She responded softly in Spanish, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was giving him her excuse for disregarding his instructions. He raised an eyebrow at her and sighed. He turned to us then, his arm slipping around her waist. "As you can see, Carmella would like to join us. Obviously, you can see which side of this disagreement with my brother she is on." He led her around his chair and pulled out the empty seat to his left, next to Tick.
"Bernardo doesn't know his wife is with you?" Tick asked, keeping his eyes off of Carmella.
"My husband is a blind fool," she spat. I remembered at that moment her husband walking Lucy into the back rooms at the clubhouse. The urge to run across the room and rip out his throat for even looking at my girl. I had sat by and let him take her, let him put his hands on her. Another of my failings.
"He thinks I don't know he fucks every woman he meets. He thinks I'm the fool. Julio has told me of the sex trafficking those other men do. It is bad enough my husband allows drugs to be sold to children, but now he wants to do business with men who steal women and rape them, and allow others to rape them." Her voice hardened as she spoke, though her eyes never left Julio. He reached across to her and rested his hand on top of hers. "I won't have it."
"Of the two evils, we are the lesser?" I looked at Julio. He watched Carmella with love. The rage she showed in her voice echoed in his expression.
"Everyone has evil in them, Mason. I'm not an idiot. But your club, you deal some light drugs, you run guns for a few gangs. Nothing that hurts your community like the Disciples. Community means a great deal to my Carmella." He squeezed her hand and smiled. "Dealing with your club, that will continue to produce the profits we enjoy, and if at some future time we want to expand it will be done with not guns and blood, but with the help of the other cartels."
Politics weren't my thing. The lies, the games, it was all too much for me, and I knew Julio was dreaming. There would always be spilt blood when it came to expansion of territories. There wasn't wheeling and dealing to make that happen. At least not so far. Maybe he could do it, maybe he couldn't. To be honest, I didn't give a fuck. I had a job to do and then I had to get home.
"That sounds all fine and dandy." Tick sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "But that still doesn't explain why Mason and I are sitting here."
"Marcus has agreed to continue with the deal he made with my brother. Short runs through your two towns and up through the neighboring three. Providing safe travel for my men. The Disciples will be gone. Closed down, wiped out-whatever the term is you Americans use."
"Okay." I leaned forward. "And what does all that cost Marcus? This big run?"
"Oh, there is no run." He smiled. "I don't need American boys coming down here to get my product over the border. No, your job is much easier."
"What is it?" I chose to ignore the insults and just move forward with finding out what the hell was going on.
"You two are going to kill Bernardo."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LUCY
I wasn't going to last another night with Jayson. Not one more. I got lucky last night and he came home after I'd fallen asleep, drunk and stoned. He passed out in the living room of his apartment, missing the couch on his way down and landing on the floor. The booming thud of his fat body hitting the ground woke me up. I found him face down in the carpet and left him there.
My luck was going to run out, though. Soon. Lucas stopped me in the motor pool to ask me more questions about Mason. Did I know where he'd run off to, when was he coming back. To everything I denied knowing anything.
"You told me to stay away from him, remember?" I slid my key into my car door.
"I know I did. And I know you didn't." He looked around at the other members working on their bikes. "Jessica's taking some time off," he announced, not looking at me.
"Is she okay?" My spine stiffened. I knew they were hanging around each other a lot but I hadn't known they were that serious.
"Yeah. Fine."
"Maybe I'll go see her today." I shielded my eyes from the sun as I looked up at him. His eyes caught mine and he took a deep breath.
"She's not at her place. She's at mine." He nearly growled and I knew that sound. That possessive tone. Mason had only been gone two days and I already missed that about him. When he hung around the clubhouse, I knew I'd be safe. Even when Bernardo walked me back to my room, I knew one scream from me and Mason would have barreled into the room, ready to kill.
"Mind if I stop over there, then?" He wanted to keep her away from the clubhouse for a reason, and I hoped that reason had nothing to do with me, or Mason.
"Do you know where Mason went off to?" he asked again with more heat and narrowed eyes. He'd never used that tone with me before, and it put my guard up.
"No, Lucas. I don't know where he is, only that he was going out of town for the club. He said he'd be gone a week maybe two." His jaw tightened and for a moment I thought he was about to lay into me, but he shook his head and nodded instead.
"Do you know if it was his club or our club he was doing business for?" His tone lowered, the concerned Lucas was back.
"I don't know. I didn't ask questions." I felt my phone vibrating but I ignored it. Jayson was still passed out and Mason was the only other person who had the number.
He eyed me silently for what felt like several minutes as my phone vibrated again. "You can go see Jessica. But if Jayson looks for you, you get your ass back here and you don't bring her with." Again he hardened his tone.
"What's going on, Lucas? Why are you hiding her away?" I also wanted to ask why he was so willing to throw me to the wolves, but better not to piss him off.
"Things aren't going as planned. That's all you need to know. I want her off the compound for a little while I figure this all out. If we go into lockdown, she'll hightail it here with you."
"Lockdown?"
He gave a small snort and shook his head. "Sometimes I forget you aren't really one of us." With that he walked away. Not really one of them. Mason had that same look in his eyes when I had to question something he said, or when he grinned over a word I misused.
The fact was, I wasn't one of them. None of them would protect me if shit really hit the fan. Hell, none of them did anything when Jayson refused to let me leave and started using me as his personal whore.
This life. This was Mason's life. He said he wanted out of it, to live outside the MC, but could he? From as far as I could tell he'd been a member for over ten years. Nearly his entire adult life. Could he really walk away and just live like normal people? And in two months, when we were working dead end jobs, struggling to pay the rent, would he look at me with resentment because I pulled him away from all of this? The money, the excitement, all given up for me? A girl who had turned into a prostitute not more than three weeks after living on her own in the world?
My mother would be more than ashamed of the situation I lived in. Getting paid for sex, taken as an old lady for a fat, old biker, and trying to keep my head above water to get a grasp on the whole situation.
As I drove through the gates I felt more alone than ever before. Never had I wanted my mother back more fiercely than that moment.
***
Jessica opened the door to Lucas's house with a wide smile. "Thank God!" She pulled me into the house and into her arms, hugging me hard. "I was about to go crazy sitting in here by myself."
I laughed at the irony of her situation. "At least your jail is a whole house." I wandered down the front hall, looking at all of the posters Lucas had hung on the walls. Different makes and models of Harleys were framed and hanging all over the house.
"Does Lucas know you're here?" Jessica passed by me and showed me to the kitchen, where the smell of coffee caught my attention.
"Yeah. He gave his permission." I made a face then gestured toward the pot of freshly brewed coffee. "I'll love you forever if I could steal a cup."
She laughed and plucked two mugs out of the cabinet above the coffee maker. "Lucas is just being overly cautious I think."
"I knew he had a thing for you, but I didn't' realize you'd become such an item." I took a seat at the round kitchen table. The kitchen was simple in decor and design. White walls brightened the room that was situated in the back of the house. A small window over the sink overlooked the backyard, and the patio doors a few feet away from the table let in most of the light from outside. The countertops were basic and bare except for the coffee maker and a paper towel rack. An equally bare peninsula separates the kitchen work area from the eating area. As simple as it all was, it came as close to a home than I'd been in since leaving behind the apartment I shared with my mom.