by Krane, Kasey
“He told us some cock-n-bull story about the Sangre promising him that the girls were being given to families in the U.S. who couldn’t have kids of their own, and like I said, this dumbass actually fucking believed them. It wasn’t until one of the Sangre said that these girls were going to make good fuck toys,” Bishop swallowed hard, “while they were unloading them from the bus that Miguel realized that they were being sold into child sex slavery.” He clenched his jaw tight and the room was dead silent. The anger building in it was a physical thing, tangible, and I could feel it welling up inside of me. Inside of all of us.
“The only reason this dumbass is still breathing is because he’s the one who saved Carmen’s life. After the Sangre left with the girls, he checked for a pulse on both of the teachers. The other teacher was dead, so he ditched her by the side of the road but he drove Carmen to the Doctors Without Borders clinic, shoved her out the door, and kept going, not stopping until he got to Lago Santa Teresa.
“Being the kind soul that he is,” Bishop said with a grim smile, “Knight took it upon himself to do a little target practice, and Miguel’s little rowboat is now riddled with holes that, if you were to connect the dots, says ‘DIE.’ I considered it to be an English lesson, but since the boat is now at the bottom of the lake, I imagine Miguel will have a hard time learning to read by using it.”
The group roared with laughter. Even I smiled, although inside, I was panicking. If we didn’t find Maggie Lara…if I had to tell Carmen that Maggie had been sold into child sex slavery…
It was literally unimaginable. I just couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t.
“After Knight was done conducting his English lesson, I told the spineless bastard that if I ever laid eyes on him again, he would be dead, and warned him that this kidnapping had become an international headlines story. If he wanted to live, he better make himself scarce, because the Sangre and the American police were both after his ass.
“The trip wasn’t a total waste, I mean, other than Knight taking advantage of some target practice.” Knight leaned back in his chair, quiet, but he did quirk his lips, which I took as belly laughter. The man was a stone most of the time. “Well, we also had Knight get hit on by some hot piece of ass at a diner.” whistles and cheers broke out around the table at that but Bishop just kept talking and the guys shut up to hear what he said, “but more importantly, the bus driver also told us that as the Sangre were abducting the girls, one of them mentioned Brownton. Miguel didn’t know if they were planning on taking the girls there, or if it was just a pass-through on their way to somewhere else, but I figured it was worth checking into. I need some Dead Legion to go with me, in case things get hairy.”
I looked around, surprised. Every man at the table had their hand raised, volunteering to go. No one made a noise but simply looked at Bishop, ready for marching orders.
“Let’s go then,” Bishop said simply. “Bulletproof vests, just in case, t-shirts and cuts over them. We don’t want to give the Sangre a heads-up on us wearing them.”
It was only fifteen minutes later when the Dead Legion pulled out of the shipping yard, the motors rumbling as they took off up the road as a group. I felt the thrill of the ride go through me, as it always did, but there was something else there too. A relief to finally be doing something. Hanging out with Carmen, as fucking amazing as that was, was slowly driving me insane. I wanted to be finding these jackasses and stringing them up from the nearest tree.
I wanted to be sure that Carmen was safe.
I wanted to bring Maggie back home with me and see Carmen smile.
Yeah, I wanted a lot, and all of it was going to start with finding the Sangre and making them wish they never lived.
* * *
Brownton was tiny - Population 113, the sign said at the edge of town - so there was only one store owner to question. He insisted that he hadn’t heard or seen anything, so Bishop ordered the Dead Legion to spread out and search every building, which wasn’t hard to do.
“Really, you had some hot piece of ass picking up on you?” Tats voice carried in the still air, needling Knight. I grinned to myself. It was true - Knight wasn’t usually one to be picking up chicks and his stoic nature usually dissuaded them from hitting on him. I didn’t wait around to hear Knight’s response - if he deigned to give one - but instead walked into the cool of an old, abandoned warehouse, Tats at my side. Pigeons fluttered around, but I didn’t pay them any mind. There was something in the corner.
Goddammit. There was a pile of shoes, cheap sandals in a heap in the corner.
All small. All for children. With a jerk of the head, I sent Tats to the door to let out a loud whistle. The other Dead Legion filed in and then stood around the small mountain of shoes, staring down at them silently.
It was the first rule of kidnapping, of course - make it hard for your captive to escape. If you take away their shoes, especially in the Sonoran Desert, they weren’t going to go far. Too many cacti, too many snakes, too many poisonous plants.
The Sangre may be bastards, but they weren’t stupid bastards.
God-fucking-dammit.
On the ride back to the clubhouse, I contemplated my choices. How was I going to tell Carmen that we hadn’t found the girls? Not only had we not found the girls, but we had no leads. The Sangre hadn’t exactly left a treasure map behind with a giant X marking the spot of their final destination.
When we got back to the clubhouse, Bishop and I split off together and rode back to my house, each lost in our own thoughts. When we pulled up in front, Bishop parked his bike under the shade of some acacia trees and said, “I’m going to stop by the Deming police station after I pick up Jules, and give them an update on what we’ve found out.”
The words hung heavy in the air. I felt my chest squeeze, making it hard to breathe. I hadn’t expected it to be easy to find these assholes, but goddammit; I hadn’t expected it to be impossible either. How does an MC and 30 girls disappear without a trace?
I gave an abrupt nod of my head and said, “I’m going to go park my bike in the garage. Meet you in the house?”
While Bishop chatted with the Dead Legion on duty, filling them in on what had been discovered, I opened my garage and parked my Harley off to the side. I felt an almost overwhelming desire to hop back on and go for a long ride and leave this fucked up world behind me, but I couldn’t. I knew Carmen deserved to find out what had happened from me, not Bishop.
I walked into the kitchen and up through to the living room, hearing the laughter and chatter of Jules and Carmen. At least she has a friend who understands. I may not know Jules real well but so far, she seemed like a kickass girlfriend. Carmen could use one of those right about now.
I found them curled up on the couch, each with an empty wine glass in hand, and an empty wine bottle on the table. Carmen looked up at me and grinned widely.
“Hi baby!” she said enthusiastically, waving the hand around with the wine glass in it. “Jules and I were just comparing Bishop stories. Wanna join in?”
“I think I’m going to be taking Jules home with me,” Bishop said from the other doorway into the living room, startling Carmen and Jules. This of course sent them into a fit of giggles.
“Hi Bishop!” Carmen finally got out, just as enthusiastically as her greeting to me had been. I narrowed my eyes a little. It was fine - no, terrific - for Carmen not to hate Bishop, of course, but she didn’t have to be…enthusiastic.
Which was stupid, because the three of them had been great friends that last year in high school and I’d never had that thought before.
Bishop shot me a long-suffering look and said drily, “Hi, Carmen. Now that you’ve gotten my girlfriend completely sauced, I’m going to take her home with me.” He took the wine glass from Jules’s hand and placed it on the table, then went to scoop up Jules into his arms.
“WAIT!” she hollered in his ear. She turned back to Carmen. “Thanks, Carmen!!” She threw her arms around Carmen and hugged her cl
ose. I hurried to save the wine glass from Carmen’s grasp before she accidentally whacked Jules over the head with it. As Bishop and I stood there, looking down at the two drunken girls, whispering and laughing to each other on the couch, I couldn’t help but grin. It’d been a long time since I’d seen Carmen this loose. This happy. If all it took was a bottle of wine, I was going to go clean out the grocery store shelves.
Finally, the whispering discussion was over, and Bishop carried Jules out of the front door and down the sidewalk. As I was closing the door after him, I heard the whistles and catcalls of the Carmen Devil guards. Bishop probably wasn’t going to be able to live that down for a while.
I looked over at Carmen, who’d stood up, wavering, from the couch. She had the wine glasses in one hand and the empty wine bottle in the other. She clearly felt like she had to clean up from their little party.
I hurried and grabbed those from her before she fell and cut herself on the glass.
“Hey, how you doing?” I asked, trying to juggle the glasses and empty bottle in one hand while propping her up with the other.
“Jussss fine!” she said proudly. “Jules’s real funny. You know dat? She’s hilarious. I should have her here every day.”
I guided her back down to the couch, hoping to keep her sitting while I ran the empties to the kitchen. “Yeah, that’d be fun. Except for the part where my girlfriend becomes a lush, I think that’d be great.” I grinned at her, teasing, until my own words struck me. I called Carmen my girlfriend. Why? Old habit?
Her eyes crossed as she tried to focus on me. “Girlfriend?” she echoed. Dammit. She’s drunk, but apparently not that drunk.
I went to throw the empty wine bottle away when I found another empty in the kitchen trashcan. No wonder Carmen was sloshed! Other than the night they’d met up at her dad’s wedding, she never really drank, at least not in high school. Unless she became a big drinker after high school, I’d guess that today’s consumption was about what she usually had in the course of a year.
I came back into the living room with a glass of cold water and some aspirin in hand. “I don’t have a headache,” Carmen protested while obediently swallowing them.
“Yeah, but you will,” I said, smiling. I didn't think she had much experience with hangovers.
“Ohhhhhh,” she said, as if I had uttered great words of wisdom. “Judge, what happened today? You guys were gone for a looooonnnnngggggg time. Did you find anything?”
I sat down on the couch next to her, pulling her up against me. She snuggled down against my side happily and I wondered if she was going to fall asleep on me. “Well, I’m sorry; Miguel admitted that he was part of the kidnapping. The Sangre paid him to make it easy on them.”
Silence, and then, “I not surprised. I’s thinking about it and he has a family in Peru. He was always talkin’ about bringing dem up here but he didn’t have enough moolah. It’s no excuse but sometimes, people do stupid shit for der families.”
I was torn between wanting to put Carmen to bed to sleep the alcohol off, and continuing to listen to her slur her words. Somehow, Carmen made fall-down drunk absolutely adorable. It had to be a talent.
“Yes, well, he definitely did some stupid shit in this case,” I agreed. “He did tell us that the Sangre had mentioned Brownton so we took a quick trip up there and looked around. We found a pile of shoes in the corner of a warehouse. The Sangre made the girls strip off their shoes to make it harder for them to make a run for freedom.” I hurried on, not giving her a chance to reply.
“The good news is, this means that they’re alive. Or at least they were when they shucked their shoes. There’s no reason to strip shoes off dead little girls; that pile only makes sense if the Sangre are trying to keep them alive.
“The bad news is,” I took a deep breath, “that Miguel said that he heard one of the Sangre talking about how sexy the little girls were. I think they’re planning on forcing the girls into being sex slaves and selling them off here in the U.S. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Carmen didn’t say anything for a long time, and I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. I bent my head to try to peek at her face when she said, “Yeah. I figured as much. I thought about it, and nothing else was logical. Santa Maria’s is a private school so most of the students are better off than your average Mexican family, but none of them are rich, certainly not by American standards. There’s no reason to kidnap them and try to ransom them back to their families, especially for students like Maggie who have no families. They could be sold as maids for American families, but I just can’t see that being profitable enough for the Sangre to take this kind of risk. It had to be sex.”
I realized when she finished that the slurring was gone. Apparently this news had sobered her up, at least a little.
“I’m really sorry, Carmen,” I said, my voice breaking. “I wish I knew what to do. There are no other leads. They have to be lying low - this kidnapping is all over the news. There’s no way the Sangre would risk taking the girls anywhere public. They’re going to go into hiding until they can get the girls sold off. They could be hiding them anywhere. They could be in New Mexico now for all we know.” My frustration bubbled up inside of me. What the fuck was I going to do? How was I going to fix this?
Carmen turned in my arms and reached up to stroke my face. “You’re working so hard for me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come into that hospital room that day. I can’t believe how hard you’re working to save my students, all because of me.” Guilt tore through me at her words and my eyes flicked away from her gaze. She guided my face back towards her and then leaned up and kissed me.
I froze.
She’s drunk. I shouldn’t take advantage of her.
But it’s Carmen! It’s not like you two just met last week. She knows who you are, and she made the choice to kiss you.
But does she really know who I am? She doesn’t know what I’ve done since high school. She doesn’t know what the Dead Legion have become.
And then she flicked her tongue against my lips, begging to be let in and with a groan that I couldn’t contain, I did. Maybe a better person than I would’ve been able to say no. Maybe a better person than I would’ve pulled away.
But I couldn’t. Not when it was Carmen.
My Carmen.
My hands moved up her soft skin of her belly, pushing her t-shirt out of the way, then around to her back where I unsnapped her bra. She groaned into my mouth and that was all the encouragement I needed. Desire tore through me as I plundered her mouth, seeking the warm, wet corners.
My hands moved around to her front and up to her breasts…oh God, when I closed my hands over them, I worried for a moment that I’d embarrass myself and come in my jeans. It was heaven to be in her arms again.
I tore my mouth away from hers and laid her back on the couch, too impatient to go to the bedroom. I pulled her shirt and shorts off, and she lifted her hips, helping me shimmy them down her gorgeous legs.
Oh God, her legs. I started down at her sexy ankles and nibbled my way up her strong, muscular legs, so long and perfect. Some guys were boob men, some guys were ass men. I was a leg man, through and through. And Carmen’s legs were perfect - round and soft and inviting hips that morphed into muscular, well-defined calves that spoke of her love for the outdoors. These were legs that could climb mountains, bike trails, walk up hills…
And then I got to the junction of her thighs and she began to moan louder with pleasure. “Oh Judge, oh yes, oh please, oh Judge, oohhhhhhh…” She arched off the couch, her screams echoing in the tall ceilings as I continued to ride her clit with my tongue and she had her hands wrapped up in my hair, pulling me up against her, telling me without words exactly what she wanted from me.
Finally, slowly, gently, she came back to earth, her back relaxing, and she opened up her eyes, staring up at me blearily. “Oh my,” she said happily. “We should’ve done that a lot time ago.” I smiled down at her but in
side, I was hesitating. I didn’t want to push myself on Carmen, but I also had…considerable matters of my own to take care of. If she was too drunk or too tired to continue, I would just have to put her to bed and then take care of my own needs.
I shifted back, sitting up, when she surprised me and pulled me down to her open mouth. “You can’t get away so easily,” she murmured into my mouth. “I think you need some fun too.” She latched onto my mouth again but this time, she slid her hand down my body, down my stomach, down to my crotch. I hissed, sucking in a breath at how un-fucking-believable her hand felt, pressed against my cock. She fumbled with the button of my jeans and I finally pulled away from her long enough to undo my jeans and shuck them onto the carpet, my boxers with them.
My cock stood hard and proud, more than ready to slide into Carmen’s warm, wet center.
More than ready to go home.
Carmen leaned back, opening her arms and thighs wide. “Come ‘ere,” she said, slurring a little again.
It was an invitation that a saint couldn’t resist.
And I never claimed to be a saint.
As I slid into her pussy, I groaned, biting back the overwhelming urge to just let it go, to cum, because it felt So. Fucking. Good. But I couldn’t totally make an ass out of myself and cum so quickly, like a teenage boy would, so I bit back the urge and began moving slowly inside of her, her warmth squeezing me and I began to rock faster because I couldn’t control it anymore and I had to fuck her and I had to cummmmmm…
I exploded, my back arching, the yell tearing from my throat as wave after wave of cum poured out of me and the orgasm overwhelmed me and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t see and all I knew was that I loved her.
Oh, fucking God above, I loved her.
And I’d never really stopped loving her.
And I didn’t know what I was going to do. Because if she knew me, really knew me, she would never love me back.