Ransom (Dead Man's Ink #3)

by Callie Hart

  Carnie grabs his cut from the counter and shrugs it on. “We’re not done talking about this,” he says.

  “Whatever you say, baby. You’re the boss.” Shay smiles at Carnie, but it’s not a real smile. It’s a grimace, teeth bared, and the message is clear for Carnie to read. He’s not the boss, and if he even tries bringing this shit up again, Shay’s going to castrate him with a rusty butter knife.

  Carnie shakes his head. “Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. Leaving his breakfast behind, he exits the clubhouse, presumably to go and grab the blonde he allowed to leave a moment ago and take her home, wherever that might be.

  Shay sits herself back down, not saying a word. Everyone feels the burn of Cade’s gaze directed at her head, though. He looks pissed. Eventually Shay acknowledges him, rolling her eyes. “What?”

  “Don’t ever drag me into your shit again, woman. It won’t end well. You feel me?” His dark eyes look almost black as he stares at her. Shay grumbles something under her breath. Cade rarely gets mad, but right now he doesn’t appear to be all that happy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t quite hear that,” he growls.

  “I only told him the truth,” she snaps. “I didn’t lie. We did sleep together Cade, no matter how badly you might want to forget about it.”

  “You’re right. It would be lovely if I could forget about it, but you seem to keep bringing it up for some fucking reason, and I can’t seem to put my finger on the why of that. If we have problems, Shay, just let me know and I’ll happily resolve them with you.”

  I’m waiting for Shay’s caustic response to that, but the door to the clubhouse swings open and Rebel walks in, scanning the room from side to side as he makes his way toward the bar. From the tense look on his face, he’s heard raised voices and he’s seriously not in the mood to be dealing with them. “What’s the problem?” He slams his gun down on the woodwork, blowing a long breath out down his nose.

  “Nothing. Shay was just about to head into town to check on the shop. Right, Shay?” Cade doesn’t really seem to be giving her a choice. Shay is suddenly expressionless, her face utterly blank. She gets up and gathers her things, slinging her patch covered cut over her shoulder.

  “Yes, sir,” she says, her voice clipped, devoid of any inflection or emotion. The change in her is miraculous, and yet I’ve seen it a thousand times before. She blows hot and cold, fire and ice, her tongue sharp enough to flay the skin from a man’s back most of the time, but the moment she’s faced with the man I love, she’s suddenly docile and compliant.

  “Come back here after lunch. I’ll send someone else out to relieve you,” Rebel says.

  Shay gives him a quick nod and then she silently leaves the clubhouse, leaving a handful of bemused Widow Makers behind her. Ever since Hector Ramirez showed up in Freemantle and decided to terrorize the Widow Makers any way they could, it’s been necessary to have someone armed and ready to respond at the club’s tattoo shop. I’d kind of thought Ramirez might have grown bored and left New Mexico by now, gone back home to his cartel in Mexico to oversee his drug operations, but it seems as though he has far more patience than anyone gave him credit for.

  He was furious after his right hand man, Raphael Dela Vega, went missing. He vowed not to leave until Raphael was found, and so I guess that means he’ll never leave because Raphael is gone for good. I should know—I killed him and buried him out in the desert. Rebel shoots me a brief smile as he sits down with Cade. I try not to listen to their conversation as I clean up after breakfast, but it’s hard not to. I’ve felt an uneasiness in the compound over the last few days. An uneasiness I can’t put my finger on, but that I know is there all the same.

  I hear two words that send shivers all over my body: Los Oscuros. And then I hear another two words that cause a bolt of panic to rise up my throat and relay around the inside of my head, so powerful and strong that I can feel my pulse beating in every part of my body.

  Alan Romera.

  That name should never be slipping out of Rebel’s mouth. It should never be a name spoken inside the walls of the Widow Makers’ clubhouse. It shouldn’t be uttered in any motorcycle clubhouse period. When I was initially captured by Raphael, he found my fake ID in my purse and assumed that Sophia Letitia Marne was my real name. I wasn’t exactly in a rush to correct him, given that he kept on threatening to rape and murder my family as soon as he could find them. I’m not sure why I haven’t told Rebel the truth, that Sophia isn’t my true identity, but… I suppose it felt safer. Better if I kept my family and my old life as far away from this new one as humanly possible.

  So now that Rebel is whispering that name, the name of my father, out loud, it feels as though my lies are catching up with me.

  He says the name again as he talks in low, hushed tones with his second in command. Suddenly I don’t feel all that well. My stomach is churning and my head feels light, like there’s nothing inside it. My hands are prickly, numb, rubbery all at once.

  I look down at the wet, soapy plate I’m holding slips from my hands, and I watch as it seems to fall to the floor in slow motion. I know it will smash. I know it will explode into thousands of pieces when it hits the floor, and I can do nothing but observe as it does exactly that. The clubhouse falls silent. Eight people all turn and look at me, frowning, surprised, irritated. My eyes lock with Rebels and an entire conversation takes place in the brief heartbeats that follow. He knows. He knows exactly who I am.

  And something is very, very wrong.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  REBEL

  I didn’t push. I never did. It seemed like a bad idea back when Soph first came to the compound. She was livid, seven which ways from crazy, and calling her out on her secret seemed like the dumbest fucking move I could make. I always knew though, knew who she really was. I’ve been waiting for the past six months to see if she would ever come clean, to trust me, but the day never arrived, and now it seems as though I don’t have the luxury of giving her space anymore. I don’t have the luxury of giving her time. We’ve run out of both, because something terrible has happened, and I have no idea how we’re going to find our way out of this one. I’ve held my tongue and waited the past three days, hoping that I’m wrong, hoping the information Cade dug up is wrong, but it appears all the hoping was for nothing. Hector Ramirez, the motherfucker that had my uncle murdered in cold blood, has kidnapped Sophia’s father and brought him here to New Mexico.

  It makes no sense. When we were back in Ebony Briar for my father’s charity ball, I heard Soph’s father say his own name when he answered her phone call. She hadn’t said a word, had hung up almost immediately, but I’d heard him say his name. I never told anyone else. When we got back to the compound, my curiosity was undeniable; I wanted to know everything there was to know about this strange, fiery woman I’d fallen in love with, so I did my due diligence. I did my digging. I looked up Alan, and then I moved on to his wife and his two daughters, Sloane and Alexis. I found pictures online. I read Alexis’s school reports. I looked up her Facebook profile and then wanted to kill some fucking moronic guy called Matt that kept posting on her wall, calling her every name under the sun because she’d left him and wouldn’t respond to his texts.

  I got to know the other side of Sophia that she kept hidden, and I felt fucking weird about it. I knew I should wait until she offered up the information voluntarily, but shit. I’m a curious fucking guy, okay? I’m not perfect. I have my faults just like everyone else, and I needed to know if there was anything important about her that might cause problems for the club further on down the line. Some dark secret that might show up and bite us on the ass.

  I found nothing, but during my momentary foray into P.I. work I did see many, many photographs of her father. That’s why I recognized him when Cade brought me observation shots of a dark-haired male in his late fifties being dragged up the porch stairs of the farmhouse Hector bought, hands zip tied behind his back, a rag stuffed into his mouth. I thought for a moment that maybe I was being pa
ranoid, but no.

  “Are you sure? Any chance he was lying?” I ask.

  Cade fidgets in his seat. He hates this almost as much as I do. Over the past six months he’s grown close with Soph. He watches over her like a big brother, always keeping one eye on her whenever we’re here in the compound, and both eyes on her when we’re not. He nods, sighing. “No. No. He had no reason to. The guy spat out the name along with three of his teeth after I gave him a couple of right hooks. They definitely have Alan.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yeah. You could say that.”

  “Did Hector’s guy say what they’re planning on doing with him?”

  Cade looks troubled. “After he spilled the name, he said Hector wants the girl. That he’s planning on offering her a trade, that she hands herself over to him in return for the old man’s freedom, otherwise he’s gonna dig him a shallow grave out in the desert and put a bullet in his head. Not before he’s cut off a few fingers and toes here and there, I’m guessing.”

  “Right. So how do we get this guy outta there without Sophia finding out?”

  Cade taps a finger on the blank screen of his cell phone, frowning. I’ve been through hell and back with this man. I’ve seen him wear this expression so many times before that it seems almost commonplace now. It shouldn’t have to be, though. He shouldn’t have to be this pissed off and stressed out ninety percent of the time. When we got out of the military, that should have been the end of this kind of worry for the both of us, but instead he lost his sister, was accosted by a mad woman in Columbia, got locked up in Chino for a spell, and now he’s dealing with this bullshit. There has to be an end at some point for the poor bastard.

  “I don’t know yet,” he says. “But we’ll figure it out right. We always do.”

  I grunt. “Yeah. Because if Hector Ramirez is known for anything, it’s making good on his threats. Alan Romera isn’t the kind of man who can withstand torture for very long, Cade. He isn’t that kind of man at all.”

  The sound of something smashing over my shoulder had Cade and up on his feet in an instant. I twist around, my pulse slamming, my body ready to fight, and I see Sophia standing on the other side of the bar, her face white as a sheet. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears.

  “She fucking heard us,” Cade says softly. “So much for keeping her out of this, man. Jesus Christ.” He leans back in his seat, groaning, but I can’t take my eyes off Sophia. She’s locked onto me, bottom lip trembling, accusation in her eyes, as though I’m the one who’s been keeping secrets from her this whole time. I mean, yes, I wasn’t going to tell her about this particular problem until we had a solution to it, but still. That’s excusable. That would have been for her own good.

  “Rebel?” she whispers.

  I can hear her perfectly, which makes it all the more reasonable that she could hear the lulled words I was sharing with Cade. Damn it. So fucking stupid. “Come on, Soph. Come sit down. We need to talk.”

  She slowly shakes her head. “I don’t want to. I—I can’t.”

  “You need to, sugar.”

  Her head shaking grows more violent. “I need some fresh air.” She charges out of the clubhouse, palms crashing into the wood of the door, making a loud slapping noise as she bolts out into the blistering sunlight. I’m up and out of my seat before Cade can even suggest it; the very last thing Sophia needs right now is to freak the fuck out and go speeding off on her motorcycle, trying to find her father. This is exactly what I find her trying to do when I head outside into the courtyard. She’s throwing one leg over the seat of the slick Ducati I bought her with the Irish green gas tank, and her hand is in her pocket, presumably searching for her key.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I stand in front of her, placing one leg on either side of the front wheel, my hands on the handlebars of the Ducati. If she wants to go burning out of her, all hot under the collar, then she’s literally going to have to run me over, junk first. I’m hoping she likes my junk far too much to do that.

  “Move,” she snaps. The fire in her eyes is wild, almost out of control. The blaze has already caught inside her, and is burning hotter and hotter by the second. I have little hope of putting it out.

  “Sophia, what do you think you’re going to accomplish by racing over there? You’re gonna give Hector exactly what he wants. He’ll cuff you in the basement and let each and every single one of his boys fuck you, and he won’t let your father go. He’ll end up dead, and you’ll end up broken and bleeding. And then I’ll end up dead, too.”

  “No, you won’t.” Her dark eyes glint with steel, like she’s seeing some other outcome to this course of action.

  “Of course I will. Do you think I’ll let you leave here without me? Fuck, Sophia, do you think I wouldn’t die trying to break into that place to get you out? Jesus Christ. Did you think I was just gonna sit here on my ass while you went off half cocked to confront one of the most dangerous men in the goddamn country?”

  She doesn’t look impressed by my anger. “You can do whatever you like, Jamie. If my father is in trouble,”—pain flashes in her eyes now—“in trouble because of me, because I didn’t go home when I should have, then it’s up to me to rectify the situation.” She pulls her keys out of her back pocket finally and fumbles them, trying to get them into the motorcycle’s ignition. I watch her for a second, wrestling with myself. How the fuck am I supposed to talk her down right now? If I were in her position, I’d be feeling exactly the same. Nothing would stop me from going after Hector. Nothing at all. Except, maybe…

  “Sophia? Sophia, look at me.” I place my hand over hers, stilling it as she struggles to stop shaking long enough to slide the key home. She looks up at me, furious and scared, and my heart aches.

  “Sophia. I’m not going to let Hector do anything to hurt your father. Do you trust me?”

  She blinks. “How can you stop him? What if he’s already hurt him? What then?”

  I shake my head. “Do you trust me, sugar?”

  I know her, and because I do, I know she’s desperately fighting the urge to say that she did trust me, but then she found out I was keeping this from her and now she doesn’t know what to think. She knows me, too, though. She knows I wouldn’t have kept information from her unless it was because I wanted to be sure, because I didn’t want to panic her unnecessarily. That knowledge makes her hold her tongue.

  She says this instead: “What am I supposed to do, then, Jamie? Sit around on my ass and keep my mouth shut until you’ve figured out what our next step should be? Anything could be happening over there in that farmhouse. My father’s not a tough guy, okay? He’s gentle. Soft. He’s a Christian. He’s not cut out for this kind of thing.”

  Her words mirror my thoughts. Alan Romera really isn’t cut out for kidnapping and physical abuse. He’s not the kind of man who will be able to withstand extreme violence. Alan’s the kind of man to give his interrogators everything they desire immediately, without question, which is tough because he actually doesn’t possess information or property that Hector wants. His only valuable commodity is his life, and he won’t be in possession of that for very long if we don’t play ball. The weird thing is that Hector hasn’t asked for anything yet. The details of Alan’s kidnapping had to be beaten out of one of Hector’s lackeys, where usually I’d expect him to play his cards right out of the gate. Hector’s hardly patient. He’s hardly the sort of man who sits on an ace when he can lay it out and watch the chaos ensue afterwards, rubbing his hands together in delight as everyone around him falls apart.

  I sigh, knowing what’s going to come out of my mouth next and not looking forward to it. Sophia isn’t going to like it either, but she’s just going to have to deal with it. “I’ll go over there. Cade and I will go. We’ll talk to him, figure out the lay of the land. It’s our only option.”

  Sophia shakes her head, no, even before I’ve finished speaking. “I won’t be left behind. I’ll lose my mind, wondering what the h
ell is happening to both my father and then you two on top of everything else. I’ll have a goddamn nervous breakdown. I am coming with you, Jamie, whether you like it or not.”

  I can see from the look on her face that she means business. She won’t back down. Highly inconvenient, given what that means for us now. She’s going to hate me. “Okay. Fine. You can come.” I rub at the back of my neck, trying not to swear and failing miserably. “Come back inside, though, sugar. We need to talk about it. Figure out what our plan of attack will be.”

  My beautiful girl narrows her eyes, swallowing. “Don’t even think about trying to put me off in there, Jamie. I’ve made my mind up.”

  “I can see that.”

  She stares at me a moment longer and then slowly climbs off the motorcycle. “All right. Let’s do that then. Let’s figure this out, and then let’s get moving. The longer my father’s trapped over there with Ramirez, the worse it’s going to be for him.”

  I had so much doubt in my mind when Soph said she wanted to become a Widow Maker. I had no idea if she was going to be strong or fierce enough to handle all the shit we put ourselves though. Ever since she became a prospect, she’s been proving herself braver and more ferocious than many of the oldest club members, though. She’s determined at all times to get her own way, to be involved, to change things somehow.

  We go back inside and Sophia sits down heavily at the table with Cade, as if her bones are made of solid steel. Cade gives me a knowing look as I go to fetch us all coffee. Neither of them see me fetch the Zolpidem from the drawer underneath the bar—the same sleeping pills Cade used to knock Sophia out on the journey from Julio’s place to New Mexico. Neither of them notice me crushing up three pills and tipping the ground up powder into one of the mugs I’ve filled with dark black liquid. I’m careful to make sure Sophia gets the doctored coffee when I set them down on the table.