“Jesus,” I mutter, rubbing my hand over my face. Never did I think she was tied up in this sorta deep shit. Now everything clicks together for me. I finally understand why Fist was so cautious when it came to Camila, and why he had an even bigger problem with her coming to Vegas with me. Rafael has his men around the border, which means they’re not too far from Vegas… and if one of them recognizes her…
Shit.
I made a promise to protect Camila, and that’s one that I will not break. Like I told Fist, I’ll do anything to keep her safe, and I mean anything.
6
Sometimes the bad things that happen to us in our lives, put us directly in the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.
-Anonymous
Camila
“What’s wrong?” I ask Booger, who looks more confused than I’ve ever seen him. He’s staring at his phone, looking around back and forth. It’s like he thinks that something is missing.
“What’s wrong?” I repeat again, needing to know what’s happening. We left Salt Lake City a few hours ago and just arrived outside of Las Vegas. I’m glad that I made the decision to stop when we did, because we both needed food in our bellies and some decent sleep. I’ll admit, it was kind of awkward being around Booger alone. With no one watching, or eavesdropping on our conversations. Fist may still think that I never picked up on any of that, but I did. It was blatantly obvious what he was doing.
“This is the place, but do you see any trailers? Whole joint is empty, Camila. Shouldn’t be like this.” He talks in half sentences and types away on his phone quickly. I hear the sound of a text being sent, and as soon as the sound is made, he tosses his phone in the cup holder of his truck.
“Why wouldn’t the trailers be here?”
“Sweetheart, I wish I knew. Roman and Fist were supposed to make sure they were here. I’m not the one who arranged this shit.” My brows furrow together at the way he just spoke to me. There’s no need to take out his frustration on me. All I did was just ask a question. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect us to get down here with literally no place to live. All of this was supposed to be handled, and obviously it isn’t.”
Booger’s phone ping’s, signaling that he’s gotten a text back. He picks up his phone and I watch as his eyes dart back and forth as he reads. “Motherfucker!” He growls, angrily tapping away. “Looks like we’re going to stay at a motel tonight. Trailer’s aren’t supposed to be delivered until late tonight, or possibly early tomorrow morning. Apparently, they couldn’t find anyone to have the trailer sizes we needed so last minute, so they ordered a few more from another company. I say we’ll come back tomorrow afternoon after everything is set up correctly.” His voice is still stern and aggravated, which tells me that something is bugging him.
“What’s bothering you?”
Booger puts his phone back in the cup holder and leans back in the driver’s seat of the truck. “We have to head into town when we don’t know anything about the area, babe. At least if we were here, no one would come up buggin’ us. I’m the only one here right now. Brotherhood is a few days behind us and the rest of the Reapers should be here tomorrow. Which basically means if we run into the wrong people, we’re fucked cause I’m outnumbered.”
“Why are you so worried something bad will happen?” I don’t understand. We may have had our fair share of shit back up in Montana, but that doesn’t mean that we will down here.
“Because something will. We’re the outsiders here, Camila. The other gang’s and MC’s don’t know shit about us or our reputation, and they’ll only learn to either fear or respect us as we’re making sure we’re prominent in their community. I can’t be prominent when there’s only one of us down here. It’s risky finding a motel, and I didn’t wanna put either of us in a risky situation. Just thought this shit would be handled, and it’s not.”
“Well, we can’t do anything about it. So, we just need to handle whatever comes our way.” I offer, trying to put a positive spin on it. I know he wasn’t planning for this, and while the fact it’s just the two of us makes me a little uneasy after hearing what he’s just said, I need to hide the fact I’m concerned.
“Yeah, you’re right. Fist wants us to find a motel close to where the club is gonna be, so we’d better do that.” He mutters, pulling his truck out of park, he takes off down the interstate.
After about fifteen minutes, we’ve gone up and down the interstate and have found the closest motel to our new clubhouse location. It’s nothing grand, in fact, it’s probably one of the slummiest places I’ve ever been to. Funny, considering we were just at a really nice hotel yesterday. “I thought you don’t like bed bugs,” I comment, jabbing him in the side with my elbow.
“Shit. Beggars can’t be choosers. Fist told me to stay close to the club, and Damon told me the same shit. Now that Damon is the charter Prez for our Vegas location, I have to follow his orders.”
I may have been with the Reapers for a while, but I still don’t fully understand what’s happening. “What does being a charter Prez mean?”
“Eh, means that Damon is the Prez of our Vegas clubhouse. He acts on Fist’s orders, but his role is to provide leadership to the full patched members and prospects that will be down here. Think of it like this, it would be stupid for someone to open up a second ice cream shop and not have a manager there, right?”
“Yeah, they might not work. They could misbehave. Employee’s need supervision.” I burst out numerous reasons on why it wouldn’t work.
“Exactly. But not only do we need supervision, we need a leader to turn to that’s close to us when shit hits the fan. Then there’s the perception aspect. How we’re perceived by other people.” I nod, acting like I understand. Boog doesn’t need to know that I don’t understand a lot of it.
“C’mon, we should get inside. You already know I’m leery about this place to begin with.” He tells me. I follow his lead and get out of the truck, grabbing a duffel and follow him. We both head to the window that’s carved out for people to check in. An older man sits there, with a glock sitting behind the glass. “You cause no problems here. Yes?” I don’t mistake his accent at all.
“Hola,” I offer him a hello and smile.
“Hola… novia.” He says hello to me and calls me sweetheart, but the way he says it only creeps me out. I don’t miss the way Boog’s expression turns into a stern look at the old man calling me sweetheart.
“We just need a room.” He growls out, handing the man a hundred-dollar bill. “We’ll be here for one night.”
“Ah, I see.” The man takes Boog’s hundred and I watch as his eyes catch his cut. “Reapers… ah.” He turns his neck to reveal a tattoo, one that I’ve seen many times before. I was only a tad bit anxious before, but now I’m even more so.
We’ve just walked into the viper’s den, literally.
Boog and I just paid to stay at a motel owned by the Vibora. None other than the gang that Rafael is known to do countless business with. “Not looking for any trouble, amigo. Just need a place to sleep so we can be on our way.”
“You aren’t staying?” He questions, looking at both Boog and I.
I interject, hoping he’ll believe what I have to say. “No, no. Estamos de paso.” I inform him that we’re just passing through, and the man smiles, revealing countless golden teeth.
Dios Mio. What have we gotten ourselves into?
7
I didn’t come this far, to only come this far.
-Anonymous
Camila
“I don’t like this place. I have a bad feeling,” I say aloud, approaching the window I peek through the curtains and look outside. It’s just past two in the morning and every moment I’m here, the stronger the eerie feeling washes over my body. It’s like somehow, I know something is about to happen. The last time I had this sense of déjà vu is the night my mother was murdered.
I hear his feet hit the floor, taking one step in front of the other. “
Yeah, you’re tellin’ me.” He places his hands on my shoulders, rubbing them back and forth in a soothing way. “Does it make you anxious being so close to the border?”
I turn my head back to look at him, letting out a sigh. “In a way, yes. I try not to let it, though. I know that you won’t let anything happen to me.”
Booger’s hands graze over my shoulders and continue to go further down my body. First, he cascades down my arms and brings his hands to my sides, before pulling me closer against him. His chin sits on my shoulder, holding me close against his chest. “You’ve got that right, Princess.”
I take in a deep breath and close my eyes. For so long I wanted to be in this moment. The one where his arms are wrapped around my body and he’s reassuring me. It feels like a fairytale, like I’m the princess that he always calls me. I’m still anxious for what’s to come, not knowing if he and I will even amount to anything, but I want to find out. I’m pretty sure he does too. I turn my body around and press mine against his. We have a small nightstand light on and while it doesn’t illuminate the room fully, it does just a little bit. I watch the way Boog’s eyes flash across my body, from what I can imagine he’s trying to assess my next move.
I take my hand and graze his cheek, feeling the prickly sensation of his few day old facial hair growing in. Boog has a good few inches on me, so I stand up on my tippy toes and bring my face closer to his. For so long I’ve thought about this moment, wondering what it would feel like. If I’d like it. If I wouldn’t. Dreaming about Booger was something that I found so natural, and now I don’t have to daydream anymore. Here he is, right in front of me.
He leans in, bringing his close, a mere centimeter away from mine. Every part of me wants to make the first move, to show him I’m this strong, fearless woman that he knows. But I find myself terrified at this moment. Terrified of what could be. But you know what’s even scarier than that? Not knowing if I don’t take the chance.
My lips press against his in a sweet and slow manner. His hands hold me against him, running up and down my back, encouraging me to continue. I wrap my hands around his neck, moving in closer to him because that’s where I want to be. As close to him as I can. I’ve wanted this moment for so damn long and now I find myself not wanting to let go of it.
Our lips break away for a moment and he tells me something I can understand as well. “I’ve often had dreams about this moment. About the way my lips would feel on yours, with my arms wrapped around you. I gotta say, nothing compares to the real thing.”
I snicker and smile brightly at him. I don’t think that anything about the man screams romantic, but I can see through the façade he puts up. He’s most certainly a hopeless romantic, in every sense of the word.
Boog shoves me away from him as the door to our room shoots open. “Stay down!” He shouts at me, pulling his gun out to face whomever is intruding on us. I just knew something like this was going to end up happening.
I do as Boog says and stay close to the ground, pulling our duffel bags close to me. Luckily, they weren’t far. I take quick liberty and grab the keys to Boog’s truck too, cause if anything goes my way, we’ll be getting out of this shitshow real quick.
A diabolical laughter greets us as I see a man come into our door frame. He’s maybe in his mid-thirties, but I recognize this bastard. It seems he’s gone from Rafael’s private sector into the gang life. Interesting, very interesting. The thing I had understood during my time in captivity with the cartel was that you were never tossed outside of Rafael’s circle of trust unless something horrific happened. Even then, if you were still alive, you’d have to live with the shame of displeasing your leader. Some men survived because they are like the cockroaches of the world, while others ended up killing themselves because they couldn’t bring that type of shame to their families.
The man who I recognize is no other than Ricardo Escobar, the man who hurt me in more ways than one could imagine. I don’t know much right now, but I know that I can’t let him recognize me, or else I’m toast.
I keep my head low to the ground and try to breathe as calmly as I can, even though my heart is beating a million miles a minute. I’m terrified, maybe even more than I was the night I was taken from my family. It’s one thing to escape your captors, but it’s another to face one of them years later, after you’ve finally stopped having the nightmares that haunted you for so long.
“Who the fuck are you?” Boog snaps at Ricardo. The frightened girl inside me thinks that isn’t a good idea. It’ll only make him retaliate, and you really don’t want him to retaliate. I should know. I’ve been on the opposite side of his torture.
“You don’t need to know that information, boy. I should know who you are though,” He says, and then falls into a bout of laughter much like the Joker from Batman does. “Oh wait, I already do! You are Booger, from the Reapers MC.”
“Yeah. What of it?”
“What are you doing down here, Booger?” His voice is turning more sadistic as each moment passes and I continue to keep my head low, not wanting him to see me. I can’t let him see me, or things can get so much worse.
“We’re just passing through.”
“We? Oh, what a pretty girl you have there.” I hear Boog take a step in front of me, shielding me from Ricardo. Dios Mio, Boog doesn’t even know about my past with Ricardo. It’s not like I’ve told him about everything in full detail. “I think I’ll take a look at her,”
Just like that, the sound of a gunshot rings through the room. I shoot my head up, searching all over Booger for a bullet wound, but I see Ricardo on the floor instead. At that sight, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Princess, keys.” I toss Boog the keys, pulling the duffels into my arms and stare at Ricardo, and at that, I see the recognition flash across his face.
I want to tell Boog to finish him off, to end his life so no one has to know, but I can’t. The only thing I can manage to do is put one foot in front of the other and run like my life depends on it. Because quite frankly, it does.
8
Be careful who you trust. The devil was once an angel.
-Unknown
Booger
“Whoa. Slow down, will you? What happened!?” Damon asks me as I floor the gas, pressing the phone to my ear.
“There’s a fuckin’ gang down here, Damon. How did we not know this shit?” I hiss out. From the corner of my eye, I spot a state park and pull down the path, parking in one of the spots. There’s no way I can keep driving like this, with my heart pumping a million miles a minute.
A sigh greets me, “Never had any problems when I was undercover with the Demons. Rage cast them all out, and the ones that were around worked for us. These must be new players. You see anything that can help us identify them, tat, anything?” I think hard for a moment, yes, he had something on his neck. Fuck. What was it?
“Yeah, he had a viper on his neck.”
“Motherfucker. That’s the Vibora.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to mean somethin’ to me. We don’t deal with these fuckers back in Montana. Tell me what you know.”
“Rumor has it, they work for the Mexican Cartel. My guess is they tried to swoop in and claim the territory after they heard about Rage being offed,” Damon says to me. The wheels inside my head are turning a mile a minute. “Obviously they didn’t know the territory’s already been claimed. Stay put, we’ll be there in a couple hours and last time I got an update, the transport company delivering the trailers said they were gonna be there and setting everything up around five to six in the morning.”
“Fine. What do we do in the meantime?”
“You stay put, like I just fuckin’ told you to!” Damon snaps,
I take a deep breath, hating the fact I can’t do anything right now besides laying low. In this moment is when I look over to Camila and see she’s shaking like a cold dog that got caught out in the rain. “What’s wrong?” I ask out of concern, placing my hand on top of hers.
Her mascara is r
unning down her face, making her look like a drowned raccoon. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you before we left. I know that man. He knows me, and he works for the cartel. We should have made sure he was dead Booger… he recognized me. He saw my fucking face and now he’s going to go tell Rafael! They’re going to take me back.” Her words come out faster than bullets escaping the chamber, going from a terrified tone to a soft hiccup. Never have I seen her this afraid.
“What’s going on over there?” I hear Damon ask through my phone.
“You don’t have to worry about a thing. I’ve got you,” I tell Camila as I bring my phone back up to my face and fill Damon in on what she just told me.
“Jesus. Alright, well, we knew Camila had some shit with the Cartel. I’m gonna have to tell Fist about this shit, as you know. We need to expect the brunt force of the cartel, and the gang comin’ down on top of us. But we’ll be prepared. We have close allies, and we’re not going to be alone. Everything is gonna be alright. Make sure she knows that we’ve got her.”
“You got it, Prez.” Out of anyone that could’ve been chosen to lead our Las Vegas charter, I’m glad it was Damon. He’s a very level headed individual, who worked hard undercover with the Demons for years. His loyalty is obvious, solely from the fact he protected Kat from harm for years. I just hope that he doesn’t let his new status give him some ego trip. “Call me when you’re close. We’ll try to get some shut eye and will go out to the property to check on the trailers in a few hours.”
“Will do.” With that, the phone call ends with a click.
“I mean it, everything is going to be okay.” I say to her, trying to soothe her from the distraught nature she’s currently in.
“There’s no way for you to know that. You don’t know about the things that happened to me, of what they did. What he did. I can’t go back to that Boog, and I can’t talk about it right now. This is all just too much for me to handle. Distract me. Dios Mio, distract me with something else. Por favor, please.”
Booger (Reapers MC Book 3) Page 3
