My hand runs through her hair, “No, you don’t. Because you have kept Eli alive. Matias was already coming for us. Some roads, baby, are meant to be travelled. You may not understand them now, but how and when things happen in their own time isn’t always clear. Don’t question your road or the past. It is what has led you to the woman you are today. Be brave and have faith in yourself and the road. Take every step with confidence, not with regrets.”
Her arms wrap around my body and her face is buried into my chest. She places a soft kiss over my heart. “You are the light to my dark.”
Kissing her forehead, I tenderly confess, “You are the light to my dark.”
Truth is, Kat is fearless, and she has given me more love than I have ever felt in my life. She has seen more pain than I could ever imagine, and, even though she mourns the loss, she stays strong. Even with her hard exterior, there is a tenderness she has kept away from others. I feel it when I am around her. It was only meant to be mine.
We haven’t seen Eli for a few months now. Fuego took him, along with his mother to care for Eli, to a safe house that not a person knows where it is. Fuego has a burner phone for us to contact him only in emergencies. The girls have also been separated and placed in different locations, for protection. None of us wanted us to chance anyone’s safety.
So far, we have confiscated and placed several shipments back into the warehouse in Mexico. Calls are being made, asking questions, and, for now, distribution has stopped in this area. Bosses are pissed with the lack of product being distributed. No drugs, no money, and they have bills to pay.
The Cartel is starting to self-destruct. The pressure is on for answers, and Matias is on the run now, a hunted man. It is only a matter of time before they find the drugs in his warehouse in Mexico.
“Tank.” Blade walks into the room we’ve been set up in with Spider. “I need you to do some recon.” He explains that he wants me to go with him to survey a meeting happening with the Cartel.
Kat and Spider are busy at work, still on the computers, so I step outside with Blade and Stryker.
“Matias is in Texas and looking for Kat,” Blade informs us. “Cowboy got confirmation on the street. He knows now that we are behind the drugs and stashing it into his warehouse. Matias also knows that Kat has connections on the dark web. He isn’t going to come for her there—”
“Until he is ready to bait her into another ploy,” I finish for him. “We can’t tell Kat. She’ll get boots on the ground and go after him herself.”
Stryker nods, “Agreed. Spider and the men know. We are going to go look at where Matias is hiding now. Plant some trackers if we can and set up any surveillance. And then wait for him to get in contact with Kat.”
Some wars are meant to be won by sacrificing the queen.
Matias
She whimpers underneath my hands that are wrapped around her throat. I release one hand and smack her across the face with all the force that I can, wishing it would knock her out and she would quit her sniveling.
These stupid white perras are the same. One after another, they have not satisfied any thirst I had for sex. Mexican, pure blood mujeres Mexicanas. One in particular I crave, and have craved for years, and until I get her back, I will continue to break the spirit of this woman to do my bidding.
In the last week, I’ve beaten her regularly until I felt satisfied that she gave me every detail about Katherine. Now I know everything and, best of all, where she is. It doesn’t surprise me that she accomplished what she had. The woman is smart. I just can’t figure out why.
“Don’t cry, pinche guera, stupid white girl.” I slam my dick into her with all the pent-up anger swarming around me that I can’t get rid of. Closing my eyes, I picture Kat, how she looked before she left me. Those prized moments of when I thought we connected.
I pound harder, my release drawing in, and Kat’s dead body lies beneath me. Her eyes open, mouth hanging open. The bitch’s hands lay hazardless by her sides. Moaning, my dick shoots off, finally, and the stupid little perra whimpers again, destroying my fantasy and pulling me back into the present.
“Puta barata, cheap whore.”
Shoving her away from me, I rip the condom off my cock and throw it into the trash. I watch her bleeding on the bed. “Clean this up,” I point to the bed and her disgusting body.
After I have showered her filth off me, I get back to my business. My men have confirmed that the shipments that had gone missing were tipped off to be located in my warehouse. Many pissed off Cartel Bosses are now looking for me, the Cursed Kings want their payment, and they also want me dead.
There is only one way out of this. Capture Katherine and get the evidence I need to clear my name. My future is a ticking time bomb and I need her alive. My first step was killing that little puke of a man at their clubhouse.
My target was Eli, but that was a fail. Second best was the man she left to care for him. At least when I pulled the trigger, I felt some relief for all she’d taken from me.
This should be enough of a distraction to lure her into my next plan. Katherine will sacrifice herself to save someone else.
Tank
My heart is pounding in my chest as I watch Jane walking across the room after Matias left, naked and grotesquely beaten, with large black and blue bruises littered across her pale skin. He never killed her, and now we know how he is going to bait my Kit Kat. Shit, I wish I could put a bullet through Jane’s head from where I’m sitting because, by the looks of it, after this, she may never survive in this world again.
Unfortunately for Jane, she has become a pawn and has to be sacrificed for the end game, killing Matias. The brothers and I pass looks back and forth, and each one of us thinks the exact same thing I just thought. Fuck.
We make quick work of setting up small cameras and tracking devices. Blade already has a shift worked out. The two of us take the first one, monitoring the building. The others head back to keep an eye on Kat. She’s going to be pissed when she finds out we didn’t tell her the details.
“One way or another, K-Love is going to realize this was the best way,” I can’t help saying the words out loud to Blade.
“Tank, we do need to talk about the future. I know Kat was involved in this because of a lot of her personal factors. In the future, for everyone’s best interest, it is club business only.”
“Agreed, brother. I don’t want shit like this creeping up and biting us in the ass again. It could have ended a lot worse than it did.”
Families make mistakes and feelings can alter the perception of truth. Never again will I let my feelings hold judgement over my club. I realize now how my personal feelings altered their lives, and it wasn’t right to do that to them. There will always be two things I need to survive this life, my club brothers and my family with Kat.
Chapter 24
Kat
Days have gone by and my skin prickles because a storm is brewing, I can feel it. Tank and the guys have been gone on club business which means they have a lead and they aren’t sharing.
I’m struggling with my demons from the past and jump to conclusions that Tank and the club are setting me up. But, with every passing moment, that gets more difficult. Between him and I, this doubt grows. At least it feels like that for me. And each day that passes with no information, the walls rebuild around my heart.
It’s been a natural response for my entire life. Can I change? What I do know is that if I don’t change, my son will learn these behaviors from me. I don’t want that poison I’ve been taught to seep into his little soul.
Frustration runs through my body and I can’t think straight anymore. I decide to take a break. When I get outside in the sun, I find Spider sitting on a bench, smoking. I hold my hand out and ask for one, and he passes me his pack along with a lighter. Sitting down next to him, I light one and pass them back to him. After an exhale, he asks, “You holding up okay?”
“Yes. I am okay.” I take a drag because I don’t want to el
aborate further. Spider watches me though, and I know he sees it, but I try to hide it none the less.
“Kat, you and I are a lot alike. In the dark, we can hide and work where we feel the most comfortable. I get away with hiding in the dark. I know my place in the club and in life.” He turns to me and points with his smoke between his fingers, “Kat, get out of the webs, live in the light. Let Tank take care of you. That’s where you will be the happiest.”
He stubs out his smoke, tossing it to the ground and stepping on it with his boot. He leaves me alone with his words. What the hell does that even mean? I’ve definitely entangled myself into a messy life with my choices along the way, but I also feel like I had to survive.
I need to clear my head. There is just too much, and, maybe after this is all over, I can concentrate on making things easier and lighter. Maybe, just maybe, I can have a more normal life. I’ll keep fighting for the best things in life. It is time that I stopped running from the good.
After I finish my smoke, I stand to go back inside when a car pulls up. I freeze and my blood runs cold at the sight of a beaten and bruised Jane. She is sitting in the passenger seat, with a gun held to her head. One man is in the driver’s seat and two are in the back, pointing the gun at her. The driver rolls the window down just enough for me to hear her, exposing only half of her face. She is alive. Just as fast, it hits me, I realize why. Matias has hurt her beyond healing.
“You have ten minutes to meet us at 310 South Street. If you don’t, I die.” The window is rolled up and I back away. I came out here with nothing to protect myself or her. I have no gun, knife, nothing. If I yell for Spider, they will speed away and, more than likely, shoot her.
There is only one thing I can do, go get her myself. I owe her that much.
Instead of going into the motel room where Spider is, I urgently walk into my own and arm myself with guns and knives. Grabbing the keys from the dresser, I step outside the door only to find Stryker blocking my path. “Kat, no. Not your fight, go back inside.”
I try to push past him, ignoring his words because the anxiety claims my senses, wanting to get to Jane as fast as I can. Stryker’s hands grip my shoulders, and before I know what is happening, I am spun around and back inside my room. The door slams shut behind me. I whip around, coming face to face with the MC Prez.
“They are going to kill her,” I grit out the words between my teeth and my fists clench at my sides.
Stryker’s arms cross over his chest. “They need you, Kat. If they have you, they will torture you and finally kill you after they have the information they need to prove that Matias didn’t steal his own drugs and money from the other Cartel Bosses. You will slit all of our throats with one step out that door.”
His face tilts to the side with the glare of a killer. “I love Tank like my son. If I have to kill you to keep my entire family safe, I will do it. Then I will have to kill Tank because he will come after me for hurting you.” He pulls a nine-millimeter from his back and holds it at his side. “I want you to understand one more thing. I would have killed you already, but you are breathing because of him. What you know could kill each and every one of us. Do we understand each other?”
I understand perfectly well what he means. That he would have ordered the men to put a bullet between my eyes because I know what they did. I hold club secrets, and no one is to know those and live to tell the story.
Inhaling a breath is like breathing with broken ribs, the reality of this is that painful. “They hurt her, Stryker, because I failed to protect her,” I painfully admit. “He more than likely raped her for hours, and his men did, too. Beat her and broke her bones to get the information they wanted.” I don’t know who I am pleading with, maybe the heavens to right these wrongs.
“We offered for them to stay with us. We couldn’t hold them against their will to protect them when that would’ve put us at risk, and they didn’t want our protection. Why should I put my men at risk? I am sorry for your loss, but you, as a leader, have to learn to minimize the risk for your family. You can’t save everyone. You can’t go back and save your sister over and over. She died.”
My world shatters again at the truth he explains so freely. My chest heaves and I sit back on the bed with my head in my hands. “It never gets easier. Each body that lies in the wake of this dark world. Each soul that crosses over never makes any sense, and there is nothing at the end of it.”
Stryker sits in the chair across from me. “You have seen more than most in this life. To make the decision of who lives or dies never feels right. But the why is easy. To protect my family, I will kill them all and wear the battle scars for them. Let Tank carry that burden for you. Free yourself of that pain.”
My head raises and, once again, I see the Prez of the Battle Born MC, but this time, it is the leader and protector.
Tank
As soon as we heard that Matias had sent the men to the hotel address where we were staying at, Stryker called and said he had eyes on Kat and would text us with directions next. Now I’m pacing back and forth. We knew from the bugs we placed that he wanted her alive. The only question is if she went rogue on me.
Spider live streamed the whole exchange outside of the motel, so we saw and heard everything they said. Thank God she hadn’t been armed, who knows what she would have done.
Once we had the directions for the meet, we left for the location where he is now standing inside an abandoned bakery. Armed guards are at the doorway and they escort Jane in with shackled hands and feet. The asshole punches her in the face and breaks her nose before tying her to a chair. All for Kat’s benefit when she shows up.
All this does is enrage me further to charge in there and beat the shit out of him myself with my own hands.
“You understand that Jane may not make it out of there alive?” Blade asks, and I know why. Once we get close enough, Matias will use her as a shield and that could sign her death warrant.
“To protect the club and Kat, I will do what I have to.” I don’t need to look at Blade to know that he gave the order for the men to start the next phase. Feet start to quietly move across the floor of the business we broke into to watch the building across from us.
Blade looks at his phone and confirms that we go in minus thirty seconds. He counts down and Saint and I hold out rifles with a steady aim. At the end of the count, we send the two front guards to hell with a bullet between the eyes. The brothers storm in from the back and front. Finally, the last battle to win the war has begun.
We leave our rifles and run across the street to help in the gun fight, taking out as many as possible on our way in. Running across the street, double fisting our handguns, we shoot anything that moves.
The building suddenly drops into dead silence. Slowly, we creep around the rooms and the dead bodies of the Cartel, until finally we reach the last room. Blade and Saint look at me from the other side of the doorway leading in.
“Katherine,” Matias yells for her. “Come out and I’ll let her go. You have ten seconds before I slit her throat. Come out now.”
We look at each other because we know he will never let Jane go. She wails in pain and we hear his manic laughter filling the space. Not wasting another second, I step around the doorway and hold my gun, aiming for his head. Matias pulls the knife out from her leg and holds the bloody blade to her throat. “Where is she?” His darken voice makes Jane shake with fear.
“She’s not here. Let her go, fight me.”
He laughs more, “I have no use for you,” he lies. The look in his eyes tells me that he knows exactly who I am. Within seconds, his pupils dilate, and the killer has chosen death. His hand grips the blade and he is ready to slit her throat as a distraction before he sends a bullet into me.
Mercy. I choose mercy for poor Jane and shoot her in the head. It snaps back and Matias’ face is sprayed with blood. I duck and roll to the left before Saint sends a bullet into his arm that has the gun which was aimed at me. The weapon clatters to
the ground and I jump up to take him down.
Pure adrenaline mixed with fury laces my blood, and all I see is red. My fists fly for his face, hitting him two times before he falls backward and to the floor. I follow, then attempt to jump back, but it’s too late when his knife misses my torso, sticking into my thigh instead.
My hand covers his and my fist rears back and beats his face with two jabs. His grip loosens on the blade and I rip it out with a roar before plunging it into his arm, then tossing it to the side. His screams of pain ignite the animal within me, and my hands wrap around his throat. I wait for him while he struggles underneath me.
Leaning forward, my hands let up just enough before I kill him. I sadistically whisper, “You’re not dying today, you sick fuck. You are going to the mine and only God knows how long you will last before your body will finally die.”
My hands beg to be freed and finish this. Not today, though, not after everything he has done. My fists beat his face so many times it turns into mush and blood. Blade and Saint pull me back before I do finish him here. They tie his feet, then flip him over and zip-tie his hands together.
Together, they drag him up and he groans from his wounds. This smaller in stature man, he’s minimal compared to my height and weight, and, just to hammer it home, I’m going to knock his fucking lights out.
First, I take my size thirteen boots and kick his stomach and ribs. I don’t stop until he throws up, and I am sure he doesn’t have not one rib that’s not broken. My large fist punches that motherfucker square in the face while Blade and Saint hold him.
His head snaps back, just like how he did to Jane, but doesn’t fall to the floor because of the support from my brothers. “Lights out, motherfucker, that was for Jane.”
Fighting for Forever: Tank & Kat's story, Part 2 (Battle Born MC Book 6) Page 11
