Somehow.
“Oh shit, ladies, I forgot to tell you,” Beauty said, laughing. “This prick came into the store the other day—”
A loud crash came from the direction of the bar and a deafening roar ripped from someone’s throat. The temperature in the room plummeted when voices started to rise and the muffled sounds of crashing tables and chairs traveled down the hall.
“No!” someone screamed. “FUCKING NO!”
“Flame!” Maddie whispered, her face going ashen. In seconds she was on her feet and running out of the room.
Beauty got up and turned to Letti. “Watch Mae and the ladies.” My heart started hammering when the cacophony of distressed shouts rose to a crescendo. Beauty was obviously worried that someone—an enemy—had gotten in. I knew I should have stayed with Letti. But all I could think of was Tanner. Tanner in the bar.
I jumped up too.
“Adelita!” Phebe’s voice called my name, but the coil that weighed so heavily on my chest, the one that had been pulling tighter and tighter with every hour, made my feet lurch into action and run down the hall toward the bar. I was so intent on getting to Tanner, I wouldn’t have noticed the trail of blood on the floor had my foot not slipped in the wetness. My pulse was a drum as it thundered in my neck.
I followed the trail of blood through the bar’s door, to a man who was lying on the floor. His arms and legs had been slashed with knives. He was bleeding everywhere. The man who had drugged me, the man with black-and-white hair was examining him. But when he looked up at Styx, he shook his head. My heart fell as I understood what he was saying—the man was dying.
The voice I heard screaming from the old ladies’ room boomed again. I looked to the back of the bar to see Flame pacing up and down, hands hitting his head and wearing an expression of pure rage. Maddie was walking beside him, whispering things to calm him down. But I could see by her wide eyes and pale face that something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Tanner was suddenly beside me, his thick arms wrapping around my waist. In the fog of the scene, I hadn’t seen him. For a minute I briefly felt relief in his arms . . .that was until I saw the dying man’s back. For me and Tanner, it was always going to be one of our families who had inflicted the wounds on this man. I wasn’t sure if Tanner had come to me to comfort me, or if it was to seek comfort himself. Because no matter how innocent one may be of one’s family’s misdeeds, the guilt, the pain and humiliation was a constant blinding light in one’s eyes when coming face to face with it.
My hands found Tanner’s. They were shaking, and I tried to breathe. I fought to get past the gutting vision of the wounded man’s slow breathing, his death rattle. And I watched him with a lump in my throat until his body went still.
“Shark,” Tanner whispered in my ear. “New Mexico chapter.”
“Where is he?!” Flame’s loud roar made me jump. He turned toward Styx. “He said he was with him. Didn’t he? Shark said Ash was with him!” If I thought the racking pain in my chest was as debilitating as it could get, I was wrong.
AK and the quiet Hangman—Smiler?—came rushing through the door and fixed their gaze on a man across the room, standing back near the bar. The man started backing away, his eyes wide and his arms held out. “You motherfucking cunt!” AK snarled and flew toward him. AK plowed his fist into the guy’s face. Smiler was next, and Flame, without any explanation, did the same. My eyes struggled to keep up with the carnage.
Ky, the Englishman, and Viking got between them, throwing the three men off the other. His face was bleeding.
“What the fuck is happening?” Ky shouted. “Somebody better start talking now or else I’ll fucking shoot the lot of you in your stupid fucking heads!”
“That fucking dick ordered them to go with Shark. He fucking ordered Ash, Zane, and Slash to leave the compound in the truck to go get food because we were low. The asshole sent kids to get fucking food because the cunt was hungry!”
Ky spun on his heel and rushed toward the man. He grabbed him by the collar. “Did you, Hick? Did you send the prospects out when everyone had orders that they were to stay in the fucking compound?”
Hick, as Ky called him, opened his mouth a few times before he actually spoke. “I sent Shark for food. The prospects were close, so I told them to go too.”
“They wouldn’t have gone without an order from Styx or Ky,” AK said, Viking still holding him back.
Hick froze, paling. “You told them Styx said so, didn’t you, asshole?” Ky spat. Tanner’s arms held mine tighter. I didn’t understand what was happening. “You told them it was an order from their prez?”
Ky kicked Hick’s feet, and Hick dropped to his knees. Ky pulled out his gun and held it to his head.
“Ky! Fucking wait!” An older man rushed to his side.
“Wrox, I don’t give a fuck if you’re his prez. The cunt lied to a bunch of kids. Y’all know the fucking rules. No prospect goes out in war. They stay here at the compound, protected. They are fucking kids. They are fucking mother-chapter kids! Ours! And now they’re missing because of this asshole!”
My heart fell. Missing? Kids were missing?
“Ky, let me take care of this,” Wrox tried to argue.
Suddenly, a loud whistle cut through the room, and Styx came walking over to Ky, Hick, and Wrox. The room was silent as he raised his hands and signed something.
“What?” Wrox said, clearly not knowing sign language. I had no idea what he was saying either.
“Take him to the shed, out back. Tie the fucker to the chair and leave him. I’ll decide what to do with him later.”
Ky stepped back from Hick. Styx pointed at Letti’s husband. He took the man from the room. Styx signed again. “Edge? Did you hear what Shark was saying before he died?” Ky spoke for Styx.
The man with strange hair nodded. “Said they were ambushed and taken to a warehouse somewhere. Said he was beaten and questioned.” Edge paused, then said, “The kids were taken too. All three of them.” My stomach crashed to the floor as Flame roared and started destroying the bar furniture around him.
“Flame!” Maddie’s voice rang out around the room, and her husband stopped in his tracks. His face, which had appeared expressionless to me when I first met him, now looked broken and torn.
“Ash . . .” he rasped. “Ash . . .”
“I know,” she soothed and slowly wrapped her arms around him. “We will get him back.” But when her eyes briefly met mine, I thought she didn’t look as confident as she sounded.
“We’ve gotta get them back,” Smiler declared and stood beside AK. “They’re fucking kids. They ain’t meant for this shit yet.”
“Here.” Our attention snapped back to Edge as he held something in the air. He had been in Shark’s pockets. He was holding a USB drive.
“Be back soon, babe.” Tanner released me and rushed from the room. In seconds, Tanner was back clutching a laptop. He took the USB from Edge and the screen came on.
I lost all the blood from my face when Diego’s face filled the screen. A cry slipped from my mouth. Tanner looked back at me. He must have seen I was crumbling, as he came to me and pulled me to him.
“You have something of mine,” Diego said. “So I have taken something of yours.” The screen cut to the three young men. The camera wasn’t perfectly clear, but it showed the boys tied to chairs, their faces and bodies beaten and spattered with blood. Miguel, one of Diego’s men, held each of the boys’ faces up by their hair to show the camera it was them. One by one, AK, Smiler, and Flame made noises of anger and rage. They rocked on their feet and looked ready to find Diego and kill him in the most painful way possible.
“You have my fiancée, Adelita, and I want her back.” I felt like my legs might have given way if Tanner hadn’t been holding me. But I stood tall. I had to. I had to face this. I had to face Diego and his threats. “In three days, we will meet at the old abandoned town close to where you live. I have been reliably informed by our associates wh
o live close to you that you know it well.” Tanner’s breathing changed. The Klan. The Klan had informed him of this place. “There, we will make the exchange. Adelita for these three young men.” In that second, the bubble burst. The bubble I’d been living in with Tanner for the past few days burst, and the reality of our tenuous position was cruelly exposed.
I was going back to Mexico.