“I’m far enough away now, Raif. Getting on the bike.”
“Can you ride and talk?” I ask.
“Don’t know. But I’m sure that I can’t ride, talk to you, and keep an eye out for suspicious activity.”
The sooner I get her back in my arms, the better off we’ll both be. Caity’s going to be treating me for an ulcer by the time this ends. “Okay. Sharp eyes, Hannah. I’m not kidding. Check in every hour. Leave a voicemail. I’ll answer when I can, but my phone’ll be on vibrate.”
“Okay.”
“Repeat it so I know you’ve been listening.”
“I call once an hour and leave a voicemail if you don’t pick up. Your phone will be on vibrate.” She rattles off the information in perfect succession. “Love you, Raif.”
“Love you back, baby. Now get safe.”
Hanging up on her knowing we’re so close to getting to each other, yet still so damn far away practically kills.
“What was that about?” Chaos asks.
“We need to scrap the mission today. Go in, do more recon.”
“For fuck’s sake, why?” Hero shouts. “I got a wife who’s going crazy with her sister missing. What am I supposed to tell her?”
This is exactly the kind of shit I don’t need right now. “Look, I know Brin’s knocked up—I don’t wanna put any more stress on her than necessary. But you tell her that she’s got a fucking smart sister with great instincts who saw a dude coming off as shady.”
He’s worried about Hannah. Every man here’s worried about Hannah. But I guarantee nobody’s more worried about my wife than I am.
All those dead bodies at Escalante’s homestead and not one of ’em was Escalante. That man is a cancer and needs to be cut out. He’s regrouping and we’re stalled. Fuck if I know what else to do. Did he fly out to some safehouse compound of his own? How fortified is it?
“We’re gonna have to go after the cartel.” Every brother in hearing distance of my voice whips his head to look at me.
“War with the Anguino Cartel? Are you fucking nuts?” Blue asks, and yeah, I’d think of me as nuts too if I were him. “They got more firepower than we can ever hope to have.”
He’s not lying. But he also doesn’t have an old lady in the crosshairs of this shit. “Listen. I get you, brother. But Blaze fucked us when he turned. Two of our women are directly connected with this shit and if any of you think the rest are safe? You’re fooling yourselves. You don’t think, if Escalante gets the chance, that he’ll go after Elise or Liv or any of the women?”
Blue drops his hands to his hips, staring at the ground, he begins to pace. It’s not cowardice. He’s just adding up the numbers in his head and coming up with Armageddon like the rest of us. We do nothing and the women are vulnerable. We go to war against the cartel, we die, the women are vulnerable. The babies and young kids.
“Might be another way,” Scotch pipes in. “When we helped dissolve the contract between Anguino and the Outcasts, I took that bullet for Anguino. It’s a marker he owes. I’m calling it.”
“Do you really think he’ll honor it when it means going after his own man?” Blue asks.
“He’s any kind of man, then yeah.” Scotch turns away from us, pulling his phone from his back pocket. “It’s not like I have a direct line to Anguino, but I’ll try to get word to him.”
Exactly at the hour mark from when I last talked to Hannah, my phone buzzes. Since there’s nothing much going down right now, not until we can secure the meet with Anguino, I answer it. “Baby,” I say.
“Doing as directed,” she answers.
“It’s good to hear your voice. We’re working on things from our end, but baby, be prepared, yeah?”
“That’s not very reassuring, Raif.”
“It’s the best I got for you right now.” I pull a smoke from the pack, light it, and inhale deep to calm my nerves. Been smoking more since this shit started than I have in my life. We don’t end this soon I’m looking at an early grave from a bullet through my head or fucking black lung.
“Love’s a joke,” she says oddly. There’s sadness and a touch of anger to her voice.
“Why you say that?”
“Think about it, Raif. If the Lords were more like the Horde—women are disposable to them. Lose one, that’s okay, there’re plenty more where she came from. If you were like that, then you wouldn’t be putting yourself in danger for me, and I wouldn’t be standing around feeling useless while my man cleans up my messes. Should’ve just left me to the trucker.”
“The fuck you saying, Han? You think I regret any part of meeting you, baby? Think Boss regrets Elise for one fucking second? That he doesn’t live for his family? My sister and Chaos? Hell, your sister and Hero—think he’s not over the fucking moon becoming a dad thanks to your sister? Or Duke. You saw how he was after Dawna. Caity changed his life.”
“But if he’d never fallen in love with Dawna, then he wouldn’t have needed Caity.”
I take another drag off my cigarette, blowing the smoke before tackling this hill again. “I get you’re scared, Han, but having you in my life, baby, it’s given me purpose. Given me reason to be a better man—to be different from my dad. I loved him, but that old man truly cared about one person. Himself. His bike parts meant more to him than my mom, Liv’s mom, or Liv. I could’ve easily ended up like him.”
“No, you couldn’t have,” she says softly. “You’ve loved your sister your whole life.”
“And I’ve loved you for going on a decade.”
“Got the meet,” Scotch calls out.
“Listen, baby,” I say to Hannah. “I gotta go now. But I’m not hanging up this phone until I know you understand—that if I had to choose between a long life without you or a short one with you by my side, I’d gladly pick you every single damn time.”
“Oh, Raif.” She sniffles into the line. Then there’s a soft “Love you” before she hangs up.
I shove my phone in my back pocket and look up in time to see every man in the room with an old lady shoving his phone in his pocket.
All the brothers who took the plane are stuck in the vans we rented, but the Outcasts are expecting us, which means we put more distance between us and the women instead of cutting it down. Rather than head all the way back to their compound, Boss puts in a call to Duke, who’s at the ghost town waiting for us and then we head south for the border.
One lesson the brothers learned years ago is to keep our passports with our wallets because we never know when one or all of us will get the order to hop a plane or cross at a border checkpoint in our business. They stop us at the border crossing, vans and all, where each of us is made to hand over our licenses and passports, and because of our cuts, we’re patted down, but we’re not stupid and are going in unarmed. God help us. We locked the guns and ammo in a bus station rental locker. Anguino’s either going to be a man of his word or we’re going to die.
From there, we’re directed back to the vans and border patrol waves us across into the city of Matamoros, where Anguino is visiting his brother, or so we were told. He’s given us directions that lead outside of the city to a sprawling estate, and it’s here we find the soldiers we expected to find with Escalante. Armed guards with AKs pointed at our heads step out from the trees, stopping the vans before we turn down the long stretch of road that will eventually lead us to the estate grounds.
Hero’s the only one of us able to speak Spanish. Though he’s not fluent, he does a good enough job that we don’t die yet. After patting us down and calling in our arrival to the main house, the soldiers wave us through, only to be stopped at the next security post guarding the drive to the main house. There we go through it all again. This property has twice as many guard towers as Escalante’s property, occupied by at least three soldiers per tower. I know because they make themselves purposefully visible. What a joy, more AKs aimed at our heads.
The road takes us up to the circle drive, where we stop in front of the main house. Eac
h of us exits the van and we wait for the front doors to open. It’s a spectacle when they do. All these guards spill out, forming a circle around us and pushing in to where each of us keeps stepping backward until our back collide.
“Move!” one of them shouts. I guess they know some English. As a group, we walk through the foyer down a hallway, as wide and longer than any place I’ve ever lived, and out to the back patio. It’s partially covered to keep the sun from shining directly into the house. Sitting at a table wearing his signature dark sunglasses and white Tommy Bahama suit matching the white streaks in his hair, Anguino holds a half-empty glass of either clear alcohol or water and ice in one hand as he waves us over to him with a hand that has two gold rings on his pinky finger and two more on his ring finger. He’s a sight to behold.
Scotch takes the lead, approaching first. Anguino gestures to the seat next to his for Scotch to sit. “You must be thirsty after such a long trip,” he says. “Manuel, drinks.” A manservant in full uniform of white jacket and black slacks slightly bows his head to Anguino without words and spins on his foot to walk back inside, presumably to get us drinks.
“Please, Mr. MacGregor,” Anguino offers. “I welcome you to explain your visit today.”
“Scotch,” Scotch corrects him. “Call me ‘Scotch’ and I’m here to call my marker.” Every armed man standing around us takes a fighting stance. The guns that were lowered are pointed at our heads again. I can feel the electrons moving in the air, bouncing off each other, raising the atmosphere into a frenzied chaos.
It’s now, of all times, that the manservant shows up with his tray of drinks. He’s seen guns raised at men’s heads enough times to not even flinch at the scene he’s walked in on, handing off a glass to me first only because he stopped closest to me.
Club soda on ice. It’s refreshing if nothing else and when Scotch receives his, he takes a sip, sets it down on the table, looks Anguino directly in the eye like the badass motherfucker he is and lays it out. “I took a bullet for ya. Shoved ya out the way. That’s a life debt.”
Anguino raises his hand and with a finger flick sends the soldiers away until it’s just him and us. “You must have gigante cojones, mi amigo, to come at me like this.”
“Ya said it yarself. Ya owe me for savin’ ya.”
The man narrows his eyes at Scotch. “What do you ask of me?”
“I’m only here to collect on the debt because yar man gave us no choice.”
“My man?” he asks.
“Escalante,” Scotch answers. “He’s obsessed with one of our women. Blood’s wife.” Scotch flips his hand out to point at me. “Kidnapped her a few times and no matter how many times we get her back, he won’t let it alone.”
“You were responsible for the raid on his home.” It’s a statement, not a question. Scotch nods anyway. “This man, he was my most trusted, most loyal.”
“I get that.” Scotch picks up his drink, sipping on it.
“Let me finish. You know what I do to live this life.” He raises his hand, holding the glass to gesture around the sprawling estate, and Scotch nods. “Do you know how I’ve kept my power so long? My business isn’t personal. My products are a choice, but they aren’t personal. I tell him, Carlos, you put yourself and the rest of us in danger with this enterprise. People come looking. He promised me that I would not be touched, yet here you are in my home, making demands of me.”
“Not a demand,” Scotch corrects him. “A request. My brothers and I had yar back. Now we’re askin’ ya to have ours. Simple as that.”
His eyes harden as he looks pointedly at each of us. Whatever he’s about to say, the man means business. “You will go back across the border,” he says. “You will meet my men on Padre Island tomorrow at noon. They will lead you to Carlos’s beach house, where I’m sure he is hiding out. Together, we will end both our problems.”
“Thanks for bein’ a man of yar word.”
Anguino’s face softens then, pulling a complete mood turnaround, bows his head magnanimously.
Tomorrow. Padre Island.
Crossing back into the US, it doesn’t matter that they detain us again because it’s almost over. We take the highway and keep on driving up the coast to Corpus Christi to spend the night.
I can barely sleep knowing what we’re in for tomorrow, but I close my eyes and try to rest. The next day, we check out to make our meeting on Padre Island. Anguino’s men know exactly where to go. We get the hand signal to hang back as they enter the property—smaller and not nearly as impressive as the home outside Brownsville. Escalante’s men wave the Anguino soldiers in as we move in to the rear of the procession. There aren’t near as many as we fought before because what we didn’t kill, the FBI did.
Then it all happens like a blink before my eyes. Anguino’s massive army surrounds the small group of Escalante leftovers and draw their weapons. More soldiers move into the house and minutes later come out with Escalante—the man himself—jogging with his hands up and pressed to the back of his head. One of the soldiers uses the muzzle of his gun to force Escalante onto his knees along with the remainder of his men. Anguino’s soldiers raise their guns, but the man in charge calls over to us. “Would you like to give these men any parting words?”
I step forward and squat down to Escalante’s eye level. “Remember me, motherfucker? You took my wife. I want my face burned on your retinas as you die.”
He has the nerve to posture with a smirk. “She was wonderful,” he says, and I crack him in the jaw hard enough to make him bleed. He spits a mouthful of blood at my feet, then there’s the pop of bullets. With his eyes open, Escalante slumps forward.
The soldier in charge points his gun at me. “You have your proof.” Then he looks to Scotch. “Anguino’s promise has been fulfilled. Leave now. We’re cleanup.”
You better fucking believe we get the hell out of here.
It’s over.
Time to get my wife.
19.
Hannah
After Escalante’s death…
True to my word, I’ve been checking in with Raif once an hour, though he’s only actually answered his phone a couple of times. And last night when we talked, he sounded kind of off. I asked if he was okay and he told me he was great, but then he told me he had to go, and that was it. Raif usually likes to talk to me.
As is due, I pick up my phone and dial Raif’s number. It rings three times and I think it’s about to go to voicemail when I actually get a groggy, “Hello?”
“Hey, babe,” I rasp, my voice still scratchy—I don’t hold out much hope for getting back to where it was before. It’s dinner time and I miss him so much, and I’d just like to eat my soup and listen to him talk. “You busy?”
“Never too busy for you, baby.”
“Still want to go with everything’s okay? Because you don’t sound okay.”
“No, I wasn’t okay before,” he replies—I knew it. “I just didn’t want to worry you. But now, I’m more fucking okay than I’ve been in a long time.”
“Does this mean I can go home? We can go home?” I ask excitedly.
“Damn straight, we’re going home.” And he sighs. It’s a mixture of contentment and sadness and relief and a whole bunch of emotions all jumbled into one. Whatever happened today, I think it’s really over.
“Do we need to let you rest before we meet up?” I ask.
“Fuck, no,” he responds back instantaneously. “I’m not waiting another day to have you in my arms.”
“Then come to Halfway,” I say. “I was trying to keep us off Escalante’s radar since we don’t know who we can trust.”
“I understood, baby.”
“These women… they’ve been through so much. But since the ranch is out, there’s a bar there called Halfway to Hell. That’s where I’ll be. But, babe, you have to come alone. We just can’t risk anyone else finding out the location of the safehouse. It sounds like you’re saying Escalante’s out of the picture, but that doesn’t me
an there’s not someone waiting in the wings to seize control of his operation. Flesh makes men rich and we both know men will do a lot for money.”
“That’s the damn truth, though I wish to God it wasn’t. I’ll be there in an hour, baby. Are you sure you want me alone? We can help those women get home.”
“Most of them have a real distrust for men now. I don’t want to scare them.”
“What if I bring Blue? You know he’s trustworthy, got that little boy baby face, real nonthreatening vibe about him. We can leave him there for a while, help arrange to get the girls home.”
“You would do that?”
“Yeah, baby, those women didn’t ask to be taken. They need to learn right from the get-go that not all men are assholes. And they have families and friends who want them back. We need to make that happen.”
“Halfway to Hell, one hour.”
“One hour,” he repeats back. Then he hangs up. I wish he’d said, ‘I love you,’ but we’ll just have to make up for that when he’s back in my arms.
I shove the phone in my pocket and walk into the kitchen to look out the window. With everything they’ve been through, these women are outside soaking up the sun, laughing, having water fights. They look happy. It’s fleeting, I know this. But we need to take the happy whenever we can get it. I need to talk to Carmen, to Nicola and Celeste too.
These women have become close to me, like sisters, in the time we’ve spent together. I guess that’s to be expected after killing a man and rescuing a group of women together.
Nicola and Celeste walk over to a couple of chairs and sit down next to each other, watching the women having their water fight. I walk outside to the back door to join them. Each woman has a bottle of water in hand. I should have brought one out with me. It’s hot as blazes out here. My shadow reaches them before I do, and both of their heads turn to look at me. I smile up at them, or in this case, down because I’m standing and they’re sitting.
“What brings on that smile?” Celeste asks.
“I just talked to Raif,” I tell them. “He’s coming for me. We’re going to meet in Halfway.”
Blood Revealed (Brimstone Lords MC Book 6) Page 24