I had a severe crush on her for what seemed like forever. She was tall, had long lean legs, and was built like a brick shithouse. She was ten years older than me, but it didn’t stop me. I crushed on her hard all through high school, and until she moved away a few years later. I never bothered to tell her how I felt, though.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Lucy?”
She stood on the porch, clutching her purse and nervously rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. She forced a smile, and then broke down in tears. After an awkward moment of me not really knowing what to do, she looked up and apologized.
“I’m so sorry to… I hate to bother you,” she said between sobs. “But your…your sister said I could find you here. I uhhm. I don’t. The police, they won’t do anything…I can’t…”
“Slow down.” I reached for her shoulder. “What’s going on?”
She looked up and wiped her eyes. “Lex.” She gulped a breath. “Someone’s taken her.”
I was lost. “What?”
“Lex.” She exhaled heavily. “She was at the 7-Eleven. A bunch of people were there and saw it, but the police haven’t done anything. I just…I thought maybe…you were the only person I could think of…”
Still confused, I reached for her other shoulder, steadied her shaking body, and looked her in the eyes. “Breathe. Just slow down. What’s going on?”
She took a deep breath, held it, and then exhaled. “You remember Lex?”
I shrugged. “No.”
“Alexandra?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Your little sister.”
“She’s not my sister.” Her eyes fell to the porch. “She’s my daughter.”
Now I was really confused. “Alexandra’s your daughter?”
She looked up and nodded. “Yes. And, someone has taken her.”
“What do you mean?”
She brushed her hair away from her tired eyes. “She was at the 7-Eleven. She was uhhm. She was…they kidnapped her. While she was getting in her car.”
“Holy shit.” I released her shoulders and crossed my arms. “Did you talk to the cops?”
The last time I had seen Alexandra, she was eight or nine years old. The thought of her driving didn’t quite register. The thought of her being kidnapped didn’t either.
She nodded. “The cops are a bunch of idiots. The guy at the register saw it all, and he gave a description. I just. With your connections…you know, to the gangs,” she stammered. “I thought maybe…I thought you could…”
“I’m not in a gang anymore,” I said. “Well, not really.”
All the air shot from her lungs. “You’re not? Oh God. I--”
I wanted to comfort her, but didn’t really know what to do. As I considered hugging her, she all but fell against me.
Out of reflex, I wrapped my arms around her and held her close. “Tell me everything you know. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Do you think you can--”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I assured her. “Did you get a good description of the car? Of the guys?”
“Uh huh. They were Mexicans, and they all had tattoos. The guy at the register got a good description of everything, even their tattoos.” She reached into her purse. “I’ve got a copy of the police report.”
If they were Mexicans and had tattoos, my guess was that they were in a gang. If they were, I could find out who they were. I didn’t want to give her any false hope, though.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
She leaned back, wiped away her tears, and then looked at me. Even with her make up running down her cheeks, she was beautiful.
“Thank you,” she said.
I looked her over, and couldn’t help but smile. In ten years, she hadn’t aged a bit. It was sad that her daughter’s disappearance brought us together, but I wasn’t about to complain.
Hell, maybe after I found her daughter I’d take the time to tell her how gorgeous I thought she was.
Maybe.
Chapter Two
Lex
Standing up to our abductors wasn’t possible. Their overall treatment of us was proof that they wouldn’t hesitate to kill us if we challenged them.
As I was the eldest of the group, I felt obligated to take charge and attempt to protect the others from the wrath of the monsters who held us at their mercy. With limited resources, I had only one bargaining chip.
Offering myself any time the man with tattoos on his face wanted someone for sex.
I reached a point that it didn’t matter. It wasn’t that I didn’t care, because I did. But the only control I had left was to not react. And, not reacting meant nothing mattered.
I wouldn’t allow it to.
I decided I wasn’t going to allow them to cause me any more harm. So, what they did to me became insignificant.
I was done feeling. And, when I was numb, I could protect my captive family.
The minutes clicked past one by one and managed to eventually shave an hour off the clock. The hours merged into one another, with us whispering stories of who we were and where we were from. When it finally got quiet, we knew another day had passed.
With each passing day, as the girls went to sleep, I prayed. Not for freedom, for food, or for better conditions, but for strength.
I knew it was going to take a miracle for us to be freed, and I prayed for the strength to live long enough to witness it.
We memorized each other’s names, addresses, and telephone numbers, repeating them over and over while humming a song we made up. If one of us escaped, we were going to tell the authorities each of the other girl’s names and addresses.
We made a pact.
Sarah was the dreamer, and to pass the time and keep everyone’s spirits up, she led a nightly discussion of what we were going to do when we broke free. Our conversations typically included where we were going to eat, who we were going to see, and what being in that horrid place caused us to miss about the freedoms associated with living our day-to-day lives.
The list of the things we’d taken for granted was unbelievably simple.
Me: Being clothed.
Sarah: Sunshine.
Marbella: Her bedroom.
Kate: Going to the bathroom.
Jess: Not having to ration water.
Debby: Food
Leah: Hearing the birds sing.
And, Mary: Taking a walk.
Making simple choices no longer existed, and we were well aware of it. If freed, I told myself I would never again complain about the tag on my tee shirt causing me to itch, or how southern California’s sun baked my pale skin. I’d comply gratefully when my mother asked if I wanted to meet for lunch or go shopping.
Although I took part in the talks, I had very little concern with what my first meal was going to be, or how much I missed my family. My only real worry was survival, but I wasn’t about to share that with the other girls.
Somehow, be it a result of fate or by my insistence that he choose me first, none of them were abused after I was abducted. As a result, they all looked at me as their guardian.
In that type of situation, a person needs something to hold onto. Something that offers hope. A photo or a good luck charm would have been nice, but we had nothing but each other.
So, every night when it got quiet, we huddled in each other’s arms.
And, I prayed.
To live long enough to see the miracle.
Chapter Three
Cholo
The rotten stench of the adrenaline-laced sweat that leached from the pores of drug dealers and their prey lingered in the air. Two stoned Hispanic men who looked like they hadn’t showered in a month were seated on the filthy tan sofa that was shoved against the far wall.
Beside the couch, a broken-down recliner that appeared to be stuck in the recline position sat empty – short of the half-eaten bag of chicharrones that sat on top of the pile of dirty clothes that littered it. The coffee table in the center of the room was
covered with the previous night’s beer bottles, money, an electronic scale, a box of granola bars, and enough cocaine to get San Diego high for a year.
In the hallway to my left, a muscular Hispanic man wearing a stained dingy wife beater and khaki-colored Dickies leaned against the wall.
Directly in front of me, a shirtless man who was covered in jailhouse tattoos stood. The teardrop tattoos dripping from his eye let me know he wasn’t going to play nice, and the script tattooed across his muscular chest clearly identified the gang he was in.
Calle 18.
My eyes darted around the room, taking inventory of the threats. As I sized up each of the four men, the one in front of me grabbed a bottle of beer from the coffee table. As he lifted it, I made note of two things:
One, he was left-handed. And, two, there was a cigarette butt floating in the beer.
He took a few steps toward me, limping slightly as he walked.
The fingers of my right hand twitched, and I hoped he didn’t notice.
If he did, he wouldn’t know what it meant. But I knew. It was one of those tells that a professional poker player must hide to prevent the other people at the table from knowing when he’s bluffing.
Not that I was bluffing.
Because I wasn’t.
But my right hand wondered how I was going to get out of the room alive. I’d been in worse situations, I was sure of it. For the life of me, however, I couldn’t remember any of them.
With his eyes locked on mine, he lifted the bottle of beer to his lips, took a drink, and then spit it onto the floor in disgust. He glared at the bottle, and then looked at me.
He cocked his head to the side. “Quien te envio?”
Who sent you?
I pulled my hat down a little tighter and then shrugged. “No habla espanol.”
It was a lie. I spoke Spanish fluently, but at least one of them spoke broken English, I was sure of it. Speaking something other than their native tongue would keep those who didn’t speak English a few steps behind, and I needed all the help I could get.
He tossed the bottle onto the floor beside the table. As it belched out the remaining contents onto the carpet, he cleared his throat, and met my gaze.
His eyes fell to my feet, and then slowly rose the length of my frame. “Who seent jew?”
I locked eyes with him. “El mero chignon.”
No one had sent me. My response was a risk, but a minimal one. Within the ranks of Hispanic gangs, there was always an “el mero chignon.” In Spanish, it meant the head motherfucker, the one in charge, or the top dog.
He grinned and nodded his head, revealing a tattooed lower lip and teeth much whiter than I expected. “What jew want, Homie?”
I took a quick glance at the man in the hallway, and then shifted my eyes back to the shirtless man. I debated on whether to tell him the truth or a lie.
A lie would buy me a little time, but eventually I’d either have to beat the shit out of each of them, kill them, or tell them the truth and hope we could work out some sort of agreement. Regardless of my boxing experience, beating them with my fists– and succeeding – wasn’t really an option.
I brushed my left hand along the tail of my shirt until it was alongside the pistol that was tucked into my waistband and prepared to tell him the truth.
I locked eyes with him. “I’m here for the girl.”
He stared right at me for what seemed like forever. The lack of reaction from the other men led me to believe none of them spoke English.
His eyes went thin. “The girl?”
“Yeah. The girl,” I said flatly. “I’m taking her home.”
He spit out a laugh infused with insanity, and then reached behind his back with his left hand. His movements – at least for that instant – seemed to be in slow-motion.
Maybe it was because it was three in the morning. Or it could have been that he hadn’t slept in days. It very well may have been that he was just that confident that I wasn’t armed.
Regardless, his lackadaisical approach to producing what I expected was a gun left me plenty of time to react.
I pulled my pistol with my left hand at the same time I swung my right fist toward his temple.
My knuckles slammed against the side of his skull, knocking him completely off his feet.
“Que nadie se mueva!” I shouted.
Nobody move!
The man leaning against the wall spun around and began to run toward the back of the house. Letting him get away wasn’t a risk I was willing to take.
I took aim and squeezed the trigger. A thunderous boom expanded throughout room, making the space seem smaller with each passing second.
The would-be escapee fell into a pile in the hallway at the same time the shirtless man crumbled onto the floor at my feet.
I pointed my pistol at the two wide-eyed idiots on the couch.
The one seated on the right nodded toward the table. “Tomo lo que quieras.”
Take whatever you want.
I pressed the sole of my shoe against the shirtless man’s neck and tilted my head to the side. “Alexandra! Get out here!” I shouted. “I’m taking you home!”
The silence that followed left me wondering if I was too early, too late, or had somehow managed to get the wrong house.
Fuck.
With my eyes still fixed on the two couch dwellers, I yelled her name again. “Alexandra!”
The man beneath my foot started to writhe around. As he did, the two men on the couch began to look around the room nervously.
“Alexandra!”
The shirtless man moaned. “Mataré a toda tu puta familia.”
I’ll kill your entire fucking family.
There was no doubt in my mind that he’d follow through with his threat. I pressed the sole of my shoe firmly against his thorax, wishing he would have simply remained quiet.
If asked, the men in my MC wouldn’t describe me as killer. At least not immediately. It wasn’t that I was incapable of it, or that I was unwilling. It simply wasn’t my answer to the majority of the problems I’d faced in my life.
Fighting was my preference, and I was good at it.
But, when someone threatened my family – be it blood or my brothers in the MC – it earned them a one-way ticket to meet their maker.
I pointed the barrel of the pistol at his chest and pulled the trigger.
My eyes shot to the two nasty fuckers on the couch. Wearing what at one time may have been khakis and moldy wife beaters, they looked like living hell. As the air between us thickened with the taste of cordite, I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and swallowed hard.
I pointed the pistol at the man on the right. Greasy strands of jet black hair were plastered against the sides of his face. He wiped his eye with the heel of his palm, and then blinked.
“Donde esta la chica?” I asked.
Where’s the girl?
He shifted his eyes toward the hallway. “Estan al final del pasillo.”
They’re at the end of the hallway.
The response of they instead of she took me off guard.
I raised the barrel of the pistol and pointed it at his face. “Cuantos?”
How many?
He shrugged one shoulder. “Cinco o seis?”
Five or six?
My jaw tightened. I had hoped to find Alexandra. I wasn’t prepared – physically or emotionally – to encounter five or six women.
“Quantos anos?”
How old?
He gazed at the floor, let out an exaggerated sigh, and then looked at me. “Uno es nueve.” He shrugged. “Uno es once. Las otras? Quizas…dieciocho.”
There were fifteen rounds left in the magazine. Upon hearing his response, I pulled the trigger repeatedly, shooting each of the men until all the bullets were spent and the pistol’s slide stayed locked open.
The thought of them having a nine-year-old girl held captive caused every muscle in my body to tense. I released the empty magaz
ine, loaded a full one, and stepped over the dead man sprawled out in the hallway. When I reached the far door, I paused. After taking a deep breath, I grabbed the handle and pushed it open.
Dear fucking God.
An otherwise naked girl who was partially covered with a bedsheet stood with her arms outspread as if protecting the girls who were huddled behind her from harm. She was the tallest, and appeared to be the oldest of the group. Her hollow eyes and bruised face were a testament to the brutality she had experienced during the living hell I was sure she’d endured.
The room, void of any furnishings, reeked of urine, shit, and the scent of sex. I swallowed the bile that was rising into my throat and pushed my pistol into the waist of my pants.
I gazed at the half-naked protector. She looked just like Lucy, only younger. There was no doubt in my mind that she was her daughter, Alexandra.
Before I could speak, she locked eyes with me. “Fuck you,” she hissed. “You’re not taking her. Take me.”
Obviously, she didn’t recognize me, and thought I was one of them. It came as no surprise, I hadn’t seen her in more than ten years.
I raised my hands in the air.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you.” I tipped my hat up slightly. “Your mother sent me. I’m here to help. I’m going to get you out of here – all of you – but I need to call for some help.”
I had to turn away. Seeing a room filled with petrified pre-teens was far more than my boiling emotions were capable of concealing. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and made the only call I knew would do any good.
He answered on the third ring. “What’s shakin’, motherfucker?”
I struggled not to vomit. After swallowing repeatedly, I responded. “Peeb, I need some help. I’m at Fourteenth and Bush in Oceanside. Bike’s out front. I need six – no make it seven – of the fellas here as quick as possible. Tell ‘em each to bring a spare helmet and glasses. They’ll uhhm. They’ll each have a rider on the roll out.”
“How quick’s quick?”
“It’s a 9-1-1, Brother.”
“Headed out now,” he said.
F*CKERS (Biker MC Romance Book 7) Page 38