TEN
REBEL
Burying a body’s never fun. When you’re only burying part of it, it’s even less fun. Back in Afghanistan, my boy and I buried fucking dismembered arms and legs all the time. The Marine Corps were pretty diligent about making sure the pieces of people they were sending back to the States all belonged to the same body, but I’m guessing often times DNA got a little fused together. Not a pleasant thought. Really fucked up, in fact. I made sure the army knew I didn’t want to be flown back to Alabama if I was K.I.A. Told them I wanted to be cremated and scattered to the four winds from a rooftop in Kabul. Last thing I ever wanted to do was give my asshole father the pleasure of interring me in the Aubertin family mausoleum instead of burying me with my brothers in a military cemetery. He didn’t respect the time I spent overseas. He would have stuck me in the cheapest pine box he could find, left me on the bottom shelf underneath my mother’s dusty coffin, blinked a couple of times at what remained of his only son, then casually locked the door. He wouldn’t have returned until it was time for his own empty husk to be shelved and forgotten about, too.
Motherfucker.
Burying Bron is a different affair entirely. I’m sick to my stomach and in pain, but I figure if I have enough energy to make Sophia come then it’s only right that I have the energy to go out into the desert and dig a grave with Brassic.
As I thrust the shovel into the sun-baked dirt three miles south of the Widow Makers’ compound, sweat running in rivers down my back, running into my eyes, salt in my mouth, my head spinning just enough to let me know this is a really bad idea, I’m trying not to think about Sophia. I’m trying not to think about how edge-of-a-knife this whole thing is. I’m ready to burn the whole fucking world down for this girl. I wonder if she knows that? I wonder if she knows how many people I’d tear limb from limb myself in order to keep her safe.
I’m not like her, though. I don’t wear every single thought I have on my face, or in my body language. I keep things close to my chest. It’s the only way I’ve survived this world for so long.
Other members of the club have survived by alternative means. Cade’s stone cold like me, but his temper is legendary. People don’t fuck with him, because they know the consequences will be dire to say the fucking least. Shay uses her body to protect herself. She’ll make you think you’re about to get the ride of our life, when in actual fact you’re about to get a stiletto blade slipped through your eardrum and into your gray matter without a by your leave. She really is a true widow maker. The guy I’m digging this grave with, Brassic, is our resident bomb maker. He won’t hurt you with his fists. He’ll hurt you with a pound of C4 and a remote detonator while he’s a mile away slamming back a shot of whiskey.
He doesn’t talk while we dig. Neither of us do. He’s angry that I wouldn’t let him go after the guy who killed his best friend’s girl last night when his rage was peaking, but he won’t show it openly. Good thing for him, too. I’m not in the mood to be questioned. My side is killing me, and all I can think about as our shovels make dry, shink, shink, shink sounds in the dirt is that I somehow have to fix this fucking Ramirez mess under the noses of the DEA. Highly fucking inconvenient.
“We’re digging this hole for the wrong person, you realize,” Brassic says. It’s the first thing he’s said since we started working, and it’s so true it makes my head pound.
“I do know.”
Brassic grunts. He’s slick with sweat like I am, except the vast expanse of his back bears the Widow Makers’ club badge instead of the Virgin Mary that I have inked into my skin. She was my first tattoo, my holy lady. The space had already been taken by the time I started the Widow Makers, and besides, it’s better for me not to have any club markings. There are times when I need to go places, see and do things that I wouldn’t be able to if people suspected I had affiliations to a biker gang. In those instances, if they knew I was the president of a biker gang, I’d be murdered on the spot.
“So when, then?” Brassic asks. He sounds tired; I know for a fact he was up all night with Keeler, drinking and smashing the shit out of the workshop in one of the outhouses, so his head must be killing him.
“Soon. Really soon, man,” I tell him.
“And you’ll give me free rein?”
I mop my brow, eyes still stinging, my head swimming, and I say, “Buddy, when this thing goes down, you don’t need to worry. You can turn the bastard into red mist and I will thank you for it.”
In the distance, thick plumes of dust billow up into pale, washed out blue of the sky overhead. Cars. Three of them. I can’t see what kind they are or who is driving them, but they’re traveling fast.
We walked out here to clear our heads. We fucking walked. Brassic turns giving me a concerned look. “We need to get back?” he asks.
I have a sick, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watch those cars speeding toward the distant compound. “Yeah. Yeah, man. We need to get back. Now.”
******
SOPHIA
I’ve never noticed that Cade has a slight limp before. I notice it well enough when he’s charging across the compound toward me like a crazy person, though. He favors his left side, skipping his right foot behind him ever so slightly as he charges in my direction with a stony expression on his face. I can feel the worry pouring off him when he pitches up in front of me.
“You should get back up to the cabin, Soph.”
“Why?” No way am I going back to the cabin. I have no specific reason for being in the courtyard outside the clubhouse but I’ll be damned if I’m being sent away again already. I am sick of being cooped up. Sick of feeling a prisoner. Cade must see me bristle; he blows out an exasperated breath, holding his hands up in the air.
“We got visitors, okay. And not the nice kind. Better you aren’t here for it,” he says.
I feel like being stubborn some more, but the look on his face tells me that might not be wise. “Who is it?” I ask.
“Don’t know. Not DEA, but still… no one good. C’mon. Get back up the hill. Please. Jamie will kill me if I let anything happen to you.”
He looks genuinely concerned. Out of the corner of my eye, the woman with pink hair from last night, Shay, emerges from the clubhouse, pulling on a dirty white t-shirt over her florescent pink bra. Classy. She shoots me the foulest look ever, and then frowns as she squints into the distance beyond the compound gates. When I follow her gaze, I see what she sees: tall columns of dust, red and brown, growing closer and closer. Too close, it would seem. The hood of a black car is visible, only meters away from the gates, but there are more behind, following.
“Shit,” Cade hisses. The first black car screeches to a halt, kicking up more dust and debris as it almost crashes into the gates. The sound of hot metal ticking reaches us, and then the loud crack! of a gun being fired. Sounds like it came from inside the car. I can just make out the shape of a figure slumping forward in the driver’s seat, and then the car’s horn starts screaming, blaring out obnoxious sound into the quiet.
“Ah, sweet Jesus.” Cade steps to the right, blocking me from view of the car. He sends Shay a sharp look that she returns, arms folded across her chest. “Make sure this one doesn’t come to any harm,” he tells her.
She scowls and then spits on the ground at her feet. “Rebel said not to threaten her. Didn’t say nothing about protecting her.”
Cade pivots on the balls of his feet and begins marching toward her. He looks like he’s about to tear her head from her shoulders. She holds up her hands, taking a step back, eyes wide. “All right, all right! Fuck, man, it was a joke.”
Cade’s not in the mood for jokes, though. “Just do as you’re fucking told, Shay.”
A high pitched screaming joins in the sound of the car horn, and suddenly there are people climbing out of the first car while a second and a third pull up alongside the first, blocking the gate to the compound entirely. I couldn’t see it before, but all three vehicles are completely riddled with bullet holes.
A tall, leggy blonde in a tight black dress and red stilettos emerges from the first car. She looks like a wild animal, dark eyes round and filled with madness. As soon as she’s on her feet, she turns and unceremoniously drags the lifeless body of a huge man out of the car behind her. He looks like he’s half dead; given the amount of blood spattering the woman’s arms and legs, he could actually be all-the-way dead.
Shay’s mouth hangs open, surprise taking over her features. “Is that…?”
“Maria Rosa?” Cade finishes. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
It takes me a second to remember who this woman is. I’ve met so many new people and been introduced to so many new threats recently that this recalling where Maria Rosa fits in takes a beat. I get there fairly quickly, though. Maria Rosa. What was it Carnie called her the day the police came to search the compound? That’s right…the Bitch of Columbia. The head of the Desolladors Cartel—the woman who tried to frame Rebel by sending men in Widow Makers cuts into a grocery store in Hollywood and mowing down women and children.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” I whisper this under my breath, unable to give force to my words. I’m too disbelieving, too stunned, too completely horrified to grasp what I’m seeing in front of me.
“I don’t know,” Cade replies. “But it looks as though, as per usual, the psycho bitch has brought trouble with her.”
“Help me! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” Maria Rosa topples to the ground, tripping on her own heels as she tries to drag the extremely heavy looking body toward the gates. She spins around, fury and panic lighting up her face. She sees the man standing next to me and the panic vanishes, completely replaced by anger. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Get over here, Cade. Get over here and fucking help me.”
More people pour out of the cars—all men in black suits and white shirts with guns in their hands—but Cade remains utterly still. His eyes look cold. Dead, almost. “You really are insane if you think for one second you’re getting through those gates, darlin’.”
Maria Rosa lets go of the man’s arm and stalks up to the metal railings of the gate, a wicked snarl twisting her features. I can tell that she’s a beautiful woman usually, but at the moment she looks like medusa—her hair is everywhere, her eyeliner smudged down her face, bright red lipstick smeared. She’s hysterical, and from what I can tell about to get much, much worse.
“You let me through these gates, Cade,” she snaps. “Let me through, or I’ll make sure this one finds his way inside all by himself. He’s been telling me all about how he’d like to fuck the pretty little thing you have hiding in your shadow.”
I only put two and two together and realize she’s talking about me when she jerks her head at one of her men and Raphael Dela Vega appears. He strains against the taller, broader man holding onto him, desperately trying to get free. I spot the crude spider tattoo on his face and it all comes rushing back to me—him telling me how he was going to rape and kill my mother and sister right in front of me. I feel dizzy, like I’m about to pass out. He’s haunted my dreams, but this is the first time I’ve laid eyes on him since the night Rebel bought me. I’ve tried to pretend he doesn’t exist, tried to pretend he’s dead somehow, that Hector tired of him and got rid of him, but no. Here he is in all his savage glory, only twenty feet away from where I’m standing now. And Maria Rosa’s threatening to set him free on our doorstep. Irrational as it may be, I’m terrified. Since the gunshots, car horn and Maria Rosa’s screaming took place, twenty Widow Makers have materialized out of the compound buildings, all holding guns, all ready to put a bullet in this woman’s head for fucking with their club name. I know they aren’t going to let Raphael anywhere near me, but still… I can feel his eyes crawling all over my skin, can sense the dark things he wants to do to me, and it makes my heart squeeze in my chest.
“Shoot them all,” Shay says. “We don’t need any of them alive. Just fucking kill them all.”
For the first time since I’ve met the woman, I finally find myself agreeing with something that’s come out of her mouth. Less than a second after I think this, the weight of that hits me in the gut like a battering ram. Kill them all. I want them all dead. There are perhaps eleven people on the other side of the gate including Maria Rosa and Raphael, and I just agreed that I wanted them all dead.
Who am I becoming?
They’re drug dealers, murders, human traffickers and rapists. If my father were here, he would forgive them of their sins and invite them inside so he could help their wounded. I want to double chain the gate, douse the bastards in petrol and strike a match.
I would watch them burn.
Maria Rosa snatches a gun from the guy standing closest to her and holds it up, aiming though the bars of the gate at Cade. “If you kill us,” she hisses, “I won’t be able to tell you what Ramirez has planned for you, will I?”
I’m still all for killing her, but Cade falters. Shay cocks a mean looking gun, holding it up with both hands as she moves closer to Cade. “She’s bluffing. She doesn’t know anything about Ramirez. Let me put a fucking bullet between her eyes, man.”
“You think Rebel would do that?” he asks.
Shay’s determination flickers, only for a second. Only for the briefest of pauses. It’s enough for Cade, though. “Exactly. He’d want to know what she knows first. And then he’d kill her.”
I don’t like his tone of voice at all. It sounds for all the world like he’s about to do as she asks. “You are not going to let her in here, right?” It seems like sheer madness that he would even consider such a thing, and yet he gives me a tight-lipped smile and starts walking toward the gate.
“You, Rico, him,”—he points at the guy holding onto Raphael—“and Hector’s guy. That’s it. Everyone else needs to get gone. Then you can come in.”
“You’re crazy!” Maria Rosa laughs scornfully. “I’m not walking into the lion’s den with only one able-bodied guard. You must think I’m stupid.”
“No, I think you’re desperate otherwise you wouldn’t have come here. The choice is yours, Mother.”
Mother? My head is spinning. Why the hell would he call her that? It makes no sense. No one else seems to find it strange, though. The Widow Makers surrounding me are all wearing severe expressions, hands resting on their guns, some blatantly holding them out like Shay. I’m the only one who looks lost, I’m sure. Cade shrugs, smiling in a dramatic, all of a sudden way that is totally out of place.
“When you make up your mind, you let me know, okay? Meantime, I’ll be in the clubhouse drinking a cold one.” He begins to turn around, turning his back on the crazed woman on the other side of the gate, but she starts screaming again.
“¡Te odio! usted es un enfermo, el mal hijo de puta!”
Cade faces her again, grinning. “Oh, don’t worry, Mother. I hate you, too.”
There’s pure murder in her eyes when she lowers her gun. “Fine. Just the four of us. But trust me…if you value your life and the lives of your precious Widow Makers, you won’t lay a finger on me or mine.”
Cade draws an ex over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“I’ve hoped you would die many times over already, cabron.”
“Likewise.” Cade stares at her until she loses patience and starts barking at her men in Spanish, presumably telling them to leave. They look unsure at first, and then afraid as she gets angrier and angrier. Eventually seven other men climb into two of the cars, start the engines and leave.
“There. Are you happy now? Rico is dying, motherfucker. Let us inside.”
I have no idea who this Rico guy is, but he sure as hell seems important to Maria Rosa. Cade grunts, still grinning, though the humor has vanished from his face. He looks like he’s grimacing as he slowly strolls to the compound gate and punches a code into the keypad to the left. The metal screeches as the gates swing open and then Maria Rosa is charging into the compound, holding up her gun. She marches straight up to Cade and presses the gleaming metal directly against his heart.
“You’d better fix him,” she spits. “You’d better fix him, or there will be consequences, asshole.”
I’d be curious to see what these consequences are, now that twenty angry Widow Makers surround her. Cade says something, but I don’t really hear it, though. The two of them talk, anger and antagonism lacing their voices, and I stare at Raphael, feeling panic rising in the back of my throat. He’s still being restrained, though the evil motherfucker isn’t struggling anymore. He’s staring right back at me, unblinking, apparently unfazed by the situation he finds himself in. He seems only intent on one thing: me. And the look in his eyes is enough to make the blood run cold in my veins.
“Well? Sophia? Can you do it?”
“Huh?” I tear my gaze from Raphael, shaking, to find that Cade has moved again and he’s standing beside me. His eyebrows are raised in question. “What?” I ask.
“Can you take a look at the guy? You’re studying medicine, right?”
I just look at him blankly. He can’t…he can’t actually be serious. Can he? “What? No! I study psychology.”
Cade laughs like this is the funniest thing ever. He turns around, throwing his hands up in the air. “Well, there you have it. No doctors here, Mother. Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry. Not even a little. “I mean,” he continues. “I can pull a slug out of him, but I can’t guarantee I won’t do more damage than good. He looks like he’s on the way out, darlin’.”
Maria Rosa sends him an icy stare. And then she turns it on me. “You’re lying,” she informs me. “You are a doctor.”
“I’m not.” I’m really damn glad none of these people know my father or my sister are actually doctors. They would probably assume I know what I’m doing by association or something. Turns out Maria Rosa doesn’t need such information to make calls like that, though. “Bullshit. You can save him.” She sounds like she’s determined to make this the truth by sheer force of will. She’s mad. I’m convinced of that fact when she turns her gun on me and removes the safety. “Get over here,” she commands. “Get the bullet out of him and sew him up. You can do it.”
“I—” I shake my head, not quite sure what to do. “I have no surgical experience. I’ll kill him.”
“Oh, no, princess. You kill him, and I kill you. I don’t think you want that. You want to die?”
“Of course not.”
“Then get over here and fix him!”
I can see that the man on the ground by the gate, Rico, is beyond saving. His lips and eyelids are blue, which I’m educated enough to know means he stopped breathing some time ago. I’m betting that if I walk over there and place my fingertips against his neck, I’m not going to find a pulse. I’m also betting Maria Rosa does not want to hear that, though. She seems like she’s on the brink of a complete meltdown.
“I don’t have any equipment. I’d need a sterile room, and surgical tools. I—I don’t even have a needle and thread, let alone forceps. You do know what a psychologist is, right?”
Maria Rosa doesn’t answer. She moves in a flash of tight Versace and highly impractical Manolos, and suddenly she has me by the hair. Both Cade and Shay move at the same time, trying to put themselves in between me and the woman, but Maria Rosa has a firm grip on me; my hair feels like it’s about to be torn out at the roots.
“For fuck’s sake,” Cade groans under his breath. “If you really wanna piss Rebel off, you’re doing a stellar job.”
“Do I look like I give a fuck about Rebel?” Maria Rosa spits. “I only care about Rico.” She proceeds to drag me toward Rico’s body, jabbing me every few paces with what I’m assuming it the barrel of her gun. Raphael starts laughing in that rattling, weird, unnerving way of his. His cackling bounces around the compound courtyard like a mocking bird call. He stops laughing as I pass him to say, “I hope you’re ready, slut. I’ll be skull fucking you before the end of the night.”
Anger rolls through me. I want to punch this woman in the ribcage for handling me like I’m shit, for bring that man in such close proximity of me, but I know she won’t hesitate to shoot if I piss her off.
The Widow Makers all move in unison, crowding in around, all just as angry as I am. They may not know me or like me, but they love Rebel. As far as they are concerned, I am his property and Maria Rosa should not be interfering with me in any way.
Cade is beginning to look seriously worried. Maria Rosa shoves me forward roughly, and I fall to my knees beside Rico. My heart is charging so hard, I can hear my blood pumping in my own ears. The sound becomes a deafening roar when I feel the muzzle of the gun pressing into the back of my head.
This is not good. This is not good at all. I have no way of saving this man. I have no clue what I’m doing. Now that I’m closer I can see the bullet hole in his stomach, though, can see that someone has ineffectually tried to stem the flow of blood by ramming a black silk scarf into the wound. Right into it, like that was the best option available to them. Even I know that was a bad idea. That scarf has got all kinds of bacteria all over it, and now that bacteria is happily breeding away inside the torn up vital organs of a dying man.
“Begin,” Maria Rosa commands.
“I told you, I don’t have any instruments.”
She crouches down beside me, craning her face into mine, baring her teeth so that she’s showing gum. “Use. Your. Fingers.”
“I am not sticking my fingers inside his body. No way!”
Pain comes, then—a sharp, piercing pain at the back of my head. My vision dances, pinpricks of light bursting everywhere, but I don’t lose consciousness. I do fall forward, though—my hands land right on Rico’s torso. The man’s eyes flicker open, and he gasps soundlessly for oxygen once, twice, and then his eyes roll back in his head. He starts to convulse, pink foam pouring out of his mouth.
“Ahhhh, Mother, the bitch killed him,” Raphael laughs. “She’s trouble. I told you, no?”
Maria Rosa lets out an anguished squeal. I look up, and see that she’s hitting herself in the side of the head with her gun, pulling on her own hair. Tears tremble on the ends of her eyelashes, ready to fall any second. “He’s not dead. You check him. Check his pulse,” she growls.
I do check his pulse. It’s thready and weak, but I can feel the irregular twitch of his heart beneath the pads of my fingers. Thank fuck for that. “He’s not dead,” I say. I hate how my voice shakes. I hate that I’m afraid right now, but it can’t be helped. I keep finding myself in these situations. If I don’t get shot in the back of the head in a couple of minutes and my brains aren’t splattered all over Rico and the dirt and everywhere else in between, maybe I’ll be less frightened the next time this happens. Maybe.
Maria Rosa grinds her teeth together, repositioning her gun in her hands again. “Okay. Now you get that bullet out of him, bitch, or I’m going put three in you. Do you hear me?” she screams.
I look from her to Cade and back again. Cade has his gun in his hands pointing it at Maria Rosa, but he looks torn. “I could shoot her if you want, Soph. I can’t guarantee she won’t shoot you first, though. It’s your call. What do you want me to do?”
“God, don’t shoot her.”
“All right. Well, you’d better get your hands inside Rico then, before the bastard dies.” He doesn’t look at me while he talks. He stares intently at Maria Rosa, unwavering, hands steady. I think about changing my mind, about telling him to shoot her, but would he be able to do it before she killed me? Probably not.
So there’s nothing left for it. My hands are covered in blood and dirt from when I toppled forward a minute ago. I scrub them against my jeans, doing what I can to get them clean, and then I lean over the ghostly white body in front of me and I do something neither my father nor Sloane have probably ever done: I stick my bare, filthy dirty fingers inside an open stomach wound. It feels innately wrong, and, worryingly, it feels cool. Should he really be this cold? The human body should sit at an average 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but the inside of Rico’s stomach feels a lot cooler. This could be normal, though. I’m not a doctor. I know shit about trauma and what happens when someone goes into shock.
“Can you feel it?” Maria Rosa asks.
“No.” All I can feel is intestines and a whole lot of blood that I’m assuming is not meant to be there. I twist my fingers around inside the wound, attempting to locate anything metallic, hard or sharp, but my fingers feel like they’re tearing through wet paper. It definitely doesn’t feel right. I think I’m killing him even quicker. My suspicions are confirmed when Rico starts convulsing even harder.
“What are you doing? What did you do?” Maria Rosa screams.
I pull my hand out of Rico, choking on panic, readying myself for the sound of the gunshot that will end my life. Do bullets travel faster than the speed of sound? I think they do. At least I won’t have to hear the herald of my own demise. I guess that’s something.
My heart nearly explodes out of my chest when I do hear the gunshot, though. I feel instantly numb. My breath fires in and out of my lungs in impossibly short blasts, and I flinch, waiting for the pain to kick in.
It doesn’t happen.
Through the high-pitched buzzing in my ears, I can hear someone roaring in anger, and someone else screaming at the top of their lungs. That’s what I should sound like. I should sound like I’m in agony, like the person screaming, and yet I feel nothing.
Hands are on me next, pulling at me, patting me down.
Rebel. Rebel’s scooping me up in his arms, lifting me to my feet. Hold me to him, swearing over and over again in my ear.
“Fuck, Soph. Fuck. Fucking hell. Are you okay?”
I look down, and Maria Rosa is on her side, clawing at Rico’s very dead body. She’s bleeding from her shoulder, blood everywhere, all over my white tennis shoes. Her black mascara has bled all down her face too, now. She’s the one who’s screaming, the one who got shot. Not me. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.
“Soph! Tell me you’re not hurt!” Rebel shakes me, trying to get a response.
“Yes! Yeah, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”
Rebel lets me go then. I think I might fall, but I somehow manage to keep myself upright. I watch him as he stalks around the compound, glaring into the faces of the Widow Makers who are still standing around us with their guns in their hands.
“I had to do that?” he hollers. “You’re all standing here with your dicks in your hands? I had to get here and do that, and none of you acted?” He stops in front of Cade, his face less than an inch away from his vice president’s, his chest rising and falling so fast. He looks crazy. He looks like he’s about to straight up murder Cade. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he grinds out.
“I was thinking that the crazy bitch had a gun pressed against the base of Sophia’s skull and I wouldn’t be able to take her out without something really terrible happening. What would you have done if I’d taken the shot and Soph had been killed, you fucking asshole?” Cade shoves him. I’ve never seen anyone do something so risky. If anyone’s going to get away with it, it’s Cade, but Rebel doesn’t look very happy right now. He looks like he’s about to go supernova. I hold my breath, waiting for him to do something crazy, for him to smash his fist into his best friends face or pull his gun on him, but he doesn’t. He glares at Cade for another few seconds, and then turns away from him, facing me again.
Maria Rosa writhes on the ground, swearing angrily in Spanish. She’s bleeding pretty heavily, her blood mixing into the dirt with Rico’s. Rebel ignores her, stepping over her body like she’s a mild inconvenience, unworthy of his attention. He stands in front of me, his shoulders hitching up and down, a frantic energy still pouring off him in waves. “Come with me,” he says.
He holds out his hand and I’m too stunned by the events of the past few minutes to object or refuse him. I take it, my legs feeling unstable as he guides me across the compound toward the clubhouse. As we pass Cade, Rebel growls under his breath. “Get a prospect to clear that shit up, man. And get her and Dela Vega out of sight, will you? Make sure they’re…comfortable.”
A shiver runs up my spine at the tone in his voice. When he says comfortable, I know he means something else entirely. He opens the door to the clubhouse, muttering under his breath when he surveys the place and finds it void of all life. We weave between tables and abandoned chairs, making our way toward the bar at the back of the room. Once there, Rebel opens another door into a back room. The small, dusty space is filled with torn-open boxes containing bottled beer, empty milk crates and cleaning equipment. The shelves on the right hand wall are a jumbled mess of spirits and…and guns. Guns, just sitting there like casual objects that don’t hurt, maim, kill. Rebel lets go of my hand and picks up a small, silver handgun, sliding it into the waistband of his jeans at the base of his spine. “Come here,” he tells me, gesturing me close. I move to his side, not sure what he could possibly want to show me in here aside from the weaponry and liquor. “Look,” he says. “Pay attention. There’s a small catch up here, right in the corner.” His hand moves to the very top corner of the wall by the shelves. Sure enough, I see what he’s referring to—a small, black switch in the shadows. I would never have noticed it if he hadn’t pointed it out.
“See if you can reach it,” he tells me.
He’s much taller than me, but I’m still tall. I have to stand on my tiptoes but I can just about graze the smooth metal with my fingertips.
“Press it,” he says.
When I was kid, my favorite thing to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon once we got home from church was to watch Indiana Jones with my father. I have awful images of some terrible booby trap springing into action if I do what I’m told and hit this switch, but I know that’s ridiculous. Rebel wouldn’t be telling me to do it if it would be bad for me. My nerve endings still crackle when I press my fingers against the catch, though. A loud clicking noise cuts through the tense silence, making me jump. I jump even more when the wall—what I thought was the wall—swings back to reveal yet another door. This one is made of steel, looks reinforced, and has no visible handle or keyhole. To the left, a narrow keypad sits on the wall, glowing softly in the darkness.
“Watch,” Rebel tells me. “The code is One Seven Six Three.” He punches the code into the keypad as I observe, my arms wrapped around my body. I’m starting to feel really shaky. Maria Rosa’s arrival and Raphael’s presence is catching up with me. I feel like the world is crashing down on my head and I have no means of stopping it, of holding back the tide.
The keypad is silent as Rebel presses the keys. He hits the green enter button and the door chunks and releases. Rebel doesn’t allow it to open properly, though. He closes it and holds his hand palm-up to the keypad, giving me a tight-lipped smile that holds absolutely no humor. “Now you,” he says. “Show me you remember the code. I need to know you can open this door.”
He’s incredibly intense. He’s clearly so stressed he’s not really functioning, and yet at the same time there’s an eerie calm resting over him. It’s way more frightening than if he were simply raging mad. I slowly punch in the access code to the door and hit the green button afterward, just as he did, and the door swings open.
“Okay. Good. Follow me.” Rebel moves through the door into the pitch-black darkness beyond. I hesitate a second, but then follow behind him, unwilling to push him even a little while he’s in this state. The heavy steel door closes behind us, and suddenly I feel like I’m trapped in a tomb. A dark, impenetrable tomb that I have no way out of. My chest tightens ever so slightly, the first strains of panic setting in, my heartbeat noticeably quickening.
“Rebel?”
His arms are immediately around me, his chest up against mine, his lips pressing against my forehead. He holds me in the dark and breathes. I can feel the impossible speed of his own heart beating against mine, and I know he’s having trouble holding himself together. So strange. He always seems so unflappable, like a bomb could go off right next to his head and he’d still be able to think straight.
“Fuck, Soph,” he whispers. “Just…I can’t…”
My cheeks burn, my head swimming as he draws me even tighter and crushes me against his body. Is…is he this freaked out because of me? Surely not. Despite Maria Rosa, Raphael, Hector, dead Bron and dead Rico, I’m selfish enough to enjoy this fleeting moment in the dark. My fear has completely vanished. With his arms around me, it feels as though nothing bad could ever reach me here. Such a bizarre feeling.
“If something like this happens again, Sophia, this is where you come. You hear me? You come straight here. Promise me.”
“But where—”
“Promise me!”
“Okay, yes. I swear it. I promise.”
Rebel draws back, pulling in a deep breath. He lets me go then, and the fear returns with the force of a freight train. It’s amazing to me that I can be this terrified as soon as his presence is gone, and yet no more than a second ago I felt so safe.
Rebel moves around in the dark, not fumbling, apparently sure of his surroundings, and then the blackness vanishes as a strip light flickers on over head, casting a stark white light over everything inside…inside the huge office we’re now standing in. It’s immediately obvious whose office this is. On all four walls, white board material has been scribbled over from the floor to the ceiling; nearly ninety percent of the scribble is mathematical in nature, and absolutely none of it makes sense. Well, not to me, anyway.
Two large desks, one at either end of the room, are piled with papers, and some seriously expensive looking computers sit among the madness, apparently gathering dust. In between them on the far wall, a huge server stands like a tall, dormant monolith, all dark metal and LEDs that remain unlit.
Rebel watches me as I walk around, taking in the weirdness of the place. He leans against the tidier of the desks—I assume it’s his—observing me like I’m some sort of endangered zoo exhibit. “What is this place?” I ask him.
“This place is bomb proof. This place can withstand all hell breaking out around it, and no one will be able to get in. This is where you’re safest if something bad goes down.”
“And the computers? The server?”
“Information. It’s all just information. Bank accounts. Blackmailing. Satellite images. P.I. reports. Burial locations.”
“So this…this is what you have on people. All of the dirt you’ve gathered over the years. This is all leverage?”
“Yes.”
In the distant recesses of my mind, I recall Julio discussing some files Rebel was holding over him, which was why the guy drove across the state in the night to pick me up from Hector’s place: Rebel was bribing him.
I quit my investigating, leaning against the other desk, facing him. “Very valuable, I’m sure.”
“Yes.”
“And you showed me how to get in here. You’d trust me in here all by myself?”
He nods. “You think you’re a flight risk, Sophia, but you’re not. You’re as invested in me as I am in you.”
“I don’t think so.” I don’t know how invested in me he thinks he is, but regardless…I don’t want it to be true. Caring about this man will only get me killed; that much is obvious.
Rebel looks away, focusing on the wild, red text marking the wall by his head. He folds his arms across his chest. “You know why you resist me so much, Soph?” he whispers.
I narrow my eyes at him, trying not to let him see what I’m thinking. “Because you’re rude and arrogant, and you left me alone in a cabin for ten days?”
He smiles softly, allowing his gaze to fall to his feet. “Nope.”
“Oh no? Well, please enlighten me, then. Why do I resist you so much?”
“Because you’re in love with me, and you’re afraid.”
“What?” I consider picking up the large rock that’s being used as a paperweight on the desk next to me and chucking it right at his head. He is such an asshole. “You are dreaming, my friend,” I inform him.
“We’re not friends. We’re much, much more than that and you know it.”
“Jesus, you…you just have no shame, do you? Where do you get off saying stuff like this?”
“I find shame is usually a wasteful emotion. It occurs after an event or certain actions have taken place. There’s no sense in beating yourself up over something you can’t change or effect, right? I think you’re actually uncomfortable because I say what I think. I don’t sugar coat anything. And I’ve never been afraid to admit what I want, Sophia.” He rubs his fingers over the stubble on his jaw, piercing me with those blue eyes of his. “You, on the other hand… you’re afraid of admitting anything to anyone, ever. Must be exhausting.”
I don’t answer him. I don’t really know what to say. I want to be stubborn and hard with him, tell him he couldn’t be more wrong and he should keep his half-baked theories to himself, but I am so done. I don’t have the energy to fight or bicker with him. And besides, it’s becoming harder and harder to deny that what he’s saying isn’t actually the truth. Fuck him. Fuck him and his ability to see right through me. Rebel starts to laugh. “You don’t need to say a word, sugar. You know it’s true, and so do I. I can wait, though. If you ever feel like being honest with me, I’m ready to hear it.”
His voice softens out at the end of this statement, the laughter slipping away. He sounds muted, soft, almost pensive. I want him to put his arms around me so he can hold me and make the whole world go away again, but won’t that just be proving him right? Instead, I turn away from him.
My eyes land on a file sitting on the overflowing desk. Scrawled across the front of it in black, blocky capitals is one word: MAYFAIR.
“What’s Mayfair? Is that, like, a code for something? A place?”
Rebel sighs heavily. I can hear his boots grinding against the bare concrete underfoot as he paces the length of the room; he takes the file from me and places it back on the pile of disorganized binders and papers. “It’s a name. A guy back in Seattle. Cade’s been looking into him.”
“Is he connected with Hector and Raphael?”
“No. He’s not someone we need to worry about right now, Soph. We have other things to take care of. Namely Maria fucking Rosa.”