by SE Chardou
For the first time since “that incident I would take to my grave,” I began to sob as tears fell down my eyes in an uncontrollable mess. I couldn’t stop the tumult of emotions I felt. I knew I would be able to handle the violation but it was the lack of control over my own limbs that had me frightened at the core.
My mind played tricks on me and I wasn’t a prisoner of Fernando’s but another monster in my life: my father.
“Daddy, I promise to be a good girl. Please don’t put me in the cage!”
“In the end, Mira, you’re your mother’s daughter and though it’s wrong what I felt for her, I loved her in my own way. You need to learn discipline. Do you want to be a slave like her?”
“Daddy, I promise to be a good girl! I’ll never touch drugs, and I’ll make you proud of me one day.”
Gentle hands caressed my youthful skin, and I leaned into the touch. I wanted so badly for my father to love me and accept me as his daughter. Why was that so hard for him to do?
“As long as you live in my house, you are never to look at any members in the club, you hear me? You’re my special girl—my only girl—and I will not have you turn into a whore. Preserve yourself and be the most perfect child you can be . . . maybe, just maybe, I will love you almost as much as I love Jake. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”
“I love Jake too! He’s nice to me, Daddy.”
“I know . . . treats you as an equal, not a girl. He doesn’t understand that soon you’ll be a woman and with that comes trouble . . . problems. Stella can’t stand you. Stay out of her way, help when you’re needed and keep to yourself. Try to make your self invisible. You’ve inherited my genes and you can ‘pass’ as one of us. You need to remember though you’re not pure and you never will be. You should be happy I’m providing a roof over your head and food to eat. I could make a mint out of whoring you out but those eyes—they’re my eyes staring back at me. They’re the only feature that is saving you from my more animalistic instincts . . . you remember that, baby.”
I slowly calmed down to the point where I could breathe and that’s when I realized my wrists were no longer locked in handcuffs.
Fernando leaned over me with a worried look in his hazel-green eyes. “Where did you go, chica?”
I shook my head, my eyes cold and desolate. “You don’t want to know.”
He stared at me for a long time before he stood and sighed in a resigned manner. “You’re no fun like this. Drink some champagne and snort some coke. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I like my women to be willing victims not traumatized head cases.”
“You’re not worried about me trying to escape while you’re gone?” I teased though I should have left him alone.
“There’s no where for you to go. I’m locking you inside this room and the only thing you have at your disposal is champagne and cocaine. You’ll get drunk and horny enough before long. I’ll be back then and not a moment sooner. There are gorgeous women downstairs who are willing to fuck me without the hysterics and I prefer them over you at the moment.”
Fernando walked towards the double doors. He stopped and looked at me again. “Man, I thought I had a fucked up childhood but I can’t imagine what you went through. It was nothing good though. You really should get some help for that PTSD. You’re no good to any man being the way you are.”
I waited until he’d left before I scooted towards the edge of the bed and pulled my dress back on. I couldn’t stand being nude before a man I detested so much.
He was right about one thing—I might have suffered from a mild form of PTSD but it only surfaced in life threatening situations. Not once had I ever experienced a flashback with Pyro, and our love life was far from conventional. I felt safe with him, and more than that, I loved him.
He was supposed to be my knight in shining armor that night I was given to him as a going away present and I’d never forgotten him. I knew he wasn’t perfect and fought with his own demons but he would never hurt me in any way. He loved me too and I’d never felt more protected.
Being without him was killing me but first, I would have to figure out my current situation before I literally wound up dead. This plan had failed at such epic proportions I was ashamed to contact Estelle.
Fernando obviously considered me no threat what so ever because he didn’t even bother to take my handbag, let alone search it. I grabbed my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and texted Estelle.
Me: Go home. I’m stuck here in Fernando’s house and he knows who I am.
I didn’t have to wait long until she replied.
Estelle: Holy shit! Maarten would kill me if I left you there. Where is he now?
Me: Downstairs with a few hookers I guess. How the hell should I know? He locked me in his bedroom. I can’t escape. All that’s here is champagne and coke.
Estelle: Crap. I’ll think of something but I’m not leaving you there. Did he take your piece?
Me: No.
Estelle. Then grab it and put it under your pillow. You might as well get some rest since you aren’t going anywhere for a while. He’s stupid enough to fall asleep next to you.
I rolled my eyes before I Swyped my response.
Me: Is this your bright idea?
Estelle: Hell yeah. Get some rest. Wait until he falls asleep beside you. Grab a pillow, use it as a silencer and shoot him to hell. Then sneak out. Text me. I will be close enough to come get you.
Me: Go home. If I do something like that, I don’t want you to be involved. I’ll call a taxi before I do it or find my own way out of here.
Estelle: No can do. I have to return you home. Maarten would kill us both if he knew what we were up to. He’s on his way home now. I can stall but I can’t go home, not without you.
Me: Fine. But find a place to get some rest. I have a feeling I won’t be able to attempt killing him till the early hours of the morning.
Estelle: Text me as soon as you’re safe.
Me: Will do.
I powered down my phone to save battery and slid the gun out of the bottom of my purse. I made sure I left the safety on before I hid both my phone and my gun under the pillow I laid down on.
I refused to drink or get high. I was so very tired, and Fernando’s bed was soft enough, it felt like my own little piece of heaven in a gilded cage I would never be able to escape from until he was dead.
It was better if I was well rested and allowed the alcohol and coke to clear my system. I wanted to be in tiptop shape when I murdered this asshole.
My dreams were strange and filled with nightmares that hadn’t visited me in a while. I was haunted even when I slept.
I opened my eyes and gazed at the clock illuminating not far from where I slept. It was five-thirty in the morning. How could I have slept so long with so many demons chasing me? It just didn’t make any damn sense.
I turned over, expecting an empty bed, but there he was, with his back to me. Fernando was knocked out; although he was a quiet sleeper, his deep breathing suggested he was firmly in REM sleep.
How long had he been there and had I missed countless opportunities to murder him? Was I that completely inept at my job?
It didn’t take long for me to snap out of it. I reached under the pillow and turned my phone on. It took a few minutes before I was able to text a message to Estelle.
Me: You still around?
I waited with a heart thundering in my chest until her message popped up.
Estelle: Yeah, what’s up?
Me: Come get me. The job is done.
Estelle: Be safe trying to get out of there. Just play it cool and you should be fine.
Me: Will do.
Tossing my cell phone further down on the bed, I grabbed the gun and flicked the safety off before I grabbed the pillow I’d slept on. It was now or never, and I didn’t have the luxury of hesitation.
Quickly, I reacted, placing the pillow over his head and firing three shots into the pillow at three different points to blow his head off. The first one hit home
the moment I saw the blood splatter but it was always a good idea to make sure Fernando was fucking dead and wouldn’t end up a comatose vegetable for the rest of his life.
My heart knocked against my chest so loudly, I was sure his bodyguards had heard the gunshots or the sound of my heartbeat. I didn’t waste any time because the scent of gunpowder hit the air and my hands were probably covered. If I was caught, I wouldn’t make it out of this place alive.
I wrapped the gun back into the scarf and buried it at the bottom of my purse, grabbed my wig and slipped it back on before I grabbed my phone and grabbed my shoes. Fuck it, I would rather walk out barefoot then risk making a single unnecessary noise.
The walk to the double doors felt like an eternity but I made it and closed the door behind me. There wasn’t a bodyguard in sight. In fact, the place seemed to be empty as a tomb. It was an eerie feeling that had goose bumps breaking out all over my exposed flesh. I needed to get out of here—fast.
I double timed it down the staircase and walked quickly to the front door before I opened and closed it behind me. I didn’t know whether I’d set off any sort of alarm and I didn’t plan on sticking around to find out if that was the case.
My feet hit the pavement as I began to run down the drive, the cobblestones cold and flat against the bottom of my feet. There was an entryway for both vehicles and pedestrians but the gated door for pedestrians only locked from the outside. I grabbed the doorknob, opened the door and continued to run by mansion after mansion, all hidden from view behind privacy gates and tastefully decorated walls.
This was where I was the most vulnerable. Anyone could shoot me now and I’d have absolutely no protection. There wasn’t a soul on the street and zero vehicles to take cover behind.
If it wasn’t for the surge of adrenaline that spiked through my veins, I never would have continued to get away but I had to do this. If only to see Pyro’s smiling face again, and hear his voice.
It was true, I’d been unfaithful but I would tell him, and maybe he would forgive me—perhaps he wouldn’t—but at least my conscience would be clear. Up until that point, I’d done everything I had to do to complete my job but that was still no excuse for infidelity.
My parents never had it—hell, my mother wasn’t even married to my dad. She was just some whore he fucked because he provided her with an endless supply of meth. Was I condemned to live my mother’s sad, tumultuous life all over again? I couldn’t and I refused.
As long as there was breath in my body, I would survive.
Nothing in my life had come easy. I was used to fighting it out to get what I wanted and I didn’t plan to stop now.
That’s when I heard a vehicle and my heart raced as I turned to look over my shoulder. Estelle pulled up beside me in her red Mini Cooper and I jumped into the front passenger seat.
“That was quick,” Estelle muttered as I put my seatbelt on.
“You think? Last night and this morning was one whole disaster of epic proportions.” I dropped my shoes and purse on the floor next to my feet while I tried to catch my breath.
“What do you mean? I know killing that bastard must have been a nice touch on the whole occasion.” She chuckled as she drove out of the community and down a long expressway that would lead us to the highway.
“You don’t know anything, Estelle.” I sighed and pulled the wig off before I tossed it at my feet. “Yes, I killed a man who . . . fucked me and degraded me and reminded me of all the reasons why I left home in the first place. I fucked a man who came inside me, and now, I have to make a gynecologist appointment to make sure I don’t have a sexually transmitted disease or that I’m not pregnant because I sure as fuck don’t want his kid. I jeopardized the relationship I have with your brother for half a million dollars. That’s not even money I can live on for the rest of my life unless I take up a very frugal lifestyle. Nothing I did last night or this morning was quick or fun or a nice touch. It was a brutal hell reminding me of what I’m going back to once Pyro finds out what I’ve done.”
She glared at me quickly before her eyes met the road again. “What do you mean go back to? Surely you aren’t insane enough to return to Black Oak?”
I looked at her as the tears poured down my cheeks. “Where else can I go, Estelle? The whole cartel will be hunting me once they’ve found out what I’ve done. Pyro will toss me out like used Kleenex once he knows I had to sleep with Fernando just to kill him and the club won’t protect me. I’m nothing and no one to them. Do you think I’ll continue to be your brother’s old lady once he finds out about what I did? It would be all out war between the Saints and Aztecas Infierno. Again. No one wants that when the problem is so easy to get rid of.”
“Listen, you can’t go back home.” Estelle had a slight tremor to her voice that suddenly alarmed me. “It’s not safe there. Your father, brothers—they all know you’ve been here and holed up with the Saints. They would kill you.”
“And how would they know something like that?” I questioned out loud.
“Because the first thing Hardy did was tell your uncle when you and Pyro became official. He rubbed it in his face and you better believe that news hit Black Oak the same day. Tell me, has Jake been in contact recently?”
I thought about it; my heart thundered in my chest like wild horses and I felt like I would pass out any given moment.
I had a burner phone where Jake would text me at least once a week but for the last month or so, there’d been nothing from him. I just assumed he’d been busy because the holidays were a huge time for the family to make money. Everyone wanted meth then—from the casual users to those who’d suffered any type of loss in the family to the partiers. We sold more meth between November and December than we sold the rest of the year.
At least we used to since I was no longer a Decker and hiding behind my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. No one would look for a Clarkson but it didn’t matter because no doubt Hardy had also sent photos along with bragging to my uncle Brad, and Estelle was right. The moment my uncle hung up with Hardy, he’d called my father and told him I’d turned against the family and now, I had no family.
“Why would Hardy do that? The Saints don’t trust me, and the only real family I have is gone?” I said in a hostile tone. “Why would you want to do that to me?”
Estelle stared at me as we sat at a red light, waiting to enter the freeway. “Why else would we do it, Mira? You’re much more intelligent than you like to let on, and that is quite sad. Why you would consider those backwoods pricks your only family is really disgusting. What the hell are Maarten and I to you? Substitutes for those racist pieces of dog shit?”
“I told you he’s not going to want me once he finds out—”
“Then don’t fucking tell him what you had to do because it’s none of his business!” She grabbed my forearm closest to her and squeezed hard. “You’re not going to tell Maarten a fucking thing except you were able to outsmart Fernando and kill him, you got that?”
I looked at her, my face a mixture of humiliation and anger before she squeezed harder. “I said you got it?”
“Yeah,” I replied as I indicated the green light to her with a nod of my head. “I got it.”
The silence in the car felt like a noise itself, echoing in my head until it was so loud, I could no longer handle it. I turned on the radio and “Outside” blasted from the speakers.
Estelle turned down Ellie Goulding’s haunting voice by way of her steering wheel. “Listen, I had to do something to keep me awake while I drove around and parked in various places. My Spotify dance list seemed like the most appropriate selection of music to keep me from entering REM sleep just in case you texted me.”
I shrugged apathetic shoulders. “What difference does it make now? You might as well have left me there for Fernando’s henchmen to carve up like a chicken since I have no where to go.”
“Oh my God! Will you please stop the ‘woe is me’ bullshit, Mira, and act your fucking age? You do have
somewhere to go and someone waiting for you at home. Fuck it up and then, you’ll have nowhere to go,” she said in a cold voice.
“What do you mean?”
It was Estelle’s turn to shrug her shoulders. “It’s not for me to say. Maarten can give his own secrets away.”
Chapter Fifteen
Pyro
Pyro knew something had gone down as soon as he arrived back home.
It had been much easier than any of them thought for Erik to start singing like a bird to the Feds, and that is exactly what he did when he was left in an interrogation room alone with Eve Kerrigan.
She walked out of the office with a smile on her face. “Good work, boys. Hardy, can you let SIS know we have another informant on the payroll. Only reason those bastards aren’t complaining about budget issues is because of all the money we’re bankrolling both the UK and the U.S. with illegal funds every time we bust a bad guy.”
Hardy nodded silently before he’d left. Shortly after, Pyro and the rest of the guys did the same.
He couldn’t complain. He was living an outlaw lifestyle and enjoying all the perks of being on the wrong side of the law co-mingled with immunity and the right to murder with impunity. The Saints were completely untouchable as long as they continued to bring down other outlaws, and the next targets on the list were the White Knights.
Unfortunately for them, their beliefs alone made them unreliable informants so most of them would end up in Federal penitentiaries, and the ones who did decide to turn might get reduced sentences at Club Fed prisons but Eve was adamant there would be few—if any—informants from the White Knights MC. She wasn’t interested in what they had to say, she only wanted the club dead, and the members buried alive.
