If she hadn’t seen it for herself, then Annette would never have believed it.
Their care and attention was touching, and they were hurt when each morning, another woman disappeared, the numbers trickling down to two handfuls. She figured they thought it was because of them, because they were uncouth or too loud, that they frightened the women. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.
For herself, Annette could understand both sides. The women wanted freedom. After their horrendous experience, they wanted to experience the promise of America, have the chance to explore a country that had only been a pipe dream. And when they’d arrived and been herded like cattle, that dream would undoubtedly have felt so out of reach that it would have been painful to even think of.
And yet, why they were running when they were in a safe place, was also beyond Annette’s comprehension.
The men were big, yes. They were loud, even when they were trying to be mindful. They were crass and wore leather, had beards and tattoos, but they were kind. Body language alone should have let the women know this. But they’d fled, and there were now forty-plus illegal aliens wandering the country thanks to Martinez and The Nomads.
As it stood, eight remained on the compound, and according to Dickie who’d spoken about this with Kiko, they wanted to work for the club. Which was why she was making him ask Mischa about her decision to stay here at the compound.
Mischa was the quietest of the lot. She was small, timid. A little mouse. Her shoulders were sunk inward as though she weren’t small enough and wanted to be even tinier. But she had the most beautiful white gold hair Annette had ever seen. It wasn’t wispy fine but lustrous and thick, long and like silk that cascaded down her shoulders to the small of her back. It was at least half Mischa’s height.
She had the face of a porcelain doll. Perfect. If Mischa hadn’t been scared of her own shadow and had known her own worth, Annette felt sure she’d have been as jealous as hell in the face of such beauty. As it was, she could only feel sorrow that a woman who should have had the world at her feet, spent half her days cowering.
Of the entire bunch, Mischa had found the men the hardest to acclimate to. She flinched when she saw them, those narrow shoulders of hers seeming to shrink a little further as she tried to escape their notice—like that was possible with that hair and face. She shuffled out of rooms quickly to avoid them, and rarely made eye contact with anyone save Annette. Although Mischa had gotten better with Dickie. She was used to him peppering her with the questions Annette posed, so was gradually accustoming herself to being around one of the brothers.
Annette only hoped that sense of ease would expand to the whole MC. If she intended to stay, the men wouldn’t be able to maintain their gentility overlong. Already Annette had seen the cracks start to appear.
When the bunnies had been around, it hadn’t been too bad. But now sex was off the table as well as fighting? Things were definitely getting interesting.
Dickie sucked in a deep breath for luck and finally translated Annette’s question. Mischa frowned a little and in a sweet voice, one that made the harsh Slavic tones seem dulcet and soft, replied.
“What did she say?”
“She says she feels safe here.” Apparently her astonishment was evident because Dickie chuckled. “Yeah, I know. But she says she isn’t frightened.”
“Then why does she act the way she does?”
Dickie translated, Mischa replied, then he said, “She doesn’t know how she acts.”
“She cowers. All the time. She’s quiet and timid around the men. She won’t maintain eye contact with them. Tell her I thought she was petrified of the guys.”
He did as bid and Mischa wrinkled her nose at Annette. Dickie murmured, “It’s wise to be cautious around big men with big fists and big stomachs that hold big portions of beer.” He scowled. “That’s a really crude translation, but you get the point.”
“Tell her if she intends on staying, she’ll have to get used to the men arguing and fighting. I don’t want her to leave, and I’m glad she’s staying, but she needs to know they’re all on their best behavior. It’s not going to last.”
Mischa eyed her like she was dumb and Dickie said, “She knew this. But still, fortune favors the cautious.” He snickered. “I’m not sure if I have the heart to tell her it’s more likely to favor the brave.”
Annette, ignoring Dickie, absentmindedly rubbed her cheek. Only one thing made sense, because nothing about this conversation did. “She has to be sweet on one of the guys.”
Dickie blinked at her. “What in the hell makes you think that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but that caution she’s talking about? That would make her leave here like it’s made the others go too. She has to like one of the brothers. Maybe she’s even mated to one.”
“I doubt that. No gossip’s going around about one of the Ukrainians being mated to a brother. And trust me, it would have spread like wild fire. Without fighting and fucking, we’re turning into a bunch of old ladies, bitching and gossiping the way we have been.”
Annette snorted out a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll get new bunnies soon.”
Dickie grimaced. “I hope so. I’m attached to my hand, we’ve been through tough times together, but I’m getting sick of it being the only bit of action I’ve been having of late.”
“Too much information, Dickie,” Annette teased, grinning at him. When she saw Mischa eying them as though they were a little nutty, she sighed. “Ask her if she can talk about the way she made it to America.”
Surprisingly enough, because she seemed like the biggest ‘fraidy cat, Mischa had been the only one who had spoken freely about her time in the cartel’s clutches.
Annette knew enough from the little she’d pieced together from the other women to know how the cartel worked with a branch of the Ukrainian mafia. She didn’t understand why they didn’t deal with their own people on American turf. It made no sense to her, and yet, no matter how many different ways she phrased the question, the different responses she got were all unique in their own way but subtly similar.
Mischa’s eyes watered when Dickie asked about the start of her journey to the US, and Annette held up a hand. “I don’t want to upset her. Just ask her this, she’s certain when she arrived here, there were no Russian or Ukrainian voices. Only Spanish?”
Dickie translated, Mischa frowned a little, concentrating on memories that were best left forgotten but which Annette kept on stirring. She felt terribly guilty about it, but if she was going to publish the truth, then she could only do it by digging.
Eventually, Mischa replied and Dickie said, “Definitely. Only Spanish. No one knew what was happening. All the women were crying when the men appeared with machine guns, and when the bastards told them to do something and the women didn’t understand, they fired their weapons. They herded them from one truck to another, until they reached the warehouse and they were offloaded into that pit.”
Annette’s mouth tightened at the recounting but she nodded her understanding. Getting to her feet, she squeezed Mischa’s shoulder and said, “Thank you.” To Dickie, she smiled. “Cheers, Dickie. I need to speak to my mate.”
“He’s in a council meeting,” he hollered as she strode off.
With a cheery wave, she spun back and retorted, “He won’t mind me butting in.” At least, she didn’t think he would when he realized what little nugget of gold she had for him.
Chapter Seventeen
“How many left last night?”
Kiko’s mouth tightened. “Twelve.”
“Dammit.” Mars sighed. “Why aren’t they staying? It’s safe here, safer than it is out there.”
His second in command shrugged. “I guess they want to start their lives.”
“How many are still here?”
“Eight.”
Over the last two weeks, forty-two of the Ukrainian women had taken advantage of The Nomads’ hospitality then sneaked off in the middle of the night as though
terrified the MC would refuse to let them go.
With their experience, it was no wonder they were nervous. After all, the gangs they’d dealt with in the past had promised them the Land of Opportunity, and instead, they’d been stuck in a pit in a warehouse with an even nastier end destination ahead of them.
“Of those eight, do they want us to help them in anyway?”
“Some want to stay here. They want to work for the club.”
Mars blinked at that, but then shrugged off his surprise. Annette had murmured as much to him last night as he’d been drifting off to sleep.
Since the blood sacrifice followed by the challenge, he’d been sleeping longer and harder just to maintain his energy levels of before. He knew it was because the magic his bear pulled on was now torn between him and Annette. He had no regrets about it, was, in fact, relieved to know he and his mate were so bound, but when it came to bedtime, there was no stopping him from drifting off to sleep when it came down to the wire. Not even if Annette was talking to him about something important.
The first time he’d done it, she’d been pissed. But gradually, she was learning that when they were in bed, it was for sleeping or screwing. Conversation was for elsewhere.
“What kind of jobs?”
“Cleaning, cooking,” Kiko suggested with a shrug. “That kind of shit.”
“But the prospects do that.”
“Yeah, they do, but they’re shit at it.”
“It’s tradition.”
“Fuck tradition,” Kiko growled. “If some beautiful women want to cook and clean for us, then let them at it.”
Mars narrowed his eyes at his friend and brother. “We’ll have to pay them. That comes out of the MC’s profits.”
“We can afford it.” Kiko sat back in his chair then kicked his heels up on the table. They were in an impromptu council meeting; only it was just him and Mars and none of the three other councilors.
Mars pursed his lips. “You like one of the women?”
“Maybe.” Kiko folded his arms across his chest. “Not a crime, is it?”
“No, it’s not but I’ve never seen you…” He made a gesture with his hands, uncertain of how to describe just how oddly Kiko was acting. His moods had been swinging around worse than a 60s go-go dancer—and that was the least of the issues he’d been having with his second-in-command since they’d found the women in the Martinez warehouse. “It’s almost like you’ve met your mate but you’d have claimed her if she were among the women we’re helping.”
Kiko’s jaw firmed. “Has anyone else noticed?”
“Truly? I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Annette commented yesterday. Said how short your temper was getting, but I mean, things have been tough of late anyway. Trying to get out from under the debt that fucker left us with is bad enough; Jackson has so many things to answer for. Plus we’ve been trying to arrange for another run, badly, I might add—”
“You know the plans are in place, but it’s a dangerous time. Word’s spread that we ‘stole’ Martinez’s merchandise. No one wants to deal with us in case we come under fire by him.”
Mars scraped a hand over his jaw. “I can’t regret what we did. And neither can you if one of the women is yours.”
He left it as a statement rather than a question, but when Kiko nodded, his lips turned down in a grimace, Mars had an answer of sorts.
The discovery of a mate overtook everything else. As had been the way with him and Annette. When he’d first clapped eyes on her, thoughts of the MC, the issues with Jackson and the traffickers had slipped through his fingers. All he’d given a damn about was claiming his woman, marking her, and binding her to him.
Kiko, on the other hand, just looked pissed off. He was growling more than usual, and quieter too. Hell, Mars was even starting to miss those sarcastic jokes of his—the ones that made Mars want to smack him and punch him at the same time.
“What does that mean? Why aren’t you happy to have her?”
“Because she’s terrified of me,” Kiko snarled. “Why do you think I haven’t claimed her? She’s terrified of all of us.”
He hadn’t named her, and as Mars already felt like he was pushing where his attention wasn’t wanted, he decided not to test Kiko’s levels of self control.
“Is she still here? Or is she one of the women who sneaked off?”
Kiko let his feet drop down from the table and he rammed his elbows on his knees. Letting his head hang heavy, he stared down at the floor as he gritted out, “She’s still here. Barely. Every day I wake up and think she’s going to fucking run off. Every day she’s still here I wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do. She can’t speak a word of English, dammit. I can’t explain any of this to her.”
“Use Dickie,” Mars suggested, but knew how weak a suggestion it was so he held up a hand to stem the tide of words about to come his way. “I know. I wouldn’t have wanted an intermediary when it came to dealing with Annette, Kiko, but you don’t have a choice. You’re good with languages; you speak Russian, don’t you? Does she?”
“I don’t know. I’ve tried to talk to her in Russian, but she looks at me blankly.”
“I thought it was the second language over there?” Mars grunted. “Strike that, I don’t have a damn clue.”
Kiko let his head hang again. “It’s an unofficial second language. But either way, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Of course it does. You can’t let her leave. What if you can’t find her again? Hell, Kiko, you’re nearly as old as I am. You’ve been looking for her for decades; you have to fight this. She’s been degraded. Her world is completely upside down. You just have to be patient.”
“Being patient I can handle, but she can leave. At any time. Do you know how that feels? My mate doesn’t want me.” For a second, despair flooded Kiko’s face, turning his usually cheerful features into a grim mask filled with pain. And Mars could understand, totally.
Annette’s reaction to Mars had been as powerful as his to her. They had been equally engaged by the other. If that balance had been skewed more one way than another, if she hadn’t have felt the connection as strongly as Mars had, then Mars would have been devastated.
Kiko’s years of fruitless searching had ended with the discovery of a terrified mate who was more apt to run from him than to him.
To any man, that would be painful. To a shifter? It was agonizing. No wonder the man had been hell on wheels to live with of late.
“I wish I could help, buddy,” he told him softly.
His smile was sad. “Me too, Mars. I have no idea what the fuck I should do.”
“Maybe fate will smile on you again. She’ll be scared, but she’s still here when most of them have wandered off. If she’s as terrified of you as you think, then she would have been one of the first to go, don’t you figure? Maybe she feels the connection too, trusts that, but is frightened. Who could blame her, Kiko? We’re not exactly normal citizens, are we? We have outlaws or criminals scrawled over our foreheads.”
“She would have run off, wouldn’t she?” Kiko whispered, apparently clinging on to those particular words. “She would have left as soon as she could if she didn’t feel the connection. What else would tie her here? Nothing. No one. She’d have gone,” he repeated, his words imbued with relief and hope.
It was almost painful to behold, but because he had a mate of his own, he completely understood.
Every male here longed to find their mate. It was the one common thread between every single shifter; the need to find a mate was vital to them all. But it didn’t stop the ribbing that came after. The jokes, the teasing, the mockery. About being tied to a woman’s apron strings or the like.
MARS (BBW Bear Shifter MC Romance) (MC Bear Mates Book 1) Page 16
