Chapter 2
There is no such thing as failure. There are only results. -Tony Robbins
Damon
Somehow, I manage to make it back to my room without picking her up over my shoulder and slamming her down onto the bed below me. Every fucking day that passes is a test. She tests my limits constantly, and tonight, Rage saw me staring. I fucked up, but that goes unsaid.
She is a fucking vision, the golden goose. Rage knows what he has, even if he doesn’t truly understand it yet.
I’ve been here for a while, and from the first day, I noticed her. I don’t know her entire story, only that she had been with Rage for years before I showed up. Not sure how long, and I bet if I asked she wouldn’t have the slightest clue either.
I have information on her, information that makes Kitten valuable beyond belief.
I take off my cut, setting it down on my bedside table. Next comes my shirt and jeans, and after I’m stripped bare, I slide into my bed and stare up at the ceiling above me.
Years.
I have been here for fucking years and have come up with next to nothing.
A trojan horse for my father, Roman Raines, AKA the half-brother of Rafael and Alejandro Ramirez. Our ties with the cartel are strong, as they should be. After all, what is life without your familia? I’m reminded of that constantly, we make sacrifices for the family, the family comes first. After all, I should understand that more than anyone. Are my brothers and sisters asked to do my father’s dirty work? No. It’s just me. The eldest, the one of which who holds the most responsibility.
We aren’t Ramirez’s. My father tells us that all the time, we are Raines. I have a tough time understanding why he works for his brothers, how his MC somehow turned into this, into me working undercover and finding out where the enemy is purchasing product. He wouldn’t have trusted anyone else with it, so he sent me.
When he sent me, I practically came in blind, knowing almost nothing. It wasn’t until I was over a year in that I knew Rage and my father had a past. A night of hard drinking caused Rage to get sloppy, he spat out information from years ago that my father didn’t fill me in on. It didn’t take me long to put together that my father left, with more than half of the brothers that were with the Demons of Hell, it’s when he founded the Brotherhood – the MC I grew up in.
The moment I discovered that, I knew that this wasn’t business. This was personal. It was exactly the reason my father didn’t send anyone else to do this job. He wanted to make sure it was done right and followed through. When I was done here, I would ruin them, and he knew that. I’m like my father in a lot of ways. Rage won’t know what hit him.
I lay here waiting for the sandman to take me. This happens every night, where I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling. My mind constantly running, not allowing me to rest. All I can think about is how there is so much more to do; the only thing I want to do is finish this. I need to get to work.
Tomorrow, though.
Only so much can be done in one day.
***
“Papa is going to be furious when he finds out you came here today. Someone could have followed you, you know that! Don’t you?! How could you be so careless? Hmm? How could you?” I watch my sister, Amara, closely. She looks just like our mother; fair skin, long auburn hair, and somehow her personality is all our father; reacting first and using her brain second. She’s right. I probably shouldn’t have come here, and yeah, someone could have followed me, but what my sister forgets is that I’m careful. I’m not a rookie, I know what I’m fucking doing.
“I needed to get out of there. You don’t understand how it is.” I needed to get away from her, that’s what I should have said, but then my sister would know there was a problem. We’re Raines. We don’t deal with problems.
“No, you’re right. I wouldn’t understand because Papa doesn’t give me nearly as many opportunities as you. He chose you to do this. He fucking chooses you for everything. There are more of us, you know, not just you, Damon, on your high and mighty horse.”
I scoff.
There is nothing high and mighty about the pedestal my father puts me on. I would give anything for him to give Amara, Rose, Ashton, or Lyon the attention that he gives me. There are five of us, and he acts like I’m the only one here.
“Do you think I asked for this shit?” I snap at her, waiting for her response. I lift myself off of the couch in her apartment, walking past her coffee table and pacing next to her island. “I didn’t fucking ask for any of this. He put me there. He told me to go, so I went.”
“Oh, what a good little soldier you are. Should I give you a round of applause?” she grumbles, clapping her hands together.
“Stop being such a fucking bitch, A!” At this point I’m yelling. She knows every exact way to piss me off. Sometimes, I wonder if she does it on purpose. “You’re just pissed because he doesn’t choose you for anything. You want to know why? It’s because you fail him, every single time.”
Amara’s face goes ghost white.
Fuck.
I shouldn’t have said that.
Shit.
“You are just like him, you know… you want to say that you aren’t, constantly fighting it, but at the end of the day, when you’re not getting your way, you are just like him. You hurt people, using their feelings against them. All you are is Roman two-point-oh. How do you like hearing that, dear brother? Does the truth sting?”
“I am nothing like him,” I firmly tell her.
“You are exactly like him, don’t kid yourself.” She walks past me into the kitchen and grabs a bottle of tequila from the counter top, pouring herself a shot and handing me another.
“I’m not like him,” I hiss, taking the shot back, the alcohol stinging my throat as it goes down.
“You’re infiltrating a club for your own personal gain, you’re exactly like him.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said –“
I cut her off immediately. “I’m not in this fucking club for any other reason than to give Dad what he wants. He wants to know who the Demons are buying their drugs from, it’s not the cartel, and I’m so fucking close to finding out where and who is supplying them. The Demons are expanding where they’re dealing, which poses a threat to all of us. If our uncles suffer, we suffer, or do you not remember that? Oh, and let me enlighten you a little bit, Dad didn’t exactly give me all of the fucking information when he sent me there. He left out big pieces of information, baby sister.”
Amara watches me. I know what she’s thinking, she thinks I’m fucking with her, that I pulled a lie out of my ass and am feeding her with it. Our father says time and time again that we are Raines, and while we are, we also have the Ramirez blood flowing through our veins. Our loyalties will always lay within the familia. I might be in the club because Rage is fucking with cartel business, but let’s not be naïve, I’m here to finish my father’s war.
“Have you ever wondered how Mom got that scar, just below her chin, the one that crosses down her neck, into her shoulder?”
I wait, and when Amara doesn’t speak, I continue.
“Rage held a knife to her throat and did that. He was trying to kill her. She was pregnant with you when that happened, and you want to know how I know? Because Rage fucking told me. He told me so much about our father, how Dad left and started the Brotherhood. We haven’t even hit the tip of the iceberg. I’m just wondering what else Dad hasn’t told us.”
“Papa is going to right the wrongs that were done to us, to our family, and to every brother that was fucked with by Rage and his insane schemes. He’s a sociopath, a sociopath who still has one of the largest clubs in America. You know what Papa is doing, right? We’re not just squashing Rage’s drug supply, or the business threat to the Cartel. We’re going home, and we’re taking back what was rightfully ours. I mean, c’mon Da’… who do you think the Prez is going to be after we slaughter them?”
I stand there, staring at my sister who has an evil snicker spread across her face, a replica of our father, down to his mannerisms. She claims I’m just like him, when she hasn’t even taken a look in the mirror.
“If you think he doesn’t share things with me, you’re insane, and in case you’re wondering, it’s you, big dummy. Papa is giving you what’s yours. You just have to take it, no distractions. Just get the job done.”
No distractions. Yeah fucking right.
I have a pretty big fucking distraction, and her name is Kitten. I’m supposed to be watching her, but not in the way that I am.
Here Kitty, Kitty Coming Soon from E. Knox.