…
