by Skyla Madi
“Nothing.”
I stepped over Minnie and rolled her onto her back. Her eyelids fluttered as she sucked in a hard breath and I scooped her fragile body into my arms. I was careful not to bend and jostle her too much since I didn’t know the extent of her injuries. As I carried her toward the clubhouse, and Creed spewed bullshit about me being secretive, I kept looking at her face. She was going through hell for her son…and I admired that. It was my first time seeing a mother’s love in action. My ex didn’t love our daughter the way Minnie loved her son.
I bounded up the stairs, Creed hot on my tail, and marched toward the front door where Casino stood.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, leaning against the door frame. “I guess she’s got some enemies.”
“One,” I told him. Fuck it. It was gonna come out sooner or later. “Elias Vergara.”
Everyone behind me swore as Casino pushed off the frame and blocked the door.
“Elias Vergara? As in the—”
“Drug lord,” Creed answered for me and I felt his glare burning holes in the side of my face.
“That’s the one.” I flicked my chin at Yasmine. “She’s his wife.”
Everyone lost their shit, like I expected, but I’d deal with it later. Yasmine needed to see Harlei and quick. I stepped forward, but Casino didn’t budge. Was he challenging me? I narrowed my stare, a silent warning for him not to be stupid. I ran the fucking show and I had no qualms proving who was in charge of this chapter.
Casino bared his teeth at me. “And you want to bring her inside the clubhouse? Are you fucking insane?”
“Get out of my way.”
Armi put his hand on my shoulder. “He has a point, Prez.”
I shrugged him off and turned to push Yasmine into Creed’s arms. He took her without hesitation and he held her close, protecting her while I stepped up to Casino.
“I told you to get the fuck out of my way.”
Casino squared his shoulders and flexed his jaw. He wanted to contest me. No doubt he wanted to punch me in the face since I was risking everyone’s lives by bringing Yasmine in, but what was he gonna do about it? He was the fucking treasurer. He should be in a back room counting pennies, not sticking his nose in my business. Swallowing hard, he shook his head and stepped aside. I took Yasmine from Creed and carried her into the clubhouse.
“This is insane!” Casino shouted after Creed and me. “She’s gonna get us all killed!”
In the surgery, Harlei was washing her hands and Hawk was wrapping the bed in a blue sheet. I placed Yasmine on the bed, turned around, and left the room. I surged back through the clubhouse and found Casino leaning against the wall, talking quickly to Modo and Ayr, who stood there with their hands stuffed into the pockets of their jeans. Casino saw me coming and pushed off the wall as I shoved Ayr out of the way. I grabbed him by the collar of his gray shirt and yanked him forward before slamming my fist into his jaw. He grunted and his jaw made a sick crack when I connected.
“After everything I’ve done for you?” I snapped, hitting him twice. Creed and Ayr wrapped their arms around mine and dragged me back. “Show me some respect.”
I hit him hard, not enough to knock any teeth out, but enough to remind him who the fuck I was and the horror this chapter faced when we saved his ass from the Ventillis and brought him into the club.
He spat blood on the hardwood floor and clenched his jaw. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” I shrugged Creed and Ayr off and stepped forward, making Casino flinch. “I didn’t hear you.”
“I said I was sorry.” He swiped his mouth and cut his eyes at me. “All right?”
I stared at him, and he stared right back. “You’re gonna help Rah find out everything you can about Yasmine Garcia, Elias Vergara, and the boy they share.”
He opened his mouth to protest.
“And then you’re going to help Harlei tend to Yasmine until she’s feeling better. Got it?”
Casino pursed his lips, then blew out a defeated exhale. “Yes, Prez. I got it.”
“Good.”
I held out my hand. Casino took it and I helped him to his feet.
“What’s the boy’s name?” he asked, touching his lip then looking at the blood on his fingers.
“Nathan, or Nathaniel, or some shit.” I waved him off as I turned away. “Start with Elias and you’ll find the kid.”
***
A couple hours later, as the sun was sliding over the horizon, Casino and Sora approached me while I was setting my bike up for my monthly ride to the cabin.
“Well?” I asked, slipping two handguns into my saddlebag, not sparing them a glance. It took them longer than I expected. “What’d you find out?”
“She’s crazy, Judge,” Rah started, scratching his head. “She’s been in and out of various mental hospitals, in and out of prison, has multiple restraining orders against her—”
I shrugged, trying to get the clasp on my bag closed. “Who doesn’t?”
“There’s no record of a kid,” Casino chimed in and that got my damn attention. I lifted my head and pinned him with my stare. “No record she was even married to Elias Vergara.”
My gut sank and I straightened. “What’d you say?”
He smirked at me, like he knew that piece of information made him right and me wrong.
“There’s no record of her being pregnant, no record of her giving birth. She’s full of shit.”
Something inside me snapped. Whatever it was, I’d only felt it a handful of times before. It was like rage, but stronger. I tore away from my bike and shoved past Rah and Casino. I surged into the clubhouse, right past Modo, who slept on the stairs with his sunglasses on, and right past Creed, who was cleaning rifles on the tables inside. He called my name, but I ignored him. There was only one person I wanted to speak to. I was sick of this woman. From the moment I met her, she drove me up the wall with her demands and wasted my time. Enough was enough. I wanted her out of my life for good.
I kicked in the door of the surgery and Harlei jumped out of her skin, dropping a bag of sterile gauze on the floor.
“Christ, Judge. You scared me.”
She went back to doing whatever she was doing as I stalked toward the bed Yasmine laid on. She blinked up at me, shrinking at my aggressive approach. Her hair was washed, her skin clear of any ash and dirt. Only her cuts and bruises remained. I stood beside her, seeing red the longer I looked at her. She looked awful, she looked like she was in pain, and it tugged at my heartstrings, but I knew better. This was her game. She was crazy, a con-artist, and I’d fallen for her act.
“I’ve advised her not to speak,” Harlei informed. “Burned lungs from smoke and all that. It’s not comfortable for her. It should get better as the hours go on—”
“Is Elias Vergara really your ex-husband? Do you even have a kid?” I demanded and she winced. “You better speak through the pain or I’m throwing you out on your ass.”
Her eyelids flickered and a tear dripped from her eye. She tried to speak, all I got out of her was a rasp, a painful sounding rasp.
“I had you checked out, Yasmine, and all my sources tell me you’re a crazy bitch.” I leaned in close, so close our noses almost touched. “Give me one good reason to believe you are who you say you are…or God help you.”
Disappointment flared in her pretty, watery irises and she winced before she rolled onto her side and turned her back on me.
SEVEN
Y A S M I N E
The Bahamas 2011
I breathe the salty ocean air as deep into my lungs as I can. Under my bare feet, the smooth, wooden deck of Elias Vergara’s superyacht feels like victory. I lift my crystal flute of expensive champagne and smile into the golden liquid. I deserve this. I worked myself to death to get here, to be on this boat. Warm sea breeze blows my long, brunette locks over my shoulder and into my face, and I revel in it. All those years spent in my office, or in my car. I’m finally out doing what I’ve wanted to do since I star
ted. I’m finally doing the work that counts.
“Look at her.” The smoothest voice I’ve ever heard floats into my ears and kicks every nerve ending in my body, sending tingles spiraling over my skin. I turn my head in time to see him approach. “The most beautiful view I’ve ever seen from the top deck.”
I flick my gaze down the length of the notorious Elias Vergara. He’s everything his bio said he would be. Going off the grainy black and white photo alone I knew his beauty would be dangerous, but in person, it was lethal. I move my attention to his toned, sculpted stomach, then back to his black diamond eyes. Warmth spreads up my neck and swells in my cheeks. I clear my throat and peer out at the ocean. He’s right. I can’t imagine a view as perfect as this. I was born and raised in Exeter, California. I’ve never seen an ocean as blue, or a boat as big.
“It is beautiful,” I say.
“I wasn’t talking about the ocean.”
Oh. I look at Elias as he takes my hand.
“What’s your name?”
“Camilla,” I lie, fixated on his sparkling, onyx irises. “Camilla Degas.”
He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. “Do you speak Spanish?”
I shake my head, more lies. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Es una pena…”
I’m ashamed to admit that Elias and I slept together the same evening we met. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but Elias knew what he wanted. He wasn’t an easy man to turn down. He wielded his power, money, and sex appeal like a sword, and I fell for it. I was mentally ready to weather Hurricane Elias, but I wasn’t emotionally or physically ready. Despite being way in over my head, I was determined to do what I floated into his life to do…
…and that was to fuck it up.
It wasn’t until I was standing at an altar with Elias opposite me that I realized I was in too deep. All along I thought he was playing into my hands, but I was playing into his. By then, my superiors couldn’t pull me out. By then, I was three months pregnant with our son and no longer a queen in the game, but a pawn. Unknowingly, I became tangled in the web of lies I created, and I was suffocating. All along he knew it, he knew what I wanted, what I was after, and he strung me along.
And I let him…
…because somewhere, somehow, I fell in love with him and I remained in love with him until our son was born. Being who he is, Elias refused important pre-natal scanning and testing. It bruised his ego to be told there’s a chance there might be something wrong with his precious heir.
Our son, Nicolás, was born seven weeks early and was labelled as Down’s Syndrome at birth. The label didn’t matter to me, so I didn’t pay much attention. When the midwife handed Nicolás to me, I’d never seen a baby so perfect. Elias, however, made it vocally clear he’d never seen a baby so…not. He used the most magical moment of my life to expose me, to shatter my world and rip me to shreds. From that moment, we became his prisoners. We weren’t allowed to leave his villa and, as far as anyone knew, Nicolás died during childbirth.
***
I blink up at the ceiling of the clubhouse medical room, ignoring Harlei as she loads a sterilizer. I still remember Nicolás’s shrill screams as Elias tore him from my breast and violently shook him. Sickness spreads through me, thick like oil. All I’ve suffered through…for him to wipe it all away. Our history. Our life together. Our son. Judge wants me to prove I am who I say I am, but how can I? Elias left nothing behind for me to use and the Devil’s Cartel MC has been reduced to no more than names I can add to the long list of people who think I’m crazy. I draw my knees as close as I can to my chest without hurting my back or opening any of Harlei’s dressings. At least I still have my life. Elias came close to taking that away too. If it weren’t for the taxi driver who pulled up right after the motel exploded, I’d be dead. He wanted to take me to the hospital, but I convinced him to take me to the clubhouse. He dropped me off a couple yards before the clubhouse drive and I stumbled the rest of the way, fighting unconsciousness with every step. If I’m lucky, Elias will believe I died in the explosion and I’ll have time to heal and figure out my next move. Judge has given me seventy-two hours to be gone, so my plan is to get as much healing done as possible, then make my way to Venton Vale. I hear there’s an all-female MC club there. On the plus side of having my life wiped clean, I’m safe from Judge learning my biggest secret of all—a secret I fear even thinking about under his roof.
“You’ve rattled him, you know,” Harlei says, pulling me from my depressing thoughts.
“Who?” I rasp, my throat burning.
“Judge.”
Oh. She writes on a clipboard, then closes it and sits it on top of the stainless-steel counter.
“He hates me.”
“You’re here, alive, and getting medical treatment at his expense.” She turns her slender body to snatch a pair of gloves out of their tightly packed white and red box. They snap against her fingers. “Trust me, he doesn’t hate you.”
I watch in silence as she moves around the room, confident, and in her element. I wish she wouldn’t do that—make me believe that, maybe, Judge will help me. I’ve pushed and I’ve pushed for his help, but he’s made himself clear. There’s no help here, only chaos.
“All the girls were talking about you two—”
I shift my hips to turn away and wince as pain sears over every inch of my flesh. It takes me a while, but I eventually turn my back on Harlei, the clubhouse doctor. I don’t want to hear what she has to say. I just need to heal and leave. I close my eyes and the raspy, panicked scream of a newborn baby—my newborn baby—is all I hear. I shake my head against the pillow and try to turn my thoughts in another direction, but the morphine keeps dragging me right back into my deep pit of despair.
“Elias!” I shriek, my arms outstretched as Jorge holds me away from the monster shaking my baby. “Elias! Stop it! Please! Stop it!”
I can’t see. My eyes are flooding, my nose running. I feel blood, lots of it, pouring down my legs from the recent birth. I slip in it multiple times, but I manage to keep my hold on Jorge’s expensive Armani suit.
I grimace and open my eyes. Maybe, if I don’t close them, my mind can’t take me back to the past. I stare at a blank, white wall. Seconds tick by and the torturous noise in my head goes unaccompanied by the images…until my mind projects them onto the white surface and I’m watching that day play out in front of my eyes.
Elias stills and Nicolás goes quiet in his tight grip. He makes cute gurgling noises, blinks his tired eyes, and curls his skinny fingers into the smallest, sweetest fists I’ve ever seen. Elias flicks his head at Jorge and Jorge steps away, leaving me unbalanced in my own mess. I shudder, my breath loudly trembling along with it. I hold out my arms, silently begging for Elias to put my son in them.
“Let me hold him,” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off Nicolás, my lips wet with the water leaking from my nose. “Please let me have my baby.”
Elias screws up his face in disgust and peers at Nicolás. He turns our baby in his hands, appraising him as if he were a new iPhone, then he turns toward me, grimacing when he sees the blood and gore I stand in.
“Take your thing.” He shoves Nicolás into my arms and I gratefully take him and hold him close. Elias looks to Jorge. “Get the midwife. One who can speak English.”
While Jorge fetches the midwife, I climb back onto my big bed and put Nicolás on my breast. He attaches like a good baby and I don’t care that it hurts, that it feels like my nipples are being pulled in half. I just want him close. Where he’s safe. Elias watches from the left side of the room, indifferent, but I don’t care. We don’t need him.
We don’t.
I’ll give Nicolás a good life away from Elias, where’ll he be surrounded by only people who love him for who he is. As Nicolás falls asleep, Jorge returns with the midwife. She gasps at the sight of the blood on the floor and my footprints in it and rushes to my bed. She says something in Greek I can’t decipher. I look
to Elias as he pulls a set of keys from the pocket of his pressed, black slacks.
“English?” he asks her.
She nods. “Yes.”
“It’s unfortunate,” Elias begins, pinning her with his soulless glare. “that my son died during a traumatic childbirth and could not be resuscitated.”
The midwife’s eyes go wide. Mine do too. He…he wants her to forge papers to say Nicolás died? My heart bleeds.
“Elias—”
He points a slender, tanned finger at me. “You shut your mouth, or I’ll have this pretty little midwife write that you suffered the same fate.”
The midwife, who wasn’t the one in the room when Nicolás was born, starts to shake her head. She looks at me.
“Don’t look over there,” Elias demands. “I don’t know what that thing is, but it is not my son.”
My heart splinters and every memory I hold of Elias singing to, and caressing, my swollen belly shatters. I glance down at Nicolás and can’t help the tears that drop all over his perfect, pink skin and wet the remains of his birth still left on his fragile, little body.
Elias does his usual thing to the midwife. He threatens her, her family, and her children. He threatens to blow up the entire maternity ward if she doesn’t forge the paperwork to say our son died. She brings up the hospital board and, of course, Elias is already making the calls to pay them off. Within twenty-two minutes, as far as the world is concerned, Nicolás is dead.
And what do I do? Well, I purse my lips into bloodless lines and I don’t say anything. I don’t say anything as I verbally confirm the death of my son, nor as I sign off on it with an official pen on official papers.
My tears soak into the pillow I rest my beaten head on. I didn’t fight for Nicolás then, but this time I won’t go quietly. This time I will fight for his life, even if it gets me killed.
I owe it to him.
I owe him everything.
