Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) (26 page)

“Fuck! Whose horse?”

“Don’t know,” Bart answered. “Don’t think it matters. It’s a message from the Castillos.”

Of course it was. The Horde patch was the bust of a horse, its mane made of fire. “They fucking sent us a Flaming Mane.”

All three men nodded. Sherlock added, “It’s not an accident that it’s a foal and not a full-grown horse. That’s a comment on the club, too. They’re telling us we’re not a threat, that we’re helpless as a baby. It’s practically poetry.”

The week since they’d been ambushed at Ferguson’s casino had been, on the club front, quiet. Ferguson hadn’t sent anyone after them, and neither had the Castillos or the Zapatas. Muse’s attention during the week had been on Carrie’s death, and he’d been pretty shut down, but he knew that Ferguson was still in power, running his little empire, so he must have appeased the cartels in some way. Maybe he’d made arrangements for someone else to do the border run.

Staring at the destroyed window, Muse doubted it. The Castillos were pissed.

The emergency crew seemed to be wrapping things up. Muse watched Hoosier shake hands with Sheriff Montoya, wave the reporter toward Jesse, and then walk with Connor over to Showdown, Badger, Tommy, and Lakota. After a few words, Hoosier turned and called out, “Brothers! Keep—now.” He headed toward the clubhouse, and all the Horde, SoCal and Missouri alike, followed.

~oOo~

“Sherlock’s got some intel to share.” Hoosier leaned back and nodded at the IO, who leaned forward, his laptop closed in front of him.

Most of the Missouri Horde were standing at the back of the room. Hoosier had invited them into the Keep for the meeting, but they had no vote in this charter or, by their choice, in this business. They’d made room at the table for Nolan and Double A, though, who were lending their hands to the fight.

“Ferguson’s been quiet this week,” Sherlock began, “and we don’t have ears on his communication with the Castillos yet. We will. His guy is good, but Bart and I are better. In the meantime, we’ve been working his perimeter, doing some old school recon. P.B.’s been banging a stripper at El Diablo.” He nodded at P.B. “She heard some stuff.”

P.B. picked up the thread. Normally, he was a lighthearted and unserious brother, much quicker to make a joke than to add a productive comment to a discussion. But now he was frowning. He put his hand over his bandaged arm. “Yeah. Divinity. Been hitting that since I started working security there. Ferguson’s main thugs—Edgar and the other two that were in the room with him last week—they go down for free V.I.P. access. Sometimes they forget the girls are in there with ‘em, let some stuff drop.”

“We don’t need the backstory, P.B. She heard somethin’.”

“Yeah, Prez. Few nights ago, they were in with a couple of Mexicans Divvie’d never seen before. They were talkin’ about some chick. Called her
La Zorra
.”

“What’s that mean?” Demon asked.

J.R. answered, “
Zorra
—that’s ‘fox,’ right?” He smiled. “I guess she’s hot.”

Muse spoke up. “Also means ‘bitch.’”

Demon shook his head. “I thought that was
puta
.”

“
Puta
is whore.”

Diaz, the only truly fluent Spanish speaker in the room, only rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Hoosier slammed his fist onto the table. “Shut the fuck up with the Spanish 101 for morons. P.B., tell us why we give a fuck about a Mexican bitch, whore, or fox.”

“Because they’re afraid of her. And Divinity says it wasn’t like they were afraid of her pulling some crazy ex shit”—he darted a glance toward Demon before he went on—“they were talking like she was an enemy. One they don’t think they have the muscle to take on.”

“A woman.” Muse didn’t believe it, not from those guys.

“Yeah,” Bart answered. “And we know who.” He nodded at Sherlock, who opened his laptop and turned it so that everyone but Hoosier, Bart, and he could see—probably because they’d already seen it. “Isidora Vega. Just last week, the day before we went to the casino, she ran a coup on the Águilas cartel. Bloody as fuck. Put four years of truce on the line to do it, too. The Fuentes are at DEFCON 1, waiting to see if she turns their way. And the Castillos, small as they are, are shitting their pants. We think that’s why the meet in Big Bear went the way it did.”

He pulled up another window on the screen and showed a long line of burned and dismembered bodies, bound to a tall chain-link fence. The arms and legs had been severed but bound to the fence in their approximately correct positions relative to the torsos. Heads were arrayed on the ground at the foot of the fence. “That’s the entire Águilas leadership. Former leadership. Now La Zorra runs the show. Mexican coroner’s report says that there was smoke in their lungs and the amputation wounds were cauterized by the fire, all but the neck. They were dismembered and burned alive, decapitated afterwards.”

While all the men in the room reacted to that, Sherlock pulled up the first screen again, showing a photograph of a smiling, gorgeous woman sitting at what appeared to be a child’s birthday party.

“That’s La Zorra?” Muse couldn’t reconcile the domestic gentility of the first picture with the gruesome horror of the second. “That woman did that?
Any
woman did that?”

As Hoosier, Bart, and Sherlock all nodded, J.R. spoke up again, his voice subdued. “Well, I was right. She is hot.”

Demon made a disgusted sound. “Why do we care? We’re not beefing with her, too, are we? It’s the Castillos fucking with us, not the Ag-whatevers. It’s the Castillos, or their Indian bitch in Big Bear, who threw a fucking flaming horse head in our showroom.”

From the back of the room, Badger spoke up. “Can I interrupt for a second? Her name is Vega?” He looked straight at Bart, and Muse followed his gaze to his VP. “That a coincidence, Bart?”

“No, Badge. It’s not.”

“Fuck,” the Missouri VP muttered.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Bart looked at his own brothers. “Isidora Vega is the wife, or maybe ex-wife, that’s not clear yet, of David Vega. He’s a Fed. He was deep under with Santaveria. He’s the one who killed Havoc. He left her and their kids behind when his cover was blown.”

Lakota leaned on the table. “You’re saying a U.S. Fed’s wife is running one of the top three drug cartels in Mexico?”

Bart answered. “Top two drug cartels. Maybe ex-wife. And yes.”

“I still don’t get why we care,” Demon’s face was darkening. Muse put his hand on his shoulder, and he felt Demon take a breath. He was really trying to keep a lid on himself lately.

Bart pushed Sherlock’s laptop aside. “We’ve been trying to build a narrative since we figured this out. What we can see is that Mrs. Vega—she goes by Dora—”

“Dora the Zorra,” P.B. laughed. When all he got for his trouble was a roomful of dirty looks, he clammed up, and Bart went on.

“Her brother was a lieutenant in the Perro Blanco organization. She did some clerical work for Santaveria and met David Vega when he joined up—or, I guess, infiltrated the organization. This all would be maybe thirteen, fourteen years ago now. They eventually married and had three kids. In the chaos that happened on the Mexican side during our war, Santaveria went for her brother. Shot him point-blank at the table during a family dinner. Dora and the kids were there. Shortly after that, Vega blew his cover handing us Santaveria, and he didn’t go home. We don’t know yet whether they’re still married or if she even knows he’s alive. We don’t know if he’s alive, either. Not yet. The Feds buried him deep, alive or dead.”

“So she hates the Horde, then.” Diaz looked at Bart and then at Hoosier.

“No.” And now Trick was in, too. He was staring hard at Bart. “She doesn’t, does she? She blames Santaveria for all of it. She’s after something, but it’s not us. She’s after people from the Perros.” Trick was quiet, still staring, without a blink, at Bart. Bart stared back until Trick continued. “I bet the Castillos got their start in the Perros, right? You want to go to her. You think we should line up with La Zorra.”

Hoosier answered that. “We don’t know what she’s after yet. But she has put together an army. And the Castillos are afraid. That’s interesting to me. Look, brothers, we’re in the crosshairs now. We can’t just yell ‘do-over’ and go back to bouncing drunks and guarding trucks full of electronics. I see two choices—a bloody guerilla war with the Castillos and the Zapatas on our side of the border, asking for favors from friends, putting them in the crosshairs with us. Or offering our services to the woman they’re all afraid of. This coup is fresh. She’s still working out her arrangements. If she’s stable, then maybe we’re good. Back to our old outlaw ways, but not getting ourselves in a war. Let her take care of the pest problem on her side of the checkpoint.”

“No such thing as a stable Mexican druglord,” Showdown offered from the back of the room. Hoosier looked back, his face impassive. For several beats, the two men stared at each other.

“But why would she work with us?” Diaz asked, either unaware of the tension between the presidents or intentionally trying to divert it. “We’re nobody now.”

“Because the Horde took Santaveria down. She could see us as allies instead of enemies. We could spin it that way.” And now Jesse had added his insight. Only Ronin and Connor had remained quiet during this meeting. Ronin was no surprise; he hardly talked in the Keep or out of it. But Connor usually had a lot to say. Muse looked down the table, considering their SAA.

Muse shifted in his seat, turning back to Hoosier. “Can we net this out, Prez? I’m startin’ to feel fried here. What’s the vote? And what’s the damage from the Castillos’ little message? What are we doin’ about that shit?”

“Muse is right. Let’s lay the important parts out. First, what happened today. Montoya’s not pleased, but it’s the first trouble we’ve had since we set up out here, and we’ve been building a good, strong bridge with the Sheriff and the City Council for four years now. Those are good friendships, and we’ve paid to make sure they stay that way. We have to keep trouble out of Madrone as much as we can, but that’s always the way. We don’t shit where we eat. As for answering that message, well, they’re right—on our own, these days, we’ve got all the juice of that burned baby they sent us. We can either call in Horde friends or we can call in Castillo enemies. Pros and cons either way. I personally would rather keep our friends our friends, and keep them out of harm’s way.”

Lakota asked, “Say this woman will deal with us. What’s the offer, what’s the trade?”

Hoosier pulled his beard with one hand and spun the gavel with the other. “Until we sit down with her, we won’t know for sure. But I want to bring her an offer for the same kind of run we were going to do for Ferguson. She’s got the Águilas routes—those are solid routes. What we get? Bank. Protection and alliance.”

“And rep,” Trick added. “If we do that business, we’ll have everybody’s notice. For good or ill.”

Demon’s brow was deeply furrowed. “She’s not gonna think we could do to her what was done to Santaveria?”

Bart answered. “We went after Santaveria for a particular reason. We’re not in the business of destroying drug cartels. If she doesn’t know it, we’ll make her know it.”

Finally, Connor spoke up. He looked at his father. “This is what you want?”

“Doesn’t matter what I want, son. I already said I’d rather put our own hides on the line for a strong enemy of our enemy than line our friends up on an unstable front with us. But this is a club decision.”

“Vote it, then.”

At Connor’s gruff sentence, Hoosier looked around the table. “Are we ready to vote?” The men all nodded. Hoosier looked at Nolan and Double A. “Brothers, are you still staying on? The game is changing. There’s no shame in staying with your charter.”

Nolan answered. Not for the first time, Muse was struck by the contradiction in the kid—he was young, really young, younger than most Prospects, though he’d had his patch a couple of years already. But there was something old in his eyes. And dark. “If you can use us, we’d like to stay on awhile. Get you through the Castillo trouble, at least. I don’t mind getting some outlaw action under my belt.” When Double A nodded, Nolan turned to Showdown, standing behind him. “That still good with you, boss?”