I looked at him and nodded slowly. Yeah, as if I knew the first thing about what these guys were doing. All I knew was that it was illegal.
“Your instincts are probably right,” I said. “Always trust your gut.”
“Yeah well, right now, my gut is telling me that you need to watch your back, Cara,” he said. “You saw their faces. You're a threat. They already think I talked to the cops and were going to take me out because of it. And given that you stopped them from doing it, I'm really worried about you.”
I shrugged, trying to appear less concerned than I suddenly felt. I didn't even stop to think what the fallout of what I'd just done would be. It had never dawned on me that they could see me as a threat – as somebody they might need to take out. The idea terrified me. Not just for me, but for Austin.
“Do you really think I need to be worried here?” I asked. “I've got a little boy.”
Damian sighed and ran a hand across his face. “I don't know. I can't pretend to know what the Fantasmas are gonna do,” I said. “They're erratic. But I can call the Kings, get them to keep an eye on you for a few days—”
I shook my head vehemently. “Absolutely not. I appreciate the offer, but no. I don't want my son being pulled into that world. I don't even want him getting a sniff of it.”
My words – and the tone I'd used – came out a little more harshly than I'd intended. Damian winced as if what I'd said had stung him.
“Just promise me one thing,” he said softly.
“What's that?”
“Just watch your back. Keep an eye out for those guys – or anybody who looks like them. They won't be wearing their kuttes more than likely, but you can probably pick them out of a crowd.”
I nodded. It was about the only thing I could do.
“Get some rest,” I said. “I'm going to have security stationed outside your room.”
“I appreciate it.”
Giving Damian one last look, I turned and walked out of the room. My stomach churned, and my head hurt. I had no idea what was going to happen or how worried I should be.
Chapter Ten
Cara
And as it turned out, I should have been plenty worried. My shift ended a few hours after the confrontation with the guys in Damian's room. My head hadn't stopped swirling, and my anxiety had ramped up considerably. I was thankful that nothing too complicated had come through the ER doors or I might have accidentally killed somebody.
It was just before five in the morning when I walked into the parking structure to my car. The world outside was still dark and quiet. Typically, I enjoyed the early part of the day – the time just before sunrise when it felt like I was the only person in the world.
Our parking garage was secure, so I never gave too much thought to walking out there alone. I should have.
I had just slipped the key into the lock on my door when I felt cold metal pressed against the back of my neck.
“Open the door and get in, bitch.”
The voice was muffled as if he was wearing a mask, but I knew exactly who it was. I didn't need to see his face to recognize the voice.
“You don't have to do this,” I said, my voice trembling. “I wasn't going to say anything to anybody.”
“I said, open the fuckin' door,” he repeated. “Now.”
With a trembling hand, I opened the door.
“Get in and unlock the other door,” he demanded.
I did as he instructed and watched him as he kept his gun trained on me while he walked around the car and got in on the passenger side next to me, the car sagging beneath his weight. He wore a hat pulled low over his brow and a bandana up over his face so that only his eyes were visible.
“Start the car and drive,” he said.
“Look, I'm not going to say anything—”
“Shut the fuck up and drive,” he hissed.
I started the car and pulled out of the garage, my heart beating so hard I thought it might actually burst out of my chest.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Just get to the highway and keep your fuckin' mouth shut.”
We drove to the freeway in silence. He pulled the bandana down from his face, but never stopped looking at me – or took his gun off of me. And to be honest, I wasn't sure which I found more disturbing. A cell phone rang in his pocket, and the man connected the call and pressed the phone to his ear.
“Yeah, I got her,” he said.
He listened to whoever was speaking on the other end of the line and nodded.
“Yeah, we'll be there in a few,” he finally said. “Go ahead and call that puto.”
The man disconnected the call and dropped his phone back into his pocket. I suddenly realized what was going on – what his plan was.
“You do realize,” I said, “that he has no connection to me. He's got no reason to come to you to save me.”
His laugh was low. Threatening. “We'll see.”
I shook my head. “Seriously. He's a patient in my hospital. Why in the hell do you think he'd come to you just so that you could kill him?”
“Because, I have a feeling about him,” the man said. “And you.”
“You're sadly mistaken.”
“Like I said, we'll see.”
The man directed me to a bar just outside of town. He had me drive around to the back where a large building sat. The bar looked to be in full swing while the outbuilding was dimly lit. Shadowy. And altogether frightening.
“Stop the car,” he said. “And shut off the engine.”
I did as he said and then looked at him. “This is all pointless. Damian owes me nothing. There's no reason for him to come out here.”
The man smiled wide. “Oh, it's Damian now, is it? And here I thought it was Mr. Hawke, just another patient in your hospital.”
Damn. Using his first name had been a little too familiar. It was a mistake.
“Get out of the car,” he said.
Still holding me at gunpoint, he walked me to a small door near one end of the building. It opened as we approached and the sound of music and the smell of weed came pouring out. The noise from the bar out front was muffled back here, but I could still hear it.
I paused before stepping inside and was rewarded with a jab to the small of the back by the man's gun.
“Keep moving,” he said.
I stepped inside and found most of the place dimly lit and shrouded in shadow. But the far end of the building was lit up brighter than the bar out front. There were maybe half a dozen guys over there laughing and joking with one another. Their voices were raised, and they echoed all around the building.
As the man walked me over to where his friends had gathered, the music was switched off, and the men stopped talking. All eyes turned to me. The men were all Hispanic and looked like hardened bikers. The name on their kuttes was Fantasmas – the gang who'd shot Damian.
A wave of fear rolled through me, chilling me to the bone.
“Welcome,” a man seated against the wall said.
The man had dark skin, darker eyes, and a long, black ponytail that hung to the small of his back. He had a joint in one hand and was exhaling a thick cloud of smoke.
“You must be nurse Winters,” the man added.
I remained silent for a moment – until the man behind me nudged me with the barrel of his gun again.
“Speak when you're spoken to, bitch,” he hissed in my ear.
“Y–yes,” I said. “I'm nurse Winters. And I'm not sure why I'm here.”
“What's your first name?” the man with the ponytail asked.
“S–Shelly,” I lied.
There was no way I was giving these creeps my real name. If by some miracle, I managed to survive and get out of here, the last thing I wanted was for these guys to be able to look me up. I just hoped that they didn't know I was lying and accepted the name I gave them at face value.
“Well, Shelly,” the ponytail man started, “let me tell you why you're here. Oh, I'm
Ray Mendoza, by the way – President of the Fantasmas MC. You're here because we believe Damian Hawke would do anything to keep you safe. And given that we have a vested interest in getting him out of your hospital, and onto our turf, that makes you a very valuable bargaining chip.”
“You're wasting your time,” I said. “Like I told these other guys, it's not like I have any sort of a relationship with him. He has no reason to come out here for me. Even less since he knows you're going to kill him.”
Mendoza laughed. “Oh, we already called him and told him that you're here. He should be here any minute.”
I felt my blood run cold. As much as I feared for my life, I found that I was really worried about Damian's as well. These men were going to kill him the minute they saw him. But what could I do?
I looked around and saw that all of the bikers were staring daggers through me. If it were up to them, they probably would have put a bullet into me already. There was a table off to the side that held a large amount of weed and several guns. If I could find some way to get over to that table, I'd be able to use the guns – maybe give Damian and I a chance to escape.
“What are we gonna do with her once we off Hawke?” the man who'd abducted me asked Mendoza. “Sell her to the Russians? I bet we'd get a load of cash from them for her.”
Mendoza looked at me and licked his lips lasciviously. “Oh no, hermano,” he said. “This one's way too hot to sell into the sex trade. No, this one is going to stay here with me – she'll make a good pet. Don't worry though, you all will get a turn. She's gotta be broken in, after all.”
His words turned my stomach at the same time it made the knot inside of it constrict more painfully than it ever has. I felt my hands trembling, though I did my best to hide them. Never show them weakness – guys like this fed off of it. They were predators.
The idea that this guy, Mendoza, would lay a hand on me – it was sickening. And it very nearly made me want to use one of their guns on myself before letting them have their way with me.
I found myself hoping and praying that Damian would have a plan to get us out of there when he arrived. If he didn't – I didn't even want to consider it.
Chapter Eleven
Damian
“You shouldn't be going out there alone,” Crank said. “You know that, bro.”
I shrugged. “Got no choice, man.”
“There's always a choice.”
“Not this time,” I replied. “They get a sniff of any Kings out there, and Cara's a dead woman. And I can't have that on my head.”
Crank sighed and took a drag on his cigarette. After Mendoza had gotten his message to me, I'd walked out of the hospital – with Crank's help. I wasn't anywhere near one hundred percent, but I had to get out there. I had to get Cara away from them. It was my fault she was mixed up in this shit, and I couldn't let anything happen to her. She was an innocent in all of this.
We stood at the far end of the parking lot where there weren't any lights, well away from the doors to the hospital. Less chance of anybody seeing us out there.
“Then just take me,” Crank said. “I'll hide in the back seat or the trunk or somethin'.”
I shook my head and gave him a small smile. “Not this time, brother,” I said. “The only thing worse than something happening to Cara would be something happening to you.”
“Bro, you know what's gonna happen to you,” he said. “You're in no condition to fight. Hell, you needed my help getting out of bed.”
I took a drag of my cigarette and exhaled, watching the thick plume of smoke rise upward. I'd run through the scenario a million times since I'd gotten Mendoza's message. And I didn't think there was any way I was coming out of it alive. But at the very least, I could make sure that Cara did. Make sure she got home to her little boy. I owed her that much.
“I appreciate it, brother,” I said. “But I'm not gonna jam you up. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you.”
“What happens to me is my call, Damian,” he said.
I shook my head again. “Not this time. This one's on me.”
“This is bullshit, bro,” Crank growled. “I can't let you walk into that meat grinder alone.”
“That is my choice, my brother.”
I dropped my cigarette onto the pavement and crushed it out. Checking my watch, I saw that I needed to get going. Looking over at Crank, I saw the anger and worry in his eyes. I pulled him into a tight embrace. And I couldn't help but feel like I was saying goodbye. Probably because I was.
After a moment, we stepped back from each other and an awkward moment of silence descended upon us. Crank was like my little brother. Closer than a brother. And even though I would have loved to have had him by my side, covering my back, I wasn't letting him walk in there. I wasn't going to let anything happen to him.
“Don't even say it,” Crank said. “Just say, I'll see you later. And you get your ass back here.”
I nodded and gave him a tight smile. “I'll see you later then.”
He nodded, but we both knew I was probably lying. There was no way I could guarantee I was coming back. Mendoza tried to kill me once – there was no doubt he wanted me out there to finish the job. Crank tossed me the keys to my bike. I really wasn't in any shape to be riding – but if this was going to be my last night on Earth, I sure as hell was going out on my bike.
“Thanks, brother,” I said and gave him a grin. “I'll see you soon.”
“Yeah,” Crank said and looked to be fighting tears. “Soon.”
I fired up my bike and rode off, leaving him standing in the parking lot looking after me. Pain radiated through my body with every jolt I took. But then the adrenaline started to kick in, and the pain began to fade – somewhat. I'd been on plenty of missions over in the shit where I wasn't fully up to speed, but once that adrenaline started flowing, there was no better painkiller.
Mendoza had told me to meet him at a warehouse behind a bar off the highway – a bar owned by the Fantasmas. Talk about stacking the home field advantage. I had no idea how many of them were there or what I was going to be up against. About all I knew was that they were all going to be armed. Heavily armed, knowing those assholes.
Thanks to Crank, though, I wasn't going to the party without a few goodies of my own.
The closer to my destination I got, the more I seemed to calm down. My heart rate slowed, and a sense of peace settled over me. It had been the same back in Afghanistan. It was almost instinctual – the tenser the situation, the calmer I tended to be. It was as if my mind and body knew I needed to be clear-headed and focused. And so, I was.
By the time I turned off the road and rode past the bar, I was almost in a Zen-like state. I parked next to a car I assumed was Cara's and dismounted. Hanging my helmet on the handlebar, I looked around. There was a loud and raucous crowd inside the bar. I saw light in the windows of the warehouse and counted only half a dozen bikes. Six to one – not great, but better odds than I expected.
I adjusted my jeans and took a deep breath. Letting it out, I pulled a smoke out of my pocket and lit it. Exhaling a plume of smoke, I walked to the warehouse door and pulled it open without knocking. I slammed the door shut behind me, and all of the voices I heard near the front of the building stopped immediately as all eyes turned in my direction.
“Mendoza,” I said and took a drag of my cigarette. “Nice to see you again.”
Mendoza was sitting in a chair at the front of the building. Cara was sitting at his feet, a look of pure terror on her face. Six of Mendoza's men were fanned out, three on either side of me. And all of them had their guns trained on me.
“Can't believe you're still alive, puto,” Mendoza said and laughed.
“What can I say? I enjoyed you shooting me the first time so much that I wanted you to do it again.”
Mendoza laughed. “This cat has got some balls. I'll give him that much,” he said. “Check him.”
I tensed up a little bit. My plan – such as it was – depended upon Mend
oza's men being sloppy. Careless. It was misdirection. My hope was that if I gave them what they expected to find – a gun – then they wouldn't necessarily expect me to have anything else on me.
I raised my arms and locked my hands behind my head as two of Mendoza's men approached – one kept his gun on my face while the other patted me down. He found the gun tucked into my belt at the small of my back. That was the one I'd intended for them to find. And after a cursory pat down of the legs of my jeans, they stepped back. He handed the gun over to Mendoza who casually tossed it onto the table beside him – a table loaded with weed and guns.
PREGNANT FOR A PRICE: Kings of Chaos MC Page 7