Kade: Santanas Cuervo MC (26 page)

Sebastián screamed, bubbles blowing from his mouth in a rush. Free at last Kade once again kicked for the surface, desperate for air.

***

The two women rolled over again as they jerked on each other’s hair with one hand while throwing rapid punches with the other, grunting and crying out softly. They rolled again, Elina grabbing Winter’s hair with her other hand and hauling herself to her feet. Winter rose with her, clinging to Elina’s wrists, then flung her sideway over her hip. She screamed as Elina fell, dragging her down by her hair.

With both of Elina’s hands in her hair she pulled Winter’s head down. Winter braced on her knees and one hand and threw two, three, then four hard punches into her opponent’s stomach, finishing off with a hard shot to Eilna’s naked breast. Elina cried out in pain, released Winter, and shoved her aside before she scrambled to her feet and dashed for the gun.

***

Kade reached the edge of the pool and started to haul himself out when Sebastián burst from the water. He tried to take Kade around the neck again but Kade, holding to the coping with his right arm, fired a hard left elbow into Sebastián’s face before he could lock his arm around this throat. Sebastián fell back with a splash. Kade was almost out of the pool before Sebastián grabbed him by the legs and pulled him back into the water.

With Sebastián down so low, he had the advantage. He began to throw punch after punch into Sebastián’s face. The resistance of the water diminished the power of his blows, but Sebastián began to bleed, his blood staining the water. Sebastián tried to back away, but Kade grabbed his hair, holding him in place as he continued to rain destruction down on him.

Sebastián fought back, but the water and lack of footing made their struggle clumsy and uncoordinated, their punches lacking the power to end the underwater brawl quickly. Kade twisted and drew his opponent’s head down to meet his rising knee. On land it would be a debilitating blow, but in the water, he had to do it three times before Sebastián stopped struggling.

Kade held him down, bursting from the water to grab a quick breath before diving back under to continue to hold his foe down. Out of air for the second time, he shoved Sebastián away and stroked frantically for the surface.

***

Winter reached Elina just as she bent to pick up the gun and gave her a hard push, knocking the woman way from the gun and into the grass. Winter was still on her feet and tried to turn back for the gun herself, but Elina scrambled to her feet and grabbed Winter by the hair. Both women knew if the other one got the gun first, they were dead.

Elina pulled Winter down, the two women wrapping up, trying to destroy each other as they scratched and hit, screaming in pain and rage.

***

Kade hauled himself out of the pool, rolling over onto his back and took two deep breaths, then staggered to his feet and hurried to the women as they fought. They were locked together in the grass, one hand in their opponent’s hair, their legs twisted around each other as they threw repeated punches with their free hand. He reached down and grabbed Elina by the hair and pulled her off Winter. The woman turned on him, swinging wildly before he delivered a short jab to her face. She staggered and fell backwards to her ass, stunned.

“You okay?” he panted.

“Yeah,” Winter gasped, rolling to her feet. “She grabbed a gun.”

Kade looked back to the pool. Sebastián was still in it, not moving. He reached down and pulled Elina to her feet by the hair, bending her head back. “Who are you? Why was Sebastián trying to have Winter killed?” She spat into his face so he backhanded her. “You’re going to end up like Sebastián if you don’t talk!”

“You have no idea who I am,” Elina hissed. “I’ll have you killed. My Uncle will hunt you down and gut both you and your bitch!”

“Who’s your Uncle? Tell me!” Kade hissed as he twisted her hair.

Elina hissed in pain. “Rafael Suárez! He’ll have you killed for this!”

“Rafael Suárez with the Escorpións Cartel?”

“Yes! He’ll kill you for this!”

“Why is he trying to have Winter killed?”

“Fuck you!”

Kade hit her again, a vicious slap across the face. “Why?” he snarled into her face. She didn’t say anything, grimacing as she tried to free her hair from his grip, so he slapped her again. “Tell me why!”

“He’s not!”

“Then who is?”

“Sebastián!”

“Sebastián?” Winter asked. “Why?”

“For your software. With you out of the way, Kelly Oil will go to his wife when her brother dies. Then he’d have her killed and take over the company.”

Kade and Winter looked at each other. “What’s your role in all of this?”

“Nothing! I was just fucking him!”

Kade looked at her a moment. “Bullshit! You’re the one pulling the strings on the hit. The cartel wouldn’t do shit for Sebastián without running it by Suárez first, but they would for you.”

Elina smiled. “When I tell Uncle Rafael what you’ve done, you’re both dead. I might not get the billions from the sale of Kelly Oil, but I’ll at least know you’re both dead.”

“We should call the police,” Winter said.

“And tell them what? We broke into their house and I killed Sebastián.
We’ll
be the ones who go to jail, not her.” He paused as he thought. “Did you touch the gun?”

“No. I never had a chance.”

“You need to go. Now. Wait for me in the Jeep.”

She suddenly went cold. “What are you going to do?”

“What I have to. This has to end, here. She’s right. If Suárez finds out we broke in here and roughed up his niece, he might come gunning for us. Or she might continue send more goons after us.”

“Kade, no!”

“Just go!”

Winter turned to go but then turned back. “Kade, don’t do this. It’s wrong.”

“If I don’t you’ll never be safe.”

She swallowed hard then turned again and walked away. She knew she should stay, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know what Kade was going to do and didn’t want to know. She knew he was right, but that didn’t make what they were doing any easier.

“I can make you rich,” Elina said as Winter slipped out of the gate. “I’ll pay you a million dollars to let me go.”

“No deal,” Kade said, marching Elina toward the pool.

“Wait!” she cried, a hint of desperation creeping into her voice. “I can help you get rid of Sebastián! I was tired of him anyway. We can do something together! You’re a smart and strong man! Uncle Rafael can use a man like you! I’ll tell him how I tried to have you killed but you kept getting away! Then we can be together! We can fuck every night! Wouldn’t you like to fuck me? I’ll let you fuck me any way you want, as much as you want. I bet you can you fuck as good as you can fight.”

He shoved her into the pool. “You want me to fuck you?” he asked when she popped up, spluttering.

“Yes. Very much,” she cooed. Kade began to strip out of his jacket. “Yes,” she purred. “Come fuck me. I bet you have a big cock. I want you so badly.”

He jumped into the pool, the water coming to his shoulders. She moved to him, melting into his body for a kiss. Before her lips could touch his, he shoved her under and held her down. She began to kick and flail, trying desperately to free herself from his grasping hands. She slipped free once, bobbing up with a gasp, but he quickly shoved her under again and held her as she thrashed and fought, his mouth hard, his lips pursed in disgust, until she stopped struggling. He held down for another minute, before turning her loose. He towed her to the deep end of the pool where Sebastián floated and arranged the bodies into a more or less sexual position, face to face, their arms around each other with him between her legs and her ankles locked behind his back, then slowly moved away.

He crawled out of the pool then turned and looked back at the two bodies. “Now you’re fucked,” he muttered. He turned the table upright and picked up Elina’s gun and the robes with his jacket, being careful to not touch anything, and placed them on the table. He looked around, making sure everything else appeared to be in place. He didn’t know what the police would think when someone finally discovered the double drowning. Hopefully they would think it was some bizarre sex act gone horribly wrong.

He arrived at the Jeep, Winter already behind the wheel. He looked pale and shaken. “You okay?” she asked softly.

“Just drive,” he said as he slammed the door.

She started the Jeep and pulled away. “Did you?”

“Don’t ask me that. The only thing you know is I killed Sebastián in self-defense and Elina was alive when you saw her last.”

She nodded but said nothing.

On the way back to her house, her phone chirred with the arrival of a text.

“Check that?” Winter asked.

Kade picked up her phone, surprised the thing wasn’t broken. “Password?”

“One Zero Four Nine Six Three.”

“It’s a text from Gail. It says, ‘Tell him he might as well stay there.’”

Winter nodded. “She won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

They drove in silence for a while, Kade staring out the side window.

“You’re right. It had to be done,” she said softly, trying to ease his burden.

“I know.”

“It’s over now.”

“I hope.”

“It is. I can feel it.”

“So long as the police, or the cartel, don’t figure out what happened.”

She nodded. It was a risk, she knew that, but nobody other than her Aunt Gail knew they had been there. She’d tell her what happened and swear her to secrecy.

They arrived home and Kade moved like a zombie, not even changing out of his wet clothes, cleaning up the glass from the broken window but saying nothing. She tried to draw him out, and though he’d take her into his arms, he seemed cool and distant. She began to fret she’d demanded too much from him and the delicate tendril of love they shared had broken.

They went out, trying to act normally. They had lunch, though Kade only picked at his, then they stopped for another piece of glass. Back home he installed it without comment.

“Kade?” she asked softly as he began to clean up.

He never slowed in his work. “What?”

“I need you to hold me. Can you try to do that?”

He looked up at her, seeing the fear on her face, and something shifted inside of him. He’d never killed anyone before, and today he’d killed two people, one a woman and in cold blood. He felt numb and lost, unable to focus, seeing over and over Elina thrashing in the pool, listening to her scream as he held her down until she became still.

Seeing Winter’s fear, he felt his resolve harden. He’d kill a hundred, a thousand more, if that’s what it took to keep her safe. Sebastián and Elina had sent men to kill her six times, and they had paid the ultimate price. He sat aside his tools and moved to her, quickly pulling her into a hug and holding her tight as her arms encircled him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She sniffled as she tried not to cry in relief. “For what?”

“For acting like an asshole.”

She blubbered. “No. It’s okay. I just thought maybe you’d had enough and I was going to lose you.”