by Max Henry
“You with us?”
I roll my head to the side where I’m laid out on the back lawn and see Twig’s sideways boots approach.
“Just tryin’ to clear my head, man.”
“That shit from the other day still botherin’ you?”
I nod as I sit up, and tuck my knees inside my elbows to squint up at him. “Among other things.”
“Got something that might take your mind off it.”
“Yeah?”
He nods toward the clubhouse, indicating I should follow. “Got another run to do. Good pay, too.”
“Doing what?”
“Not a hundred yet.” He steps up onto the deck with me following behind. “Think it’s a basic courier run. Gunner’s out checkin’ the route now.”
“Who’s goin’?”
“Apex, myself, and you.” He takes a seat on one of the plastic chairs, pulls out his cigarettes, and offers me one. I take it and bum a light off him as well.
“Why me?” Two officers and a prospect? It’s kind of weird. Why not take a fully patched member with them?
“It’s your last task before your patch is taken to council.”
I can’t stop the smile that takes hold. At last there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
“Thought you’d be happy,” Twig says with a chuckle. “You’ve done good, King.”
“Thanks, man.” I drop down to the steps of the deck and stretch my feet out across the back yard. One run and I get my center patch. I haven’t been this excited since my last Christmas at home.
Twig waves his cigarette my way. “I mean it, King. You’re loyal as fuck to this club, and you show promise with your initiative. You’ve earned it.”
So why does the victory feel so hollow? I’ve dreamt of hearing the words Twig’s just spoken for months on end. I live and breathe the life with the sole purpose of proving my worth.
Sure, I’m over the fucking moon at what he’s told me, but something’s different now from when I started this journey. The once straight and easy road has become winding and pitted with holes. Our club, once clean and uncomplicated, is now crossing some serious moral lines with this work we’re doing for Carlos.
Carlos.
Yeah. There’s the problem, right there. I earn my center patch, I prove my worth doing work for a crazy fucking guy with a God complex, and in the process, that asshole steals the one thing I want as bad a that Fallen Aces emblem stitched onto my leather.
Elena.
I can’t win both ways. One has to come before the other, and either way I do it, I run the risk of losing both my patch and Elena entirely. All I can do is hope I’ve made the right decision in securing the backing of my brothers before I go rocking the apple cart with one of the most relentless and morally bankrupt drug lords.
Otherwise there’s not going to be much point to pulling on my boots anymore.
TEN
Elena
three days later
Papa died last night. How’s that for inconvenient? Now instead of finding a way to make things work with King, I’m going to be preoccupied with organizing a funeral. Not to mention this means I have to return there—to Carlos’s. I’m not ready yet. It feels as though I’m surrendering myself over to a prison sentence, doing time for one stupid mistake.
I woke this morning and went in to Papa’s room first thing as usual, to check on him. Instead of the normal slew of insults I’d receive when I opened his curtains a crack, I got nothing. Not even the body-shaking coughs he’d start out each day with.
I ran down to the library and called the Home Health nurse first, unsure on what I should do. I knew the day would come, but I’d never thought to ask anyone what happens when a person dies in his or her home—what steps I should follow. The nurse called the authorities, and before long an ominously silent ambulance had arrived to take his body away. I sat on the front step, pondering how bad it would look if I went for another run to process my thoughts while they carted his body out on a stretcher and transported him to the funeral home.
It’s not that seeing him go was upsetting—I didn’t want the paramedics to wonder why I wasn’t upset, why there were no signs of tears. I didn’t want to be judged. I do a fine enough job of doing that to myself.
The ambulance came and went. Nobody said a thing. The Home Health nurse arrived and asked me how I was. ‘Fine.’ It’s the answer I come out with before I’ve taken the time actually ask myself, how am I?
I’m fine.
What other answer would I have? Papa’s died, left me here alone, and all I want to do is weep with relief. What sort of daughter does that—wishes for her father to die so he’s less of a burden?
This one does.
She left soon after, the concern clear as day on her face that I hadn’t moved from the spot she found me in when she arrived. I don’t want to. The sun warming my body as I sit on the front step fills me with a deep sense of being alive. My heart is cold enough without any help from the rest of me. On one hand I’m a fraud, a charlatan—marrying a man I have no emotional connection to. On the other, I’m a woman who’s addicted to the euphoric sense of being whole that only comes from attachment to another’s soul—King.
I miss him already.
I have to find a way to prove the strength of what I feel for him.
A car door slams, and I look up to find Carlos making his way up the path. My living and working arrangements are temporary now that Papa’s gone, not something I could ever expect to last, and he knows that.
“Hello, Elena.” Carlos comes to a stop before me, blocking the sun with his tall frame.
“Dearest,” I snarl in return.
“Home time.”
I narrow my gaze on the asshole, wondering how hard I’d have to think to perform some pyrokinesis miracle and set him on fire. “What if I said no?” I ask, just wanting him to say it one more time, why it is I can’t walk away and be with King.
“Then I make sure you keep your mouth shut, and you know what that means, don’t you?”
“I get a bullet wasted on me, and then you feed me to the pigs.”
He nods, seemingly satisfied with my rote answer. It’s been drilled into me enough times since I saw him fucking the maid and threw his ring at him. Wish he’d told me that he came with a termination clause when we first went to dinner.
“Besides,” he says, “your visa’s expired now that your father’s gone. Time’s running out if you want to stay in America.”
How does he find this stuff out so soon? I hadn’t told him, and he hasn’t been inside to know that Papa’s passed. Eyes and ears everywhere. A brief flash of panic sets a fire in my chest. What if he knows about King? What if he’s been tracking me these past weeks?
“How do you know about Papa?”
He chuckles and rubs his palm over the light dusting of stubble on his jaw. “Ask no questions, receive no lies.”
My hands trace a line up and down my shins. His gaze is hard, and the tug of his lips on one side gives him a malicious quality. Aside from that, I find no trace of suspicion, of anger or betrayal. Nothing to indicate he knows what I’ve been up to.
He has me between a rock and a hard place. If I keep refusing him and stay on my non-immigrant visa, I’d be deported within the month, and then what? I’d be back to living in a one-room hovel with Mama? I’m not ready to go back yet, and I get the feeling he’s figured that out. There’s so much promise for me if I can stay in America. I just need the time to work out how I’m going to get my visa changed without having to leave.
“You can’t stay here any longer.” Carlos interrupts my thoughts, moving to the side so the sun returns. “Hurry up and get in the car. I’m bored with this.”
“Why can’t I stay?” I shield the sun from my eyes with one hand. “I need to sort out Papa’s belongings, pack my things, and make sure all of his—”
“Details.”
“Kind of significant, don’t you think?”
He pr
esses the fingers of his left hand against the front of his thigh. “I’d say you have two, maybe three days before your friends at Border Security make a move.” He scowls down at me. “Don’t you think it’s best if you weren’t anywhere to be found?”
Make a move? “What have you done?”
“Placed a call. Given you extra motivation to come home.” He smiles. It’s a wolf’s smile—all teeth and promises of death. “I figured you’d be difficult.” He’d probably be quite attractive if it weren’t for the ill intentions written in the depths of his dark eyes.
I glance over his shoulder at the roadside. The Escalade sits with its engine running, purring like the panther it is, waiting for instruction to stretch its legs and run . . . with me trapped inside.
“Shall we?” He holds out a hand, gesturing down the narrow pathway.
“No.” I speak the word, and yet, I don’t believe it. I can’t. I’d be foolish to think my protests would hold out against a man like this—a man who knows everything about me.
“I don’t have all day to argue with you, Elena. I’ve got things to do when we get back.” He curls his fingers, beckoning me.
“Like the hired help?” I can’t stop myself. My mouth’s always got the better of me. Mama said it would get me killed one day—I’m just pretty sure she was thinking on the streets of Cuba, not in America, when she said it.
Carlos chuckles, then runs a hand along the forearm of his suit jacket and smooths it down.
“You might be surprised to know that some days it’s easier to fuck somebody who can’t refuse than spend half an hour arguing with you before you’ll uncross your legs.” His eyes lift to find mine. A repulsed shiver jolts my body. His irises darken in response. “I have something to show you.”
“Like what?” I narrow my gaze on him, refusing to budge from the step.
“Something that might make you want to plan your wedding sooner rather than later.” Your wedding. He’s absent in all of this; I’m just another business transaction.
“You’ve already rubbed it in about my visa,” I grumble. “What else could there be?”
“How’s Mama?” he asks, with a sly grin. “Spoken to her lately?”
“This morning. Why?” I passed on the news about Papa briefly while I was at the payphone, promising to call her again when I was back at Carlos’s, with a landline that didn’t cost as much as my phone cards. Now I get the feeling I should have worn the cost and talked a little longer.
“Heard she’s in a spot of bother.” He inspects the palm of his hand, pressing at the pads with his thumb.
My heartbeat echoes in my ears. I’m not sure what I feel shame for more: that he’s made a fool of me by showing he knows more about my life than I do? Or that Mama never told me she was in trouble?
“La Muerte,” he says. “They want her shop for business.”
That’s nothing new. Mama has a small fruit shop near the waterfront; it’s where I worked most of my teenage years. The shop barely makes enough to cover expenses, but there isn’t anything else a woman in her sixties with the first signs of arthritis can do. The Colombian cartel has been pushing her for ‘space’ for years. They want to hide contraband in her cool room out back. But being the proud woman she is, and knowing how the cartels have ruined our life before, she refuses.
“That isn’t anything I don’t already know,” I snap. “What are you hoping for here?”
“So you know they stole her delivery from the farm suppliers last week and are holding it as blackmail.”
Oh, Mama. Why didn’t she say? She won’t be able to afford to re-order, and even if she did, the assholes would probably take that too.
He lifts an eyebrow at my blank stare. “Take it you didn’t, then?”
I shake my head, looking to the ground between my feet. She needs to leave, to join me, right now. But I’m not in any position to pay for her flights, or to help her when I’m illegally in the country as it is.
Carlos squats before me, pulling the legs of his dress pants up as he drops. “I’m going to make a guess here and say that right now, you wish you could take her away from the danger. Am I right?”
“Yes,” I murmur.
“It really is a sad story, though. Your mama is so destitute, and here’s her only daughter trying so hard to help, but you’ve been busy caring for your papa, and now that he’s passed, sending money back home would just give away that you’ve found a way to earn illegally.” He lifts my head with a finger to my chin. “Wouldn’t it?”
Setting my jaw, I turn my head to the side, ignoring the smug grin playing on his lips. He’s tearing my defenses down using my empathy for Mama. Such an obvious tactic, and so tacky.
My saliva feels about the consistency of the cheap glue my old school would make from a mixture of water and flour. I try to swallow it away, and end up creating more in the process.
Fuck you. I want to scream it at him. I want to beat his head and chest with my fists. But all I can do under the stress of the moment is cry. Harden up, Elena.
“Now, now.” He eyes me as though wanting to comfort me, to seal the deal on this fucking charade of concern he has going on, but something holds him back. Oh yeah, his cold, black heart. “I’m sure we could work something out.”
“Why?” I croak. “Why would you do that for me?” There are a million women more beautiful, less complicated. Why has he picked me to play with?
“At first you were a conquest, a little weekend recreation, if you like. Couldn’t believe my luck when I came to check on your father’s business and found you. Call me the sport hunter chasing the fox.” He waves his hand to indicate we should start walking toward the vehicle. I give in and follow cautiously, keeping out of arm’s reach. “But now? Well, I don’t give things away lightly once I’ve earned them.” He laughs bitterly.
“You never earned me. You trapped me.”
“Clever girl,” he says smugly, stopping before the car. “And now, you can either stay in the hole I have you in, or run and face being torn apart by the dogs. What will it be, little fox?”
He has me—he’s hammered the final nail in my coffin. I knew the danger he was the moment I first opened the door to him, but he dazzled me with his charm and fooled me with his lies. And now I pay the price for being so naïve as to think it would end any differently.
Sully gets out of the driver’s seat and comes around to open our door.
“After you.” Carlos gestures to the back seat.
“My stuff . . .” I take a step toward the house, halted by Sully’s firm hand to my shoulder.
“Sully will collect your belongings later,” Carlos explains, looking back at Papa’s house with his lip curled up in clear disgust.
“Wouldn’t it just be easier to get them now?” I duck out of Sully’s hold and take a step toward the front door.
Needles fire across my scalp as Carlos brings me to a stop by my ponytail. “No, it wouldn’t. If you live with me, are seen with me, then you’re not bringing half that cheap shit with you.” He lets go of my hair after a tug toward the car. “I tolerated it before, I’m putting my foot down now. It’s better if Sully just collects what’s necessary. Everything else can go.”
“You can’t just ditch my things like that,” I protest while I rub my scalp. “I might not have much, but some of that has special meaning to me.”
“Harden up,” Carlos sneers. “They’re just possessions. Everything’s replaceable.”
I read the message between the lines, shown in the depths of his dark eyes as he stares at me. I’m a possession. I’m replaceable. He jerks his head toward the car, and I climb in, scooting across with a tight chest as he follows and shuts the door to seal us in.
So this is my life now? Barters and trades, bribes and scams. As the Escalade pulls away and starts the journey to Carlos’s residence, I rest my head against the window and close my eyes, searching for a happy place. I’m treading water with this man, biding my time until inevitably
exhaustion and the sheer size of the ocean I’m swimming in will overwhelm me.
One way or another, on his terms or mine, I know I’ll never get out of this alive.
ELEVEN
King
Every man has his price.
The words of my father swirl about my head like the warm mid-summer breeze that whips through my hair as we turn off the I-29 toward our drop-off point. Every man has his price: me, Carlos, who’s paying us to do this fucking run, and the guy that we received the package from two hours ago who smelt like three-day-old piss and vomit.
The minute we rolled up to the guy’s shack, I knew something was off. Nobody in their right fucking mind would choose to live in such squalid conditions—not unless they were the kind of person who didn’t care about much at all in life, people included. He answered the door barefoot, wearing a stained gray tank and shredded black running shorts. His fingernails—Jesus—I still haven’t got my fucking appetite back.
But it was the smell.
When I was a kid, Dad found this owl that had died of natural causes, all curled up under one of the huge trees that bookended our front gate. He brought it home for us to look at—a rare chance to see a wild animal so closely—and it was my first experience with the smell of death. It’s not something you forget easily.
And this guy’s shack . . . it reeked of death.
I’ve never felt so compelled before to just turn around mid-conversation and leave. I drew a fucking sigh of relief when we finally did, both to be away from that creepy asshole, and because I could in fact breathe again without the odor of things rotting making me want to gag.
Road markers welcome us to Kansas City, the ‘heart of America.’ No prizes for guessing whom my mind’s on. It’s been three days since I left her—the longest seventy-two fucking hours of my life. I don’t regret telling her the truth, that we couldn’t carry on what we started without causing trouble. I mean, I either let down her or the club, and for me, I made that choice back when I received the papers telling me I owned my first Harley. What I do regret is that I had to make the choice with Elena.
