Fighting for Elena

by Silver James

  His balls tightened and the flash and burn that heralded release surged inside him. Her inner muscles milked him, gripping and loosening with each stroke. She quivered, her breaths coming in short gasps.

  The words she crooned over and over reached deep inside him, touching his soul. Te quiero. I love you. He stopped, for just a second, as the import of those words hit his heart. And then he was plunging inside her again, enveloped in her wet heat and her love.

  “With me,” he blurted. “I need you to come with me.”

  His mouth crashed against hers and they both held on for dear life as their orgasms erupted, consuming them, drenching them, cocooning them in the sweet pleasure of release.

  Elena recovered first, though she didn’t let Pops go. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his breath tickling her skin each time he exhaled. This…she felt… “Perfect,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “You are.”

  Sleepy, the exhaustion of being well and truly loved seeped into her. Her heart slowed and her mind quietened. Her eyes had just drifted shut when Pops kissed the hollow of her throat. “Be right back.”

  He was gone and she felt…odd…alone…without his hard body and warmth on top of her. She never wanted to lose that feeling. He returned in moments, with a warm, wet washcloth and a towel. With a gentleness that made tears prickle in her eyes, he cleaned her. Then he placed the towel on the bed, tossed the wet cloth towards the bathroom and climbed in beside her, gathering her to his side, her head on his chest.

  “A towel?” she asked, curious.

  “So neither of us has to sleep in the wet spot.”

  She laughed and snuggled closer. As she faded into sleep, she thought she heard him say, “Te quiero, tambien, Lenacita.”

  A few moments later, pleasantly exhausted, Pops drifted off to sleep, with Rosie’s voice whispering in his ear. I’m proud of you, handsome. Now go be happy.

  Chapter 11

  The voice on the other end of the phone held a graveled Texas drawl that Rook recognized immediately. He was surprised as hell that the old guy was still kicking. Then he realized it shouldn’t be a surprise at all. The man it belonged to had been forged in fire.

  “You still a Nightrider?” the voice asked.

  “You still a Ranger?” One rhetorical question deserved another. A deep chuckle reverberated in his ear. Silence reigned for at least a minute before he heard the other man draw in a breath.

  “Hell Dogs.”

  Well fuck. That was hellava way to derail conversation yet answer his question at the same time. He added that sentiment out loud. “Well, fuck.”

  “Funny thing, Rook. Heard a rumor ’bout a biker feud. ’Bout Hell Dogs and Nightriders goin’ head to head. Anything to that?”

  Rook kept his mouth shut. This was club business and he wasn’t about to share with law enforcement. Besides, he was pretty damn sure that the Ranger would tell him what needed to be said. “Also heard rumors ’bout Nightriders takin’ the backs of some soldiers. And how they don’t like anyone, but most especially Hell Dogs, messin’ with their women and kids.”

  Neither man spoke and Rook’s gut churned. He’d ridden to Kansas City to take on the Hell Dogs with the national chapter of his motorcycle club. They’d gone after the Hell Dogs, retrieving the two old ladies the bastards had taken and terrorized. And word had filtered down from a guy who was a living legend among the Wolves, that bad guys had done bad things to Wolves and others who might carry the gene that made them Wolves, all under the auspices of the federal government. None of those events were his story to tell. Still, Rook took a chance and offered up two words. “Black Root.”

  Silence stretched until it twanged like an out-of-tune guitar string. The Ranger finally broke it. “I helped clean up a mess over in the Big Thicket a handful of years ago. Hill Country is my turf but the powers that be needed my kind of expertise, so I went. Those particular desperadoes ain’t been seen or heard from in quite some time.”

  It was time to give a little more. “Seems they moved south.”

  “Out of my jurisdiction.”

  “Yeah, but they have ties here.”

  “The cartels and their gangs.” The Ranger sighed. “I was afraid of that. Down around San Antone, there’s a nest of Hell Dogs runnin’ everything from guns and drugs to human flesh.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Friend o’mine, a foster dad. He’s lookin’ after a little gal. Thirteen, fourteen at the most. Pretty thing. Scared outta her mind. On the run from the Dogs, terrified they’ll do something to her family so she ain’t talkin’. We can’t get any info outta her about where she belongs, but those bastards are damn sure interested in her. Never known any trafficker so damn set on keepin’ a kid close. I checked back through my sources. She was never up for sale. That means she was a special order, bought’n paid for.”

  Rook had gone stiff at the mention of the girl and his voice held more than ice—it was downright frigid when he asked, “She gotta a name?”

  “Joy.”

  “I’ll make some calls.”

  “You know where to find me.”

  And that was that. They cut the connection simultaneously. Rook knew what he had to do. He walked out into the main room of the clubhouse and called church. Since he’d taken over as president of the Dallas chapter of the Nightriders, he’d only had a few occasions to deal with the national cadre. But he’d gotten the memo. A friend of the club was looking for a girl who’d been taken. A girl who’d been missing for almost three months. And yeah, those friends of the Club were major motherfuckers. They’d be coming his way. Hell, there’d be some Nightriders riding down from the national chapter in Kansas City as soon as he passed on the information.

  A wicked smile crossed his face. Two of the sweet butts paled and backed away from him. Yeah, he was ready to hurt something. Thank fuck there were Hell Dogs in this mix. That gave them all a target. His brothers had been chomping at the bit to get their teeth and claws into those motherfuckers. Now they’d have their chance.

  The brothers gathered, though it took over an hour. Finally, the whole Dallas chapter stood around the table in church. He made his announcements and took the vote. It was unanimous. He pulled out his phone, scrolled through to S, and made the call.

  Twenty-four hours later, in a dilapidated stretch of south Dallas, a black SUV slow rolled up to the curb and sat idling. Across the street, a run-down package store, neon beer signs humming and spitting out an intermittent glow from behind the burglar bars girding its windows and door, squatted in the middle of the block. A bodega, its windows intersected by the same type of iron bars, clung to the corner, closed up for the night. A fat, orange cat sat in the entry alcove licking its fur. The cat stopped washing, its attention riveted on the three men who alighted from the big vehicle. They moved with the precision of trained soldiers who’d been a unit for years. They stopped on the sidewalk, chins lifted, noses testing the wind. As one, three heads swiveled to the right and they stalked across the street, pausing for another reconnoiter before heading into the alley between an empty storefront and a shabby two-story apartment building that was a refugee from the 1950s.

  “Think we found your girl.” The voice ghosted from the shadows congealing around the dumpster near the end of the alley, not that the men gathered there didn’t have excellent night vision. They were wolf shifters after all.

  Nate Connor’s body vibrated with anger. “Where?”

  “Little town outside of San Antonio.”

  Mac McIntire squeezed Nate’s shoulder then said, “We need confirmation.”

  The outlaw biker they knew as Gravedigger tilted his head. “We’ll get it.” He gestured to the tall biker standing beside him. “This is Rook, Dallas chapter prez. He’s the one who called Smoke.” He gestured their way and introduced them. “This is Mac, Nate, and Boomer.”

  Rook met the gaze of each of the three interlopers. “I notified Smoke because he helped us out with some h
ousecleaning a while ago.” Smoke, former military and a Nightrider nomad, was a troubleshooter for the national cadre. Sent to Dallas tasked with cleaning up a mess created by Bones, the former chapter prez, he’d drafted Rook to help take out the trash in Dallas and get the chapter back on track. Hell Dogs had been involved then, too. Bones wasn’t even that anymore, his body long since turned to dirt.

  The three men focused their gazes on Rook. Hell fire. He was one scary motherfucker but those three? They were a nightmare walking. He swallowed the spit pooling in his mouth. The Alpha waves rolling off the one named Mac would have sent a normal Wolf to his knees. Fighting the urge, Rook sucked it up and gave his report.

  “Word is Hell Dogs are gearing up down that way. The Mexican cartels run the gangs in San Antonio. They tried that here in Dallas and Ft. Worth.” He glanced at Digger. “You remember a DHS agent last name of Alexander?”

  Digger exchanged looks with Smoke and Hardass, the club’s national VP. They’d run into the DHS investigator in Kansas City during a situation with another brother’s old lady. “Yeah, we’re familiar.”

  “Y’all remember that plane crash at DFW sometime back?” Rook continued.

  Lots of glances were exchanged this time but it was the big Alpha who snarled, “The cargo plane carrying live victims in cages? The one with no survivors?”

  Disgust washed through Rook. “Yeah. That one. Fuckin’ cartels, with the help of the Hell Dogs, were transporting women through here. Alexander shut that shit down.” And the Nightriders had helped.

  “Why is this important?” Mac growled.

  “Because the Dogs are showing their true colors again, only this time, they’ve flown south, because the closest Nightrider presence is here in Dallas. South Texas, except for Corpus Christi, is pretty easy pickings. This little town, Tarpley, it’s off everyone’s radar so not sure how well we’ll be able to infiltrate. We might just want to ride straight in and see what happens.”

  “How good is this word?” Boomer, who’d remained silent until now, asked.

  “Texas Ranger good.” Rook studied the three strangers. “Who is this kid?”

  Nate growled and lunged, despite the grip Mac had on his shoulder.

  Rook studied Nate and his voice softened. “Gotcha, dude. She’s your baby girl. We’ll find her. Just because we don’t gotta presence that doesn’t mean we’re blind. We’ve got eyes and ears. There’s a rancher down there. Foster dad. And chief of the local volunteer fire department. Good guy, according to our source. There’s also a social worker. The two of them are protecting a kid that matches your girl’s description. There’s a bitch at DFPS claiming the girl is a runaway—”

  “Joy is not a runaway. She was taken.” Nate bit out each word, their taste bitter on his tongue.

  Smoke grimaced in sympathy. “We know the Hell Dogs and the cartels are partners in human trafficking. We’ll do everything we can to help.”

  Rook and his two lieutenants nodded in agreement. “My whole chapter is on this.” He cleared his throat, hating to bring up this next bit. “We don’t have proof, just suspicions, but there’s a chance Black Root is involved.”

  That got him lots of growls and the Alpha vibes went so high one of his guys fuckin’ whimpered. Rook couldn’t blame him, not at all.

  With effort, the three outsiders calmed, though it took a few minutes. Eventually, Mac raised one eyebrow in what was otherwise now a perfect poker face. “What’s it gonna cost us?”

  “Not a damn thing, Sergeant Major. Our national prez has declared open season on the Dogs.” Smoke grinned. “You’re a legend, McIntire, even to us grunts in Force Recon.”

  “You were a Marine.” Nate visibly relaxed at this knowledge.

  “Yes sir, Captain Connor. You aren’t exactly unknown either. We’ll hunt. The kill is yours.”

  Rook had an ax to grind with the Hell Dogs and he wasn’t too sure he liked the idea of someone else getting the kill, but those names froze the blood in his veins. Boomer had to be Sean Donaldson, a wiz with explosives, among other things. Fucking legends for sure, these men. Then he smiled. To hunt beside them? Fuckin’ A for awesome.

  Chapter 12

  Storm watches and warnings continuously popped up in the weather app on Elena’s phone. A tropical depression down in the Gulf of Mexico was doing its dead-level best to gear up into a hurricane. It was early in the season but things happened. This line of storms, though, had nothing to do with hurricanes. At the moment, anyway. She wanted to get this meeting over with and head to the ranch. She didn’t like storms, having been frightened by one as a child when lightning hit her house and started a fire.

  The call from her supervisor only increased both her agitation and irritation. She’d racked up massive amounts of comp time, having had to stay late four times this week already. She paused outside Pamela’s door and smoothed down her dress, straightened her jacket and necklace, and breathed deeply several times. Nothing helped calm her jangling nerves. In a last ditch attempt to gain control, she closed her eyes, rolled her head on her neck—grimacing at the snap-crackle-pop of the vertebrae—and then, hand flat, palm toward her face, she moved that hand from the top of her head to her chest. It was a mental and physical act to clear her expression. Poker face now in place, she hoped, Elena knocked on the door.

  “Come,” Pamela barked.

  Elena entered to Pamela ordering, “Shut the door and sit.”

  Ay-yi-yi. This meeting was not starting well and she fully anticipated it would circle the drain in short order. She wasn’t disappointed.

  Pamela shoved a folder across her desk. “That’s a writ of habeas corpus. You are required to produce the ward of the court known as Jane Doe number five-two-three in this office within forty-eight hours.”

  Elena gritted her teeth as she read the court order. Habeas corpus literally meant “produce the body” in legal terms. The order was signed by one of Pamela’s pet juvenile judges in Bexar County. There had to be a legal way around this, but her brain couldn’t produce the needed information. Did a Bandera County judge trump a juvie judge in San Antonio?

  “Her legal guardian will be here to pick her up.”

  “If she’s listed as Jane Doe, how do you know this person has custody?”

  “Her name is Amy Jones according to her guardian.”

  “Then why doesn’t the writ and the affidavit attest to that?” Pamela did not know that Joy had revealed her first name and if whoever this person was knew her, they’d know her real name.

  Pamela tossed one hand in a negligent wave. “Because she’s listed in the system as Jane Doe five-two-three. This just keeps the paperwork straight.”

  “So who is this guardian?” Elena was not going down without a fight to make Pamela see reason.

  “The man is her uncle and he was granted custody in Val Verde County.”

  She believed none of this. Joy was no more from Del Rio and Southwest Texas than Elena was from New York City. “What do we know of this man?”

  “There’s a picture in the file with him and Amy.”

  Joy! Elena all but screamed in her head. She flipped through the paperwork and found a grainy, and surprisingly revealing, photo probably taken with a cheap cell phone. Joy stood next to a rough-looking man. There was no family resemblance. His hand rested on the back of the girl’s neck, and Elena could see that his fingertips were digging into her skin. She studied Joy’s expression. Lips pressed together. Jaw set. Chin lifted. Eyes…terrified. But also managing to convey a strength of will. The girl was defiant, no doubt, but also scared out of her mind. The man looked not only unkempt with a scraggly beard and uncut hair, but dirty. His hair was oily and there was grease—at least that’s what Elena hoped it was—smeared on his shirt. Which was partially covered by a vest. She scanned the patches she could see—a 1% patch in red stitching and one with grimy white stitching that read “Polecat.” His road name.

  She needed to see the back of the vest. She searched for other ph
otos and wished she hadn’t. This one showed Joy held on a man’s lap. He was leering at her while a guy who might be Polecat stood next to the pair, part of his back showing. Elena glimpsed the word “Hell” and part of an emblem that looked like an ugly dog with horns and surrounded by fire. Hell Dogs.

  “Did you look at these pictures?” Elena couldn’t believe she kept her voice so calm. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream. She wanted to go hunt those bastards and scratch their eyes out—right after she castrated them. She would borrow her brother Raul’s hunting knife and do just that.

  “Yes. And I’ve read the file.” Pamela flashed her an arched look. “Which is more than you’ve done. According to the paperwork, I understand that she’s nothing but trouble. That said, she’s not in any danger from her uncle. He simply wants her home.” The woman sighed. “She’s trash, Elena. A runaway. Nothing more.”

  Very, very slowly, Elena stood. She very, very carefully set down the file with the two pictures turned toward Pamela, who didn’t bother to look at them.

  “She is not trash. She is not a runaway. She is a child in danger. I have spent the last couple of months watching her blossom from a scared little girl into a confident teenager. If you send her to those—”

  “The man is her legal guardian. There are no incident reports on file in Val Verde County. I have signed affidavits and that writ of habeas corpus signed by a judge.”

  “We need to do something about this.” Elena wanted to pound on her supervisor’s desk but refrained. The woman already thought she was impetuous, and way too involved with her clients. Letting her emotions loose would only reinforce Pamela’s impressions of her. Their interactions since that fiasco in Tarpley had been few and far between—thank God. Pamela had avoided her and the whole office knew the woman could carry a mean grudge. At this point, Elena didn’t really care. She was a hairbreadth away from asking for a transfer to Bandera County anyway.