Stolen: Hell's Overlords MC (23 page)

“I wouldn’t,” I start to say.

“I know, I know,” she coos. “But I need the money, doll. Rent is due, my baby needs milk, and I didn’t get enough good shifts this week to cover everything.” I see a tiny tear start to well up in the corner of her eye, but she sniffles and brushes it away before I can say a word.

I open my mouth to tell her that it’s a bad idea, but I let it fall closed without saying anything. It’s not my place. If she needs this, then who am I to tell her differently?

I stand. “I gotta go. I haven’t checked on my tables in way too long. Just be careful, okay?” I beg. “Eduardo warned me to be extra good to those guys. You know their type.”

Lucila nods. Like me, she’d been in this town long enough to know that there are some people you just did not want to mess with. “I’ll be careful,” she promises. She grabs the back of my head and plants a soft kiss on my cheek. “Thanks, babe.” She picks up a clear platform heel from the ground and starts fiddling with the straps. Sighing, I walk out.

I scoop my tray from the server’s station behind the bar and rove around taking drink orders from the patrons seated in my section. It’s getting late enough in the night that most of the men are verging on catatonic wasted. Half of them are slumped out in their seats while a dancer grinds on their laps, happy to keep dancing until the man comes to his senses enough to tell her the ride is over.

I leave the men in black for last. I’m watching them out of the corner of my eye as I move back and forth between the bar and the couches arranged in concentric circles around the stage. They are all relaxed and leaned back, not drinking or paying for lap dances, merely watching the girls on stage with a ferocious appetite in their eyes.

Lucila is right; they definitely have the look. But it’s not quite the same look I’m used to seeing on men eager to pay for sex. With most johns, I can sense a kind of shameful, sweaty desperation. They’re either cheating on their wives and girlfriends and therefore terrified of getting caught, or they feel guilty about the whole transaction for no reason at all. It doesn’t matter either way. At the end of the day, someone gets their rocks off and money changes hands. No harm, no foul.

These men are different. They want more than just sex. They want violence.

I can practically feel the cruelty rolling off them in waves when I approach to see if they need drinks. Certain kinds of men project a raw, untamed lust. They’re the ones I try to stay away from. Carlos was like that.

I hold my tray in front of my chest as I pace to the front of their couch. I don’t want to be seen as vulnerable. There’s a nagging voice in my head that tells me these men will pounce at the slightest sign of weakness. I clear my throat. “Drinks?” I say, hoarse.

For a moment, they don’t respond. Instead, each of them gives me the exact same up and down look. They’re drinking me in, stripping me of my clothing without lifting a finger. I feel naked. I feel scared.

The middle one raises his gaze to meet mine. “No,” he says flatly. His eyes are the same bottomless black as his clothing.

Trembling, I back away. I don’t go over to them again for the rest of the night.

* * *

Tomas helps the last customer out of the front door with a firm hand on his back. He tugs the door closed and locks it with finality. The night was rough on both of us. My whole body is ringing with pain from being on my feet for so long. It’s just after four o’clock. I’m craving sleep. One look at Tomas and I can tell that he’s just as achy and weary as I am.

We make quick work of the clean-up. Eduardo and the dancers slip out one by one as we wipe down table tops and rearrange the chairs to their proper location. As the buzzing in my ears finally starts to ease, Tomas and I settle the last rack of glasses into the dishwashing pile and look at each other.

“Ready to go?” he asks.

“Let me just grab my purse,” I tell him. I walk behind the bar and grab my bag, slinging it over one shoulder. He meets me by the side door. “Okay,
vamos
.”

Tomas pushes the door open and we step out into the night. It’s warm but not overly so. The gentle desert breeze feels good on my bare arms after the frigid temperature at the club. The neon sign flashes overhead in massive, bright letters, bathing the parking lot in pink.
El Gallinero—Mujeres Desnudas
, it reads.
The Henhouse—Naked Women.

The only sound is the echo of our shoes clacking on the concrete. “Who were those men in the corner?” Tomas asks quietly as we head towards our cars.

“I’m not sure. Why? Did something happen?”

“No, you just looked a little rattled after you came over from talking to them. Just thought I’d ask, that’s all.”

I remember the way they looked at me. Like they were predators, and I was their prey. “They were just a little…unsettling,” I say finally.

Tomas shrugs. “Welcome to El Cruce,” he jokes.

We reach our cars. I go to open the door, but it doesn’t budge.

“Shit,” I curse. “I left my keys behind the bar. I gotta go get them.”

“You want me to wait for you?” he asks.

I wave him off. “No, it’s fine. I’ll just go grab them real quick. You head home. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“You sure?” He looks concerned.

I smile faintly. “Very sure. It’ll only take one second.”

“Okay,” he agrees. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night, Rose.”

“Good night, Tomas.”

He climbs in his car, starts the engine, and pulls off sputtering down the road. The hum of the night surrounds me like soft cotton as I cross the parking lot back towards the club. It’s a squat building painted in a fading robin’s egg blue. The décor is crumbling, not that anyone gives a shit about what’s on the outside. They come for what the inside offers.

I punch the lock combination into the employee entrance and slip inside. It’s spookily quiet to be in a strip club after hours. The beams on the stage are extinguished, but the purple strip lighting that lines the floor continues to ooze an eerie glow. I carefully weave my way to the bar and grab my keys from the hidden shelf where I left them.

I’m passing by the beaded curtain on my way out when a noise grabs my attention on the other side. It’s soft and plaintive. I can’t tell what it is or what’s causing it. It dies away for a moment, but then I hear it again. It sounds like someone whimpering.
That’s strange
, I think to myself. No one should be here. All the dancers are gone and Tomas and I were the only two bar staff doing closing duties tonight.

I push through the curtain. The sound grows louder. It’s definitely a person. Female, from what I can tell. She sounds like she’s in pain. As I edge closer to the strippers’ changing room, the sound grows louder. Now I can hear the meaty slaps of flesh on flesh, too, along with muted grunts.

It must be one of the girls doing some illicit after-hours work. I’m better off walking away and pretending I never heard a thing. I’m about to do just that when I hear the girl cry out. “Stop!” she begs. The sharp crack of a backhand slap reverberates in the empty hallway.

My blood runs ice cold. I know that girl’s voice. It’s Lucila.

“Shut up,” growls a deep male voice. The fleshy collisions resume, faster and angrier. Lucila is sobbing. I have to know what’s going on. Before I can stop myself, I round the corner and look in the room.

Lucila is on her hands and knees on the rough carpeted floor. She’s completely naked and drenched in sweat. Kneeling on either end of her are the two men from earlier, the ones wearing all black that Eduardo had warned me about. Their jeans are pushed down around their knees, exposing pale cocks riddled with veins. The man at Lucila’s head has her jaw pried open with two hands and is thrusting roughly in and out of her mouth. Strands of spit loop between his pelvis and her swollen lips.

At the other end, the second man has a rigid grip on Lucila’s ass. He lays down two brutal spanks on either ass cheek as he plows into her from behind. As I watch, he knocks her knees apart and grunts, “Stay open, bitch.” Lucila is blubbering around the mouthful being forced between her teeth. Her choking sobs are like needles in my eardrums.

I’m frozen. I can’t move, can’t react. The pace of the men’s thrusting speeds up until one, then the other, comes in shuddering spurts of white semen. The man at her mouth shoots down her throat while the other pulls out and paints ropes on her lower back. She collapses to the floor in a shivering ball, crying, while the men stand and button their pants. One of them reaches into his pocket and pulls out a few hundred pesos. He tosses them at her. They flutter to the ground around her as he says, “Stop crying, whore. You agreed to this.”

Just then, my keys fall from my hand. They hit the floor with a clatter that’s impossible for them not to hear. Immediately, the men swivel their heads to see me standing in the doorway with my jaw hanging open. There is a long pause where no one moves.

I break through the paralysis strangling my muscles as I swoop my keys from the ground and take off sprinting down the hallway. I hear the footsteps of the men pounding after me. Leaping over the furniture in the darkened main room, I head straight for the side exit. I hear them tripping and cursing in the shadows behind me. There is a loud thump as one of them falls to the floor.

I can feel my pulse pounding and cold sweat breaking out over my scalp and face. My breath comes in harsh gasps as I burst through the door and into the parking lot. My feet slap the pavement. I sprint as fast as I can to my car where it sits under a streetlight at the far end of the lot.

The sun has begun to peek over the eastern horizon. The dewy morning air is like a mesh net slowing me down as I push faster, ignoring the stabbing pain in my side from lack of oxygen. I risk a glance over my shoulder and don’t see them. They must be struggling to open the front door, which Tomas locked before we left. I hope it keeps them there long enough for me to get away.

Eduardo’s warning is playing in my head over and over. “Be very careful with them, Rose,” he’d said. “They are not nice men.” Men like these did not take kindly to being walked in on in moments like that. And what they’d been doing to Lucila…I shudder and force the thought away. I’d warned her not to go through with it, but that doesn’t matter anymore. This is not the time for an ‘I told you so.’ It is time for one thing only: to run until my heart gives out.

I reach my car. My hands are shaking too much for me to fit the key in the lock. I drop them once, twice. “Fuck!” I scream under my breath. I keep stealing looks over my shoulder. No sign of them yet. Finally, I manage to jam the key in the door and open it. The lock springs free.

I look back. Two silhouettes are separating from the hulking mass of the building. They’re coming. I have to hurry. I rip the door open and throw myself in. Sticking the key into the ignition, I twist the key hard. The engine kicks to life, coughing and groaning as the pistons begin to pound and fuel begins to flow. The men are twenty yards away as I release the emergency brake, pop the clutch, and…the car dies.

I’m trapped. I can’t move or think. Every cell feels frozen in place. I can only watch numbly as hands yank the driver’s door open, seize me, and drag me from the car. Only when my back slams into the ground do I regain my voice.

I scream and scream and scream, but it does not matter.

There’s no one around to hear me.

Vince

This whole town smells like shit.

There’s no getting away from the stench. Everywhere you go, it’s stale piss and last night’s beer left on the sidewalks and in the gutters for pedestrians, courtesy of whatever drunk assholes threw up on their way home.

But I guess I’ll just have to suck it up for the time being, seeing as how El Cruce ain’t exactly Eden. Far from it, actually. I don’t think paradise is supposed to have whorehouses on every block.

I’m sitting on the curb, scarfing down tacos from a late night food stand. I’ve got a lukewarm beer in one hand to wash down my dinner.
Mexico, where the living is good
. What a joke. I took this job to get the hell out of Galveston for a little bit. Steezy was right; I did need to clear my head. Week after week spent scrutinizing the city for any sign of an impending Diablos invasion had been doing a serious number on my nerves. But I don’t know that this is helping. Hell, it seems like my problems followed me here. I can run, but apparently I just can’t hide.

It would help if people did their damn jobs. I’m supposed to meet some guy here—Cesar is his name—but the motherfucker hasn’t shown up for two days running. We had a time and place, but I’ve burned back to back days waiting for the bastard to come. No such luck. My ass is sore from eight hours spent in the plastic booth of a diner down the street, and I don’t have a single fucking thing to show for it. No intel, no warnings. Not a word that will help me protect my brothers from the cartel scum.

I think about just going home. Fuck Cesar. He probably doesn’t have anything worthwhile to give us anyways. I don’t know much about him, other than a general description of what he looks like. He’s somebody’s cousin or brother or whatever, and theoretically he’s plugged into the cartel network, enough to glean some news when the birds on the high wire start chirping too loudly. Not an inside source, more like a slimy bystander ready to flip some overheard gossip into a few dollars whenever he gets the chance. I haven’t even met the fucker and I already don’t like him.

Getting out of Galveston hasn’t cured a single issue. Still, the thought of leaving this shitstain of a town is highly appealing. I decide I’ll give it one more day. If Cesar doesn’t show up to the diner when he’s supposed to tomorrow, then I’m getting the hell of out Dodge. Mortar will have to make do without his inside scoop.

The streetlight overhead fizzes and goes out suddenly. I sigh. Nothing works right in this country. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here. I stagger to my feet, stretching out my aching hamstrings, and lumber back to my room.

I’m staying on the second floor of a cheap motel. Lying in the too-small bed an hour later, I can’t help but feel like there are bedbugs crawling over my skin, scratching and biting. The sheets are rough to the touch and the pillows might as well be cinderblocks. All in all, it’s not a great situation for anyone to sleep in, much less someone like me, given how little shuteye I’ve been able to procure for myself over the last couple of months. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve slept through the night since the summer began.

I writhe back and forth every couple of minutes, searching for a comfortable position that never presents itself. Eventually, my mind gets too tired to keep racing and relents. I fall asleep, just barely.

The beach. The girl. I hear her, I turn. Facing her. She’s beautiful.

“Wait, stop.” She turns and runs. I follow.

I’m sweating, panting, desperate. “Stop! Wait!” No response.

She reaches the rocks. Starts climbing. I’m going after her, slipping and ripping open my palms and knees. Blood pouring down the jetties. Salt stinging the wounds.

“Please wait!” She pivots. Sees me. Then sees whatever is chasing her. Spins back around.

Jumps.

I wake up with cold sweat drenching the bedsheets. I bolt upright. My chest is heaving as I claw for breath. It feels like I’ve just run a marathon. The muscles of my legs are tender and twitching.

“This is getting ridiculous,” I mutter to myself, but my voice in the empty room sounds reedy and pathetic. It gives way to the silence immediately.

Every time I wake up from this dream—always the same way, panicked and gasping—I have this creeping sense of dread. Something bad is going to happen to this girl. She’s real and she’s in trouble. She needs help.

“Shut the fuck up,” I growl, louder this time. I’m losing my shit. It’s a fucking dream, not a prophecy. Who the hell do I think I am? I’m Vince. I’m an Inked Angel, not a fortune teller or a goddamn genie. Time to stop acting like this dream means anything.

Telling myself to stop doesn’t help, though. The feeling of anxiety stays pressed on the inside of my rib cage like a black lump, reminding me with every heartbeat of what I keep seeing whenever I manage to snatch a brief rest from the teasing jaws of sleep.

I pad to the sink and turn the tap on, sticking my hands under the cool flow. Cupping some water in my palms, I splash it on my face, careful not to get any in my mouth. Montezuma’s Revenge is real and it’s a motherfucker. As bad as my trip has been so far, spending the next three days with one end of my body or the other stuck in a toilet bowl would only make things that much worse.

I look up into the mirror. It’s the same face it’s always been staring back at me. Jaw cuts at a sharp angle from its hinges, swooping to a cleft chin. Dark stubble surrounding a grim mouth and patching over the nicks and scars I’ve accumulated in a lifetime of fighting anyone who deserved it. My eyes, gleaming out from underneath thick eyebrows, an iridescent green. Water drips down the long, straight line of my nose.

“Pull it together, motherfucker,” I warn my image. I watch my mouth twist as it gives shape to the words, the sinew in my throat stretching to accommodate each syllable. “Do your job and get the hell out of here.”

The craziest part of all is that I don’t even know who the girl is. She could be half the girls in Mexico. Petite, dark hair, tan skin? That’s everyone. But then I remember her eyes. Blue, bright, endless. There’s no one else with eyes like that. I can’t shake the feeling. The black lump won’t budge.

I need some fresh air. A glance through the window shades shows the first fingers of the sun probing over the horizon. I shrug on my leather jacket and step outside, locking the door behind me. The air outside is warm already and sticky with morning dew. I stomp over to my bike, parked in front of the building, and throw one leg over the saddle. The rumble of the engine snorting to life sends a satisfying shake throughout my bones. I can feel the lump starting to break up and dissolve already.

Chugging onto the main roadway, I reach the intersection. Left leads to the desert, right heads into town. I ponder which way to go. I think,
Fuck it, let’s see what’s happening around El Cruce,
and I twist the handlebars to my right. I roll down the street quietly, not ready to open up the throttle yet. The blocks are still heavy with the pre-dawn stuffiness, like the whole town is sucking in air before a giant collective yawn. I wheel down the road. Every curtain is drawn shut. Even the bars and strip clubs are motionless, empty.

A distant shriek piques my attention. I turn my head towards the source, listening intently. I hear nothing for a moment, then the scream returns. Shit, I’ve got nothing better to do, and it’s not like I’m gonna be able to go back to sleep. Might as well go see what’s going on.

I add a little oomph to the engine as I glide down a few blocks towards where I’d heard the screaming. As I leave the main shopping district and hit the long drag home to most of the nightlife, I hear it again, more panicked this time. I kick up the speed another notch.

The desert wind is dry on my face and hands. I near the end of the road. Beyond this is a few dozen miles of pure nothingness right before the border itself. Every parking lot I pass is devoid of movement and sound. The screaming has stopped.

One more establishment lies between me and no man’s land. I drive past, seeing nothing at first. But just as I start to cut a wide circle and head back in the other direction, something catches my eye.

Two blocky men are struggling with a third person sprawled on the concrete of the parking lot. They’re dressed in all black. The person on the ground looks female. She’s shrieking, flailing, throwing feet and fists around her in a fury. The men dance in and out, trying fruitlessly to grab hold of her wrists without being struck. I see a flash of silver in her hand nick out and land in one man’s open palm. He howls, squeezing one hand in the other as blood begins to pour down his forearm.

“
Puta!
”
I hear him curse. The girl scampers to her feet and totters backwards until her back bumps against the lone car still parked in the lot. Even from fifty yards away, I can see the angry scowl on her face. I can see something else, too: her eyes. The eyes.

They’re blue, bright, celestial, glowing. They light up the night, even as she squints against the glare of the street lamp overhead.

It’s the girl. The one from my dream.

My whole body succumbs to a shiver. I feel every hair rocket up to needle stiffness. The black lump in my chest sags heavily, like it’s acquiring new gravity, as I look her up and down and realize beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s her.

My next moves are automatic, scripted. I rip the throttle back and shoot across the distance separating me from the girl and the two assailants cornering her against the vehicle. I slam on the brakes and fishtail my rear tire hard into the back of the legs of the shorter one. He careens into the car, smashing his head on the hood and falling to the ground. Leaping off the bike, I take two quick steps towards the other man. I duck his punch, coil all my weight, and unleash an uppercut straight into the bottom of his jaw. His feet rise off the ground as I unload my full force on him. Bones give way to my knuckles. The lights in his eyes dim and flicker. An unholy groan sputters from his mouth.

While the men are struggling to stand back up, I turn to the girl. It takes all my willpower to focus on the situation and not get lost in the weirdness of what’s happening. The girl from my nightmare, live and in the flesh. In this shithole town of all places in the world. What are the odds?

“Are you okay?” I ask her.

She gives me a short nod, still catching her breath. I see her hand tightening around the small knife in her grasp. She doesn’t trust me any more than she trusted these two men. Hell, I can’t blame her. This whole situation is too fucked up to process rationally.

Christ, she’s some kind of beautiful though. I can’t help but sneak a glance at her curvaceous little body. The rise and fall of her breath pushes her breasts up to the brink of falling from her tank top. I want a taste.

The sound of scraping to my left jolts me back to real life. The two men help each other up. I see blood dripping on the ground from the wound in the hand of the one  the girl stabbed. Both are cringing in pain. I square up and face them, inserting my bulk between them and the girl.

“Get the fuck away from here,” I order. “Before I kill you both.”

The bleeding one spits on the ground at my feet, narrowly missing my boot. I growl and squeeze my fists. My eyes smolder. “
La resurreccion esta llegando
, motherfucker,” he hisses. Growing up in Texas has taught me enough Spanish to understand what he’s saying.

The resurrection is coming.
The words are like cold fingers on the inside of my skin.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I growl.

They don’t answer. Instead, the tall one spits again and they turn, limping off down the sidewalk. I don’t move until they disappear.

But even when they’re gone and I turn to face the girl, I can’t relax. Seeing those men was like seeing the boogeyman come to life. I remember the few stories Mortar has told me over the years about men like these, dressed in all black with an appetite for inflicting pain.

The Diablos. From what I can tell, they’re real.

And they’re back.