Page 111 of Ghost

Luna

My wrists ache frombeing 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 outof 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 fixthis 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 arebound 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.

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