by Jadyn Chase
She thought hard. Then she cradled her broken head in one hand and groaned. All at once, she burst into tears. She covered her face and sobbed ragged guttural expulsions of gasping breath.
I scrutinized her closer. That girl went through the wringer in the last few days, but I still had to watch her every move. This amnesia act still might turn out to be a charade to throw me off my game.
She pulled herself together and ran her wrist across her nose. When she took it away and looked at it, a smear of dissolved blood stained her arm. She blinked at it for a second before she realized it came from her.
“Why don’t you go take a shower?” I suggested. “I promise you’ll feel better. You look like absolute hell. You know that, don’t you?”
She didn’t appear to comprehend what I said. She just kept gaping at everything like her brain no longer worked. If this state of affairs kept up, this might turn out to be the single most boring job of my career.
I pushed myself to my feet and turned away. “Yeah, well, you’re probably hungry again.”
I went to the kitchen and took the pizza out of the oven. I carried it using a potholder and set it on top of that magazine. I positioned it in front of her and swiveled it around in a ridiculous hope of making it appear more appealing to her—as if her addled brain could understand and appreciate my efforts.
I returned to the fridge and came back with a jug of apple juice and the biggest glass I could find. I poured it full and left it next to the pizza.
She could have knocked me over with a feather when she checked herself. She looked back and forth between me and the pizza. “Did you order that?”
“Of course not,” I told her. “Nothing comes in and nothing goes out. Don’t you remember?”
“Where did you get it, then?”
“I made it. What do you think?” I tossed the potholder over the counter to the sink.
Her eyebrows flew up. “You made that?”
“Yes, I made it. Now you can show your gratitude by eating it. Otherwise, it’s going to go to waste—to say nothing of the time and effort I put into it.”
I flopped down on the couch again and took out my phone. She seemed to relax more when I didn’t look at her.
She scooted to the edge of the couch and hunched over the pizza. She lifted out a slice and took a bite. At least she remembered how to do that much.
She observed me over her food. “What are you gonna eat?”
Against my better inclinations to engage with her, I broke into a grin. “Do you think I would bother to put all that work into making just one pizza? I made two. I ate the other one.”
She didn’t smile. Getting her to treat me like a human being would be asking too much. Anyway, I didn’t want to treat her like a human being, either. She was a job, an exasperating job I didn’t want to do.
She munched her pizza and guzzled her juice. Getting kidnapped and beaten and locked in The Zone did nothing to diminish her appetite. I guess The Desperados didn’t bother much about feeding her.
She surprised me again. “Brayden?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s Los Diablos?”
My eyes snapped to her face. “Don’t you know?”
She shook her head.
“You’ve got it tattooed on your shoulder, munchkin.” I jerked my chin at her arm. “Don’t fuck with me. You know what it is.”
“I never knew what it was.” Her eyes darted to one side. “At least, I don’t remember what it was.”
I let my phone fall in my lap. “Why don’t you tell me what you do remember?”
She shrugged and took another bite of pizza. She moved it into her cheek while she chewed. “I don’t remember anything, but that dream I just had felt real. I was at home with my mother and father. We were playing on the lawn and I was wrestling with my dad and our dog. Dad called him Chopper.”
Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. “Chopper! That’s a strange name for a dog.”
She shook her hair out of her face to take another bite. “That’s all there is.”
“You don’t remember getting that tat?”
“No.” She looked up at me with a frank, open expression. She really didn’t know.
I picked up my phone and swiped to my messages. “Well, Los Diablos is a biker gang from East LA. We control about ten square miles of barrio and defend it against incursion from five other gangs that would like to take it from us and slaughter all of our people. If you don’t know that much, then we’ve got a serious problem, girl.”
“What problem is that?”
My phone thumped against my thigh and I stared at her. She really was a piece of work. “The problem, Morgan dear, is that you’re wearing a Los Diablos brand that announces to the general population that you belong to our club. The problem, Morgan dear, is that you’re wearing a patch that’s about thirty-five years out of date and comes from another part of the country. We don’t use that patch anymore, and you could only have gotten it from a registered chapter of our club. If you didn’t, then we have a serious problem and you should either be killed or have the brand cut out because you have no business wearing it. That is the problem.”
She regarded me over her pizza, but my words didn’t make a dent in her. She chewed her food and considered. “So you’re going to kill me? Is that it?”
I snorted. “I’m not going to kill you—not until my Boss tells me to—and he won’t do that until he finds out who you are. If you really don’t remember, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“Except that I’m a prisoner here.” She surveyed the living room, and this time, she recognized exactly where she was and what it meant. “That’s something to worry about.”
“Be grateful you’re still alive.” I picked up my phone. “I was the one who found you in The Desperados’ stronghold and I was the one who took you out of it. We could have left you there.”
She leveled her eyes at me with the farthest thing from gratitude I could imagine. Those eyes shone clear and sharp now. She might be traumatized, but she was anything but stupid. She had a brain on her. That was certain.
She took another bite. While she chewed, she raised her hand and scratched some dried blood off her cheek. She looked down at her fingernails and saw the darkened crust.
I tapped out a message to Kane about the status so far. “Seriously,” I muttered, “you really ought to take a shower. I’m worried about those cuts getting infected and your hair is a sewer.”
She put her pizza down. “Yeah. I think I will.”
I glanced over the phone. Did I just hear that right?
She finished her mouthful. “Where do I go?”
I jumped up and waved down the hall. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
She followed me into the nearest bedroom and I motioned to the bathroom off to one side. “There’s plenty of clean towels in there and the first aid kit is under the sink. There’s shampoo and conditioner on the shelf.” I crossed to the closet and slid it open. “Here’s a clean pair of jeans and there’s panties and bras and stuff in that drawer over there. This is the female room so they have a range of sizes. You’ll have to work that out for yourself ‘cuz I don’t understand all that crap. Here’s a clean tank top.”
She shuffled her feet and scanned the bedroom while I piled her arms with clothes. “Thanks, Brayden.”
“You bet.” I sat down on the bed and went back to my phone.
She didn’t move. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t even look up. “I’m checking eBay. I’m in the market for a new guitar amp and I’m in a bidding war with some chump from Ontario. This bastard must be loaded.”
“Can’t you do that in the living room?”
My head swung up. “I told you I have to keep you in sight at all times. I won’t peep in on you if that’s what you’re worried about, but you have to keep the door open. Sorry. That’s orders.”
She wadded the clothes under one arm and squared her shoulders. �
�I am NOT taking my clothes off in front of you. Fuck that.”
“Whatever.” I continued tapping on my phone. “If you don’t at least wash your hair, you might as well shave it off now because it’s filthy and it sure as fuck ain’t getting any cleaner with you standing here giving me your attitude.”
There. Suck on that, bitch. She fidgeted a little longer before she wheeled and stormed into the bathroom. She pitched her clean clothes in the sink and stomped back to the drawers. She fished around, took out a few things, and left me alone.
I looked up just long enough to make sure she didn’t shut the door. She climbed into the bathtub and pulled the curtain. Then she tossed her old clothes out on the floor before she turned on the tap.
I went back to my own thing, but in a minute, FaceTime chimed. Roman Santiago. My heart skipped a beat and I answered. Carlos’s grizzled face appeared on the screen. “What’s up? How’s the patient?”
“She’s absolutely fucking demented,” I told him. “I’m really starting to believe she doesn’t remember anything.”
“That’s bullshit, Brayden,” he snapped. “I told you not to let her out of your sight.”
“I haven’t. I’m not that stupid, but thanks for the vote of confidence, anyway.”
He scowled down the phone. “Where is she, then?”
I jerked my head sideways. “She’s just taking a shower. She’s half-starved and dehydrated. I’m hoping to get her cleaned up and she’s having nightmares about her old life. If I can get her talking, I might be able to figure out where she came from.”
He arched one eyebrow. “You really think she’s telling the truth?”
“I don’t know, man. She asked me what’s Los Diablos, and she really doesn’t seem to have a clue what her patch means.”
“Well, just keep an eye on her,” he snapped. “If you come up with something, so much the better. We’re researching Josiah Hunter on this end, but so far it’s a dead end. His chapter died out twenty years ago. Only four other men alive carry that brand so I don’t see how she got it.”
The taps shut off in the bathroom and I pricked up my ears. Sure enough, a scraping sound followed. I leaped to my feet “Hold on a second, man.”
I hustled into the bathroom and found Morgan standing in front of the open window. She held a towel wrapped around her body. It left her bare arms and legs revealed and her stringy wet hair draped her shoulders.
I shoved past her and slammed the window closed. I shot the latch and rounded on her. “Don’t even think about it. Put your clothes on and get back out to the living room before we wind up having a misunderstanding.”
I barged away and sat back down on the bed. “Sorry, man.”
Carlos smirked down the phone at me. “I can see you’ve got the situation in hand, so I’ll let you go. Keep me posted if anything comes up.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He hung up. A figure appeared in the doorway and I looked up to find Morgan standing there in her clean clothes. With the dried blood and muck washed off, her face shone bright and radiant in the sunlight. Bruises still darkened her jawline and lips, but now I could see what she really looked like.
I blinked up at her. “Don’t you want to brush your hair?”
She shrugged and shifted from one foot to the other.
She hitched up her shoulder again and looked away. “I couldn’t find a brush.”
I took a comb out of my back pocket and held it out to her. “Here. Use this.”
She sat down on the other end of the bed and proceeded to comb out her long hair. Red highlights set off every golden strand and lent her skin a peachy softness. She really was beautiful under all that hostility. Even the suspicious, haunted cast of her huge, mesmerizing eyes made her look good. A nasty gash across her brow gave her a warrior aspect.
Now that she cleaned herself up, I noticed for the first time what a compact, lithe body she had. Her clothes outlined her undulating curves and enticing shape. Every limb rounded with nice, healthy muscle under the supple skin—not overblow muscle but just enough to give her an inviting shape.
“Who was that?” she asked.
“My Boss—Roman Santiago. You met him at the warehouse.”
“He’s the one who stole my wallet and my phone,” she remarked. “Why can’t I have them back?”
“You can have them back when we let you go. We can’t exactly have you making calls from here.”
“You keep talking about when you let me go,” she fired back. “We both know that will never happen. You’ll kill me in the end.”
My head shot up. “I will never kill you, Morgan. Never.”
“What difference does that make if it’s you or one of your buddies?” she demanded. “Your Boss will never let me go, so don’t bullshit me about it.”
Her confronting tone made me check myself. I didn’t really know how to answer her. “If we find out you really are Los Diablos, we won’t kill you. You’ll be one of us. We’ll take you under our protection. You’re under it now. That’s the whole reason you’re here—so we can find out who you are. We brought you here to protect you, not to punish you.”
“I don’t give a shit why you brought me here.” She threw the comb at me. “You kidnapped me against my will. You dragged me here by force.”
“Yeah, well, if we let you go now, The Desperados would find you and they would kill you for certain. They wouldn’t bother to find out who you are. In fact….” I pointed at her. “Now that I think of it, they probably already do. They must have found out. That’s the only reason they would hold you in that cell.”
She blinked at me in confusion. “What’s The Desperados?”
I gaped at her for a second. How could I possibly talk to this…. this wreck of a human being? She didn’t know the first thing about herself. I slumped on the bed and stared at the floor trying to work out what to do with her.
“You keep talking about The Desperados and how you saved me from them. Who are they?”
I peeked up at her. Her features wrenched with buried emotion. I knew that look only too well. She was scared. She didn’t understand and what she didn’t know scared her.
I heaved a heavy sigh. I got saddled with her. What happened to her turned out to be my responsibility. I gave my word nothing would harm her. That included her mysterious past.
I got to my feet and went into the bathroom. I rummaged under the sink and took the first aid kit back to the bed. I ripped open an antiseptic wipe and held it up to her face. “We need to clean these now. It’s gonna sting. Just try to keep still.”
She gazed into my face while I swabbed down her cuts. I finished with her face and then did her arms. She submitted to it all without a word. She flinched when I pressed against her forehead, but she didn’t try to fight me off the way she did before.
I gathered up the trash and zipped the kit closed before I faced her. “The Desperados are another club. Before yesterday, I would have told you they were nothing but a bunch of no-account hoods from the back streets. They dabbled in a few kilos of drugs now and then, but they never bothered anybody. Then they started throwing their weight into our business and making their presence felt. Carlos ordered a raid on their stronghold. That’s where we found you. I found you in a cell under about forty feet of concrete. You were barely alive and beaten nearly to death. When we examined you, we found our tat. That’s why my Boss ordered me to bring you to the warehouse. We didn’t do this to you. We weren’t sure if you were one of us, but if you are, no one will ever harm another hair on your head. I can give you my oath on that.”
She blinked down at the bedspread and said nothing.
“You thought we did this to you, didn’t you? You thought we beat you up.” I shook my head and walked away.
5
Morgan
I sat cross-legged on the couch and observed Brayden working in the kitchen. God only knew what he was making in there. Every time he prepared a meal, he came out with some new culinary master
piece. No one would ever guess by looking at him that he could be capable of anything like it.
The more time I spent around him, the more I started to fathom what he was all about. He really had a soft heart under that tough exterior and no one could touch his loyalty to Los Diablos. He took his orders to guard me very seriously.
He wouldn’t even let me close the door when I went to the bathroom. He stood in the hallway. He backed up to the door jamb so he couldn’t see in, but he listened to everything I did. If I so much as went near a window, he rushed in and stopped me.
My gaze skipped around the living room for the thousandth time. I had to get out of here. I had to get away from him and Los Diablos. My eyes skated to the deck one more time. I could get out there and over that wall. I just had to make sure Brayden didn’t stop me or follow me.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t let him know what I planned to do. He came whistling into the living room and set a large steaming bowl in front of me. Two chopsticks jutted out of the colorful mass. “Eat up.”
“What is it this time?” I asked.
“Beef and veggie noodle stir fry. It’s nothing fancy—just what was left over in the fridge.”
I picked up the bowl. A powerful aroma of curry and garlic assaulted my senses. “What will we eat after this if we’re all out of food?”
“We get food delivered.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Logan will drop the delivery at the service window downstairs and send it up on the dumb waiter.”
I gawked at him over the bowl. “Dumb waiter?”
He chuckled and stuck his chopsticks in his food. “It’s like an elevator for things instead of people. He puts the boxes of groceries in the car and presses a button. The dumb waiter lifts it up and it comes out in the kitchen.”
I gathered a wad of noodles and picked them out of the bowl. “You say that like you’ve done this before.”
“I have. Why do you think Carlos picked me to guard you?”
“You made it sound like he picked you because you were the one who found me. I didn’t know you were an expert at holding people captive.”
