by Vivian Gray
“What did you say, Slime?” Crusher demands. “Did… did you just call this motherfucker ‘boss’?”
“Jefe is, I think, the preferred term.” Slime grins. “But if you’re wondering if I’ve switched sides, the answer, I’m afraid, is yes.”
“You son of a bitch!” Crusher yells as he makes a move to attack Slime. But Slime is too quick, and before a split second has passed, there are six guns trained on Crusher.
Crusher is forced to back down, so he straightens his shirt, takes a deep breath, and says instead, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Slime? Why would you go behind our backs like this?”
“Oh fucking please.” Slime groans. “Stop with your fucking dramatics, Crusher. The simple fact of the matter is: you’ve been skimming off the top for years. And you have lost your edge. You let this asshole,” he says, pointing to me, “store Maria Espinoza in his house, let her walk around like a fucking free range chicken, getting to do whatever she wanted. You didn’t take her as a hostage, and you didn’t use her to get our territory back. You let this soft piece of shit fall in love with her because he’s a fucking pussy-ass motherfucker.
“All of this, Crusher, all of it, happened under your watch. Because you’re fucking bad at your job. You’re a weak-ass leader. So yeah, when the opportunity presented itself to make a leap from one job to another, I took it. That’s how I fucking roll. I look out for myself.”
“You’re supposed to look out for your brothers, you cheap son of a bitch,” Crusher snarls out.
“Oh, don’t be so fucking naive, Crusher.” Slime laughs. “You’ve been looking out for number one for more than a decade now. Don’t pretend like your hands are clean as a motherfucking whistle. You’ve been doing some decidedly dirty shit too.”
“But I never did anything that wasn’t in the best interests of the club, of the Blood Ravens,” Crusher insists. “You – you’re nothing but a cheap, lousy fucking turncoat.”
“Boys, boys,” Juan interjects. “Let’s all take a step back here, and—” He yanks his hand on Maria’s head, and she screams aloud. “—and maybe you can tell me what the fuck you thought you were doing taking my beloved daughter away from me.”
“She fucking hates you, you sorry scumbag,” I say with menace. “She couldn’t wait to flip on you, because you’re such a fucking piece of shit and always have been.”
Juan tsk-tsks at me. “Such language, Blade!” he says in admonishment. “You should be more careful with the way you speak to your superiors.”
“My superiors?” I demand. “Juan, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? You’re hurting your own daughter!”
“I’ll deal with my turncoat daughter my own way, gracias,” he says in response. “Now, let’s have a little chat about how you stole my fucking drugs, shall we?”
“You can have the drugs back,” Crusher says, playing the businessman even though he’s clearly fuming over Slime, “so long as you get the fuck out of our fucking territory.”
“Boss,” I whisper, “what about Maria? She’s—”
“Oh no,” Juan says over my whisper, shaking his head in mock sadness. “No, no, Crusher, I don’t think I’m going to do that at all. In fact, I think I’m going to take more of your territory. Like, perhaps, all of your fucking territory. And you’re going to give it to me.”
“What the fuck makes you think I’m going to do that?” Crusher demands.
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to kill Maria,” he sneers out.
“No!” I yell out, but Crusher silences me.
“So?” he asks. “She’s nothing to me, but she’s everything to you, Juan. You really have the balls to kill your own daughter?”
“She’s a hell of a lot more valuable to you than she is to me at this point. See, she’s got a strategic mind. She knows how we work. And if I threaten to kill this one over here,” he says, pointing his gun in my direction, “she’ll spill to the police all about how you motherfuckers kidnapped her and raped her.”
“No one raped her!” I yell. “No one even touched her without her permission!”
“Ah, so someone touched her with her permission, is that right, Blade?” Juan laughs. “Well, I think we just found our accused rapist. You hijos de puta are going down.”
Just then, I hear a gunshot sound from outside. I can only assume that Rogelio is dead. Crusher had given the boys strict instructions that if we weren’t out in ten minutes, they were to take down the guards and storm the compound. Instantly, we’re under fire. I dive behind a statue in the front hall, and Crusher ducks behind a wall.
I shoot almost aimlessly as the rest of the Blood Ravens storm the compound. The gunfire slows, and I catch a glimpse of Crusher in my eye. He makes eye contact with me and nods, wordlessly telling me that I should go after Juan and Maria.
I run after them through a few bullets that whiz past my head, doing my damnedest to catch up with them. I realize that there’s simply no way I’m going to though, and by the time I get to where they were standing, Juan and Slime are gone – and so is Maria.
Chapter Eighteen
Maria
“Sigue caminando, pequeña puta,” I hear my father’s voice echoing off the walls of one of his escape tunnels. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe my dad is treating me this way. I can’t believe he just called me a whore.
So, I call him on it.
“Dad?” I ask quickly, trying to muster up as much courage as I can to make myself sound as confident as possible. “Why would you call me that? Why are you doing this?”
“Oh, baby,” he says as he grabs another handful of my hair and pulls me along, causing me immense amounts of pain. “I called you una puta because you are one. Don’t you understand? You whored yourself out to those shithead motherfuckers in the Blood Ravens. You fucked that oversized piece of garbage Blade, didn’t you?”
“Dad, I—” I stammer, but he’s on top of me, his face as red as a tomato.
“Didn’t you?!” he demands, spittle flying out of his mouth. “Did you or did you not sleep with that boy from the Blood Ravens?”
“I did,” I murmur, but then, regaining my confidence and willing myself the desire to stand up to my father, I say with defiance, “And I’d do it again. He was a great fuck, Dad. A fantastic one, actually. Best sex I’ve ever had. Certainly better than any of the cabrones in your cartel that I fucked.”
“You shut your damned whore mouth right now,” he seethes out. “I don’t want to hear another goddamn word out of you, do you hear me?”
“What’s the matter, Daddy?” I ask sarcastically, feeling my voice coming to me now. “Did you think that I was, what, a virgin? Are you fucking kidding me? With all the boys you’ve had coming around the house since I was a little girl? Come on, Dad. They’ve been wanting to fuck me good since I was twelve – but I wouldn’t let them. Because I don’t give a fuck about any of them, and I don’t give a fuck about your cartel. You’re just a fucking glorified drug dealer, that’s all, and—”
The familiar sting strikes my face before I know it, and I’m on the ground, writhing in pain. I taste blood on my lip, and I know it’s from where my father has struck me. The son of a bitch hit his own daughter.
“Gee, Dad, nice to know you still care.”
“Get your ass up, now,” he spits out at me. “Let’s go.” He pulls a gun out of his pocket and aims it at me. “Now, Maria, or I will shoot you. Don’t you fucking make me shoot you.”
I know he’s serious from the maniacal look in his eye. He won’t hesitate to kill me because he doesn’t give a shit about me. He wants to use me for leverage. But I’m not ready to die – not yet – so I nod, stand up, and go with him. At this point, I’m just another kidnapping victim of Juan Espinoza.
We follow the tunnel – a maze, really – for at least half a mile, and when we come out, Dad has to kick a storm vent out to let us through. But once we do, he moves some brush away from the side of the road, a
nd amazingly, he has a car stashed there. He motions for me to get in the passenger side, which he opens for me – since my hands are still tied up.
I still cannot believe this is happening. It all seems so surreal. Just a handful of hours ago, I was relaxing at Blade’s house, watching that stupid cat running between houses. Now I realize what had it spooked – it must have been Slime, coming out of the alleyway to get into Blade’s house and take me.
I’m kind of amazed, given the kind of man Slime is, that he didn’t do anything beyond kidnapping me. Maybe he was under strict orders from my dad. Or maybe he just didn’t have time. Lord knows what he would’ve done to me had we been in that room for much longer before the Blood Ravens showed up.
I need to find a way to get a message to Blade. I need to tell him where to find me, though to be honest, I’m not entirely certain where we are. Dad drives, and I try to get some sense of direction, but I’m completely lost. The tunnels have thrown off my internal compass entirely. We drive in silence for what seems like hours when the orange fuel light comes on. I’m starting to get hungry, and it seems that Dad is, too, because he pulls off to a truck stop so we can get gas and maybe a bite to eat.
“If I take your restraints off,” he says sternly, “do you promise not to run away?”
“No,” I tell him truthfully.
“That’s just not good enough,” he replies placidly. “Come on now, Maria. I know you must be hungry.” He’s right; I’m starving. “We’ll stop here for some food. I’m happy to buy you a meal. But you need to be cool about all this. Remember, if you try to escape, I will kill you. And we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, so no one is coming to rescue you. I suggest you take me up on the offer.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“If you don’t?” Dad asks me, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Well, my dear, if you don’t, you don’t eat, and then I probably kill you anyway. Your choice.”
I attempt a shrug and acquiesce. “I guess I don’t really have much of a choice,” I tell him, frowning.
“Oh, honey,” he coos as he removes the restraints, “there is always a choice. But realistically, there’s only one choice that seems like the right one. Now. I’m going to go put some gas in the car. Sit here, and I’ll grab us some food, too. Okay?”
“Whatever,” I respond, nonchalant.
When he’s out of the car, I heave out a great sigh and try to relax. There isn’t a damned thing I can do except be spirited along with my father. This sucks.
That’s when I notice a glint of reflected light gleaming, catching my eye. It’s my dad’s cell phone. I haven’t been able to reach out to Blade because he hadn’t given me my cell phone back, but I know his number by heart – I memorized it just in case.
As soon as my dad goes into the fast food restaurant to grab us some food, I nab the phone, trying my best to think of what to say. I realize I don’t have time to say anything, so I just send him a GPS location. Hopefully, he’ll be able to figure out what it means.
When my dad gets back to the car, I’m already sitting upright, pretending as if nothing happened.
“Well,” Dad says, “I got you a burger and some fries. I hope that’s okay. I can never remember if it was you or your sister who was the vegetarian—”
He stops when he notices his phone sitting in the cup holder. It’s where he left it, but he instantly grows suspicious.
“What did you do, Maria?” he asks threateningly.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, trying my best to sound innocent.
He picks up his phone from the cup holder and scans through it. And then he finds what he was looking for.
“Are you fucking kidding me, you little bitch?” he demands, flying into a rage almost immediately. “You messaged that scumbag from the Blood Ravens, didn’t you? You told him where we are!”
“I don’t know where we are, Dad!” I protest. “I have no idea.”
“So what the fuck is this with the GPS pin then, Maria? Don’t even fucking try it, girl. You are… I can’t… I can’t even… FUCKING GODDAMN!”
With that, he takes a swing at me, slapping me so hard that my head flies back against the window of the car. He comes around the other side and throws open the car door, pulling me out by the hair.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, bitch?” he demands. “What the fuck did I say about what I would do to you if you contacted anyone? Huh? What the fuck did I say, bitch?”
He hits me again, and the world starts to go sideways. I’m terrified that he’s going to kill me – that this is going to be the last thing I see – and I’ll never make it back to Blade again. My dad hits me a third time, and this time, my head bounces on the concrete of the truck stop parking lot.
After that, I can’t feel anything – I lose consciousness, my last thought a short prayer to God that I do not die right here, right now.
Chapter Nineteen
Blade
I can’t believe it. I simply can’t believe it. All the worry that I had that Maria had abandoned me, all the feelings of rejection it brought up, especially given how Carmen had treated me – all of it melted away when I saw Maria standing there, in that hallway, being held by her father.
I don’t really know what I was expecting. I assumed that she would be standing tall with her father, proud to have screwed me over – to have screwed over the Blood Ravens – and to proudly proclaim her allegiance to the Espinozas. About the last thing I had expected was for her to be held by the hair by her father, seemingly having been abducted.
And I certainly never expected that behind all of this, the one pulling the strings for Juan Espinoza, would have been Slime.
Limo my ass.
As the gunfire ceases, our boys overwhelm the Espinozas and take them down, securing the house. I race through the house to try my best to find Juan and Maria but to no avail. I run down to the basement, and there, beneath everything in the house, is a tunnel. I run down the tunnel, but it splits off into three directions.
I call out, “Maria!” to no avail. Wherever Juan has taken her, she’s gone.
I emerge from the tunnels to find Crusher standing above me, a pained look on his face. He’s still not one hundred percent from getting knifed a few nights ago, and he’s wincing as if he’s in pain. I go over to him.
“Did you find anything down there, Blade?” he asks as I dust myself off from the grit and the grime of the escape tunnels.
I shake my head. “Nothing. There’s nothing down there. Wherever Juan took Maria, they’re gone now.”
“Well, it looks like she was right,” Crusher notes. “About… about everything. She did tell us there had to be a mole. And she didn’t run from us; she was taken.”
“Taken… by Slime,” I growl. “Boss, did you have any inkling he was the mole?”
“None. Up until he put himself in literal line with Espinoza, I had no goddamn clue what he was up to. It just doesn’t make sense to me. Why would he betray his brothers of more than a decade? For what? What does he gain from all of this?”
“Money,” I reply simply. “He gets more money from Espinoza than he was ever going to get from the Blood Ravens.” I frown and consider the situation, wondering if I should venture into Slime’s accusations. “Crusher,” I say gingerly, “I do have to ask – was there any truth to what he was saying?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he said you’ve been ‘skimming off the top’ for years,” I say, then, realizing I could get myself in a world of trouble, I hastily add, “Not that I give a shit. You’re the president. You take whatever’s good for you, and we get the rest. I’m under no illusions about how this kind of stuff works. But maybe that’s—”
“He wasn’t wrong,” Crusher says, “but he’s an idiot. He doesn’t get how any of this works. None of it. I take a little bit extra, sure – that’s my fucking right as president. But I’ve never been stingy with my boys, with my members. I’m the leader
, so I do them right, you know?”
“I get it, boss, I get it,” I reassure him. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you aren’t fair to the boys. I’m a Blood Raven, and I’m fucking proud as hell to be a Blood Raven. Slime is, well…”
“Slime?” Crusher finishes for me.
I laugh. “Something like that.” Turning more serious, I continue, “But whatever the case, we’ve got two problems now. One is what the fuck we’re going to do about Slime. The other is how we get to Espinoza.”
“You talking about Juan or the girl?” Crusher asks knowingly.
“Both?” I say uncertainly. “Boss, she was right all along. We owe her everything. I have to do whatever I can to get her back.”
