“Fine,” Diego sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “I appreciate the call. I have no idea how to tell Brook. Call me as soon as you know something.”
“Will do.”
Diego ended the call and tossed his cell on the desk. He planted his fists on the desktop and leaned over, his shoulders drooping in defeat. He shook his head as he fumed about the futility of the situation. He had banished her from the kingdom, no takebacks. A lot of fucking good that did. How the fuck did it come to this?
In his mind’s eye, he could see Kat clear as day, in her prime, breaking hearts and holding court at The Club…
Kat’s on her way to do her next stage number. She’s hustling down the hall, not an inhibition in sight as she scoops first one breast then the other higher up into the cups of her sequined push-up bra, then presses a hand underneath each bra cup to shimmy everything into place. Her face lights up in a smile as she walks toward me and I smile back in warm greeting at one of my favorite girls.
Kat and I go way back. She worked at my old escort service even before I started The Club. In fact, it damn near got her killed one night when she was almost beaten to death by a john. Long story. She’s one of my most trusted employees and has become a friend. Not a close friend like Caden, but she’s right up there.
Kat started working at The Club as one of the ‘full-service’ girls. She’s got a great body so stripping comes easily to her, and with plenty of security looking out for her, she has no qualms about taking clients to the back rooms to make a little extra money.
“Hola, papi,” she says sweetly, touching my arm as she passes by. Her eyes sparkle as she nods to the DJ. The opening notes of ‘Bailando’ mean it’s show time. She shoots me a smile as she starts that distinctive, long-legged strut onto the stage.
“Have a good show, baby,” I call after her with a grin, knowing my words are drowned out by the catcalls and whistles from her devoted following.
Diego straightened and scrubbed his hands over his face as he prepared to break the news to Brook. He couldn’t stop the vile images that flashed through his mind. If what Tony had said was correct, then Diego had a pretty good idea what Kat was enduring. If she survived at all, she’d be all kinds of fucked up.
There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t worry about Kat. She was out there on the street because of him. Sure, a brutal dose of tough love had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, to help her come to her senses. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. He had no idea what to do about any of it now. All he knew was that he and Brook weren’t going to lose her twice. It was time to bring Kat home.
Chapter Thirty One
Harley looked at King in the driver’s seat. His profile was set in stone and his lips were in a straight line.
“King, baby, it was bound to happen. You stood up to a cartel boss when a lot of other men would have said nothing. But it’s his world, we all just live in it, you know? There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I wanted to smash his fucking face into the doorframe. I let you down.”
“Please,” she guffawed. “Save your strength. You still have to deal with meeting my crazy parents. Talk about feeling helpless. When my dad starts giving you the third degree and I can’t cuss him out, now that will be helpless.”
“So you’re saying that if I survive your father, we’ll be even?”
“Not that I’m trying to get even, but if it will make you feel better, then, yes.”
“Harley, it wouldn’t matter so much if it was someone else. I love you. When I fail to slay a dragon for you, I know I’ve let you down.”
“Getting yourself killed would be letting me down. Antonio Wayne is doing what he thinks is right to protect the cartel’s interests, even if he is being an ass about it. If I had to guess, I’d say Tony was right.”
“About what?”
“About Antonio Wayne never passing up a chance to bust balls. The MC club’s the same way. I’ve seen them come to blows over some macho insult, but let an outsider come in and say the same shit to a brother and they’ll put him in the ground. I saw the look on your face when you talked to Antonio Wayne. If looks could kill…need I say more?”
Silence reigned as he pulled into the hospital parking lot. “I hate dropping you off. I hate being away from you, Harley. This is crazy.” He parked, then leaned over and slid his fingers into her hair to pull her in for a long, slow kiss. “Have my babies and stay at home. I think Midas misses you when you’re at work.”
“You and that monkey are both crazy.”
“Just think about it. You could work with me.”
“Oh…I get it now: I’d be a hitwoman-housewife who can talk to the animals. I could ‘wear’ the baby in one of those wrap things while I pick off cartel enemies with my machine gun.”
“I prefer a Glock, myself, but if a machine gun is what you want, then consider it yours. We could be together 24/7 and you’d still be a badass, independent woman. Far be it from me to marginalize all that sexy confidence and independence that only adds to your appeal.”
“You are too kind.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before she jumped from the SUV and headed toward the hospital entrance.
“I love you, woman!” he shouted after her through the open car window as the hospital lobby’s automatic doors opened.
“Oh, keeper of the wild beasts, my heart belongs to you and your crazy monkey.” She placed her hand over her heart dramatically as she walked backwards, and he couldn’t help but laugh.
“He’s our crazy monkey. What’s mine is yours, baby!”
She’d done the impossible: pulled him out of a terrible mood and made him laugh -- just one more reason to love her. King shook his head as he drove home. He needed to get back to the business at hand: figuring out what that wife-beating asshole Bobby Brooks was afraid of.
“A fuckin’ dyke. In our fuckin’ family! All you need is a real man and you’ll forget all about wantin’ women.” The burly man was drunk and belligerent as he lurched toward her. He stumbled and took her with him as he collided with the wall. With her pinned by his massive frame, he grabbed Blue’s shoulder for support. His other hand landed ‘accidentally’ on her breast, and he gave the perky, firm flesh a hard squeeze before she could pull away. “Y’see, now, a woman’s gonna take tits like these for granted. A real man will make you glad you’ve got ‘em.” His eyes grew flat and hard as his hand started moving south down her flat stomach.
“Get away from her!” Blue’s mother cried. She was in a heap on the floor, her hands slipping as she struggled to rise to her feet in a growing puddle of blood. “She’s still a child. You’re her uncle, for God’s sake!”
The ache in Blue’s chest wasn’t from fear or the hard impact with the wall. It was from watching her mother crawl toward her in an effort to save her.
“I’m not a child anymore, Mami. I’m sixteen,” she declared as she stared coldly up at him, “and I’m going to kill him.”
“That’s right. Yer six-fuckin’-teen now,” he muttered, licking his lips. “And yer not gonna fuckin’ do anything,” he said, leaning in close so his foul breath wafted over her face and made her want to gag.
Blue swatted his hand away and straightened her spine with renewed determination. No one was ever going to touch her without her permission – and nobody got away with hurting her mother. As his stubborn fingertips returned and grazed her pubic bone, she gripped the knife and stabbed in a vicious upward thrust between his third and fourth ribs. He dropped like a stage puppet that had had its strings cut.
Her mother had tried to warn her about bigotry, but she never thought she’d find it within her own family. And she certainly never expected her uncle to try to show her the error of her lesbian ways. Evidently blood really wasn’t thicker than water after all. But there sure was a lot of it.
“Earth to Blue…Earth to Blue…” Amber waved her hand back and forth in front of her lover’s face. “Are you even here?”<
br />
“Always for you, beautiful.” Her blue eyes transformed from emptiness to fierce protectiveness. “Sorry, I was just off in my own thoughts.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Amber asked, concerned.
“No. I want to find that poor girl. She’s made so many mistakes. She deserves another chance. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she gets it.”
“So this isn’t about staying on the Ramirez brothers’ good side?”
“Not at all. But don’t worry, sugar; you’ve got nothing to worry about or even be jealous about.” Blue twirled a strand of Amber’s hair around her finger and gave her a heated look. “Because you are my good girl.”
Amber blushed furiously as she thought about exactly what it meant to be Blue’s ‘good girl’. “I better be,” Amber flipped her hair over her shoulder in jest. “I’d hate to have to beat her ass after we rescue her.”
“You’re so damn cute and it’s got nothing to do with your looks.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. I don’t pass them out lightly. But no more joking about Kat. I know you didn’t mean anything by it, but I won’t make light of someone else’s agony – neither should you.”
“You’re right; I’m sorry. Are you going to kill the man who took her?”
“I’m sure as hell going to try.”
Chapter Thirty Two
It was the first time any man had made Harley happy. She wasn’t a woman who would ever depend on a man for money and she didn’t expect the opposite sex to make her happy. A man who could make you laugh was worth his weight in gold. Factor in King’s boyish charm and alpha nature, and he was the perfect man for her. What they shared came so naturally and went so much deeper than sex.
Although the sex was ah-maaaazing.
Stacy had been telling her for years that she was too picky, but Harley had never been one to settle. Up until now, all she cared about was controlling her little corner of the world. Now she was more out of control than she’d ever been and she couldn’t be happier. Harley knew emotions had a will of their own. She drew consolation from knowing her lover was experiencing the same fear of the unknown that she was.
She pushed her thoughts aside as she stepped into the elevator. As she looked at the expressions on the other passengers’ faces, she reverted to a game she often used to pass the time; she tried to guess the burdens of the people around her. A frown might mean fear, doubt, or confusion about why their loved one was in the hospital. The stern expression of the doctor who solemnly nodded in her direction might be there because he was about to perform brain surgery.
Floor by floor, people exited and continued on about their business. She rushed through the elevator doors when she arrived at her floor, briskly walking to the staff locker room where she would lock up her purse and begin her shift. She always went into hurry-up mode when she stepped off the elevator. It was an automatic stress response she’d formed after years of being a nurse.
“You. Fucking. Cunt.”
The indignant rage that coursed through her veins at the derogatory term cost her a precious second of time. Caught off guard, she was helpless as her assailant slammed her face-first against the metal locker. He bent her arm behind her back and twisted it at an unnatural angle that caused her to shriek in pain, certain that it was dislocated, maybe even broken.
“Get the fuck away from me!” she screamed as loud she could. Where was everybody? Her habit of getting to work early may have been coming back to bite her. With everyone either busy in patients’ rooms or midway through their commute, the locker room was deserted.
“Shut up, bitch!” he hissed, spinning her around to face the contorted, apoplectic visage of Bobby Brooks, wife beater extraordinaire. Harley was face to face with a madman.
“She left me. Fucking left me! Me! It’s your fault. She left me and took my fuckin’ kids!” He violently shook her by the shoulders so hard that her head struck the metal of the locker with each vicious shake. “You fucking whore bitch!” Each word was accompanied by a backhanded slap or a full-on punch to her jaw. Each blow sent her skull careening into the metal locker. Like a basketball left to bounce on hard concrete, she was certain the repeated, targeted impacts were going to break her skull in half.
There was no doubt in Harley’s mind that Bobby Brooks was going to kill her. The edges of her vision started to go black and she could feel unconsciousness wrapping itself around her. She welcomed the oblivion, even welcomed death like an old friend—anything to escape the pain.
The last thing she remembered was her head hitting the locker once last time in a particularly vicious impact before her knees buckled and the blessed blackness took her away from that place.
Chapter Thirty Three
“Tony, are you calling to apologize for your fucked-up family?” King said smoothly.
“If I thought it would do any good I would, but there’s no point. It’s in the DNA, man.”
“Agreed. I guess I’ll have to let you off the hook then.”
“I think I’ve got this guy figured out,” Tony said, his voice smug. “It was almost too easy.”
“Do tell.”
“He’s claustrophobic. Can’t stand small spaces.”
“Hang on a second…”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“Just checking my calendar,” King said, making a point of sounding distracted. “Is it Christmas?! This shit is just too good.”
“I know. Never say I never got you anything, okay? Seriously, this guy won’t even ride on an elevator. Seems he tried to get into the military and was rejected because of it.”
King’s voice was almost giddy. “Looks like he’s a candidate for being buried alive.”
“Abso-fuckin’-lutely.”
“The only thing I don’t like about that approach is that it leaves a body. Incineration leaves no real evidence. We could have our fun while we kill him and then burn him. That could work.”
“Unless you can figure out a way for his wife to kill him in self-defense, it’s all we got, bro.”
“Let me toss it around in my brain.” King started to think out loud, his words slow and deliberate as he weighed their options. “If we buried him alive…and let a wild animal dig him up and eat him…hmm. Or we could give him a sneak peek of what the fires of Hell will surely be like by burning him alive…”
“I like it. He’d get what he deserved and we wouldn’t get caught. I’ll be thinking on it too. We want to make sure we get it right.”
“Well, like they say, ‘two heads are better than one’. I’m just glad I’ve got somebody as depraved as I am to noodle on it with me.”
King hated to drag Brooks’ wife into it. But even more than that, he wanted the man to suffer. He wanted to seal him in a coffin, bury it, and watch the whole thing on a video feed. That might call for some popcorn.
He longed for the day when he would witness an enemy of the cartel being, quite literally, scared to death. But he recognized that this was different. When Brooks sent that threatening text to Harley, King felt the stirrings of fear and he didn’t like it. This was much more than a desire to get even. He had to kill the bastard; eliminate him. His need to protect Harley had become the driving force in King’s life. Losing Harley would be worse than death; the loss would destroy every shred of humanity within him. What little was left of him would be no different than the predators he housed at the Ramirez brothers’ exotic refuge. Maybe he was already no different than them but just didn’t want to face the harsh fact. He decided it was worth thinking about.
King’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and grimaced when he saw who it was. Calling to start more trouble, Stacy?
Chapter Thirty Four
“Oh, please, tell me you’re not calling just to bust my balls, Stacy. I promise I’ve been nothing but good to Harley,” King said, only half in jest.
“King, this is serious. Harley was attacked at wo
rk. She’s in the ICU.”
King frowned and shook his head. His one great fear had become his reality. Perhaps the sins of his past were coming to claim retribution through the only woman he’d ever loved.
Later, he would remember nothing about the drive to the hospital. His arrival in the parking lot was more out of habit than any particular mental fortitude. You’ve got to live, Harley. You’ve got to live. I’ll fucking die without you, baby.
“Fuck, baby…” He brushed away at one lone tear. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this out of control. He leaned his head against the headrest and laughed, the sound bordering on hysteria. Some sick, demented part of him was reminding him that control was of utmost importance to Harley in all aspects of her life. Her well-being, her safety, her survival – they were all in his hands now—his responsibility. He would be in control for her. And he would fucking kill whoever did this to her – as if he didn’t already know.
His tires skidded to a halt in front of the hospital. A parking attendant, savvy to the potential reasons for his visit, ran to the car. King didn’t care about the car, the keys, anything. Nothing mattered but her.
He ran through the lobby to the elevator. After what seemed like forever, he was punching the large button that opened the ICU automatic doors.
“King. Oh, my God,” Stacy rushed over to him and hugged him. He was numb. He put his arms around her mindlessly, knowing it was the appropriate thing to do.
“Where is she?”
Stacy didn’t answer, just took off running down the hall with King following at her heels. He pushed past her, burst into the room, and stopped short. As familiar as he was with the gory side of cartel justice, nothing could have prepared him for this. With his face twisted in grief, he approached the bed, his hands hovering over her head and face as if searching for something to touch but knowing better than to try.
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