Chapter 11
Ace
The next morning, I left Elena asleep in bed, and I snuck out of Kelley’s apartment, hoping that she hadn’t heard us the previous night. I was just about to get on my bike and head back to my place to shower and change when my phone rang. It was my mother calling.
“Mijo, I need your help,” her voice cracked as she spoke into the phone.
“Is everything alright?” I asked her, already preparing to ride away.
“I had a fall,” she said.
“I’m on my way.”
I reached her house and parked my bike in a hurry before I ran up the steps to her apartment on the second floor. It had been three years since I found this new place for her to live in. All my life, I had worked towards earning enough to take care of my family and now finally, I could. My life had changed ever since I joined the Roarin’ Rebels and now I could do the things I always wanted to do for mom, which included buying her a safe and spacious new apartment to live in. I also made sure that she always had new clothes to wear and her pantry was stocked with food. Whatever had happened to me in my teenage years was not her fault. It had all been my dad’s doing.
I burst through her front door and found mom lying on her living room couch. The television was on mute in front of her, and she had one leg raised up.
“Are you bleeding? Did you break anything?” I rushed to her and knelt down beside her on the rug.
“No, just a sprained ankle, mijo,” mom reached for my face and stroked my cheek affectionately. She had fought hard against my father when he traded me in with the Snake Skulls; essentially selling me into slavery. But against the physical and mental abuse of my father, neither she nor I were immune. She was powerless, spoke very little English at the time, and had no friends or family to turn to. She had left her life in Mexico, and immigrated with my dad to America at a young age and since then, she had been alone. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep me safe from him.
I sat down on the rug now, pressing my back against the legs of the coffee table that I’d bought her a few months ago. Now, she was at peace. My dad had been dead for four years, and I knew she was proud of me. Proud that I had escaped the clutches of Snake Skulls and managed to make a life for myself. I looked into her aging face and saw a woman who had lived a hard life and had tried her best to give her son a better one. She had failed, at most of it other than raising someone who was strong and could stand up for what he believed in.
“Are you okay, mama’? Should I take you to the doctor?” I asked her, resting my arms on my folded-up knees and she shook her head. Some strands of her graying hair came loose from her bun and fell around her face.
“It’s just a sprained ankle, mijo; I just need to rest it for a few hours,” she spoke in Spanish to me and smiled. “I called you because I’ve run out of milk and eggs and I thought maybe you could do some grocery shopping for me,” she added, and I nodded.
“I’ll go in a bit,” I said to her, and she moved, trying to sit up straight so she could see me better.
“Keep lying down, mom, you need your ankle to heal properly,” I said and patted her knee. A few moments of silence passed between us, while she watched me closely. I had made it a habit to visit her once every week to keep an eye on her, and I knew mom could tell that there was something on my mind. Although, sometimes now, I wondered if Elena knew me even better, better than my mother ever could. Now, of course, too much time had passed, and I wondered if she was the same person anymore.
“You know you can tell me anything, Ace,” she spoke in Spanish again, and I met her eyes. She had interrupted my thoughts about Elena, but I wanted to have a conversation with her that I had never dared before. I believed it was time. I couldn’t just sweep the subject under the rug anymore. Maybe it was the fact that Elena was back, but I needed to know answers.
“Mom, why did dad sell me to Snake Skulls? You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too painful for you,” I said and aimlessly dug at the threads on the side of my jeans. Around my mother, I always felt like a small boy again, and now especially since she was watching me so keenly. Her lips quivered as she spoke, even though I could tell that she was trying to keep her head held high.
“He owed them money,” she said flatly, and I looked up at her. My brows crossed and she shrugged her shoulders.
“It’s as simple as that, mijo. Your father gambled, he drank a lot…you know all this. Well, he borrowed heavily from Snake Skulls and couldn’t pay them back. Duncan Luis made a deal with your father, claiming that all his debts would vanish if he traded you in for his fighting rings. A lion cub was worth a lot,” mom’s voice was cracking again as she spoke and I reached for her. She slid over the edge of the couch as she clung to me and I could feel my jacket wetting where she was crying on my shoulder. I patted her back as her body shook.
“I tried to stop him, mijo. I wish I could!”
“I know you tried, and I also know what kind of man he was,” I comforted her. The purpose of this conversation wasn’t to remind my mom how she had failed me as a parent, and it was because I wanted to know the truth. Nobody had ever told me how Duncan got a hold of me, but I always had the feeling that my dad owed the man something. I had always promised myself I wouldn’t ever become the savage animal my father was. A lone beast.
“The gang forced us…forced your father, just like they are doing it to Duncan now,” she cried, and I pulled away from her. I knew she still had some friends whose husbands and children were associated with the Snake Skulls, but I didn’t think she would know what was going on with Elena.
“What do you mean, mom?” I asked her, pretending like I had no idea what she was talking about. If she even got a hint that I was hiding Elena, that I was associating myself with anyone from the Snake Skulls gang, I knew she would lose her mind with worry. Gone would be her peaceful nights of sleep.
Mom wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands and took in a deep breath as she tried to steady herself.
“Well, Duncan is now the one who is in debt, and he got kicked out of the leadership of the gang when he got sick,” she said, hardening her voice. If I hated Duncan Luis and the gang, I knew that she hated them more.
“So, he owes them money, and they’re going to make him pay, right?” I urged her on, and she shook her head. A certain wildness had entered her eyes.
“As far as I know, they’ve already cut a deal. Do you remember, his beautiful young daughter, Elena?” she asked, looking up at me with a vengeance in her eyes. Any pain that the Snake Skulls caused to Duncan Luis would be vengeance for what they had done to me. She had no idea of my relationship with Elena, so she didn’t know how this could affect me in turn too.
“Yeah, I remember her,” I said, and mom threw her head back and laughed. I had to clench my hands so that I didn’t reach for her and shake her. The words “cut a deal” were fresh in my mind. I didn’t want to hear what I knew she was about to say, but my lion waited patiently.
“Duncan is trading his daughter for the debt. They’re going to sell her off into the flesh trade or something; I don’t know…I don’t care. I just want that family to burn in Hell!” she snapped, and I could see the fire erupting in her eyes. Nobody was crueler than a mother whose child is harmed, and she was one such mother, and I couldn’t blame her for it.
“Are you saying that Duncan Luis arranged for his daughter to be kidnapped?” I asked, standing up from the rug. Mom looked up at me, and the fury was still in her eyes.
“What else would you expect from a man like him?” she said.
xxx
I burst into Kelley’s guest room and found Elena still in bed. She was naked under the covers but had her eyes open. The way the light pouring into the room caught the edges of her chestnut hair and set it on fire! I gulped, to steady myself. She looked over at me, her face morphing into a smile. She thought I had returned to take her into my arms, to make love to her again.
“Ace…” she said huskily and reached out a hand towards me. I was almost tempted to comply. Tempted to forget about the real reason I was here and just pull her into my arms again.
Instead, I stood with my legs parted at the door, my nostrils flaring with rage and my fists clenched on either side.
“Your father pawned you for money,” I growled, looking at her from under my heavy lids. I could feel the fire smoking out of my nostrils as I glared at her. Elena’s expression changed, she pulled the covers up to her breasts and moved herself to sit up in bed.
“What are you talking about, Ace?” she said and I took a few steps towards her.
“You heard what I just said. He wrote to you, knowing that you would come back here. He set up a deal with Snake Skulls and Juan to trade you for the debt,” I said through gritted teeth as I edged closer to her.
Elena’s eyes were wide, and she looked aghast. Another second and I predicted she would burst into tears.
“I didn’t expect this from you, Ace,” she said instead, in a low guttural voice.
She still had the covers clutched to her breasts, and I could see her bare shoulders quivering with anger.
“I know Papi hurt you, and he shouldn’t have. I know Papi did things that I could never forgive him for…but this, what you’re claiming…he would never do this to me!” she shrieked and I took in a deep breath of anger. I couldn’t believe that she was siding with him. After everything I had already done for her, after everything he had done to me…how could Elena not believe me?
“Your father was and is an evil man, Elena, and it’s a shame that you don’t see him for who he is,” I growled, and she snapped her head away from me. She didn’t want to look at me anymore.
“My father is capable of a lot of things, but trading his daughter to pay off a debt…he would never do that. He has pride, and he’s an arrogant man. Give him some credit for that!” she cried, and I clenched my jaw. I wanted to hold her and console her. I knew the feeling…of realizing that your own father has betrayed you, is selling you off in exchange for a debt. I had been through it myself, but the fact that she didn’t even believe me was too much for me to gulp down.
“You know what the Snake Skulls are capable of, and he knows it too. At this point, he will probably do anything to get out of their debt. He used to be the one giving out orders. He knows exactly what their next step would be if he doesn’t pay off the debt somehow,” I barked at her and Elena looked back at me, her eyes watery and burning as she stared.
“You’re saying that he tricked me into coming here?”
“He is sick, that much is true, but he might have exaggerated the extent of his illness,” I said, and she shook her head in anger.
“How could you even suggest such a thing?” she howled.
The answer was simple. I had been on the other side of Duncan Luis’ wrath. I knew exactly what he was capable of. I wasn’t even surprised when my mother told me, and I was just upset that I hadn’t figured it out sooner.
“Elena…you have to trust what I’m saying,” I said and took a step towards her.
“I don’t trust you, Ace. I don’t trust you at all!” she snapped and our eyes met in a fury. She wasn’t lying. She didn’t trust me anymore. She had chosen her confidence in her father, over her trust in me. She had to leave town. She had to run away from home to get away from her father…how could she possibly be on his side now?
“It’s amazing…after everything that’s happened…that you don’t trust me anymore,” I said, making a last attempt even though I knew that the battle was already lost.
She jerked up, making sure that the covers stayed in place.
“I’m his daughter, Ace. I’m his blood. He would never do something like this to me. And you…you’re just a man, like every other man in the world. You want nothing more than my body. You don’t want to be my mate! I know how gangs work, how the MC world functions. When you tire of my body, you’ll leave me to wither away, just like all your friends do…” her voice was firm, and yet her eyes were watery as she spoke.
I couldn’t reply to that. Not after she had already made up her mind. Ten years I had pined for her, and now she was turning me away because I had told her the truth about her father.
“You can stay here as long as you need, Elena,” I said and turned around to walk to the door, hoping the whole time that she would stop me in my tracks. She didn’t, and I was gone.