“So?”
“So, they're not going to take it lightly if you steal him from them.”
Matteo snorted. “All the more reason to do it.”
“Life in here isn't a game of fucking chess, Matteo. You have to watch your back.”
“Why? When I have all my men to do it for me.”
Ramon shook his head, exasperation clouding his swarthy features—the bastard still managed a tan even with a single hour a day outside in the yard. “You're an arrogant prick sometimes.”
Matteo just smiled. “If I really were, then I wouldn't let you get away with calling me that.”
“I've called you worse, amigo.”
Acknowledging that with a nod, Matteo sighed. “What am I supposed to do? Just listen to the poor little bastard get raped every night? You're not next to his fucking cell. I am.”
Ramon grimaced. “I'd prefer my fist to that.”
“I'll ask you that in fifteen fucking years.” Matteo ran a hand over his face.
“If I ever rape another man, you have my permission to shoot me.”
“Where would I get the gun?”
Ramon chuckled. “Trust you to focus on that.”
“Practicalities, my friend, I'm always thinking about them.” He eyed the back of the bitch as Ramon called him. “What's his name, anyway?”
“Enrique.”
Matteo frowned. “He's Hispanic and with the Russians?”
“I don't think that's by choice,” Ramon remarked wryly. “He was independent...” That meant without affiliation to one of the gangs inside these walls. “...only he didn't do that great a job of staying that way.”
“Talk to the guards. Tell him to move him to my cell if needs be.” Matteo was the only one on the floor with a cell to himself. A perk his hermano had paid for.
“That won't be necessary. They'll just shuffle around a couple of the others.”
Matteo grunted at the notion, wishing the six by four cells were anything other than a claustrophobic’s worst nightmare.
“That doesn't solve the problem, though, does it?” Matteo glared down at the chess board. “The next fucker they put in with that bastard will end up the same way. And I'll go to sleep to the sounds of snuff.” He pursed his lips, pondering the situation. “How hard to knock Valovitch off his perch?”
Ramon shrugged. He hunched over the chess set then turned his head to face the Russian, who made the term 'brick shithouse' look like a compliment.
The yard was nothing more than chain fences, and gravel on the ground with a small section of lawn. There, they had weights for the guys to burn off their aggression. Everything was chained down, so the dumbbells couldn't be used as weapons. It made it fucking irritating when Matteo tried to do a tricep dip and nearly toppled over because the chain on his weights was too goddamn short.
There was a cluster of tables set into the ground, some set up with the boards of games inlaid into them. Like this one was for chess. There was another for backgammon. Getting the pieces for the games was the hard part. They were like gold in this place. Because while the commissary, the prison store, sold shit like that, it was exactly that. Shit. And Matteo, used to the finer things in life like playing his brother at chess with a three-thousand-dollar bottle of brandy breathing at their side, liked things done a certain way.
The Russian was over by the weights, surrounded by his ever-decreasing posse. Enrique stood to the side, his small shoulders cowering inward, obviously trying to make himself as invisible as possible. The others were working out. The veins on Valovitch's throat were close to bursting as he bench-pressed a cool hundred-fifty pounds.
Ramon continued his study, squinting at the weak sun as it bathed them in a light warmth. “Depends on the shivs,” he eventually said, turning around to the board once more. “To take the Russian out, I mean. Hard to say, otherwise. The bastard's a mean motherfucker. We don't want to send guys in under prepared.”
Matteo rubbed his chin. “I want the job done. What weapons do we have?”
“A woeful amount.”
“Woeful? Shit, I know we're low if you start going poetic on my ass, Ramon.” Matteo grinned when his friend flipped him the bird. “Start a collection. Put the word out, we want weapons.”
Ramon nodded. “Understood.” He started to move his pawn and fiddled with it in midair as he asked, “Do you want Enrique moved now?”
“I don't know. What's worse? Save another guy from rape at the expense of one who is being repeatedly raped? What a fucking decision...” As he moved his rook, Matteo murmured, “Put the wheels in motion with the cell transfer. I want the Russian out of the picture by the end of the week.”
“That's no fucking time at all,” Ramon growled. “Where the hell are we supposed to magic up shivs?”
“I don't care, but I want this fucking rape culture stopped.”
“You're just like your brother.”
“Only when it affects my sleep.” Matteo rolled his eyes. “I'm not a bleeding heart like Martinez.”
“So says the man trying to stop rape in a fucking prison.”
He wriggled his shoulders. “Martinez would say I should be more like him. He says it's my fault I'm in here.”
Ramon shrugged. “It probably is. But, what's done is done. I'll try my best to get the situation under control. Things are better since that riot last month. Even the Aryans know who's in charge now.”
Matteo nodded and was about to speak when a guard, Hansom, appeared at one of the side doors. “Martinez?”
Whenever he heard his surname, he always expected to see his brother. Matteo was Matteo, and Martinez was Martinez. It had been the way of it since his hermano had eradicated his name from use. “Yeah?”
“You have a visitor.”
Ramon frowned. “Who is it? You've no one scheduled.”
He shrugged. “Fuck knows.” He got up and started for the door. Ten steps away, he paused. “I'll know if you move the pieces. Don't even think about cheating.”
Ramon grunted. “After all these years, you think I don't know that? Fucking eidetic memory. Blows balls.”
Matteo just smirked and headed for Hansom. “Who's here?”
He didn't wait for the guard to slip on his cuffs. Hansom was one of many detailed to him, all slipped extras by the Lobos to make his stay here more comfortable.
“Your sister. And your daughter.”
While his heart fluttered at the thought of seeing Maria—something he'd never admit to, a lobo's heart did not flutter—he scowled. “Which sister?”
“Chela.”
“Take me to her.”
Hansom nodded, and taking a step ahead, led Matteo to his visitors. “¿Qué haces aqui?” he bit out the instant he saw Chela. “What are you doing here? You know I don't want her to see me like this,” he growled in Spanish.
Chela scowled back at him. “You're just going to let life pass you by while you're in here? She wants to see you. She's not talking, to anyone, not even Martinez. It's not healthy. You have to make her talk.”
Grateful his baby girl only spoke basic Spanish, a fact his mother often bemoaned, Matteo scrubbed a hand over his face. Maria sat there, throbbing with excitement at seeing him. She'd deflated a little at his angry words, his furious posture, but when he went over to her, picked her up from her stool and cuddled her to him, she sank into him. Her relief, her delight in seeing him was so fucking painful, he ached with it.
Dios, he missed her.
Knowing his eyes were wet with emotion, he turned away from Chela and just reveled in being able to embrace his baby. Hansom shuffled at the door, but Matteo ignored him. Technically, visitors and prisoners weren't allowed to touch, but, Matteo should have been cuffed...rules were made to be broken. Even in places like here.
“Why aren't you talking, baby?” he murmured into her silky hair. He hated that she was here, that she saw him in this fucking neon jumpsuit. The gray room, the gray table, the gray walls...the two-way window. T
his was no place for her, and yet, it felt so good to hold her. To know she was here, and she was safe.
And as mean and horrible as it was, as big a bastard as it made him, it hurt in a good way that she missed him as much as he missed her.
The two good things he'd done in his life were getting his family out of the gutter with his brother, and having this little girl.
He knew Chela spoke the truth about her self-induced silence because her voice was croaky when she whispered, “If I don't talk, tio might bring you back.”
“But I explained, querida, he can't do anything. I'm here because I've been a naughty man. I've done things that I need to be told off for. Just like when you're naughty, you get punished, it's the same here.”
“Abuela doesn't send me away, though,” she mumbled around a pout.
“No, but that's because you steal cookies. I've done much worse.”
“Why? Why were you so bad?”
He buried his face in her black hair, sniffing the scent of baby powder and the cologne his mama had sprayed on all of them as kids. “I was an idiot.” What else could he say? It was the truth.
He should have listened to Martinez. Should have gotten out of the gang when Maria's mother had handed her over to him. Instead, he'd been an arrogant prick, believing that he'd never get caught. That no one could ever touch the leaders of the Lobos.
“I'm sorry, baby,” he whispered. “If I could go back, I would, but that doesn't make this any better. That doesn't take me back home.” He leaned back, eying her sad little face. “I don't want you to keep on doing this though. Why deny the world your beautiful voice, huh?” She was a singer, his baby. She sang like an angel. “Tio can't do any more for me than he already has, and he's done a lot. I'll come home when I can and not a minute later.”
Her lower lip trembled, and she wrapped tiny arms around his neck, embracing him like it was the last time she'd ever be able to. And maybe it would be.
God, the thought was like a knife to the gut.
Chela cleared her throat, and seeing her red eyes, he smiled at her. Shakily. “It's good to see you, sis.”
“I wish the circumstances were better,” she replied, anger still bleaching her words.
“Me too,” he admitted with a shrug. “How's the painting going? Ready for your exhibition yet?”
Her smile was a little easier this time. “Yeah. Getting there. I just have a few more pieces I need to finish. I didn't realize how big the Lowra was and how many works they'd need for a full exhibition.”
“You deserve it.”
She blushed. “Thanks, hermano.”
He shrugged. “It's the truth.”
“How are you? Really?” she asked in Spanish. “Do you need anything? Do you want me to tell Martinez anything?”
He shook his head. “Any news on the rat?” The son of a bitch who had snatched his family from him and sent him to jail.
“No. No news. Rico was psyched a few days ago, but he's been on the down low for a while. No one knows where he's gone.”
“He must be ferreting them out.” Abruptly cheered at the idea of the snitch suffering at his friend's hands, he sat down opposite her. “How's Martinez?”
“Same as usual. Maybe a bit weirder.”
“In what way?”
“That loba was back for a few days.”
“Which one?”
Chela curled a piece of hair around her finger. “You know the one. That odd one. Eva.”
He scowled. “Eva?” What a pain in the ass she'd been. “She'd gone somewhere?
Chela's mouth rounded into an O. “Of course, you wouldn't know.”
“Know what?” he snapped.
“She was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped? Who the hell by?” Who the fuck would have her?
“The Triads.”
For a second, he froze at the notion the Cobras had been on their patch. Her words penetrated his thoughts, and he contemplated them, but another issue pressed hard at his mental reserves. “How the hell do you know any of this, anyway? You're supposed to stay out of the business.”
When she flushed, he narrowed his eyes at her, which made her blush a little harder. “I listen,” was all she said though.
“Yeah? To who?”
Her nostrils flared, a sure sign she was pissed and scared. “It has nothing to do with you. I keep my ears open, I always have. It pays to in this fucking family.” She stood up jerkily. “I came here to do you a favor, and to make you talk to Maria, not to be interrogated.”
He studied her, then pursed his lips. “Okay, I'll back off.”
“Good.” Still bristling, she sat back down again.
“Tell me about Eva.”
“Nothing much to tell. She was away for a long time. Some of the lobos wondered if she'd been killed or something. But Martinez turned up with her a few nights ago. She stayed with him.”
Matteo stilled. “In his penthouse?”
Chela nodded.
“All night?”
Another nod. “Unusual, right?”
“He never gets involved with the lobas.”
“Apparently, he's made an exception for her.”
Matteo thought back to the skinny little bitch who'd griped endlessly at him about Rico. Sure, Rico was a bit twisted when it came to sex, but what the hell had she wanted him to do? Castrate the fucker? That was all he could do, and like it or not that he hurt the girls, Rico was a loyal lobo. He worked hard, paid his dues, and was as faithful to the gang as anyone could hope for.
Instead, she'd bitched at him. Made him see the scars, look at the doctor's bills she'd had to pay. Did she think he'd liked knowing his best friend was doing that to women?
Hell no, he didn't.
Ramon was right. He was like his brother. The little man, or in this case, woman, should not be shit upon simply because she was in a position of weakness. But, Rico was Rico. A brother not by blood but by choice.
Matteo scraped a hand over his face, realizing that he was contemplating murdering the Russian for raping and hurting Enrique in the cell next to him. But Rico, who burned his women with cigarettes, he let loose on the streets.
Fuck.
Shame filled him, regret too. He’d done so many fucking things wrong.
“Where is she now?” he asked, voice rusty with unease.
“She disappeared again.” Chela laughed. “Martinez is super pissed. It's quite amusing actually. I've never seen him go apeshit over a woman before. I mean, she's attractive, in her own way, but I wouldn't have said she was his type.”
“Me neither.” He thought back to the woman in question. Long, wavy bleached hair, usually scraped back into a tight bun, so more of her black roots were on show. Barely there tits, but her ass had been fine. Even her shitty taste in clothes hadn't hidden that delicious morsel.
Matteo would probably have fucked her himself if not for two reasons. The standing rule that the high-ranking lobos, the guy members of the gang, did not mess with the lobas, the females. And secondly, at the time, when he'd just thought of her as a whinging, whining pain in the ass, he'd have preferred for her to fuck off than to fuck her.
He grimaced at the thought, not relishing the fact that she'd been right to bring Rico's behavior to his attention.
Maria squeezed her arms around him and murmured, “Tio was mad with her.”
He frowned down at his baby girl. “Mad at Eva?”
Maria nodded, and in hesitant Spanish—a level that made him cringe because she must have understood a lot of their conversation, a fact that had Chela wincing too—she whispered, “He was mad. I heard him. She'd done something naughty. He said she had no right to act like—” She broke off and wrinkled her delicate nose. When he tapped it, she giggled then mouthed out the sounds. “Juh-geh.”
Chela frowned. “Judge?”
Maria nodded. “Sí.”
“Judge?” he mouthed at Chela who shrugged in confusion.
“He said that word, and...�
� She mouthed two more words, words there was no way his baby would know without outside intervention.
“Jury and executioner?” Another nod from his baby, and Matteo was starting to understand a lot more than he'd have liked. Chela, too, by the scowl on her face.
He patted the back of her tousled hair and squeezed her tight. “Thanks for coming, sis,” he murmured to Chela.
She eyed him, nibbling her lip in concern. “Don't do anything rash, Matteo. You don't know anything for certain, and Martinez will handle this. He always does.”
“Not if he's—” He broke off. “Sleeping with her.”
“Martinez doesn't do things like that. There must be more to this. Let me find out.”
“No!” he spat. “Stay out of it. We haven't sheltered you for this length of time only for you to get involved now.”
“You're my brother, not my goddamn keeper.”
Matteo just stared at her, stared her down. “I'm the man that saved you from the streets, hermanita. Martinez, too. We did certain things so you didn't have to. Remember that. Respect that, and stay out of this. Don't tell Martinez you visited today, and baby girl,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to Maria's nose. “I don't want you to tell tio you saw me today. I know it will be hard, but I want you to promise.”
“Te prometo,” she murmured with a smile, burying her face into his throat.
“Good girl,” he whispered. “I want your word, Chela. Martinez deals with things his way, and I deal with them mine. You understand that.”
She didn't look happy about it, but she nodded. Once.
And that was enough.
II
“Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.”
Hugh Prather
Chapter Eleven
Five months later
Neuview County, South Dakota
“Goddamn, it's hot.” Eva Kingston wiped a hand over her brow as she looked up at her informant and down at the pictures the woman had managed to capture on her cell. “Did we have to meet out here?” she complained.
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