by Jadyn Chase
“La Muerta accepted her,” I pointed out. “She’s been a branded member of their club since…”
I sensed the ice beginning to crack beneath my feet, but I wasn’t ready to let this go just yet. A few days in bed with Isabel turned my mind to madness. If I didn’t fight with everything I had to keep her, I would never be able to live with myself afterward. If I lost her to La Muerta, at least I would be able to look back and say I tried.
The Boss glared at me with an expression I didn’t like at all. One more word and he would cut me loose along with her. I couldn’t live with that. I bowed my head in silence.
“Go home,” he snapped. “Oh, wait a minute. I guess you can’t. You can bunk up here for the night until you find a place to stay, or you can come home with me. You’re welcome to our guest room for as long as it takes, but only if it’s you…..alone. Understand?”
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to answer.
He blew out a long breath. I sure didn’t envy that guy his job. He eased a step closer and rested his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, brother. I really am. I can see she means a lot to you, but it’s impossible. If she was one of us, it would be different. You have to understand that.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just blinked down at the floor in shock. It really was over. Then, out of nowhere, a bell rang. A clear, pure summons from another world pealed through my despair and shattered the stillness. “I’m not white.”
11
Isabel
Every head in the room whipped around to stare at me. Why did I say it—now of all times? The five of them wheeled and the younger one gasped. Their jaws dropped. Cisco gaped at me with his mouth open like he didn’t recognize me.
The leader recovered first. Of the group, he was the only one with short hair and it made him look ten times more ferocious than the rest of his men. His enormous shoulders dwarfed even Cisco. “Do I know you?”
I sat up a little straighter. I knew that question. He already knew who I was. That was a rhetorical question designed to get me to declare myself. “I’m Isabel. Isabel Williams.”
Cisco waved to his Boss. “Isabel, this is Roman Santiago. He’s El Jefe of Los Diablos.”
I nodded at Roman. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Sure enough, he dispensed with the pleasantries in a heartbeat. “What do you mean you’re not white?”
No one laughed. They all stared at me like I’d just sprouted another head. “My mother was Mexican. She belonged to a motorcycle club. I’m not sure which one, but it might have been La Muerta. She left it when she was young. She hid her identity and dyed her hair blonde. She never wanted anyone to know where she came from. No one knew until just a few months ago when my dad found the documents and a bunch of pictures. My mother was Mexican. I’m only half white.”
Cisco blinked. No one answered until the leader pursed his lips again. He bent over the table. “Well, that’s something, but we still have to hand you back. You’re a member of La Muerta, that’s what really matters.”
“What if I can get El Jefe to release me?” I ventured. “Would you accept me then?”
He glanced up. “If you can convince him to release you, I’ll take you under consideration for initiation. I won’t absolutely guarantee you’ll get in because I can’t make that guarantee to anyone, but at least you would have a chance.”
He turned his attention to his papers and maps by way of dismissal. The conversation was over. One by one, the other men drifted away. They mounted their bikes and rode out of the warehouse. They left their leader alone with Cisco.
The two of them murmured over their plans for a long time. I sat on the couch and stared at them in blank stupefaction. So that was it. I came all this way. I got attached to Cisco and now I had to leave him.
We both knew this would happen when we first met. Now nothing could stop it. Not even finding out my mother was Mexican could change my fate.
Once Los Diablos handed me back to La Muerta, I would never be rid of Diego—not ever. If I lost Cisco now, my heart would never recover. I observed him move around the table in his Boss’s halo of influence.
I never met a man as considerate and protective and comforting before. I didn’t just become attached to him. I came to depend on him. He became my lodestar, my one touchstone in a world gone insane.
No matter what happened, I knew I could always depend on him. I would always be safe with him. As long as I knew he was out there somewhere, that a man like him really could exist in this world, I could survive anything. I could face all the horrors in front of me as long as I held him in my heart.
Sitting on that couch, it struck me like a thunderbolt. I loved him. I loved Cisco. I loved him with all my heart and soul, and I always would no matter what. No one could take that away from me. Diego couldn’t beat it out of me. La Muerta couldn’t burn it out of me.
No man would ever win my heart the way Cisco did. No man would ever touch me again. They could do what they wanted with my body, but they could never come close to my heart. That dwelt with Cisco for all time.
The realization crushed me under its weight. How could I love him when I couldn’t be with him? At that moment, he looked up and met my gaze. A charge of understanding passed between us.
He said something to his Boss and crossed the warehouse to sit down next to me. “Are you okay?”
I nodded down at my hands. “I’m all right. Are you?”
“I’m fine. I’m bent out of shape about this, but there’s nothing we can do about it. We just have to make the best of the situation.”
I stole a peek up at him. “You won’t leave, will you? You’ll stay with me, just for tonight, won’t you?”
His features softened, but he didn’t smile. He got suddenly serious like I’d never seen him before. “I ain’t never gonna leave you, chica. I’m with you until the end. Understand that right now. They’re gonna have to drag me away tomorrow night, ‘cuz I sure as fuck ain’t leaving of my own free will. I can promise you that.”
All of a sudden, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I needed him more than my own life. I collapsed against his powerful shoulder and closed my eyes to the immaculate safety of his arm around me. He pulled me into his embrace where I didn’t have to think anymore.
He gave me one quick hug and pushed me upright. “Here.” He shoved his phone into my hands. “Call Mario and ask him to release you. He’ll probably say no, but at least give it a shot. It can’t hurt.”
I stared down at the phone. Mario. He was a stickler for the rules if anyone was. Then again, he was a man of honor. Diego broke the rules more than anyone else when he raised his hand against a woman. Mario knew that. Maybe I could convince him.
Cisco got up and went back to the table. He stood with his back to me. That was my cue. This was my show. I took a grip on the phone and dialed Amelia’s number. I got her dad’s number from her and punched it into the phone. My hands trembled holding it to my ear.
A rumbly bass voice answered on the other end. “Mario Salazar speaking.”
I swallowed hard to get my throat working. “Hóla, Mario. It’s me, Isabel Williams, Diego’s…..” I broke off. What could I say to explain?
He saved me. “Hello, Isabel. I hear you’re out of the area.”
“Yes, Sir, I am, and I think you know why.”
“I do know why,” he rumbled. “I was sorry to hear about it. I want you to understand we’re taking the situation very seriously.”
“That’s interesting, Mario. You knew about the situation for five months and you never took it seriously before.” I heard my voice rising against my will to restrain it, but I’d passed the limit of caring. If I offended him, that was nothing compared to what he and his people allowed to happen to me.
“I understand you’re upset, Isabel,” he went on. “I can only assure you that we will handle the situation as soon as you come back. That is the most important matter at the moment.”
“It’s not as important as my life,” I fired back. “I hope you understand why I feel that way, Mario. Diego tried to kill me the other night and he’s tried twice more to kill me since then. I can only assume that, as soon as I come back to La Muerta, he’ll try again. I’m asking you to release me.”
“I can’t do that as long as you’re under Los Diablos’ protection,” he countered. “You have to come back to La Muerta and go through the proper channels. That’s the only way any of us can be released. We have procedures for this. You would have to go through them even without this situation with Diego. I hope you can appreciate my position on this.”
My heart sank. His voice told me he would never budge. The more I argued, the less inclined he would be to give in. I understood these bikers too well. He would only dig his heels and turn a deaf ear to my pleas.
“I can promise you this, Isabel,” he continued. “You will not be given back to Diego when you return. You have my solemn word on that. We’ll find another place for you to live while you go through the steps to secure your release.”
I sighed and my eyes sank closed. “Thank you, Mario. That means a lot to me.”
“Goodnight, Isabel,” he replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He hung up. The phone went dead in my hand. That was the end of it. I had to go back. I had to go through God knows how many more months of dithering around with La Muerta before they would release me. At least he didn’t intend to give me back to Diego. At least he had some honor.
Cisco appeared at my side. “What did he say?”
I looked up. The Boss was gone. Cisco and I were all alone in the big deserted warehouse.
My stomach turned. I tossed the phone into his lap and swiveled away. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t face the world. Mario offered me my last hope and now that was gone, too.
Cisco didn’t move. He just sat there with his hand resting on my knee. He really knew how to be there when someone needed him. He knew when to talk and when to keep silent. This was the lowest point of my life and I wouldn’t want anyone else with me to face this.
I stared down into a pit of black anguish from which I would never escape. It consumed my life and left no trace of light or hope for me to cling to. I would rather be dead.
Somewhere in the timeless void of losing myself, he slid his hand behind my neck and tugged me toward him. He didn’t make me speak or look at him. I couldn’t bear that right now.
I sank down and pillowed my head on his lap. He traced his fingers through my hair in a mindless repetition that somehow made everything okay. As long as he was still here, nothing could harm me.
“How did you know?” Was that my voice speaking? I didn’t recognize it.
He relaxed back on the couch, but he didn’t stop petting my hair. “Teresa gave it away. She has those cheekbones. She looks Mexican. I suspected when I found out she was your sister, but I didn’t really know for sure until you said it out loud.”
I burrowed lower into his lap. I wanted to shrink into a dust speck where no one could see me. So he knew already and he didn’t say. He stood there and let his Boss bitch him out in front of everyone and he didn’t tell. It was my secret and he left it with me.
This was my secret, too. No one in La Muerta would ever know what happened to me in Los Diablos. I would carry the truth with me until I got out. He told me I could pay him back by getting free. That was the least I could do for him.
He sat there like that for hours. I fell asleep toward dawn. When I woke up, he lay behind me on the couch with his arms wrapped around me. He always held me like that in his bed, but now we were on a couch in a warehouse.
I didn’t move, but he sighed in his sleep. His biceps tightened around me and he nuzzled into my hair from behind. That familiar sensation excited me. I loved him so much and I never even got a chance to tell him.
His breath grated in his throat and his abs clenched to drive his hips into my ass. He broke the surface of sleep and the dreamy bliss of arousal swept through him. I sensed it all through my back. Even after only a few days with him, I understood him better than most people I’d known all my life.
I followed the inevitable rise of desire tensing him all over. His body stiffened against me. He shifted his arms lower across my stomach to draw my pelvis back. I arched to rub my ass against his prick. He felt so fucking good back there. He turned me on like I couldn’t believe.
I loved him. Those words kept repeating in my brain and they drove me into rabid lust beyond anything I ever experienced before. My channel ached for him. My skin tingled for his touch.
His hot breath breezed on my neck. It stood all the tiny hairs on end and sent shivers down my spine. God, I needed him so bad! Just one more time. Please, God, just give me this one more time.
He stroked up my chest and massaged my breasts through my shirt. I rotated my hips against his cock in open desire. I wanted to back up to him, to feel him filling me with his manhood and driving me to the stars.
His fingers dallied down my stomach to my belly and farther down to the nexus between my legs. My crotch throbbed for him, and when he dug his fingers into my slit, I moaned in ragged ecstasy. I plunged down hard on his hand in between shoving my ass back on to his bulging spike.
His teeth sank into my neck and elicited a quaking cry from my throat. I couldn’t keep silent in the wake of this torrential tremor tearing me apart. I clawed at his thighs and his arms in desperate fury to touch all of him at once.
He scooped one mighty hand up my neck and cupped my jaw. He tilted my head back and rested it on his muscular shoulder. He pinned me between his hand around my throat and the other one tickling me to climax between my legs.
My delicious juices oozed into my panties and I cried out for him again and again. His iron frame made a perfect bulwark against which I could hurl myself. I could destroy myself in him and find peace.
Quick as lightning, he dove inside my pants. His fingers plowed my petals apart and pierced my spongy opening to the core. I whined in aching need on one cresting wave after another. My honey coated his hand and filled the warehouse with perfume.
He snarled in my ear between gritted teeth. “Cum for me, baby. That’s right. Let me hear you cum.”
I screamed out loud. He made me so fucking hot I couldn’t bear it. He made me climax over and over like that, and he hadn’t even undressed me yet.
The minute that thought crossed my mind, he left off fingering me long enough to tear my shorts open. He jerked them down to reveal my ass. Oh, sweet Jesus, yes. Oh, please, yes.
He left them around my knees and went to work on his own jeans. He kicked them around his ankles and moved in on me hard as a rock. His pulsating prick touched my ass. Oh, fuck. Oh my God, fuck yes.
His shaft touched the wetness all around my slit and smoothed the way inside. He held his breath and nosed into my swollen fissure. That slight touch rocketed me to the stars all over again.
His thick member broke my flesh apart and I lost track of whether I was climaxing or not. I floated in a hazy sea of bliss and heavenly ecstasy the like of which I never experienced before.
His hips bumped my ass as his brutal cock punctured my recesses. He slipped his hand back around to my crotch and fingered my soft tissues while he pumped into me from behind.
He knocked me to a sodden limp rag riding the never-ending pulsations rippling through me. His thrusts shattered my ass and jolted my being to pieces with every devastating stroke. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t comprehend everything happening to me. My mind shut down and I stared straight in front of me at nothing.
Suddenly, Cisco snatched a fistful of my hair. He wrenched my head back and nailed his cock in hard. My back arched and his nob struck the sweetest spot inside my body. I screamed in agonized release, climaxing on every vicious blow.
His voice floated into my ear, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I could only understand the overpowering reality of it all. He had me. He owned me.
He possessed me and made me complete, more complete than I could ever be without him.
12
Francisco
I held Isabel’s hand and surveyed a long line of bikers stretched from one side of the field to the other. They all wore identical regalia with white bandanas and white insignia on their uniforms. They kept their shades on, even though it was well past dark. Floodlights lit up the baseball diamond, but no one was playing games tonight.
Isabel adjusted her hand in mine. That slight movement made me realize I was crushing her fingers in a death grip. I forced myself to lighten up, but the tension wouldn’t leave me alone.
Los Diablos formed ranks on the opposite side of the baseball field, all decked out in our own red insignia. Everyone in sight carried shotguns and assault rifles—everyone except Isabel, that is.
That fucktard Diego stood right next to his Boss near the dugout. His mouth twisted in a grimace behind his glasses and his jaw kept clenching over and over. If anyone in this tea party lost control of his trigger finger, it was bound to be that asshole.
My stomach fluttered in agitation, but Isabel stood like a rock. She kept her eyes glued to Diego and his Boss. She never wavered. She even lost awareness of me. Her focus narrowed to a pinprick to cut out everything else.
At some unseen signal, Roman strode forward. Carlos accompanied him on his right hand with me on his left. I kept a firm grip on Isabel. If this all went pear-shaped in a big hurry, at least I knew I had her near me. At least I could defend her.
Mario, Diego, and one of his other lieutenants advanced at the same time. The seven of us met at the pitcher’s mound and all six men took off their shades. Now we could all see each other’s eyes. We could all measure each other up and down.
Diego’s features quivered all over. Tension raced in all directions under his skin, but I guess that’s what comes of being a boozehound who can’t hold his liquor. He was probably drunk right now.