Chapter Twenty-Eight
Snake slipped out of the motel room and closed the door behind him without a sound. Amanda still slept, and this was not a conversation for her ears. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but her life had been sullied enough by history and she didn’t need details of how he planned to destroy Casper and the rest of the Grimm Brothers in the process.
Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he dialed a number he’d memorized long ago.
Silence greeted him, which wasn’t unexpected. Esteban Fuentes was a cautious bastard bordering on paranoid. He had to be. As the head of the Fuentes cartel, he not only had countless enemies, but both the Mexican and US governments would love nothing more than to see him behind bars for the rest of his life. Well, that was at least the stance the Mexican government took. Unofficially, Esteban tossed them enough money to keep them looking the other way forever.
Actually, Snake was surprised he’d even bothered to answer a call from an unidentified phone number.
“Hable,” Esteban said in a clipped tone.
Snake had about thirty seconds to do as Esteban asked and speak before the man lost interest.
“El Impio,” he said, using the cartel leader’s nickname, The Wicked.
Esteban loved his nickname. Not only did it describe him to a T, but it threw off non-Spanish speakers. They often assumed it was a translation for the imp and expected a small, weak man. El Impio was six feet tall and hard as a rock both in physique and personality. He’d order a man’s death in the most gruesome way then sleep like a baby after watching it carried out.
“Been a long time, brother.”
Silence ensued again and Snake almost laughed. Esteban knew his voice and a call from a dead man would shock anyone, even the evilest of men. Part of him took a bit of twisted pleasure in fucking with the man’s head.
“Culebra.” The Spanish word for snake came through the phone as a whisper.
“Miss me, Esteban?”
“What the fuck?” Esteban asked switching to strongly accented English. “Casper said—”
Snake snorted. “I’m sure Casper told you a great story chock full of all kinds of bullshit. Care to hear the real version? This one is full of betrayal and disloyalty.” Snake knew exactly how to appeal to Esteban. Loyalty was key. Any whiff of betrayal and El Impio would cut a man down no questions asked. Combine that with the fact that according to Cece, Esteban was ready to throw Casper over anyway, and Snake was confident he could get Esteban on board with his plan.
“Carajo! I’ve always known something was off with that little fucker. Diga me.”
With a triumphant smile, Snake filled Esteban in on Casper’s attempted murder plot and how he’d managed to survive. He then outlined his plan to eliminate any future threat from Casper or any of the Grimm Brothers. He could hide behind the noble pursuit of keeping Amanda safe and off the Grimm’s radar, but if he was honest with himself, he straight up wanted revenge.
“You have good timing, Culebra. I’m meeting with your old friend tomorrow morning.”
“Same spot as usual?”
“Si. Meet my man at the convenience store like always. Ten a.m. Leave your vehicle. He’ll take you to me. After I get my money, you can do as you please with your man. I’ve made a connection with a club in New Mexico. They’ll be taking over the business your Grimms have now. Casper has a been a thorn in my side for months. I was done with him before you called.”
“I’ll be there.” Snake could practically see the evil grin curling Esteban’s mouth. Hell, maybe Casper would get off easier this way than if he was to meet Esteban alone. It didn’t matter. What mattered was looking in the man’s eyes when he realized he’d lost everything.
Everything he’d stolen.
~ ~ ~ ~
The desert wasn’t quite what Amanda had expected. In her mind, they’d be driving through stark white sand as far as the eye could see. In reality, brown dominated her visual field and there was much more vegetation than expected. Of course, that vegetation came in the form of stubby little trees and brown bushes, but still, the desert was littered with them. So much for her Hollywood vision of the desert.
Most of the multi-hour drive was spent in silence, with Nick no doubt planning and backing up his plan in his mind. She was dying to question him about it, but had already won a victory that day and didn’t want to press her luck. He’d been adamant about dropping her off at a hotel in Vegas, far enough from both Idaho and Arizona to ease his mind about her safety.
She’d refused. Two could play the stubborn game. And after an hour-long argument, Nick conceded. No way was she going to sit on her behind in a random city while Nick drove hundreds of miles away toward the very real danger. Winning that battle was why she didn’t push it and grill him on exactly what he was planning for his former club. He’d already given her some spiel about plausible deniability in the event that he was arrested.
To be honest, she hadn’t even considered the idea that whatever he’d plotted out would end with apprehension by the police. Now, on top of stressing about him being in the presence of crazy bikers who wanted to kill him, she had to worry about the police as well. Should be a fun and relaxing day.
The silent ride left her with plenty of time to do her own thinking, and she now felt weary and just shy of a nervous breakdown.
With a sigh, Amanda focused on the monochromatic scenery rushing past and tried to still her running thoughts. Would Nick be injured? Would he be killed? Would he kill someone? And the one that had her insides twisting just as much as her fear of him being killed: Would he decide to stay? Would he remember how much he’d loved his life and take back his club? It would be the end of them. And no matter how much she tried to prepare herself for the possibility of that outcome, she’d be destroyed if it happened.
Nick squeezed her leg. Though he’d been uncommunicative, he’d pulled her to the center of the pickup truck’s bench seat and kept her anchored against him with a hand on her thigh for the majority of the ride. The physical closeness kept the silence from feeling like distance.
“Okay, babe, spit it out.”
“Huh?” She studied him as he focused on the road.
“You’ve sighed three times in the last five minutes. You got something to say, say it.” He spared her a quick glance before returning his attention to the road.
She pursed her lips and ran her fingers up and down his arm. “There’s something I’d like you to do. Something I think you need to do. But you’re not going to like it.”
“I’m a big boy. Just tell me. Whatever it is,” he said as he slid his hand up her bare thigh, bunching the leg of her shorts around the top of her leg. His fingers were inches from her groin and while he didn’t appear to be taking it too far, the subtle stroking of his fingers against the ultra-sensitive skin of her inner thigh had her insides trembling.
“Um, okay.” Thinking and forming coherent sentences proved difficult when all she wanted was those fingers to continue their way north. “I think you need to, uh, speak to the woman.”
“Woman? Which woman?” he asked as he flicked his turn signal on and eased around a car traveling ten miles per hour under the speed limit.
“The one you, uh…” She stared down at her hand on his arm and inhaled. “The woman you told me you blackmailed and kidnapped. I think you need to make amends, or apologize, or something. In order to really move on, I think it’s important.” There, she got it out in one breath.
The only reaction, the only indication that he’d even heard what she said was a momentary flexing of his fingers against her thigh. She’d warned him he wouldn’t like it.
Long, tense minutes passed without a word spoken. So much time, in fact, that she assumed he was just going to ignore the suggestion or that she’d pissed him off and he wasn’t speaking to her. Or, oh God, maybe he’d already decided he was going to stay with the Grimm Brothers. Maybe he had no plan to return to Idaho with her. No plan to change his life. It was in that moment that she realized just how much she wanted him to stay with her.
When he finally broke the silence, she jolted. “There’s a good chance either she or her ol’ man will just shoot me on sight. He’s one giant motherfucker. You saw what he did to me last time. You prepared to drag home a corpse?”
Amanda shuddered. For as long as she lived, she’d never forget what a mess he was when she first saw him, and that was after two weeks of healing time. “That was at the height of emotional distress, after he’d seen what you did to the woman he loves. What if I went with you? I could speak to them first, feel out the situation.”
“I don’t know, babe. It might be best for them to just continue believing I’m dead. It’s a lot of shit they’ll be reliving otherwise.”
Amanda chewed her lip and nodded. He made a good point. He also sounded like he wasn’t planning to go back to the MC. She wanted to ask if that was a possibility but was petrified of the answer so she remained silent. Last night he’d been so gentle, so loving. She had a deep fear that it was his way of saying goodbye.
“I do see where you’re coming from, though. That whole fucking disaster is the one thing I can’t reconcile in my head. The one regret I’ll carry with me to the grave. Can we table it until the rest of this shit is dealt with?”
“Yeah. Sorry. You have enough to worry about without me piling it on.”
They rolled to a stop at a red light and Nick faced her. He curled his hand around the back of her neck and dragged her to his mouth. The honk of a car horn made her jump and drew her back from a hot as hades kiss.
“Thanks for looking out for me.”
Warmth bloomed in her chest. Nick would make it. He’d be the one to come back to her after Snake dealt with his old club. He had to.
She wasn’t sure she’d survive otherwise.