REBEL
“Well it’s obvious. You can’t do either.”
I drop my head into my hands, groaning. There was no persuading Sophia that she needs to speak out against Los Oscuros. She wouldn’t even listen. She locked herself in the bathroom, and I took the opportunity to leave the cabin, locking the door behind me, too pissed off to try any further. The clubhouse is packed full of Widowers, just like it is every night, but tonight’s different. Tonight they know not to approach the quiet table in the corner of the bar that Cade and I occupy when shit is hitting the fan. If they could see the black bag sitting on the bench in between my second and me they might have tried, though.
“You can’t involve yourself with the DEA, man. And there’s no way the club will pass running Maria Rosa’s blow and dope all over the country for her. She tried to strong arm us into that the last time we got caught up in her shit, remember?”
“I do remember. But it was almost worth the risk back then. We had no other leverage. I thought this time she’d agree just for the sake of fucking with Hector.”
Cade stares grimly down into the bottom of his rocks glass. I know he’s not seeing the burned amber of the whiskey in the bottom, though. He’s thinking about Laura. Laura, my best friend. Laura, Cade’s sister. Laura, who went missing from my father’s estate years ago, never to be seen again. That’s what started this whole fucking thing—the MC, the gun running, the small time weed operation the Widowers sometimes dabble in.
I couldn’t accept Laura was gone. I left home, set up out here, started up the club. Cade came out later. We decided we would try and find her. Made enough mob contacts that we could submerse ourselves into the seedy underworld of skin trading without being suspected as cops. There were rumors about American girls being sold down in Central America. Mexico. Colombia. We tried Mexico first. A skeevy motherfucker in a bar, selling his own sister out of the back of his van, told us he’d seen Laura, yes, but she wasn’t in the country anymore. She’d been purchased by the Desolladors and they’d taken her back to Colombia.
So naturally, that was our next stop. I rolled up on Rico and cut his face open. Cade and I were detained by a very intrigued Maria Rosa for nearly two weeks, during which time she managed to show us that she didn’t have anything to do with Laura’s disappearance, and also convince herself that she was in love with Cade.
When she said we were free to leave, Cade declined Maria Rosa’s invitation to stay behind and be her sex toy, which did not go down well.
Our exodus from Colombia was a rushed one, complete with threats on our lives and absolutely no sign of Laura.
She was in the wind. There were no more leads regarding her whereabouts, no matter which country we asked in or who we asked. Just like that, Laura was gone.
Now, neither of us like talking about her much.
I grind my teeth together, growing more and more restless by the moment. “So what, then? We go after Ramirez on our own?”
“Yeah, sure. If you want to commit suicide and get the rest of us killed, why not? How many Widow Makers are there? Twenty-one? Hectors got forty people around him at all times. And then there are the hundreds of people he has working on the streets. We go against him without support and we’re all dead.”
“Then we do nothing. We forget all about him killing Ryan. I let him get away with it?”
Cade slugs back his whiskey and slams his glass down on the table. “Plan B, man. Use the girl. Get her to stand up.”
I take my own drink in my hands, rolling the glass between my palms. Sometimes alcohol makes me think clearly, can give me a better perspective when I’m trying to solve a problem. Not right now, though. It’s making my head muzzy. “Not an option. Dela Vega told Sophia he’s going after her family. He told her he was gonna rape her fucking sister. She says there’s no way for him to find them if she doesn’t testify.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does if she’s lying about her name, and she’d be stupid not to. I’m sure Raphael doesn’t know her real name, either.”
“Is Danny working on finding out who she really is, then?”
I nod, catching sight of our hacker in the corner, laughing with some brunette I’ve seen him with a couple of times before. He’s the best. If anyone’s going to figure out who this woman is, it’s Danny.
“Okay, well in the meantime you just need to tell her we’ll put a detail on her family,” Cade says. “Promise her that we won’t let anything happen to them.”
I grunt, drinking my whiskey after all. I fucking need it. I doubt my brain cells are gonna come up with anything useful tonight. Might as well kill a few of them off. “She’s stubborn, man,” I say. “Really fucking stubborn. How do you propose I convince her without threatening physical violence?”
Cade slaps me hard on the arm. When I look up at him, there’s a broad grin spreading across his face. “You’re a fool, you know that? I’m pretty sure you could convince any woman in the world to do whatever you wanted. You have a seriously annoying talent for that.”
I glare at him, tapping my finger against the rim of my glass. “What the hell does that mean?”
Cade sighs, leaning closer across the table. “I can’t believe after all these years you’re gonna make me say it. Women find you attractive, asshole. You’re a handsome son of a bitch.” He’s about to finish off his whiskey when he pauses, the glass halfway to his mouth, and says, “Not that I think you’re attractive, though. I think you’re fucking hideous.”
“Right back at ya, fucker.” We raise our glasses, draining what was left in them, and then we sit in silence, listening to the chatter of the club members around us. Carnie’s still trying to crack onto Shay. Pathetic. I lean back in my chair, scrubbing my hands over my face. “So you’re saying I should flirt with her to get her to do what I want? Am I understanding you right here?”
Cade nods gravely. “A means to an end, my friend. And, come on, she’s hardly ugly. I have faith in your ability to mac on some beautiful woman in order to get what you want. You’ve done it a million times before. I’ve witnessed it myself.”
“Fuck you.”
“You deny it?”
I can’t really do that. He’s right. I have used the way I look in the past to get a girl into bed, and I’m not sorry for it. But this is different. This is Sophia’s life, the lives of her family. Can I be a total douche bag and potentially put her whole family in danger to get justice for Ryan?
I pose myself the question because it’s the right thing to do. But I’ve already let that devious, calculating part of me out of its cage today; turns out I haven’t managed to cram him back into his box. I can do it. And using Sophia is a hell of a lot better for a hell of a lot more people than any of the other options open to me. So be it. I’ll win her over and convince her she needs to help us, and I’ll do it fast. That way I can honor what I’ve said to her and get her home quickly. Et voila. Everybody’s fucking happy. Cade refills his glass and holds out the bottle of Laphroaig to me, offering me more. I hold up my glass, resigning myself to my fate. Tomorrow, Operation: Woo Sophia will be in full effect. Cade was right—she’s all kinds of hot—so it won’t exactly be taxing on my part. Might not be as easy as Cade thinks it will be, though. There’s only one reason Ramirez would have sold her at such a high price, and that’s because she must be a virgin. Virgins aren’t exactly the types to jump into bed with a guy just because he pays them a bit of attention. I push that thought from my mind, not wanting to think about claiming this girl’s virginity. A hard-on would be seriously fucking inappropriate, as well as the last thing I need to deal with in the clubhouse. “So tell me, Cade. Which part of me do you think’s my best feature?” I try not to laugh.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” he says, shaking his head. “And it’s getting late. Shall we get things rolling then?” I place my hand on top of the black bag sitting in between Cade and me. My best friend smirks, tipping his glass in my direction.
“I’ll leave this one up to you,” he says.
“Why, thank you.” I may sound sarcastic, but it’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of making a call like this. The Widowers need this, and so do I. The bar’s full, club members drinking at tables and leaning against walls. There are over twenty members to the club, and they’re permitted to bring people into the bar once they’ve been vetted by Danny to make sure they’re not cops. The place can get pretty rowdy. The arrangement isn’t perfect. Fights break out. Members, both male and female, end up sleeping with the wrong person. Shit gets broken. But for the most part we make it work.
I draw some curious looks from the guys closest to me when I get up, Cade’s bag of tricks in my hand. Fatty, the Widowers’ resident bartender and sometimes chef sees me approaching the bar, sees what I have in my hand, and has an unopened bottle of Texas Trader’s Bourbon out on the counter before I can even ask for it. Trader’s is the cheapest, nastiest, shittiest bourbon ever made. I can still remember the bottle I had to finish when I first started this thing. My gut twists, also remembering the vast majority of that cheap, nasty, shitty bourbon coming back up again. Violently.
“I thought this might be coming soon,” Fatty says, breaking into a grin. “You sure he’s ready?”
I knock my fist against the counter, grinning back at him. “Fuck yeah. If the guy can make it through an encounter with Maria Rosa unscathed, he’s earned his ink.”
Fatty laughs, reaching for a pack of smokes and lighting one. “He’s gonna be unbearable after this.”
“Oh, I know. If his head gets too big, you can just kick his ass. Cool?”
“Cool.”
I turn around, finding that the oldest Widow Makers—Keeler, Brassic, Danny, Foxer and Josephine—have already stood up and are waiting with knowing smiles on their faces. Foxer, the guy responsible for managing the grow we have underway beneath the worn floorboards of the barn, is also in charge of new recruits. I’ve already spoken to him about what’s about to take place and he’s green lit the guy. He gives me a sharp nod when our eyes make contact, reaffirming his approval. I may be the head honcho around here, but I don’t have time to personally assess every new recruit we get. I value Foxer’s opinion as much as I do Cade’s, though. He knows what it takes to be a Widower. If he’d said not now, not ready, this wouldn’t be happening.
“Carnie, you ugly motherfucker!” I shout over the top of the chatter in the bar. Carnie, sitting across the other side of the room, immediately looks up, surprise on his face. He pushes his glasses up onto his head and stands. Everyone else is silent. “What’s up, Boss?” he asks.
I collect the bottle of Trader’s off the counter and I crack it open in front of him. I wince as I take the tiniest of sips. Everyone in the clubhouse roars, the sounds of their hollering and cheering set to raise the rafters on the place. Carnie, god bless him, looks around, completely confused. I hand off the bottle to Cade, who also takes a really fucking small sip.
“It’s time,” I tell him. “You’re in.”
More shouting and hollering breaks out, coupled with the thunder of people drumming their hands and feet against the tables, the floor, the bar. Carnie lifts both eyebrows, smiling cautiously. “For real? You’re serious?”
Cade holds up the bottle of bourbon, toasting it at Carnie. “We don’t break out this stuff unless we’re for real, man.”
Nearly everyone in the clubhouse aside from Carnie knows the pain that bottle is going to bring him. There are countless groans as Cade holds it out for Keeler to take. I don’t even need to watch to know he won’t be taking a big mouthful; every single member of the Widowers will drink out of that bottle before it gets passed to Carnie, and no one will want more than a taste of the vile liquid on their tongues.
“What is that?” Carnie asks.
“That, my friend, is a rite of passage. Once everyone’s taken a sip, the rest is for you. And you gotta finish every last drop before I’ll ink you.” I unzip the black bag in my hand and bring out the ink gun that Cade brought home with him from the Dead Man’s ink Bar. It’s been about two years since I’ve tattooed anyone, but that doesn’t matter. This particular tattoo is something I can draw without a stencil. I could probably do it with my eyes closed if I wanted to. Carnie whoops, ripping his Widow Makers MC Prospect T-shirt over his head.
“Bring it on!”
The bar fills with more laughter and shouting as the other club members all gather around Carnie to slap him on the back and welcome him into the fold. Cade leans against the bar beside me, laughing an evil laugh. “Poor bastard’s not gonna be so happy in about an hour,” he says.
And he’s right. Barely an eighth of the Trader’s is gone when it’s handed to Carnie. The guy finally understands what he’s let himself in for when he takes his first big slug from the bottle. His eyes water, his face reddening to a dark crimson. “Holy fuck! This stuff’s worse than lighter fluid.”
By halfway down the bottle, he’s looking more than a little worse for wear. By the time he’s draining the last few drops of bourbon into his mouth, he’s already thrown up twice in the spillage bucket Fatty keeps behind the bar.
When I’m presented with a semi unconscious Carnie, carried between Keeler and Brassic and dumped unceremoniously onto the long wooden table that runs down the center of the room, I’m a little buzzed myself. They lay Carnie out on his front, his back bare and just begging for some fresh ink.
The Widowers surrounding me, each and every one of them wearing their cuts with pride, all stand around and watch as I fire up the tattoo gun and begin my work. Carnie sleeps like a baby through the entire fucking thing. Probably for the best. Three and a half hours later, I’m well and truly fucked on good whiskey and Carnie has a perfectly straight, perfectly perfect Widow Makers New Mexico patch inked into his skin.
“It’s a fucking masterpiece,” Keeler laughs, slapping me on the back. “You’re the only motherfucker I know who can tattoo someone when they’re falling off their fucking chair, Boss.”
“Fuck you, Keeler,” I laugh. “All right. Someone get this sorry bastard out of here. Shay, maybe you can make sure he’s taken care of when he wakes up, huh?”
Shay, the girl Carnie’s been trying to impress since the day we brought him back here as a prospect, shoots daggers at me. “I’m not his goddamn old lady, Rebel. I thought the Widowers didn’t do old ladies?”
Her tone is shitty to say the least. I lift an eyebrow at her, too drunk to be fucked with warning her to watch her mouth, but sober enough to tell her what I think of her attitude with one look. “I didn’t ask you to wipe his ass for him. I asked you to look out for him. We clear?”
She looks away, pouting, staring at the floor. “Sure. Of course.”
“Good.”
Cade’s at my side, then, throwing his arm over my shoulder. “Time we shut this mother down,” he sighs.
“Yeah.”
“You gonna be hung over in the morning?”
I punch him lightly in his ribs. “When have I ever been hung over?” It’s true. I can drink until I pass out—not that I do that very often—and still be fighting fit when I wake up. It’s a god given talent.
“Whatever, man. You need to get your ass to bed. Don’t forget. You have a girl to charm tomorrow.”
I grunt, trying to tell myself that I almost forgot about the beautiful woman I have locked in my cabin over the ridge. That’s pretty fucking laughable, though. Throughout getting Carnie so fucked his eyes began to work independently, and through every minute I was pouring liquor down my throat, marking someone’s skin for life, marking him as one of my own, I hadn’t forgotten about her.
She was all I was thinking about.
It’s three am, when I’m headed in the direction of the cabin, the girl still on my mind, that I get the text from Leah McPherson. I can just about make out the words:
Your father’s term is ending. He needs you to come home and keep up appearances. It’s just for one night, big brother. Will you come?
******
SOPHIA
I lay on the bed, wondering if he’s actually going to return or not. Sleep doesn’t come easily. On my back, staring up at the ceiling, I jump at every sound or creak in the cabin. I want to be alone, but then again I almost find myself wishing Cade or Rebel would come back, simply so I would have someone to be angry at. Being angry at them from afar is just as easy as it is in person, but face to face has its benefits. I’m hoping, despite how futile that hope might be, that one of them will finally realize how evil this is and let me go. Of the two men, my money is not on Rebel. He was so frustrated when I refused to do what he wanted me to. I get the feeling he doesn’t get told no a lot.
I fall asleep eventually. I dream that I’m at Dad’s work, at St. Peter’s, and both Dad and Sloane are working over me, trying to save my life. I have a gaping hole in my chest, and blood is pouring everywhere. Sloane keeps leaving instruments inside my chest cavity. She’s crying and so is Dad, but my sister is inconsolable. She’s sobbing so hard she can barely speak as Dad tells her what to do. I want to remind her to take out the scalpels and retractors and swabs she’s leaving inside me, but my body won’t respond. I have no voice.
Dad straightens up and wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, smearing blood everywhere. His mouth pulls into a tight line—a look of disappointment I’ve seen many times before. “That’s it. She’s a lost cause,” he says. “Nothing more we can do.” He turns to Sloane and throws his arm around her shoulder, pressing a kiss against her temple. “Never mind, pumpkin. I suppose I still have you.” He turns around and begins removing his gloves and gown, but Sloane bends down and whispers in my ear.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men…”
“Stop that, Romera. I told you. She’s gone.” I can’t figure out why Dad’s calling Sloane by her last name. He pulls her away, but she fights him. She grows more and more hysterical and he wrestles with her, dragging her off down a long, white corridor.
“All the king’s horses! All the king’s men! All the king’s horses!”
I’m not listening to her, though. I’m sitting up on the gurney, reaching into my chest, searching for the instruments that were left behind. My fingers don’t touch upon anything for a moment, and then I find what I’m looking for. I remove both hands, covered in blood and gore, but I’m not holding scalpels and swabs. In one hand, I’m holding my fake ID, smeared with blood—Sophia Letitia Marne, smiling out of the photo. In the other hand, I’m holding a gun.
I jerk myself awake, my heart slamming in my chest. For a brief, terrifying moment I think my chest is still open. I clutch both hands to my body, feeling solid ribs and breast and sternum, all rising up and down, up and down way too fast.
“Bad dream?”
I barely bite back the scream that’s building in my throat. Rebel’s standing at the foot of the bed, watching me with his arms folded. With no shirt on. His tattoos aren’t limited to his arms and shoulders. They fan out across his pecs, too, down each side of his body in swirling lines of black and red and green and blue. He looks like he’s posing for Men’s Fitness. Admittedly, with a physique like that, he could legitimately earn good money modeling for those guys. I push myself back in the bed, horrified when I realize I’ve worn that god-awful oversized T-shirt to bed again. “What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting ready to go to my father’s place. I’m taking you with me. Sound good?”
“Only if your father’s place is actually a police station.”
He pouts at me, barely hiding a smile. He looks good when he smiles; I hate myself for acknowledging that, but my brain is still reeling from my nightmare. I’m not equipped to be fending off visions of his near-nakedness right now. “My father’s the governor for the state of Alabama. He’s the chief of police’s boss. Does that count?” he says.
“You’re not from Alabama.”
He smirks now, taking a step closer to the bed. “Why am I not from Alabama?”
“Because you don’t have an accent.”
“Oh, that’s definitive evidence right there. You must be on the money if I don’t drawl, huh?”
I shake my head, trying to pull myself together. “If your father’s the governor for Alabama, why would you take me to see him?”
“Because he’s a righteous asshole and I hate going back there on my own.” Rebel turns away, opening up a closet and pulling out T-shirts and full, button-down shirts. He starts making a pile on the end of the bed.
“No, why would you take me, the girl you’re holding against her will? You have to know I’ll tell him what you’ve done as soon as we walk through the door.”
Rebel reaches up high into the closet and pulls down a North Face duffel bag; he proceeds to place the piles of clothes inside. “You could do that. Or,” he says, looking up at me, “you can come with me and keep your mouth shut. You could let me tell you a little more about the guy you saw stabbed to death in that alleyway. You could listen to everything I have to say, and then, when our trip’s over, you could make your decision—whether you’ll help me or you won’t—based on everything you’ve learned. And then, either way, I’ll let you go.”
“I told you. I’ve already made my decision.”
“Based on no information whatsoever,” he says.
“I’m sorry. Like I said, I have family to protect.”
He carries on placing clothes into the bag at the foot of the bed. I watch for a moment, distracted by the shift of his muscles and the powerful lines of his shoulder blades. He’s quiet, not looking at me as he works, but then he says, “Okay. Fine. I’m gonna be gone five days. You can stay here and stare at the television. And when I get back, we’ll fit you out in a room in the clubhouse. You should be relatively safe in there. Though, there’s a lot less to do, of course. And no TV. Just four walls and a bed.”
“You just said you’d let me go either way!”
“Only if you come with me to my father’s place and suffer though his annual charity gala with me.”
I just stare at him. I can’t figure out what the hell is going on with this guy. He’s rude, abrasive and pushy, and now he wants me to go on a road trip with him? “All right, fine. I’ll come with you. But this is a complete waste of time. I’m not going to change my mind. You may not like your family very much, but I love mine. I won’t do anything to jeopardize their safety.”
I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. I must be crazy. Scrambling out of the bed, I tug the T-shirt down in an attempt to cover my thighs. Rebel stops what he’s doing and watches me, a smile clearly itching at the corners of his mouth.
“If I come with you to Alabama, you have to swear you’re not going to rape me.”
He almost chokes on his laughter. “I swear, I’m not planning on raping you.”
“And you have to promise you’re not going to sell me or loan me out to any of your friends so they can rape me.”
Rebel holds up three fingers—scout’s honor. I doubt this man was ever a scout, and even if he was, the bastard never had any honor. “There will be no raping of any kind, performed by anyone while you are under my protection. Louis’ old Princeton pals get a bit frisky when they’re on the sauce, but I swear I will defend you to the hilt.”
I fold my arms across my chest, shooting daggers at him. “Well, all right then.”
“And Sophia?”
“You’d better swear the same. From your choice of T-shirt slogan, I’m a little worried.”
“What? What do you mean?” I look down at the shirt. It Ain’t Gonna Suck Itself.
“One of my boys went to Thailand last year. Said half the chicks there had dicks. Are you—”
“No! God! This is your shirt.”
He runs his hand through his thick dark hair, sending it sticking up in eight different directions. It still somehow looks like it was styled that way by a hairdresser. “Nope. That is not mine,” he tells me. “I would hate to hazard a guess as to who it does belong to.”
“Urgh!” I’m about to reach for the hem and tear the thing off over my head when I realize I’m not wearing anything underneath. Rebel has the look of a positively evil school kid when I glance up at him. He probably thought he was going to get a free show. I shove past him, into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. This room has fast become my safe place. How am I going to cope without a separate space to shut myself away when I need to? How am I—
“Hey, Soph?” Rebel’s muffled voice comes through the door. He sounds close, as though he’s leaning into the wood, speaking softly. There must only be a couple of inches between our bodies. I take a step back.
“What?”
“Y’all should know, ah’m definitely from ’Bama, baby. Any tahm y’all wan’ proof, alls y’all gotta do is holler.” He laughs as he moves away from the door, and I rip the T-shirt off over my head, growling under my breath.
The man is a nightmare.