Page 11 of Destroyed (American Street Kings 4)

“You okay?”

I grinned. “Just peachy.”

“You and Neon?”

“What about us?”

He rubbed his fingers down his beard. “Is she still assaulting you with her boot?”

“Daily.” We both smiled. Neon was known for her hotheadedness—especially when it came to me. For some reason, I annoyed her more than anyone else in this goddamn club, and everyone knew it. It was starting to become the club joke around here, but it was also starting to become personal—for me, anyway.

Dutch got up, his bald head all fucking shiny under the dim light. “Don’t give up.”

“Give up on what?”

“On Neon. No matter how many times she shuts you out, don’t give up on her.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, leaning back in my seat and letting his words sink in. “I won’t.”

“Good. She needs you, even if she doesn’t know it yet.”

I nodded, and Dutch walked out, but not before he paused and looked back at me. “Also, keep an eye on her…you know, her addiction to coke. I’d hate to see her lose herself to that shit again. And since you have the same history, I’m sure you’ll see the signs long before any of us do.”

“There’s not a chance in hell I’d let her go down that road again.”

Dutch nodded then left me alone with my thoughts. Neon and I were the only two here who had a history with drugs. My poison, heroin. Hers, cocaine. Maybe that was another reason I had always felt so drawn to her, like she knew me better than anyone else. She knew what it felt like to drown with every breath, your veins smothered with a craving you couldn’t control. Getting high was the only way to get oxygen back in your lungs, to get your heart pumping again. There was a time in my life when I was sure I’d die in a ditch somewhere with a needle stuck in my arm. But then I found the Kings—or rather, they found me. Granite’s dad refused to let the drugs take me, and it was the same with Neon.

I could still remember the day she walked into the bar, high as a fucking kite. A few guys saw her as an easy target for a quick fuck, but Stone saw a girl worth saving. Fists flew, f-bombs got dropped, and a few weeks later, Neon was clean and a part of the club.

But Dutch was right. If there was ever a time for Neon to be tempted to fall back into old habits, it was now, and I’d rather swallow glass and tear my own fucking spleen out than let that happen. Just thinking about it had my blood seething, waking a frantic need to go torture the snake—get some reprieve from the demons that raged inside me.

I hated that I was lying to my brothers—or rather, not telling them my secret. But I wanted the snake to be mine and mine alone for just a little longer so I could extract every ounce of revenge I craved from his veins. I wasn’t ready to share him with the others yet, and since I wasn’t calling the shots in this club, I couldn’t risk someone else making the decisions when it came to him. Right now, I had the control and the power to play God and bring the devil to his knees. I wasn’t ready to give it up or share it with everyone else. The only other person I’d share it with, the only person who deserved a piece of the retribution of watching him suffer, was her. Neon. The woman who unknowingly owned me. Every part of me that wasn’t corrupted with hate and a need for vengeance belonged to her, and only her.

Earlier, when I had Neon in my arms, it felt like everything about my life clicked into place—just for a few seconds before she tore herself away from me. Her tears still stained my shirt, and I could still smell her floral scent. Vanilla orchids. A lot of fucking vanilla orchids.

I glanced down at my wrist and the Tao inked in Chinese there. It meant road, channel, path. That was what I found when I joined the Kings—my own path, which had now turned into a bloody one.

5

Neon

I hadn’t slept morethan three hours in the last two days. It had been a while since I had trouble sleeping. Not even the sleeping pill Alyx gave me at night worked anymore. It wasn’t nightmares that kept me up, but rather this feeling of foreboding that weighed heavily inside my gut, like the world would get ripped from beneath my feet at any moment. It was a familiar feeling, something I experienced while I had four men tearing away at me like famished demons, using me like I was nothing but a lifeless doll incapable of feeling pain. Their voices, their laughs, their grunts of pleasure—it haunted me more than the memory of pain. A severed finger, a leg broken in two different places, a face full of scars, and the skin on my back scorched like hell had been unleashed on my body—none of that compared to the horror of hearing the beasts’ roar of pleasure as they tore me apart. I would gladly hang from a ceiling with hooks torn through the flesh again if it meant I could get rid of their voices inside my head. It was far worse than having my body mutilated. My body was healing, little by little, but my mind was destroyed. No matter how hard I tried, there was no getting rid of the memories, the images, the sounds. It was always there, set on replay, cursing me into reliving it every goddamn minute of every day. There was no escaping it. Ever.

Sitting with my back against the headboard of my bed, I stared down at my leg, the brace both a cruel reminder and a sign of hope. Doc wasn’t sure whether my leg would heal, yet it seemed like it was. So, there was hope. But it would forever be a reminder of what happened to me—the limp I’d have for the rest of my life would be like a fucking souvenir from the time of my destruction.

I pressed my palms against my eyes, the faint echo in my thoughts a warning that the voices were returning.

My little blue-haired pixie…

Scream for me…

Cry for me…

Give me your tears…

Bleed for me…

I want to hear you tear apart from the inside…

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