VENDETTA: A Bad Boy, Motorcycle Club Romance (3 page)

Flash

We were fucked.

When the girl leaned her entire body against mine and put her mouth close enough to my ear that she almost kissed it, I got an erection the size of Montana. Clenching my thighs together, I ignored her lush body and its heat against my back while we made our way out of the desert. Her perky tits pressed against my jacket when she molded her body to mine, obeying my order to hold on tight.

If they were giving out awards for self-control, I’d get first fucking place.

A worse time to lust after a woman didn’t exist and, if it did, I’d never been in it. No matter what Manuel said, I was going to get her out of the compound and to safety before I beat it back home to The Fallen and took whatever punishment the club deemed necessary for getting involved and putting us in the spotlight with the cartel.

It wasn’t like any of The Fallen were actually scared of Manuel or the rest of his thugs. When Rafael, Manuel’s brother, was still alive, we did a nice little business with them running cocaine over the border. My father and Rafael had been good friends for years—the man was nothing but intelligent and kind. He ruled the Deleon Cartel with an iron fist, not falling prey to the greed and vice that brought down so many others. In the last twenty years, we’d worked the whole operation out neat and tidy so that there was barely a risk anymore on either side.

Then Rafael got sick real fast more than a year ago. He called Dad and Piston, the president of The Fallen, to say goodbye and then he was gone. Unlike other cartels that chose leaders based on seniority and strength, the Deleon Cartel held to blood—so Manuel took over. He wasn’t the kind of man you’d trust with a brother’s life, but Piston said he was good enough to do business with. Truth was, I didn’t want to lose the money we got for running coke, either. So even though I’d have personally backed away when shit changed, I went with the club’s vote.

Hell, I would have gone with any vote The Fallen made.
The road is long and we are few, but we are one.

Watching my t-shirt slide down the girl’s golden body disappointed me in a sick way. Here she was, fresh from almost being murdered and probably terrified, and I was lusting after her like a horny old man. It had been years since I’d seen a body that nice; displayed in the soft lights of the patio, she was firm with full tits and a curvy hips. Her little pink nipples were hard and begging for my mouth—but it wasn’t the time or the place.

Or the right woman
.

Still, my hand gravitated to her back when she finally caught up with me on the stairs. Her nerves were palpable and it would’ve been better for both of us if she was calm, cool, collected. Manuel would smell fear and pounce like a hungry tiger, taking her out before she had a chance to blink those big green eyes that sent a shockwave straight through my chest. Maybe I shouldn’t have cared; maybe it would have been better if I’d told Rosaline there was nothing I could do, talked to Manuel and left right away.

But here we were.

Santiago had arrived ahead of us and was sitting next to his father, their heads bent together. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I cleared my throat to let them know I was there, wishing I’d had time to eavesdrop. Two pairs of brown eyes looked up, took me in and then zeroed in on the girl.

“Didn’t know you planned to have Santiago at our unscheduled meeting,” Manuel said, his words slow as molasses. I’d shown up days early and he wasn’t happy when I walked through the door. I wasn’t fooling him now, either. The old man knew that I’d gone out there for something other than retrieving his good-for-nothing son and dragging him in here for a quick talk about how to handle the increased volume being pumped out of Columbia.

“Piston thought it was a good idea to get him prepped. You want him to take over the operation after you, right?” Piston didn’t think it was a good idea to have Santiago do anything. He agreed with me that the man was a bomb just waiting for an activation code, but we’d deal with that later. Right now, what mattered was getting the girl out and sending her far away from Manuel.

The cartel leader nodded, but the shrewd look didn’t leave his eyes. Silently, we agreed that each of us was aware of the subterfuge. We weren’t going to hash it out in front of the unstable man whose fingers twitched and fluttered nervously in his lap. I’d never been more glad that my father kept me away from chemicals.
We deal, but we don’t indulge.

“We need to get her out of here so we can talk business.” Manuel pressed a button on his smartphone and moments later a man in a dark suit walked through the door.

“What are you going to do with her?” His smile grew when I asked the question, and I silently cursed my big mouth. Caring about whether she lived or died gave him power over me that he didn’t deserve. Power I didn’t want to give up.

“She was here. She shouldn’t have been here.” The veneer of sorrow he wore like a mask wasn’t fooling me. “She’ll have to go back to the desert.” There was something else to this, but digging wasn’t going to get me and the girl out alive.

Emily jerked at the words, and I knew then that she could speak Spanish. Her movement was small enough to be imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t in contact with her body, and a warm sense of approval rolled over me. I liked that she wasn’t a weeping mess on the floor. I’d seen too many women get frantic over shit that barely mattered. That, I couldn’t do anything with. This girl’s calm demeanor meant she still had a shot.

“It’s a shame to waste her,” I said, and Manuel smiled. Now I was speaking his language. “She’s got legs like a fucking runway model.” I reached down and grabbed her ass, raking her body with a hot stare designed to let Manuel see what I wanted from her. “What if I take her off your hands?”

“Too dangerous. You can’t keep the woman forever.”

“Not forever,” I said, “but come on man. Look at this bitch. Let me have a night with her before you waste her.” I made sure to keep my tone full of respect. When his smile widened, I winced on the inside and maintained a straight face.

“What do I get out of your night?”

“I’ll reduce our cut.”
Fuck, Piston’s going to rip my head off
. “Instead of 40 percent, give us 35.”

“You’d take a five percent cut for a little pussy?” Right when I thought he’d say no, his expression changed. Manuel liked money, and cutting the take by five percent would give him a lot more green.

“I like the way her tits bounce when she’s scared.” My mom would have smacked me across the face if she’d heard those words come out my mouth, but she wasn’t in Mexico.

“Fine, then.” Manuel waved at the man who’d walked in. “Five percent. One night. You have to finish the job yourself in the morning, though.”

“Easy enough. Get Rosaline to come take her and get her cleaned up. I don’t want to fuck a dirty bitch.” The words were stale in my mouth, but it sounds like I meant every one.

With a wave of his hand, Manuel dismissed the goon who’d come into the room to take the girl. Rosaline came in from the side door moments later—likely summoned with his fucking smartphone—and wrapped her arm around Emily, ushering her out of the room. When their footsteps faded, Manuel gestured to me.

“Sit down, my friend. Too much has happened today. Drink?”
I’m not your friend, your oily motherfucker
.

“Whiskey.” I needed the burn to clear out the dryness left behind from breathing in the desert for long minutes. Sinking into one of the comfortable black chairs, I took the glass Santiago handed me, threw back the liquor and drew a deep breath. He watched every move through his puffy eyes.

“So how much more are we talking?”

“At least two million,” Manuel said, handing me a folder. “We’re going to need at least ten more men and the timeline was pushed back by a week.”

“Why was it pushed back? Couldn’t they send the normal amount and hold the next for another shipment?” Having to wait on the coke meant nervous customers, people who’d leave and find another way to get their fix. Piston hated that shit and I didn’t relish spending weeks chasing down junkies, especially if some of the dealers jumped ship in the meantime.

We’d done the legwork to clear those other fuckers out of our territory. The last thing I wanted was some of them slipping back in through the cracks.

“No point,” Santiago said, looking at his father for approval. When he got the nod, he spoke with more confidence. “We’re increasing all the shipments from now on, not just this one. With the new shit from Columbia, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” My temper flared and I killed it before it had time to boil. Now wasn’t the time to go nuclear. “I don’t know for sure that we can even move that much every quarter. People aren’t doing coke like they used to.” Meth was rampant in the city. Cheaper, dirtier and easy to move, we were having enough trouble selling the same amounts to our usual guys. No matter how many meth dealers Piston personally escorted to the LA city limits, it was never enough.

“Then get another chapter of the club to come out and take some off your hands. I don’t care how you do it.” Manuel took a sip of his own drink, closing his eyes as he lowered the glass from his mouth. When they opened again, they were stone cold. “But get it done. Or we’ll find someone who can.”

You don’t end a contract with the Deleon Cartel without a damn good reason. Walking away with everyone alive is about as likely as me switching out my ride for one of the prospect’s rat bikes. Indicating that The Fallen couldn’t handle that kind of volume was like putting a price on my brother’s heads. Most people in our line of work didn’t get retirement packages, and I wasn’t going to another fucking funeral.

Not going to happen.

“We can handle it,” I said, my mind working overtime to figure out how we were going to distribute the coke and, more importantly, how the hell I was supposed to get that girl out of here without fucking everything up between the cartel and The Fallen.

No solutions appeared like magic in my head, so I settled in, sipped my whiskey and started working out the dates and times for pickup.

Emily

“This will help,” the woman said, smoothing a cooling balm over my skin. Her English was unaccented and her hands were gentle. Every place the sun had burned me was slowly covered in the cool blue gel she’d carried into the room with a glass of iced mineral water and some chicken noodle soup.

I wondered whether she was ashamed of what her employers had done to me, because every time I looked at her, she darted her eyes away as if she didn’t want me to catch her staring. I didn’t mind, though. It had been years since a woman had touched me so gently—since I was nine and my parents died in a car accident. When she smoothed a hand down my hair, arranging the rumpled strands, I wanted to weep.

“Thank you.” Even if she worked for the people who were going to kill me, I didn’t want to be rude to her. She’d wrapped her arms around me when we walked into the bedroom and god knew I needed to be held then. My body shook while she tucked me in a warm embrace, careful not to squeeze too hard where my ribs were bluing.

“You’ll be okay, Esme,” the woman whispered into my hair. I didn’t correct her on my name, because honestly, what did it matter? Hot tears slid from her eyes and down her cheeks to splash on my shoulder. After long moments passed, she pulled away, took a deep breath and started a shower for me.

I dropped the t-shirt to the ground and immediately missed the masculine scent of the man who’d given it to me. His spicy cologne clung to the cotton and helped me stay calm when the men in the other room stared at me and discussed me as if I were a piece of choice meat. While they talked about my death like it was a task I’d inconvenienced them with.

Steady, steady.

I stayed in the shower until the woman with the kind eyes pulled me out, gently grasping my hand and helping me back into the bedroom. There, she wrapped me in a warm, white towel, settled me on the bed, and sat behind me, brushing my hair in long strokes. I basked in the attention, sitting still and taking deep breaths while she worked out all the knots that had been tangled together by the wind.

Once my skin was dry, she applied the balm and told me to sit without moving until it dried. I was more than willing to oblige. My skin felt the way it did when I was a little girl and got pneumonia. It was one of my earliest memories: my mother on the phone with my father, asking him whether it was safe to take me to the hospital. The cool flow of saline from the IV into my veins and the way the room had turned cold once the fever broke.

I missed my mother.

“Eat this,” Rosaline said, pushing the soup toward me across the table. I took it gratefully and spooned some of the warm liquid between my lips. It soothed my aching throat and made my limbs feel heavy.
So tired
. A sip of the mineral water helped clear away even more of the pain that had erupted when I’d screamed as Santiago dragged me across the desert.

“What else do you need?” Her voice was soft. She still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I didn’t need anything, unless you counted a way out as something, and I doubted she’d be able to bring me that on a plastic tray. Doing what I’ve done for the past almost decade, you can’t help but find trouble—but this was something else. Not a punch to the face. This was real, true, I-might-die danger.

As I ate the soup and the woman watched me with a soft expression, I reflected on all the things I’d left undone. So many little things that I wanted to do, but had put off until my life was more stable. Until I had actually started taking classes and walked away from working for my uncle. Until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. Until I felt ready.

There’s nothing like imminent death to make you ready and suddenly I wished the entire world was at my fingertips. I wanted to take a road trip through New England. I wanted to try my hand at making baked Alaska, even though I wasn’t sure what it was exactly. I wanted an orgasm that came from something other than a vibrator or my own hands.

That’s right, Tommy. Maybe if you’d been a little better at working it down there, I’d have given it up to you.

Or maybe not. I’d always wanted to feel that thing. The tug that lets you know the man you’ve reaching for wants you to touch him as much as you want to lay your hands on his skin. An ache. Real desire. With Tommy, I mostly wanted him to stop licking my neck so that I could watch
The Gilmore Girls
reruns before getting back to work.

I doubted anyone in this prison was going to let me into the kitchen to make baked Alaska. A fall road trip on winding byways through old mountain towns seemed even less likely. But an orgasm…I had an idea where I could get one of those.

Maybe it was insanity to be thinking about Flash’s mouth between my legs when the chances of getting out alive were so slim, but I couldn’t help it. For the first time in my life, I’d felt a pulse of desire that was more than just a slight warmth. It was like a bolt of lightning that leapt out of a clear, blue sky to sizzle over my skin. Soothed and fed, the lust that had begun burning for him deep inside me was even stronger.

But I didn’t think he’d cooperate.

Sure, he talked a good game in front of my kidnapper and the other man. He said he wanted to fuck me. But I knew it was all a show, even as the words left his lips. When Flash looked at me outside, I hadn’t seen a hint of lust break through his stoic expression.

“Where are you from?” Her voice broke into my admittedly out of place thoughts and brought me back to the present.

“California. Malibu.” Saying the name of my hometown started a wave of nostalgia. I wanted to be there, sitting at my window and watching the tide roll in. Not here, sore and tender and eating soup in the middle of the summer. Honestly, I hadn’t even wanted to come to Mexico in the first place—Dale booked the trip without telling me as a reward for an exceptional quarter.

Amazing soup, though
.

“Flash will take you home. He’s always been a good man.” The quiet confidence in her voice bolstered my flagging nerves.

“Have you known him for a long time?”

She hesitated before speaking. “Since he was a little boy. His father used to bring him down to the villa for work.”

“With Manuel?”

“No,” she said, her eyes darkening. “He’s only been in charge a short time.” The woman cocked her ear toward the door, as if listening for an interloper. “His brother used to be in charge. He was a good man. A better man.”

“What was Flash like as a kid?” The information didn’t matter very much, but it was better than discussing my imminent murder or escape. I didn’t want to know anything about the cartel beyond what I already did—the way I figured it, knowing less meant a higher chance of survival once Flash broke me out of here.

“Curious. He used to run around the yard with the children of the men who worked here.” Sorrow was plain on her face, though the story wasn’t sad. “They’d play soccer or skim their fingers over the motorcycles parked in the driveway.”

“So he loved bikes then, too?”

“Yes. He’s a good boy. Once a worker’s son hit a baseball into Manuel’s car and Flash took the blame—and the beating.”

“Why?”

“He knew the worker’s son would be killed. If Manuel had killed Flash, it would have started a war with The Fallen. The old leader of the cartel wouldn’t have allowed that.”

“Manuel beat a child?”

“Flash’s father stopped the beating as soon as he knew, but the poor boy had two black eyes by the time it was all said and done.”

I pictured the child Flash had been, imagined him defiant even as the fist came down on his face. Was there relief in his eyes when he heard his father’s voice over the sounds of the punches? Rage rippled under my skin as I thought about the man upstairs. What kind of monster beats a child? What kind of monster orders innocent women murdered for no reason other than mistaken identity?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s not your fault.” Forcing a smile, I finished the soup and set my spoon back in the bowl. “Am I safe here?”

“Until morning.” Her hands moved restlessly in her lap, twisting and releasing her skirt.

“Do you think I could sleep until Flash comes?”

“Of course.” Instantly she was on her feet and pulling back the covers on the bed. I slipped between them and sighed at the feel of the cool cotton against the parts of my body revealed by the towel. Rosaline leaned down and brushed my hair back off my forehead. Her lotion smelled like roses, like comfort, and her skin was cool on mine.

“Sleep well, little one,” she said. “I promise, he’ll keep you safe.” Her lips pressed against my forehead for a moment, then she moved away. I opened my eyes and saw her leave through the door. The tray on the table and my t-shirt went with her.

There in the dark, I closed my eyes and calmed my breathing. After my parents died and I went to live with Uncle Dale, the dark was the only refuge from the monsters that he brought into the house night after night—well, the dark and the lock on my bedroom door. Other little girls had been scared of the sun setting and shadows being cast onto the walls of their rooms. Not me. I’d welcomed the dark, wrapped myself in it.

Then I’d made myself into a different kind of monster. Someone who had no reason to be scared, because I was too valuable to break.

Or so I thought until I felt Santiago’s fingers tangle in my hair and his hand wrap around my arm, yanking me back toward the van that brought me here. Even with the pain in my head and the hard flutter of my heart in my chest, I’d been awed by the villa, with its light smell of lemon wax clinging to the hardwood floors.

In that beautiful place that stretched out in front of me, I’d learned that there were other kinds of monsters.

I could feel my chest getting tight, so I dug my fingers into the cool sheets and counted to three. One. Two. Three. Each count was a breath. Each count was a memory that grounded me. The soft feel of my mom’s fingers in mine on the beach. The way a man with dark hair had looked at me and laughed, showing me a bird in an apple tree. The first time my boyfriend Tommy kissed me, before he decided he preferred crystal and descended into darkness with all the rest.

Then I let it go.

Rising from the bed, I tested the windows with a light touch, not looking to set off any alarms and get a bullet in my head for the trouble. Nothing opened. The door was locked. All I could do was wait for Flash and hope he had a better plan than waiting until morning and leaving my corpse behind. Oddly, I didn’t think he would. Something about him seemed too honorable for that.

The longer I lie in bed, the more my thoughts turned from dark things to those of a more sensual nature. If things were different and Flash hadn’t been driving me away from death, would he have stopped and let me sit in front of him on the bike, let me sink down onto him while his teeth teased my lips? Thinking of his mouth on mine, I sighed and settled deeper into the mattress. Long moments passed, but he never came through the door. It was just me and an empty room.

So I closed my eyes and slept.