by Callie Hart
I gather all of the photographs and the papers back together and slide them inside the file, flipping it shut. I feel like I just invaded Cade’s privacy somehow. This is a part of his past, and I went snooping. Unintentionally, but still. I don’t know why I should really care. Cade’s loyalty has always been and always will be to his friend. If Jamie asked him to shoot his own mother in the face, I’m pretty sure he’d damn well do it. They’re closer than brothers. But he and I are friends now, too, I’d say. We’ve been left alone together too much, spent hours in cars and days holed up inside the same buildings to not know each other and to not care. At least that’s how I feel. He might feel very differently.
Either way, I try to place the file back in the spot where I found it, hoping he’ll never know that I saw it. It’s just easier that way.
It’s not really a surprise that Cade’s been locked away. As the months have passed by, I’ve been allowed to see more and more of the illegal activity the club is involved in. The Widowers don’t sell drugs, but they do move them from time to time. Weed, mostly. Large quantities of it that get picked up in one location, usually a couple of days’ drive away, and then dropped off somewhere else, far, far away from Freemantle and the permanent location of the club.
There are guns, too. The gun runs are a little more intense. They’re closer to home and happen quickly, and I can usually tell one’s about to happen by the nervous energy that lingers in the compound. Assault rifles. Hand guns. Large and small, all kinds of weaponry is trafficked not only by Cade, Carnie and the others, but by Jamie, too.
I feel sick to my stomach when I think about him getting busted and locked away for gun running. Cade must have been sentenced for a lesser crime. I don’t know everything there is to know about the judicial system, but I sure as hell know enough to realize that Cade would definitely still be serving time if he’d been caught with assault rifles. The ATF usually tend to frown upon the possession of unregistered, unlicensed weapons like that.
I spend another few seconds waiting around in the secret room behind the bar, waiting defiantly for Jamie to come back and find me here, but then I change my mind. I want to tear him a new one for what he did, but I also want to know he’s okay, and I want to know what he’s discovered about my father. Is he safe now? Is he okay? Is he even alive? Anything could have happened while I was sleeping. Jamie could have gotten himself shot. He could have gone to Ramirez’s place and discovered my father dead. Alternatively, my father could well be free now and he’s so angry with me over what I’ve done that he simply refuses to come and see me. I wouldn’t blame him for that. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret not telling my family I am safe. But as each of those days flew by, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, the concept of reaching out to them and telling them I was alive became harder and harder, until it almost seemed impossible.
I’m sure most people would think I’m a terrible human being, but turning back never seemed like an option. I’d love to say I wanted to stay because I wanted to help bring Hector to justice, but the truth of the matter is that I was scared. I was scared because Raphael was still lurking in the shadows, and I know without a doubt he would have followed through on his promise. He would have discovered who I was eventually, the same way Hector has now, except he wouldn’t have kidnapped my dad, or my mom, or my sister. He would have killed them where they stood. He would have raped Sloane, and probably Mom too, and it would have been on me.
After Raphael died and he was no longer a threat, it was too late. I was already in too deep. I’d killed a man. And besides, I may have pretended for a while, but there was no way I could fool myself. I was in love. I couldn’t have left Jamie if I’d tried. No one has ever made me feel so safe. So protected. It’s ironic. I’m in the most perilous, dangerous situation of my life here in New Mexico, and yet I’ve never felt safer. That’s because of him.
And even though he fucked up today (which he will pay for in spades), it’s because he refuses to let me get hurt. It’s infuriating, and it’s frustrating, especially since I’m meant to be prospecting for the club, but at the end of the day, his actions are because he loves me just as fiercely as I love him.
I leave his office. Pulling the weighty door closed behind me, I make my way back out into the bar and I know something is up as soon as I see the look on Fatty’s face. His expression is a wary one, his eyebrows half way to his hairline, his lips pressed together to form a tight line. His eyes flicker to his left, and I see the cause of his discomfort: Jamie and Cade sitting at the bar, each with a shot of whiskey in their hands. Jamie doesn’t say a word.
“Did you find him? Did you find my dad?” My heart is thrumming in my chest like a small, trapped bird.
Jamie and Cade exchange a tense look. Jamie says, “Yes, he is with Hector. We didn’t see him, though,” and the blood drains from my face.
“Do you think he’s okay?” Seems like such a stupid thing to ask, but I have to. I need to know. I need to look them both in the eye and see whether they think my father is alive and well, or if they think maybe it’s possible that he might already be beyond saving.
“Hector hasn’t done anything to him,” Cade says. His voice doesn’t waiver. I see no doubt in him. “He would have inferred that he had otherwise. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself.”
I look to Jamie—I need to hear him say the same thing, or my mind will be racing. He gives me a curt nod, pulling in a deep breath. “It’s true. He’s a smug motherfucker. He wouldn’t have been able to keep that to himself. As far as we know, Alan’s unharmed.”
As far as we know. That’s hardly a reassuring statement, but it will have to do.
“I see you were checking out the office,” Jamie says. His eyes lock onto me as he raises his rocks glass to his mouth and takes a large swig. He remains fixed on me as he swallows.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap. “You have absolutely no right.”
He pouts a little. “I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t need to.” Cade manfully tries to hide the smile I can see hovering at the corners of his mouth, but he fails miserably. I press my palms down on the countertop, leaning toward them both. “And you can quit that, too. I know you played a part in what he did.”
Cade holds up his hands. “I fucking didn’t. That’s all on him.”
Jamie’s mouth drops open. “Traitor.”
“You knew he was going to do it, so you were complicit. That’s exactly the same as participating, so you’re both in the dog house.”
“Very unfair. I would have let you come with us,” Cade says. Jamie makes a face, demonstrating exactly what he thinks of that statement.
“You’re so full of fucking shit. Would you have let Laura come? No. Fucking. Way.”
As always when someone mentions Cade’s sister, the atmosphere instantly shifts. Jamie tenses, knowing he’s brought up a touchy subject, and Cade attempts to appear unaffected. He is affected, though. For all the money the club has, for all the time and all of the resources they’ve invested looking, they haven’t even come close to finding Laura. It’s been years now. So much time has passed that I doubt either one of these men believes they’re going to find her again, and yet they refuse to stop looking.
My stomach twists at the thought. Just like Laura, I am someone’s sister. Is Sloane looking for me, the same way Cade is looking for Laura? Does she shut down every time someone mentions my name? God. I feel like my insides are being ripped out. I don’t want to think about this now. I can’t. I have to deal with my Jamie situation. I duck underneath the bar hatch so I can walk up behind my boyfriend and whisper in his ear. Jamie bows his head as he listens. I try not to let the smell of him distract me from what I want to say—a really difficult feat to accomplish, since he smells divine.
“If you ever drug me again, if you ever lock me away again…if you ever try and prevent me from doing something I want or need to do by force…”
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br /> “You’ll cut my balls off?” he whispers.
“No. I won’t cut your balls off, Jamie. I’ll leave. You’ll wake up one morning, and my things will be here. My toothbrush will be sitting next to yours. My clothes will still be in the closet. My pillow will still smell of me. There will be a thousand things here to remind you of me, but I will be gone. And I won’t be coming back. Do you believe me?”
Jamie turns his head to look at me. Our noses are almost touching. I am so in love with this this man that it kills me to say that I’ll leave him, because it would be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I mean it, though. I can’t live this way. There are some things I can tolerate if I absolutely must. I can handle feeling restricted and trapped here in the compound a lot of the time. I can deal with Shay and her stinking attitude. Even knowing that we have a homicidal Colombian woman still living in the basement under the barn is something I can live with, so long as I know she’s not getting out any time soon. But this? Feeling like I have no free will? Feeling like I can’t trust him? That just won’t fly.
Jamie’s eyes are shining brightly. His facial muscles are relaxed, but I can tell just by looking into his eyes that he doesn’t like the words that are coming out of my mouth. He huffs down his nose, his tongue poking out ever so slightly so he can rub it along his bottom lip, wetting it. “Okay,” he says softly. “Yes. I believe you.”
“So you won’t do it again? I need to hear you tell me that you won’t.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Cade’s no longer sitting beside him, I notice. He must have slowly gotten up and crept away during the last few minutes, leaving us to our muted conversation. Eventually, Jamie blinks, his eyes narrowing a little. “I won’t say it. I can’t, Sophia.”
I stand upright, reeling away from him. I wasn’t expecting him to say that. I was expecting him to be contrite. To swear that he’ll respect my wishes and take them—me—seriously. Instead, he’s…he’s refusing? It makes no sense. “Should I just pack my bags and go now, then? Maybe that would be easier for the both of us.” I sound angry. Hurt creeps in at the edge of my voice—an annoying tell that I could burst into tears at any moment if I don’t wrangle my emotions into check and fast.
Jamie closes his eyes. “I’m not saying that because I don’t give a shit if you come or go, sugar. I’m saying it because I love you. If I have to lose you to keep you safe, then I won’t think twice. I’ll risk having to let you go if it means that you don’t end up raped and dead in a ditch with your limbs chopped off. I’d be miserable, and my heart would feel like it was never going to beat again for as long as I lived if you were gone, but I’d be happy at the same time, because I’d know you were far, far away from here and you were alive. Wouldn’t you do the same if it was me?”
I have a lump in my throat the size of Texas. If I breathe, if I even think about blinking or moving, even a millimeter, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m conflicted, being dragged in so many different directions all at once by my emotions that I can’t decipher what I’m thinking or feeling right now. The pain in his voice upsets me. The fact that he won’t see things my way angers me. And the beauty of his sentiment makes my heart feel swollen and bruised. Almost guilty somehow. How can I be mad at him, or hold his actions against him, when he goes and says something like that?
He means every single word. There are no closed doors with him. Those crystal clear blue eyes of his allow me to see directly into his soul, and I know he’s telling the truth.
“You can be mad at me all you like. And yes, you can go whenever you like, Sophia. I won’t ever try and stop you from leaving here if that’s what you truly want. But I want you to listen to me, and I want you to really listen to what I’m about to say, okay? Can you do that?”
I feel like being stubborn and denying him his request, but when I look at him I can see how earnestly he’s asking. He’s not trying to be a dick; he’s not trying to make me angry. It’s hard to say no to the man when he’s looking at you the way he’s looking at me right now.
“Fine. Say what you want to say. I’ll listen. Properly, I swear.”
Jamie nods. Spinning his scotch glass around and around on the bar in front of him, he stares at the liquid inside, apparently trying to construct what he wants to tell me in his head before he allows himself to say it out loud. After a long, drawn out minute, his gaze returns to me.
“There was an English guy in Afghanistan. He was a member of the Royal Marines but the British government loaned him to us as an informant. He’d been taken prisoner by a group of rebels after his unit’s transport hit and IED and killed everyone but him. For nearly two years the rebels kept him hostage in a cave system, giving him just enough food and water so that he could survive. They would torture him every day. They wanted to know everything he knew. They would pull his fingers and his toenails out one by one. They would pull his teeth out too, whenever he wouldn’t give them information they wanted. This guy, Andrew, he held out for months. He took the pain and the torment, and he let them take his fingernails and his teeth, until the people who were holding him captive realized they weren’t going to get anything out of him.
“Now, that was a really bad position to be in for Andrew. The only reason they were keeping him alive was because he was worth something. If he wasn’t valuable to them alive in any way, he sure as hell would be valuable to them dead. See they don’t just kill people in the shadows. They want the world to see. They gather their friends. They gather the world’s media. They make us watch on television as they force their prisoners to tell lies about their countries, and then they make us watch as they cut off their heads and burn their bodies in cages.
“Andrew nearly died that way. They sat him down in front of a camera and they told him what they wanted him to say, otherwise they were going to have their friends in England track down his wife and two small kids, and they were gonna have them murdered in their beds. You always think you won’t cave, that nothing they can do or say to you will make you give in and repeat the hatred they want to spread, but when they threaten your loved ones…” Jamie looks pained. He flinches a little, small creases forming between his eyebrows. “So Andrew sat down and said what they wanted him to say, and they filmed it. The bastards restrained him while they tried to slit his throat from behind, so the camera could see. They almost finished the job. Andrew had a scar that ran from his left ear too his Adam’s apple, but that’s where it stopped. Miraculously one of our units launched an assault on the caves. We had no idea they were holding anyone captive there. We’d had intel that they were using the location as a munitions cache and we wanted to take it out.
“So they stormed the place and Andrew only got his throat half cut. He came and worked with Cade and me for a long time. He told us in graphic detail about the shit those guys did to him. The kinds of torture they were capable of. And he told us that it paled in comparison to the atrocities he saw committed by the cartels in Mexico. He cried like a baby when he told us about that. He’d gone in as part of a task force to rescue a British government official who had been taken right off the street in Juarez. They’d found this guy and his wife in an open grave under a bridge in the middle of the city. The bodies had been mutilated beyond recognition. When the marines attempted to recover the bodies, they’d realized that both the official and his wife were still alive. They were fucked up and bleeding, missing skin, missing fingers, both of them missing their tongues and their eyes. Their ears. Her breasts had been cut off. His dick. They were just raw pieces of meat, and they’d tossed their bodies into a hole while they were still bleeding.
“The cartels did that to them. Not even a hardened marine who’d been held captive in the desert and almost died at the hands of some of the most immoral men on this planet could talk about the shit he saw in Mexico without his hands shaking. And these are the people we’re dealing with right now, Sophia. This is the type of madness we’re involving ourselves in. Cade and I were deployed
. A lot of the other Widow Makers are ex military, too. We’ve all had training. We’ve all been in combat situations. We’ve been to the dark places of this world and we’ve already puked our guts up. We’ve already seen enough to make it difficult to sleep at night.”
He stops talking for a second. Gives me a second to digest. I already know what he’s going to say next, and the gravity of his words really hit home. I grip hold of the counter, leaning into it, tired and terrified as Jamie continues.
“And you want to go racing after these guys half cocked, Sophia. What about your upbringing in Seattle as a preacher’s daughter, living with everything you could possibly need, never having to make hard decisions or real sacrifices, qualifies you to face off with these guys when grown ass marines cry like babies at the mere thought of it?”
My ex, Matt, used to tell me I was sheltered. He used to tease me about the fact that I wasn’t street smart at all, and it used to drive me crazy. If he had said everything Jamie just said to me back then, I’d have lost my fucking mind. He would have been making fun of me, trying to be hurtful by making me feel silly, but that’s not the case with Jamie. I know he’s not trying to call me spoiled. He’s not trying to mock me, or criticize me for the way I grew up. He’s merely pointing out facts. I am the daughter of a preacher from Seattle. I didn’t grow up on the streets. I was taken care of. I was loved. I didn’t have to make hard decisions or make any real sacrifices. I was privileged, and I never wanted for anything. I have no military training. I’ve never really fired a gun properly. Not really, under pressure, when it matters. I feel, all of a sudden, very foolish.