ELEVEN
CADE
I learned how to waterboard somebody without killing them back in Afghanistan. There’s a trick to it. If you pour the water too fast, shove the rag down their throat too far, you’ll drown them straight away. If you go too easy on them, they can hold their breath and they’ll never break. As I fill up a four-gallon canister with water from the outside tap close to the clubhouse, I spend a moment reflecting on how little Maria Rosa is going to like this. That’s probably the understatement of the century. She’s going to fucking hate it.
The roles are usually reversed in situations such as these. She tortured the ever-loving shit out of me when she found me and Rebel snooping around her place in Columbia. I spent three days strapped to a chair while she tried to ascertain if I was there to try and kill her or not. The experience was a frustrating one for her. Being in the Marines, you learn how to withstand torture. You learn how to keep your damn mouth shut and give nothing more than your name and rank, and Maria Rosa wanted me to be screaming. I was a disappointment to her in the beginning, but then later she confessed my silent stoicism turned her on. Wasn’t long before she was straddling me, grinding herself up against my cock, torturing me in a different way. That seems like a long time ago now.
She was unconscious when I carried her into the barn and down into the hidden basement, making sure to bolt the hatchway behind me when I came back up for the water. I trussed her up pretty tight when I tied her to the single, lone wooden chair down there, but she’s a wily one. No, not just wily; she’s a goddamn contortionist. I’ve had first hand experience of that. I’m yet to fuck another woman who can fold herself up into a pretzel the same way Mother can.
I try not to think about all the things Maria Rosa can do that other women can’t as I carry the canister of water back to the barn and unbolt the hatch. Down the stairs I carry the carton, along the badly lit corridor, water sloshing out onto the dusty concrete, onto my boots, not thinking about the things Maria Rosa can do with her tongue.
Jesus.
When I enter the very last room on the right, the woman in question is slumped forward in the chair, chin resting on her chest, a thick river of blood drying down her arm and her leg. She looks like she’s out cold, but if there’s one lesson I’ve learned in this life, it’s do not trust Maria Rosa. She’s a master manipulator. I’m sure Rebel would have a couple more very choice names for her, too.
She fucked with the club.
She fucked with my sister.
And now she’s fucked with Sophia.
It takes a lot to get Jamie to the point where he’ll bury you as soon as look at you, but we’re past that point now. I kind of feel sorry for the woman. He’s not going to go easy on her. Not even a little bit.
I pull the rag I found behind the bar in the clubhouse from the back pocket of my jeans and lean against the wall with the huge container of water at my feet, tearing the rag into long strips. This is where the boss finds me.
He’s not looking too shit hot.
“You tried to wake her up yet?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“All right. Let’s get this over with. I shouldn’t have reamed you out. I know you were only looking out for Sophia. I lost it. I’m sorry.”
I shrug.
“Don’t give me that shit, man. You’d have lost it, too. You’d have blown a fucking gasket if that had been Laura.”
I lock up at the sound of my sister’s name. We’ll go weeks, sometimes months, without speaking of her. Both of us just knows that she’s the reason we’re here though, neck deep in stinking shit that makes us both sick, drives us both crazy. We’ll never be able to get out until we find out what happened to her, one way or another. And then make whomever is responsible for her disappearance pay. Dearly. That day will be the day Jamie and I lose our souls for good.
I shoot him a shitty look. “So you’re comparing Sophia to her now, is it? You really must love her or something.”
Rebel’s eyes narrow so dramatically, they almost disappear entirely. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
I throw one of the balled up pieces of rag at him, and it hits him in the face. “You’re so full of shit, man. I saw the way you looked at her the second she climbed on the back of your ride in that fucking disgusting yellow dress and I knew we were all doomed.”
The ghost of a smile flickers across his face. Bending to pick up the piece of rag I threw, he grunts. “Like I said. Maybe. Maybe not.”
Maria Rosa groans. It’s not the kind of groan she’d fake. She’d want to sound sexy, even through her pain. No, this is the kind of groan someone makes when they’re in agony and their head’s not working right. Rebel turns his attention to her, and I catch a glimpse of how much trouble she’s in…
If the look on my brother’s face were to be categorized by a single act of violence in recent history, it would be codenamed Hiroshima. He’s going to kill her. I can read that fact in every line of his body. He’s wound so tight, I’d be surprised if he even waits for her to wake up before he starts on her.
“Are you okay, man? I can do this on my own if you need me to?”
“And you won’t end up fucking her brains out instead of teaching her a lesson?” He lifts both eyebrows at me, clearly convinced that this is what will happen if I’m left alone in a room with her.
“I can get it done.” And I can. Ever since Laura went missing, the closest we ever came to finding her was at Maria Rosa’s place. Too many people told the same story. Too many people said she had her. Rebel and I turned her place upside down once Mother let us have free rein, but there were those three days. Those three days where she was deciding if she hated or loved us. She could easily have had any girls she was hiding in her villa relocated, never to be seen again. Buried, thrown into a ditch somewhere for wild animals to pick their bones clean.
Yeah, I can get this done.
I know he won’t agree to leaving me here with her, though. Even if he did think I was capable of making her talk all by myself, his conscience wouldn’t let him. He’d never ask me to do something he wasn’t prepared to do himself. That’s how we’ve ended up in this situation so many times. Together.
Maria Rosa stirs again. She makes a delirious, gurgling kind of sound at the back of her throat, and then her head lolls back, eyes finally shuttering open. Rebel clenches his jaw, readying himself. This is not going to be fun for anyone involved, but he’s angry enough right now that it won’t trouble him as much as usual.
“Good sleep, Mother?” he growls. Slowly, he begins to pace around her in a circle, wrapping the torn piece of rag around his fingers over and over again. “You’re planning on gracing us with your presence, I see.”
Maria Rosa’s pupils dilate, desperately trying to focus on her surroundings. She’s very clearly having problems, though. She’s lost a lot of blood. And she was hysterical before that anyway. God knows where they were before they came burning out of the desert, but something serious obviously went down. Serious enough to end Rico, anyway. Rebel told me about the last time he saw Maria Rosa in Vegas—that she and Rico put on quite a show for Carnie. She fucked Rico right in front of them. Even back in Colombia, it was fairly plain that Rico was in love with her. It was only a matter of time. The woman can never resist a man who fawns over her, no matter if she’s attracted to him or not. She’ll fuck a guy just to make him purr. From the show she put on as Rico was dying, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually had some form of feelings for the guy. Not real feelings, of course. She’s not capable. But some sort of…tolerance for him. More than she ever felt for me, that’s for sure. She repeatedly said she was in love with me, but you don’t attempt to stab someone you’re in love with to death. At least not in my limited experience.
She blinks drunkenly up at Rebel, and everything seems to hit her all at once—Rico dying, threatening Sophia…she probably remembers Trader Joe’s and the heat we pulled from the DEA last, because an ashen, gray color sweeps across her face, turning her into a ghost.
“Oh, my, my,” she whispers. Her words are slurred but still audible. “I suppose this is quite ironic, no?”
“Not really,” Rebel replies. “I’d say it was more…karmic retribution. Do you believe in karma, Mother?”
“Only the bad kind.” She leans forward and spits on the floor—blood and saliva mixed together. “I’m guessing you’re very angry with me, my love.”
Rebel laughs. He tips his head back and howls so loud I’m sure people in town can hear him. “You could say that. Yes, I’m just a little bit mad with you. Can you blame me, though? I mean, you sent men in to a grocery store wearing Widow Makers’ cuts and you had them kill a whole bunch of innocent people. That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
Maria Rosa rolls her eyes. “It was a warning. Nothing more. The cops were never going to charge you. That’s why I had that fat one wear the president’s cut. The police would do a little digging and pull up the club’s details, see your handsome face and know it was the wrong guy, and they would figure it out. That’s why I chose Los Angeles not New Mexico, you spoiled little shit.”
“I’m the spoiled little shit?” Rebel grinds his teeth. I just stand there, leaning against the wall, waiting. At some point one of them is going to drag me into this, but until then I’m quite content sitting it out on the sidelines. Rebel shakes his head, scowling at Maria Rosa.
“You’re petulant, and you have the stones to call me spoiled? I came to you for help in good faith, and now look at where we are.”
“We are here because you have no fucking sense of humor, Rebel. We’re here because I messed up your pretty girlfriend’s hair. Kind of pathetic, don’t you think? She’s still pretty. She still has all of her hair. Even though she killed Rico.”
It was plain to see that Rico was on borrowed time when they pulled up in those cars, but trust Maria Rosa to see it that way—Sophia didn’t save him, therefore she killed him. “There will be…consequences for that,” she wheezes.
“Oh? Consequences? You really think you’re getting out of here alive?”
“I do. I don’t think you’re a cold-blooded killer, Rebel. More’s the pity. I would respect you more if you were, I think.”
There’s only so much of this baiting Rebel will take before he eventually does snap. I’ve only seen it once before, and it was messy and brutal, and it took three weeks to get him to calm down afterward. If we can avoid that outcome, that would be great, but Mother loves to wind a guy up. She teased and tormented me for hours and hours at a time. Difference is, I handled it. Rebel will wrench her head off before he puts up with this much longer.
He slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking around the room like he’s never been in here before and all of this is new to him. Like we haven’t had these kinds of conversations plenty of times before, with plenty of different people. This is the first time we’ve had a ‘chat’ with a woman, but then again Maria Rosa hardly counts. She loves to skin people, for fuck’s sake. She’s wielded the blade herself more times than any of us can count.
Rebel walks over to the container filled with water and plunges the rag he’s holding into it, so that his hand comes up running water everywhere. There’s no showmanship, no bravado. No drawn out production over it. He knows it’s pointless trying to scare Maria Rosa, just like I do. This won’t be about terrifying her into telling us everything she knows about Hector. This will be us bending her to our will, and then when bending doesn’t work, breaking her. And then she’ll tell us.
That undoubtedly makes us evil people, but this is a very unique situation. Maria Rosa really fucked up with that stunt she pulled. She should have gone back to Colombia and continued trafficking her blow. Threatening Rebel and then framing the club? Yeah, that was never going to end well.
“Open wide,” he tells her.
“I’m not normally so eager to please, but…whatever you say, my love.” Maria Rosa opens up, unflinching, unwilling to show that she’s even slightly afraid. Sophia reminds me of her a little, in a way. While Soph is admittedly a little more intimidated by our fucked up world, she wears this look of defiance wherever she goes, like she’s ready to throw down should the need arise. I respect that about her.
Rebel jams the rag into Maria Rosa’s mouth. He then gestures for another one from me. I wet it in the container and hand it over. That goes into her mouth, too. And then another. And another. He’s hitting her with this hardcore. She really won’t be able to breathe in between rounds of water being poured into her mouth, but it doesn’t look like Rebel cares. He kicks out Maria Rosa’s feet from underneath the chair and grabs her by the ankles, pulling her down so that her head is tipped back. The position looks sexual, especially with Rebel standing with one leg either side of hers, but it’s not. He stands like that in order to lift up the heavy water container without tearing open his stitches anymore. Maria gives Rebel a dead-eyed smile around all of the material he’s forcing into her mouth.
He smiles back, holding her face in both of his hands. “What happened to you, Mother?” he asks. He genuinely looks like he wants to know, though there’s a touch of madness to him. “Something fucking terrible must have happened to you.” She looks up at him, not even attempting to speak, not even attempting to answer his question.
He tilts the water canister, and we begin our adventure.
No matter who you are, no matter how strong your will, if someone pours a gallon of water into your mouth when it’s stuffed full of rags, you’re going to choke. You’re going to splutter. You’re going to half drown. Maria Rosa does all of these things as Rebel pours and breaks, pours and breaks with a grim efficiency.
Predictably, she doesn’t tell him a fucking thing. Eventually she loses consciousness. Rebel straightens, glaring down at her limp, soaked body, and shrugs his shoulders. “Well. I guess that was a pointless exercise.”
He sounds way too calm. Frankly, it’s a miracle that he’s functioning on any rational level at all. “You’re not gonna wake her up?”
Rebel grunts, tips his head back, closes his eyes, and then draws in a deep breath. “No. No point. If I carry on with this shit, I won’t be able to stop until she’s fucking dead.”
At least he knows this. That in itself means he’s keeping his shit together. Kind of. “Can you stay with her?” he asks. “When you leave, have Carnie come sit down here and watch both rooms. Make sure Mother and Dela Vega are behaving themselves. In the meantime, do what you have to. Find out what she’s doing in New Mexico, and why the hell she thought it was a good idea to come here.”
“Has to have something to do with Ramirez, right?”
Rebel slowly shakes his head. “Maybe not. Remember that DEA agent she wanted me to sort out for her?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it took me a while to put the pieces together, but the DEA agent that picked me up yesterday…?”
“Lowell? She’s the same agent? No way.”
“Way.”
“What are the chances?”
“Pretty high, actually.” Rebel rolls his neck, opening his eyes. He looks at me, the cold blue of his irises almost the color of ice. “She’s in town because of Ramirez. He and Maria Rosa are the two biggest drug importers into the United States. It’s normal that the same unit would be investigating them both. She must be the big, swinging dick, this Lowell. She’s a viper for sure. Find out what you can about her from Maria Rosa when she wakes up. In the meantime, perhaps you could dig the bullet out of her, please? I don’t feel like finding her dead tomorrow.” He cocks his head to one side, surprise chasing across his face. “Weird. I actually mean that.”