“He runs another business, like Jefe does in Mexico. They do business together. He owed him something and offered your woman as payment. Apparently, he likes blue-eyed brunettes, especially American ones.”
I paced away. I wanted to end him, but I had a couple more questions. “What happens if Jefe Nunez doesn’t hear from you for a period of time? I assume you have a check-in schedule.”
I watched him swallow. “If we don’t report in every twelve hours, he’ll send more of his men to check on us. You can’t beat him. He’ll mow through this little town,” he said with a spark of glee. I gave him a cold smile.
“He comes here, the only one going down is him. When was it you last checked in?” He just looked at me. Payne thrust the knife into his right shoulder and twisted it as he withdrew it.
After Ricardo was done screaming in agony, he whispered, “We check in at noon and midnight.” I looked at my phone. It was five in the afternoon. We had seven hours and then a few more, I estimated, for him to rally his troops. We had to move fast.
“Anything else you have to say before you meet your maker?”
“Yeah, I hope he and all his guys get a turn with that bitch of yours. I wanted a piece of that myself.” His words had a red haze rushing through my mind. I roared as I began to beat him with my bare fists. By the time the guys got me off of him, he was dead, and my fists were torn and bloody.
“Jesus, brother, you messed up your hands. Doc is going to have a fit when she sees those,” Rebel told me.
“I’ll live.” I turned to Jake. “Get Alex. You know what to do. I want this trash gone by the end of today.” Then I looked at Bull.
“We need to get Anderson on the phone. We’re going to have company and I have no idea how many he’ll be bringing. I’d say he’ll most likely hit us in the early morning when we’re most tired. That’s what I’d do.”
Bull nodded his head in agreement. “Let’s get back. We have calls to make and battle plans to draw up. But first, you need to have Doc patch up those hands. You’re going to need them, son.”
I gave him a chin lift. I knew the next twenty-four hours were going to determine whether we lived or died. I planned on us living. I had a lot of years I wanted to love my woman, and no one was going to take that or her away from me.
Zara:
The guys had been gone for hours. I paced around Jessica’s house. She watched me from the couch where she was holding Kiara. Not even holding that sweet baby was calming me. How long does it take? Something must be wrong.
“Zara, sit down. It takes as long as it takes. If something was wrong, one of the guys would have come and gotten us. There are three of them against how many of our guys? They’re fine. You’re going to give yourself a nervous breakdown if you don’t stop,” she admonished me.
“I can’t stand this. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t gone off half-cocked to Mexico, none of this would be happening. The club is having to clean up my mess, Jess. That’s not right. Maybe I should have Uncle Tommy move me somewhere else. Somewhere that I won’t be endangering you guys.”
“Like hell, you will. Your ass is staying right where I can see you!” I heard growled. I twirled around to find Demon and Ajax standing in the doorway. They’d come in while I was ranting. I ran over to him and hugged him tight as I kissed him.
His tongue slipped into my mouth, so he could tease me as he kissed me back. I felt the need to touch and feel him. We kissed for a minute or so until Ajax coughed. We broke apart. He was grinning. He had his arm around Jessica, and you could tell he’d kissed her too.
“Enough of that until later, you two. We came to tell you ladies, we’re going to be in church. It may take a while. You need to come to the clubhouse and wait, just as a precaution,” Ajax warned.
“Something is going to happen, isn’t it?” I asked worriedly. Demon nodded slowly.
“Yeah, it is. We don’t think it will be until after midnight, but we want to be alert just in case. When the time comes, we’re going to have you ladies and the kids go into the panic room. We need to call your uncle, babe. Shit is going to get a little hairy. I need you to remain calm, don’t do anything rash, and be ready in case we need medical help,” Demon warned as he caressed my face. That’s when I saw his hands.
His knuckles were busted and bleeding. He’d been pounding the hell out of something, or more likely, someone. I grabbed them.
“Look at your hands, Demon! You have to let me clean these and bandage them up. Come on, I have stuff in your room.”
Ajax chuckled. “We told you she’d do this. I’m going to help Jess get Kiara’s stuff. We’ll meet you at the clubhouse.” We nodded as we left the house. I was on a mission to get him patched up.
In the clubhouse common room, it was buzzing with activity. Guys were talking in groups. I saw Madisen was already here with Moira. Demon took me over to them.
“Sit. I’ll be back with my supplies,” I told him before I hurried to his room. It didn’t take me long to grab the bag I’d made up to keep here in case of an emergency. As I rushed back, I thought about the need for a room here to treat people when they got hurt. Anything that didn’t require hospitalization at least. I’d talk to Bull later about it.
Back in the common room, I got into doctor mode to fix his hands. He didn’t even wince when I applied the antiseptic to the cuts. Looking at his hands, I noticed for the first time that his knuckles were scarred. He’d used those fists before.
Some people would be worried about that, but I knew he’d never lay a hand on me in anger. He might use those hands to drive me wild for him, but never to hurt me. When I was done bandaging them, I gently kissed each one.
“There you go. Hopefully good as new.”
“Do you kiss all your patients’ wounds like that? Because if you do, I’m going to have to insist you stop. Those are only for me and our kids,” he said half-teasingly and half-seriously.