I follow the voices and find myself in some sort of dining room type of thing, seeing men in vans flying out the doors and rushing towards the compound. “Widow, head to the roof and try to knock a few out on their way in. We know there’s bound to be more comin’ our way.” I do as my Prez asks and head up the stairwell that leads to the second level. Once I’m there, I’m having a hard problem trying to find out how to gain access to the roof, but that’s when I see it.
Through a window, I see a fire escape and immediately know it’s my golden ticket. Even on the second floor I hear fighting and go to the room. I see a female Jackal being pinned down on a desk with a man on top of her. Fuck! I can’t just stand by and let this shit happen. I rush up behind the motherfucker and wrap my arm around his neck, yanking him off her. I tighten my grip until he starts to get a little loopy and quickly place my hands on both sides of his neck, twisting sharply to the right. You’d think it would be harder to snap a man’s neck, but after doing it so many times, it’s become easy. It’s my signature move when shit goes down, to snap necks.
“You good?” I ask the girl. She’s still holding onto the desk for dear life, breathing in and out quickly like a panting dog would. Somethin’ tells me she’s never had that happen before, never let them get that close. “Yes, I. I’m okay. Thank you. He … used to be with us. I didn’t react the way I should’ve. I’m sorry that you had to interfere.”
“It’s alright.” I say to her, walking out of the room. I know it’s okay to leave her, she’s just in shock, but I have a job to do. I head towards the fire escape, opening the window and crawl out onto it, going up the stairwell until I’m at the top.
As I step onto the roof, I see that Tania is up here alone and a Vibora has their gun trained right on her. She’s not moving, knowing she’s caught in their fire and I react. It feels like slow motion as I raise my gun and aim for the Vibora’s head, but just like a few minutes ago, his body jolts as the bullet goes through his head. He falls to the ground and she looks over at me, snarling, “I didn’t need your help!”
I run up to her and slam my lips down onto hers quickly before pulling away. “You didn’t have that handled, sweetie. No way, no how.” I argue, going over to the side of the building. I see more of them coming out of the vans and aim my gun, shooting whatever I can. They don’t fire at the roof for a minute, but when I need to re-load, they start firing every which way. I don’t even think these fuckers know where we are.
“Where’s the rest of the people that were supposed to be on the roof?” I bark out at her, giving her a glare along with it.
“They needed to help downstairs. Shit was getting heated. Hey! Don’t you glare at me like that, you wombat!” She snickers as she says it, and I’m not quite sure what she’s really calling me.
I slap in my new clip and chamber a round, peering over the wall, shooting any enemy within my range. I knock down five within a few minutes, and see Tania popping out a few bullets herself. “Thank fuck, I needed a little back up a minute ago!” I slide back down, shielding myself from any fire that may come my way, but so far, nothing does.
“What can I say? I was tired and you had it handled.” She snickers, all of a sudden turning her back, she lets out three shots and a snake hits the ground. Fuck, if that wasn’t the hottest thing I’ve seen in a while. That’s some straight Angelina Jolie shit.
There’s still no fire, so I peek back up and don’t see anyone else coming. “Are we clear?”
She looks over for a moment and nods her head, “Yep, our job is done it looks like. C’mon, they may need us downstairs.”
The two of us get up and head down the fire escape, gaining entry to the compound through the window. The compound is just as quiet as it was a few minutes ago and before I can say a word, Damon meets us at the bottom of the stairs. “Looks like we’re good here. Dixon, light this shit up. I don’t want them to have a home to come back to.”
“You got it, Prez.” Dixon tells Damon, pulling a pack of matches out from his pocket. “They have enough flammables that I won’t even have to try too hard.”
“Now what?” I ask Damon, wanting to hear what the plan is.
“We head out. Our work isn’t done. Whoever is staying at the club while we’re in Mexico needs to go back now. Ricardo needs to know we’re coming for him, and we’re chopping off the head of every snake we find.”
29
She looked daisy safe, but smelled rose wild.
-Anonymous
Widow
I’ve never had a Prez act so quickly in calling us back to action. He told us all to pack heavy, knowing that we’d be dealing with one hell of a fight and while we did, we managed to come out on top of it all.
Unlucky for me, we had to go back through the sewers to get to our bikes. Damon and the rest were able to get out in enough time to where the cops didn’t catch them, but word is that they were flying around town trying to figure out who brought mayhem to their streets. They should really be thanking us, considering we just saved them a fuck ton of issues for down the road.
It took us about six hours to get into Mexico, staying a couple towns over from where Damon and Pharaoh told us Ricardo would be held up. I still don’t know how they got their intel, but at the same time, I don’t care. As long as we get the dude, why does it fuckin’ matter where the information came from? Damon’s original plan was to keep Booger back at the clubhouse, but he changed his mind all of a sudden. I don’t know why, but I think it has something to do with this being so personal. In place of Booger, Cobra stayed back at the clubhouse with Amara and Mouser.
We stopped at a hotel to crash for a few hours of shut eye, given that we were all grumpy motherfuckers and needed it. I’ll tell ya, as I age, it’s not easy doing these long rides anymore. Kills my fuckin’ back more than anything. Before we left, I sent a quick text off to Melody telling her that I’d be away for a couple days while I was handling some business. She can read in between the lines. She’s been part of this life before and knows that I’m on a run, one that I can’t discuss with her.
“How are we handlin’ this? Long and drawn out for givin’ us hell, or quick and easy?” I ask Damon. We’re standing outside the hotel, both of us smoking a cigarette, which is something he rarely does.
He turns his head in my direction, “I want to get in and out of here as quickly as possible. My uncle doesn’t know we’re here, and it’s better if it stays that way. As far as I’m concerned, Booger has dibs to whatever happens to Ricardo. We need to remember that the club was threatened by my uncle, which means something is going to be coming. What that is? I have no idea. I just know that once we’re done with this battle, we’re going to have to face another.”
“Why do you always have to look at the negative in every situation?” I chuckle, shaking my head. “There might not be anything coming our way. You don’t know that’s going to happen.”
Damon gives me a look, one that shakes me to my core. “Have you ever known my father to not deliver on a promise?”
“No.” I reply. Roman has never failed to keep his promises, even if they were threats.
“Exactly. As much as I hate it, Rafael is blood, and my blood never breaks promises. Something will be coming for us, brother. I can’t explain how I know it, but I do. It might not be today, it could be six months from now, but something is coming.”
“Then we’d better get the fuck out of here and handle our shit.”
“I agree.” Damon and I finish our private discussion and we all meet in one of the rooms to go over what’s going to happen today. It’s the most intimate session of church I’ve ever had, and I don’t mean the good type of intimate. We’re all crammed into a tiny ass room, with our balls practically touching. Not to mention, it’s hot as Hades in here. I guess in this part of Mexico they don’t care about air conditioning.
It turns out that Vinny has been a bigger help than we initially thought, and Damon brings up the fact that Mouser’s sister,
Lennox, who is a renowned bounty hunter helped out a lot too. Apparently, Ricardo has a bounty on his head here in Mexico and that’s how we were able to find out his location. She has a friend who works here for the government in tracking down criminals and he had an informant who knew where he might be. Damon reached out to her and paid her friend the fee for the bounty, giving us the ability to do whatever we want with Ricardo. As long as her friend got his money, he didn’t give a fuck what happened to Ricardo.
“I’ve already told Widow this, and now I’ll tell the rest of you.” Damon says to the room of us. None of us speak, but instead remain quiet as he continues. “As far as I’m concerned, Booger has dibs on Ricardo. That fucker did some damage when it comes to Camila and I’m not going to let him get away with it. Boog, you get to do whatever your heart desires to that bastard. Just don’t draw it out, we need to get back to the club and out of Mexico as soon as possible. I don’t fuckin’ care if you make him suffer or not, but just make sure it’s done in a timely manner.”
“I already have something planned.” Booger says, looking at Damon and then to the room of us. “When we get him, I’m gonna need some of you to hold him down as I slice off his balls and dick. I want him to bleed the fuck out, begging for his life in front of my eyes. That is what this bastard deserves. He deserves to suffer in ways that he’s made others. Camila begged him not to hurt her, and he still did it. I want him to feel what she felt. More importantly, I want him to pay for what he did to her.”
“Fuck,” Dixon mutters, “Men like that don’t just do that to one woman. They do it to multiple, hurting them in whatever way they feel like. Slimy bastard if you ask me. I’ll help you out, brother.”
“You don’t have to ask the rest of us. You know that we’ll help you in whatever way we can.” I speak up for every brother here.
What our enemies don’t realize is that when they hurt one of us, they hurt all of us. We’re like a pack of wolves. One won’t come for you. The entire pack will.
If anything, I think we’ve shown Ricardo that we’re not fucking around. We’ve taken out every compound that his piece of shit gang has in the States, and now we’re coming for him in his own territory. I just wonder, is the bastard going to be as easy to stop as we think, or is he going to put up a fight?
30
A queen will always turn pain into power.
-Ana Chavez
Rebel
“Alright, is there anything else you two want before I run off to the store?” I give both Zoe and Nikolai a knowing look. They’ve had me adding things for the last five minutes and I’m really just trying to get to the store before it gets too busy.
The two of them stare at the other and break out into laughter. At this point, I’m pretty sure my tough as nails boyfriend also doubles as my second child. “Okay … Well, I’m leaving now. Anything else you forget to tell me about is being forgotten! Got it?”
“Yeah, momma. I think we’re good.”
I nod, taking a couple of steps towards the two of them and lean over the back of the couch. First, I give Zoe a kiss on the top of her head and then kiss Nikolai on the lips quickly. But before I can escape my madness, I’m being stared down by two little furballs who shouldn’t be on the couch but, there they are. They’re so cute that I can’t bear to ream Zoe or Niko out for it though. I rub both Cerberus and Dolly on the back of their heads, giving them both a good scratch. “Love you both, I’ll be back in about an hour.”
I turn and before I exit the front door, I hear the both of them telling me they love me and saying their goodbyes. I get in my SUV and head out to the grocery store on the corner of town. It isn’t anything special, but they have some decent prices and I like to save a few bucks here and there.
Going to the grocery store is one of the very few things I like to do by myself. It gives me time to think, assess, and figure shit out. When life is so busy, sometimes it’s just nice to have time to think and reflect on what’s been happening. So much has changed over the last few weeks, and it’s still continuing to blow my mind.
When Widow popped into my life out of nowhere, I was immediately confused. I thought that for some reason he wouldn’t just want Zoe, back, that he’d pull that alpha male move and go all ‘me man, you woman’ on me. Every night before I went to sleep, I would hope and pray that he just wanted Zoe in his life and that was it, because I couldn’t bear to go through what I already did again. Nikolai and I had just started our relationship and everything was going well. I didn’t want to lose that, and thankfully, I didn’t have to.
Widow just wanted his daughter, and now as I reflect over everything, I see it was a mistake to keep her from him. I can’t apologize for it, though … because if I didn’t make the decisions that led me here to Vegas, I would have never met Nikolai.
When I look at the bigger picture, I think that life was always supposed to end up this way. Even if it did take me down a nasty path in the process. Somehow, through being stuck in my own head, I’ve managed to already grab a cart and a few of the items from my list. Funny how that seems to happen sometimes. I’m a firm believer that women are the best type of multi-taskers, though.
I turn my cart down the next aisle to grab some canned goods because Nikolai and Zoe have requested I make a pot roast sometime this week. I’ll be honest, I’m a lazy fuck when it comes to the kitchen. There’s no way I’m going to be cooking corn the old fashioned way, so I’ll be sure to drain a can and pop it in the roast.
As I take a few steps, getting closer to where I see the corn … I think that my eyes are deceiving me. I feel like I see a ghost … but somehow I know she isn’t a ghost. She’s right here before my very eyes, and a grocery store of all places is where I see her.
I want to say her name, but I can’t. Instead I stare at her red hair, the same color it’s always been. Now it seems a bit different, a bit brighter … or maybe it’s because her skin is tanner now. It’s aged by the sun. I don’t know what to feel as I stare, and I say stare because it’s all I’m doing. I’m looking at her, not saying a word, probably looking like a damn creep. I wonder if anyone has caught me looking at her like this, but I don’t really care.
I guess there’s no right way to react to seeing your ex-best friend in the grocery store. The one who fucked your boyfriend while you were at work. The past is the past … but why do my feelings feel so real right now? Why is all of my anger and pain boiling up in my body and rushing through my veins like some recreational drug? Why is that?
I chuckle to myself, knowing very well why. It’s because I never got any sort of closure. Then again, neither did they. I just ran off like a scared little girl, but that’s what I was at the time. I was a scared little girl, needing to run away from the people who had hurt me.
I pull out my phone and look at my texts, clicking on Widow’s name. He told me he’d be out of town for a few days on a run, but gave me no more information than that. If Amara is here, it must mean she didn’t go … and that surprises me. She’s never been one to stay behind, but then again, I don’t know Amara. I probably never really knew her.
I can’t help it, but I send him a quick message.
To: Widow
Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful. You have a daughter to come home to.
Seeing Amara might have urged me to text him, but he probably needs the reminder anyway. He doesn’t get to die, not for a very, very long time.
As I look up from the text, now I see I’m no longer going unnoticed. Amara’s eyes are trained on me in the same way I was just looking at her. Her expression is stoic, as if she’s stuck in her own head. I kinda wonder what it is that she’s thinking. Is she going ‘oh shit, there’s my old bestie whose man I fucked?’
“Hi,” I greet her, not really thinking of anything else to say. Meanwhile, I grab three cans of corn. I don’t need that much, but it’s better to have it on hand in the pantry for when I do need it.
“Uh … hi,” she says back, both of us
obviously feeling as awkward as the other. But as she greets me, I remember something that Widow said to me when we met to discuss his visitation schedule with Zoe.
Maybe it’s the bitch in me, but I want answers and I think I’m owed them, all things considered. “Were you pregnant with his child?” I don’t know what strikes me to ask her this, but something about the way he told me that he’d already lost one child and he wasn’t going to lose another. I just have a feeling, a gut feeling.
Her irises expand and she doesn’t have to verbally answer, her reaction just did. “He told you that?”
“No, he didn’t have to. He said something to me that made me put the pieces together.”
“Ah,” Amara mumbles, looking to her right, she grabs a can off the shelf and tosses it in her cart. “I’ll just tell you, because I don’t have anything to hide. I hired a private investigator to look into your whereabouts. At that time I found out I was pregnant, and then my PI told me you had a child and I …” She stops speaking for a moment, redirecting her eyes off in the distance. “I knew that your daughter was his child, and I couldn’t handle the fact that he’d run back. He and I made a huge mistake that day. A mistake that altered both of our lives. He lost you, and he and I … fell into whatever form of self punishment that we were in. I got an abortion when I found out. I didn’t want to be a burden on anyone, or have my child be forgotten.”
I’m absolutely disgusted with her. “He may not be the greatest person, but he would’ve never forgotten your child. You had an abortion because yet again, you were being a selfish piece of shit, Amara. Don’t ever try to make it seem you were doing that for my daughter. You did it for your fuckin’ self like you always do.”
I roll past her and disappear down another aisle, I just can’t believe the audacity she has. What a fucking cunt. If anything, I know now that I was better off without her in my life.
Widow (Reapers MC Book 4) Page 13
