Rogue (Dead Man's Ink #2)

by Callie Hart

  Her hair, perfectly pinned back when she came charging into the room, has now come loose and is tumbling into her face like it used to when she was a little girl. I reach out, tucking it behind her ear. “Laura—”

  “No. Don’t! Fuck, Jamie, you just had your fingers inside some girl’s vagina.”

  I consider pointing out that that was my other hand, but then come to the swift conclusion that Laura will probably strangle me to death with my own necktie if I do. I slide my hands inside my pockets, clearing my throat. “Lore,” I say carefully. “Is there something you wanna tell me?”

  “Fuck you, Jamie. I shouldn’t have to tell you. You should already know! Ahhh! Men! Why are you all so fucking oblivious? How can you be that completely blind to what’s been staring you in the face since we were kids, Jay. I just…I gotta get out of here.”

  She’s a whirlwind of tense energy and clenched fists as she storms out of the bedroom. I go after her, grabbing hold of her gently by the wrist, trying to stop her, trying to figure this whole thing out in my head fast enough to deal with it right here and now, but Laura has other ideas. She turns on me, hand raised, and her palm makes contact with my face, slapping me hard. I can see from the pain in her eyes that she regrets it immediately.

  “Shit.” She covers her mouth with her hand. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I just—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I just can’t—” Tears roll, round and fat, down her cheeks, dangling like tiny little crystals from her dark eyelashes.

  “It’s okay,” I repeat. “It’s fine. We can talk about it tomorrow.”

  She nods, just once. “Tomorrow,” she says. And then she goes, running down the sweeping staircase in her bare feet, tiny sparks of light bouncing everywhere like silent fireworks as the sequins of her dress catch the light.

  It’s not until the next morning that Cade calls to tell me his sister never made it home.

  ONE

  REBEL

  War isn’t always a loud, brash thing.

  Sometimes, it’s a car rolling slowly by the front of your house at night. Sometimes, it’s an anonymous call to the police. Sometimes it’s the head of a Mexican cartel showing up in small town New Mexico to make your life a living hell. And sometimes, it’s three men sneaking through tall grass with guns in their hands, ready to shoot you in the head while you sleep.

  I’m bleeding fucking everywhere. One of Hector Ramirez’s perimeter guards cut me open with his knife and now the wound is pouring my DNA out all over the grass. I can’t be thinking about that right now, though. Honestly, I’m not thinking at all. I’m gripped with the same insanity that’s had hold of me since I walked into my father’s kitchen and found Leah dead on the floor, her throat slit from ear to ear, and that smug motherfucker toasting me from the other side of the room. There’s no room for sanity inside me now. Not after Leah. My uncle was one thing, but add on another innocent woman who I was supposed to be protecting, and there is no more Jamie. Even Rebel doesn’t exist anymore. There is only madness and fury, held together with the burning acid of revenge. It’s eaten away at everything else until there’s nothing left.

  I feel a hand on the center of my back, grabbing hold of my t-shirt. It’s Cade, trying to tell me to slow the fuck down, but I jerk myself away, hurrying forward. Behind me, I hear him cursing me to hell. Carnie’s back there somewhere, too. Just the three of us for this job. As the newest member of the Widow Makers, I shouldn’t have brought Carnie along on this particular ride, but the guy’s keen as fuck. He totally busted Cade and me as we were leaving the compound. He would have followed us here, regardless. He’s had Margo, the gun he named after his mother, locked and loaded ever since he climbed on his Ducati.

  The very day after Sophia and I returned from Alabama, Hector showed up with his entourage, walking the streets like he owns the fucking place, drinking coffee outside my fucking tattoo shop, sending out a very clear message: I am here to end this. And if that’s what the guy wants, who am I to argue with him?

  I’ve had enough. I should have sent Sophia away the second I saw that body in my father’s kitchen and I realized this thing was never going to make it to trial. Never going to make it past pure, old school, knife-in-the-chest-while-you’re-sleeping revenge. Soph should be at home with her family, and instead I have her under guard back in my cabin, probably tearing the place apart, raging mad, and all because I’ve put her in this shitty position. Because where Hector Ramirez goes, so follows Raphael Dela Vega. And after what Sophia told me—that Raphael threatened to kill her whole family and do way worse to her—I’m not letting her out of that cabin until the fucker is dead and in the ground.

  “Dude, slow the fuck down. They’re gonna see us coming,” Cade hisses behind me. Up ahead, the ground floor of the small, innocuous farm house Hector’s taken up residence in is lit up against the darkness, pouring yellowed light out onto the wrap around porch that skirts the property. Shadows move inside. I didn’t really think for a second I was going to be rolling up on a sleeping house but it’s frustrating that there are so many people flitting from room to room. I’m only interested in killing one person: Hector.

  After Afghanistan, I have enough blood on my hands to drown myself in. I don’t particularly want to add to the body count, but if they stand in my way, if killing them means I get to put an end to Ramirez, then so be it. My soul is already damned to hell. I might as well really earn my place there.

  The night smells like gasoline and bad weed, the latter of which must be coming from the house. Crouching down low thirty meters from the illuminated building, I scan the darkness, trying to see if there are more watchmen that need putting down. I made a stupid, reckless error before. I wasn’t expecting there to be guards so far out on the very perimeters of the farmhouse. When the first guy emerged out of the black night and slashed at me, he took me by surprise. Between me, Cade and Carnie, we managed to put down the four men who rallied to take us on, but it was close. Stupid. I should have been more wary. I’m not just risking my own life here, but Cade and Carnie’s too.

  “How many?” Cade whispers. My best friend scratches at the beard he’s managed to grow in the past few weeks, frowning severely. I can’t count how many times we’ve found ourselves together in this position, crouching in the dark, planning on doing wrong. It’s little comfort that the majority of times it was on behalf of the U.S government. We may not be desert rats anymore, but we’re still soldiers. We’re still fighting a war. Except this is one of our own making, and there’s no getting out of it. No backing down. It’s necessary.

  “At least six,” I reply.

  “I only count five,” Carnie chips in. “Three in the living room, one in the kitchen. One in the hallway.”

  He’s right, but his eyes aren’t as sharp as mine. I glare up at the farmhouse, holding my breath, slowing my pulse. “And one more. Upstairs. Front left window. He’s watching us right now.”

  Carnie makes a disbelieving sound. “You’re fucking crazy. The room’s pitch black. You can’t see shit.”

  “Oh, he’s there all right. I can see him just fine.” In fairness to Carnie, maybe I can’t see him in a traditional sense. The room is in pure darkness, but I can sense it—Ramirez is there, standing in the murky shadows of the room, waiting patiently for my arrival. I can feel his presence so intensely that the hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end. He’s been there all along, just waiting for me to show up. With all the showmanship and blatant peacocking in town, he’s been stabbing at my buttons, knowing that with each and every sighting he’s coming closer and closer to drawing me out.

  I’m a stupid motherfucker.

  I’m normally so much smarter than this, but the fury over Ryan and Leah’s deaths has had me taking temporary leave of my wits. Cade nudges me with his elbow, grunting softly. “We’re here, man. You wanna do this now, we’ll do it. But maybe—”

  “Yeah, I know.” I sigh heavily. Angrily. I want to pound my fists into the
dirt in frustration, but where the fuck would that get me.

  “You might be wrong,” Carnie whispers. “I get bad feelings all the time. Your brain plays some epic tricks on you sometimes.”

  “He’s not wrong, asshole. He’s never been wrong.” The dull thump of Cade punching Carnie in the arm is quiet, but Carnie’s yelp of pain isn’t. “Jesus, man. Shut your fucking mouth. You wanna get us killed?”

  “I don’t think he’s seen us,” I whisper, ignoring them. “But I can’t be sure. Time to leave.” Leaving is the very last thing I want to do. I want to storm into that building and shoot some motherfuckers. I want to dig the point of my blade into Hector Ramirez’s chest and watch the light go out in his eyes as the steel bites deeper. But Ramirez is a smart guy. He knows I’m coming. There’s no way there’s only six people in that building. He will have an army of men hidden out of sight, ready to end our lives before we even step foot on the fucking farmhouse porch.

  “Come on, man. We’ll get the fucker, don’t you worry. But this ain’t how it goes down,” Cade says. I let him pull me back, let his words deaden the boiling adrenalin storming my veins, calling for revenge. I suddenly feel exhausted.

  “All right. All right,” I take a deep breath, uncurling my hands, not realizing they were clenched into fists. As I retreat from the farmhouse with my boys, ducking low to remain out of sight, I feel sick to my stomach. We’re leaving with our lives, but somehow it feels like a defeat. I’m chanting the same words over and over as the farmhouse shrinks and disappears behind us.

  This isn’t over, motherfucker. It’s only just begun.

  TWO

  SOPHIA

  I’ve given up screaming. It didn’t get me anywhere for two days so I figured why waste the energy. I haven’t seen Rebel in ten days. Ten days couped up in his cabin while he’s out there doing god knows what and I’ve been going bat shit crazy. I thought we were past this. I thought this part was over. I should have known by his silent, brooding mood on the way back from Alabama that things were right back to where we were in the beginning. More fool me for assuming that me agreeing to help him, me turning down the opportunity to flee back to my family, me fucking him for fuck’s sake, would change things between us. Now, I just feel foolish. For all of it.

  There was a brief moment where I did get to step outside. Seventy two hours after Rebel put the Humvee in park and bundled me into his house on the hill, locking the door behind me, the prospect, Carnie, showed up and drove me out into the desert, kicking and screaming. He wouldn’t tell me why at first, but after an hour of me chewing his ear off, threatening to scream blue murder the whole time we were sitting in his shitty, beaten up Firebird, the guy caved.

  “The cops are tearing the compound apart, looking for evidence to link the club to that shooting in Los Angeles.”

  I’m horrified when it takes me a beat to remember what he’s talking about—the shooting at Trader Joes, where all those civilians were killed by men wearing Widow Makers cuts.

  “Yeah, one of Rebel’s uncle’s friends called and gave him a heads up. Told Rebel the police caught the guys who did it in Irvine, still wearing the fake cuts, drunk as all hell. The fat one who was supposed to be the club president confessed that they’d been hired for the job. Gave up Maria Rosa in a heart beat, in exchange for a lesser sentence.”

  “Is she still going to cause problems then? This Maria Rosa?”

  Carnie gets a far away look in his eye that looks almost romantic. “From what I’ve been told, the Bitch of Columbia causes problems wherever she is in the world. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  He drove me back to the compound at nightfall and took me straight back to the cabin, ignoring my colorful language and my threats to take him out at the knees.

  That was last Wednesday. Now it’s Wednesday again. Tomorrow morning I should be getting up at seven and going for a run before heading to my Human Sciences class. Instead, Carnie, with his busted up glasses and his hipster side-parting will bring me my breakfast and refuse to tell me anything, and I’ll swear at him or completely blank him depending on my mood. The cycle repeats itself endlessly, over and over.

  Tonight, however, Carnie’s already dropped off my evening meal. I called him a soulless bastard and threw the plate of meatloaf at his head, but the thing missed him entirely and impacted with the wall. I need to do some serious work on my aim. The meatloaf has sat on the floor since then, getting colder and staler by the second, in amongst the shattered shards of the chinaware.

  If Sloane were here she would have figured out how to free herself from this fucked up situation. I can guarantee it. She’s resourceful, independent and stubborn, and she wouldn’t give up until she found a way to get what she wanted. That makes me even madder as I sit and watch The Hangover for the eighteenth time. The TV in Rebel’s cabin has no reception, just a handful of DVDs, all of which are the same kind of stupid, mindless humor I would never normally watch. Now, I’ve seen every single last one of them. I’m beginning to know them line for line.

  Alan is just confessing that he drugged the other guys in the movie when the door to the cabin flies open and Rebel stalks in, larger than life. It’s the last thing I’m expecting, given that I’ve been asking to see him for the past week and a half and he hasn’t graced me with his presence. A part of me got to thinking that maybe he was hurt or something. Injured, to the point where he was laid up and incapable of walking. Standing in the doorway now, I can see that he’s walking just fine. He glances down at his feet and scowls at the debris from my evening meal on the floorboards.

  “What the fuck?” He looks at me like I’m a naughty child, caught misbehaving, and I automatically shrink back into the sofa. I catch myself, almost screaming out loud at how ridiculous my reaction is. I shouldn’t be shrinking from him. I’m a fucking prisoner. I’m allowed to revolt if I damn well want to. “Got a problem?” I snap, sitting up straighter.

  “Yeah. There’s fucking food all over my damn floor. I hand-sanded these floorboards,” he growls.

  “Then you should have thrown me in the basement or something and had done with it, shouldn’t you?”

  “Don’t fucking tempt me.” Rebel steps over the mess and slams the door behind him, locking it before he storms into the room. I try not to flinch as he comes to a stop in front of me. “Stand up, Soph.”

  I take a deep breath. “No.” My skin feels tingly, the same way it used to when I would defy my father. Not that I’m comparing the man standing in front of me with the mild mannered preacher left worrying about me back in Seattle, but this situation feels…it feels very much like I’m about to get punished.

  Tilting his head to one side, Rebel drops into a crouch so that our eyes are at the same level. His are ice-blue, cold. Intense. So fierce I can hardly meet them. I’m proud of the fact that I don’t look away, though. “What seems to be the problem?” He asks this slowly, as though he’s wrestling with his temper.

  Had a bad night, buddy? Well guess what? So have I. Leaning forward so my face is closer to his, I breathe deep and even down my nose, trying to tame my own anger. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  He blinks. He’s frozen solid, staring straight at me. He’s holding himself back, but from what I’m not entirely sure. Not for a second do I think he’s going to hurt me, but there’s something about the brooding, stillness of him that’s intimidating. “Have you been bored or something?”

  “You could say that.”

  “You know what’s not boring?” Calm. He’s too fucking calm. It’s beginning to put me on edge. He continues speaking softly, but there’s a dangerous lilt to his voice. “Being chased down, raped and murdered. That’s not boring, right?”

  “This place is a fortress, Jamie. I would have been fine out there with everyone else. How many people do you have living at the compound for crying out loud? There must be twenty motorcycles here at any one time!”

  He cocks his head again, frowning. He’s probably wondering ho
w I know that; you can see nothing but trees and then a distant ridgeline from the cabin windows. With so little to do all day, I’ve gotten really good at listening, though. I knew nothing about engines before I came here. I don’t really know anything about them now, either, apart from the fact that each one sounds different. I’ve spent hours laying on Rebel’s bed with my eyes closed, listening hard. Figuring out which motorcycle was which. Who was coming and going. Not knowing who was riding what, of course, but still.

  Rebel’s eyes flash, the muscles in his jaw jumping as he grinds his teeth. “Raphael Dela Vega’s here. In town.”

  “Wait. What?” My arms and legs suddenly feel very cold, very numb. That…that makes no sense. What would he be doing here? My anger towards Rebel doesn’t matter anymore. Bile rises up in the back of my throat as I try to process this piece of information, but it’s as though it just won’t settle in my mind. New Mexico is so far removed from Seattle, and so very far removed from Los Angeles. My brain tries to scramble, to come up with some logical reason why Raphael would be here, here of all places. Some reason other than the fact that he must have come for me. I draw a blank.

  Rebel shifts for the first time, wincing a little, like he’s in pain. “I don’t even want him to see you here, Sophia. If he does, he’ll likely try and find a way into the compound, and then what? Someone’s back’s turned and you’re lying in a pool of your own goddamn blood? No. No way.” He says this so quietly, and yet there’s such determination behind his words.

  “You haven’t been by here in ten days,” I growl.

  He blinks again, staring straight at me. “Would you have wanted to see me?”

  “Yes! I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be kept in the dark over what’s going on in the outside world! You…we slept together! And then you’re just gone. You lock me up and then you just vanish off the face of the earth.”