Sinner's Son (Savage Sons Motorcyle Club) (16 page)

"There is no need to hurry, Miss Shaw. Unless you care about your friend's health. He may be alive when you get here, and he may not be. I suggest that you come alone. Don Roberto wants only to speak with you. No one else."

He hung up.

The first thought that ran through my head was
What kind of fucking idiot does he think I am
? Did he think I was some too-stupid-to-live bimbo who'd do whatever she was told? I stayed pulled over on the side of the road and I called Luke.

"Hey, babe," he answered the phone. "So the meeting didn't go all that ..."

I interrupted him straightaway. "Luke, listen to me. I just got a call from Zeno's phone..."

"Where the hell is he? He was supposed..."

I interrupted again. "Luke! Listen to me. It was one of Don Roberto's men on the phone. He said that the Don wants to talk to me, and they want me to come to an address near the airport. He told me to come alone, and I..."

"No fucking way, Krystal. I'm not gonna..."

"Luke! Seriously. Stop talking and listen to me without interrupting." He finally shut up and let me say my piece. "I'm not stupid. Of course I'm not going by myself. If they want to talk to me, they'll wait until you and I can get there. I love Zeno, but if they're going to hurt him, there's nothing I can do to stop them. Where are you?"

"I'm in the clubhouse parking lot. The meeting just ended."

"Do you have your gun?"

"Yeah."

"Good. I'll be there in about seven minutes. We'll need to decide if we're going to call Kate."

I hung up the phone, thanking my lucky stars that I'd decided to keep the handgun that Luke had given me in my purse. By the time I pulled into the parking lot, I'd decided that we had to notify the feds Luke had been working with, and I hoped he'd agree.

Luke opened the door and got inside my car. "I left Tanner a message and just got off the phone with Singer. I told him I'd text him the address when you got here."

I handed Luke the address, and waited while he sent the message to the DEA agent. "We need a plan," I said when he'd finished.

"My guess is that they called you because they're pissed that our weed was confiscated and they haven't gotten their money. We know that Don Roberto will go after the families of his enemies, and I think we've made it clear that we're not on the same side he is anymore."

"What did Singer say?"

"He thinks he can get a team of agents there within the hour. It'll be helpful if I can call him with all of the information you have -- how many men are there -- anything you might know that will help them get ready."

"I don't know much. I didn't really hear any background noise, but the man who called said that Don Roberto wanted to talk to me about our meeting with Maria. He said I should hurry if I cared about Zeno. I don't really have much more information than that."

Luke sat for a few seconds, quiet and pensive. "Okay," he finally said. "I'm gonna call Singer back and give him what little information we have. Then I'm going back inside to talk to Sally. Things didn't exactly go well, but that was mostly because Zeno didn't show up. Now that we know why he isn't here, I'm hoping I can get some of the guys to come back us up."

"I'll try Kate again while you make your call."

Luke stepped out of the car to call Singer, and I dialed Kate's number, frustrated to hear her voicemail greeting. "Kate, it's Krystal Shaw. I need you to call me back. The guys we dealt with in Mexico have come up here and have Zeno. They want to talk to me alone, and they're going to hurt him if I don't show up. Luke is with me, and we're going to head to the address they gave me. Luke has talked to Mark, but I would really feel better if I talked to you, too. Call me back."

I got out of the car as soon as I hung up. Luke was just wrapping up with Singer, and when he hung up the phone, I could tell that he was tired and tense. "You want me to go inside with you?"

"Absolutely. Knowing that Don Roberto has people up here, I don't want you out of my sight."

We walked over to the clubhouse door, and as Luke opened the door, my phone rang.

"It's Kate," I told Luke, stepping inside and answering the phone. "Kate. Did you listen to my message?"

"I did. I want you and Luke to stay where you are, and not go anywhere near that address."

"I hear what you're saying, but we can't just leave Zeno hanging. Can you meet us there?"

"Krystal, when you and Luke got back from Mexico, you told us how violent and ruthless these men are. I can't agree to your walking into what we clearly know is a trap. It's my responsibility to keep law-abiding citizens out of harm's way."

"I hear you, Kate. I have to do what I think is right, though. Apparently, Mark is going to the address, and I thought I'd let you know what's going on."

"You should stay put. I'll get in touch with Singer."

She hung up, and I knew that she was right. I also knew that we were going to go get Zeno. Given that Luke was telling the Sons, there was zero chance that they'd wait around to find out if the feds had come to the rescue of one of their brothers. I headed over to the bar, where I saw Luke explaining the situation to the guys.

Sally was talking when I got close enough to hear. "I think we have to give Luke the benefit of the doubt until we talk to Zeno. It didn't make sense that he wouldn't be here, and now we know why. Let's go show these cartel fuckers that they can't come onto our turf and try to intimidate us."

"Wait a minute, though," Luke said, holding his hand up as if to slow down a mad rush to the door. "You need to know that I called the agents who arrested Joker. We can't go in there and do anything that might get us arrested."

"Are you fucking kidding?" Nate asked, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust. "You called the feds again?"

"I don't want Zeno to end up dead. If the FBI and DEA can prevent that, I'm all for it," Luke said, standing up straight as if he was challenging Nate.

Sally stepped between the men. "Look, kids. We can settle all this shit about Luke later. What matters now is that Zeno is in trouble and needs our help. Who's in?"

I wondered how many shots of whiskey each man had drunk already, but I figured that the more backup we had the better.

I'
m not gonna lie. I was scared. Krystal was driving, and we were headed to the address that -- as far as I could tell from my phone's GPS -- was in a huge self-storage facility.

"Krystal, I want you to stay in the car when we get there." I reached over and took her hand, because I knew that she was going to argue. "I know you don't want to, but I couldn't stand it if anything happened to you. We should have enough people there that we can handle the guys from the cartel, and the feds should be just minutes behind us."

She didn't take her eyes from the road. "I think you're right. As evil as these fuckers are, I don't want to have to shoot anyone. I'll stay in the car and let Kate know where you've gone when they arrive."

I looked over at Krystal, unable to believe that she'd just said what she had. "I knew you were smart." I squeezed her hand. "I'm going to be careful, because there's no way I'm going to let anything interfere with marrying the woman I love."

She looked like she was trying to decide whether or not she should say whatever she was thinking, and she finally glanced over at me. "I know we kind of have our hands full today, but I think we should set the date."

Given the fact that we were heading into what could turn out to be a deadly encounter with members of a completely amoral Mexican cartel, I was more than a little surprised at the fact that Krystal apparently wanted to discuss our wedding. "Um, your timing's a little weird, but okay."

"Well, I've just decided that I don't want to wait any longer. There are a couple of reasons why, but one of them was listening to Maria. Her story has really haunted me. She loved her daughter so much -- made plans for her future -- and then all of the sudden, Nadia was gone. Just like that. I don't want to waste any more of my life. I think we should get married right away."

"I'm surprised that you're choosing now to talk about this, but I can't think of anything I'd rather do than marry you."

"It's settled, then. Now back to what's in front of us. How much did the guys have to drink at church?"

I shook my head. "Some of them had a fair amount. It didn't go so well for me, but now that we know why Zeno wasn't there, I think it'll work out when things calm down. Nate, in particular, was just blind mad. I don't expect them to be happy about what I did, but I think I can get them to understand."

"Well, let's just hope that no one tries to give anyone a Breathalyzer," Krystal laughed.

I looked over at Krystal, and I really couldn't believe how calm she seemed to be, given what we were driving toward. "You sure you're okay?"

She looked at me like I was crazy. "Of course I'm not okay. I'm worried to death about Zeno, and the thought of you being face-to-face with these awful people terrifies me. But we have to do this. And I believe that it'll work out."

Where had this calm, confident woman come from? I realized that Krystal had been completely transformed in the time I'd known her. The battered, defeated girl I'd met had become a strong, confident woman. And even sexier, though that was hard to believe. I squeezed her hand and we rode most of the way in silence.

"I'm gonna drive by slowly so we can scope things out before I pull in. Maybe we'll get lucky and Singer will be there."

"Good. We need to try to figure out how many men we're dealing with and let Singer know. I'll call him before we pull into the lot."

"The Mexicans are not gonna be happy to see you and the Sons."

"I know. I just don't know what else to do."

Krystal pulled over when she made the turn onto the road that the storage place was located on, and Sally drove up beside us on my side of the car.

I rolled down the window. "We're going to drive by and scope things out. I'll text you when we're turning in so you can join us."

Sally nodded, and Krystal pulled away. She crept along the road, while I scanned the lot. I saw an enormous SUV, its shiny black gleam obscured by the dust of the road from Juarez to Denver. There were a couple of other cars parked beside the SUV, and from the road, the license plates looked like ones from Mexico. It looked like we were outnumbered, though there was really no way to tell how many men had made the trip up.

"Doesn't look good," I said to Krystal. "There could be four men inside, or there could be twenty."

"And there are people just moving their stuff in, too," she pointed out, directing my attention to a minivan and a family loading boxes into one of the storage units. "This could be awful, Luke."

"Should we wait until the feds get here?" I asked, running through all of the possibilities in my head.

"Don't know. I wish the guy had let me talk to Zeno. He could be alive, or not. We just don't know."

That made up my mind. "Let's turn around, and I'll text Sally. I don't want Zeno's death on my conscience."

Krystal made the turn, and we approached the lot again. I didn't see anyone other than the family in the lot, but I was sure that one of the cartel men was watching for our arrival. I hoped like hell that they wouldn't execute Zeno on the spot, but there wasn't much more I could do, other than show up, prepared to try to rescue him.

"Luke, you be careful."

"You, too. Lock the doors. You have your Beretta?"

"Always," she answered.

I kissed her and said a quick prayer that we would both live through the next few minutes, whatever they held. "Hope Singer shows soon," I said.

The rumble of bikes announced the arrival of the Savage Sons, and I stood by the car until all of the men had rolled into the lot.

"Someone needs to stay with Krystal. For some reason, she's the one they called, and she's the one Don Roberto wants to see."

Chuck stepped forward. "I'll stay," he volunteered.

"Don't let anything happen to her," I told him, fixing his gaze with my own. "I mean it."

"She'll be safe with me," he said, and I could tell that he was serious.

Nate spoke up. "So these guys are expecting Krystal by herself, right?"

"Yeah. They know we're here, of course. You can't disguise the sound of the bikes," I answered. "Suggestions of how to handle this?" I asked, uncertain about the best approach.

"I think we should walk up in plain view. They know we're here. There's no sense in trying to sneak up," Nate said.

"Agreed," Sally nodded. "When is the FBI showing up?"

"I talked to the DEA agent, and he should be here within half an hour or so. The longer we can draw this out, the more backup we'll have."

Krystal got out of the car to add her input. "And the less chance we have of getting Zeno back alive." She pointed at the family, now staring at the group of bikers who'd invaded the self-storage lot. "Someone needs to tell them to get the hell out of here."

Johnson looked to Sally for the order, and jogged over to the folks. They looked at one another, terrified expressions on their faces, slammed and locked the storage locker, climbed in the van, and left.