J Roars (2 page)

Rewind

I never left Elle. She thought I left her in the hospital, but that couldn't have been farther from the truth. I had it out with Chris more times than I care to count, and every time it just sent those fucking machines attached to her in the hospital into a beeping frenzy.

So I stepped back.

But I never left.

If you looked up
creeper
in the Webster's dictionary, you wouldn't find it. If you looked it up on urbandictionary.com, you would find a slew of unsettling descriptions. Did they describe me? Eh, loosely.

It might sound impossible, but it's easy to disappear if you want to, even if you're 6'5" with a face painted the colors of pain. I managed to lurk, yes I lurked, around the hospital long
enough to find out she was OK, or she would be OK. I watched her get discharged. I saw Chris help her into the Silverado, holding Elle's arm so she could get into the truck without hurting her anymore than she already was. I followed them and watched her ease Elle out of the truck and into her apartment. Chris slept at Elle's place for days, and Elle was never alone. Just like in the hospital, it became apparent how many lives she touched and didn't even realize it. People checked up on her all hours of the day, forcing Chris to turn them away sometimes just so Elle could rest.

It was barely a week Elle was out of the hospital that I made my first trip to Texas. Dig and I were meeting up with the cartel he'd been working on. I
should have asked questions. I should have made it a point to be more in the know. That was "shady shit" one-oh-one, always know what's going on, what's going to happen, be ready for anything and everything. I dropped the ball. I let Dig handle everything so I could live in the tiny square of my head that was left for a sliver of sanity to exist.

What did we do at
that first meeting? Fuck, I think we discussed the plan, who was who, what needed to be done, how many people needed to be here, how many there, where, and when. Every detail was plotted out by Dig, Son, and two cartel guys, while I sat there holding a tenuous grip on lucidity. I knew the plan, the who, the when, the where, the how, all of it. I heard it. I memorized it, but I didn't think past that moment.

We got back to Missouri, and it was still a revolving door at Elle's house. She was venturing out, but mostly with Chris or
José.

José
.

Why did that fucker have to be up in her space?

He knew too much. I had no idea what he was telling her. I had no idea if he told her everything that he knew, which was way too much. This was why I hated that Dig's plan had to intersect with any part of Elle's life. If I could've gotten to Ernesto any other way, I would have gladly jumped on that ship. As it was, I had one ticket and it read a big fat J-O-S-É and a fucking accent mark, as if that final swipe across the E was one more knife being stabbed in my side, reminding me I wasn't worthy of her light, but I was going after it anyway. Any honorable man would have let her go, not called Dig, not set wheels in motion that couldn't be stopped. An honorable man would have let Elle shine her light on someone worthy of it. I wasn't worthy.

And I didn't give a fuck.

Call me a selfish prick, but we were meant to be together. I knew it. I knew deep in my soul that as much as she gave her light to me and brought me out of the darkness, I helped her shine that light even brighter, spread it around even further.

She was mine.

And I wasn't giving her up.

******

I continued to creep. Driving past her house at all hours of the day and night. I went to her finally, an act of pain and desperation, begging her to understand, to see the man, not the monster. I don't know what I expected. I left the next morning, and was gone for weeks.

Mexico.

Damn, what a place. Parts of it were paradise. The beaches, the sun, the sand, the waves, the native culture alive and embraced. Though these natives weren't my people, they came from the same seed, they carried similar traditions. They saw the Bear, not the man and not the monster. They knew when who I was when I walked in the open air markets, and my size had nothing to do with it. I could have been four feet tall, and they still would have seen a giant growling Bear.

First things first. Business. Before the sand and sea and all that shit, Dig, Son and I had business
to tend to. Fucking business.
El Jefe
—The Boss, the big man, the head honcho, the one who would make this all happen, the one who would free me of the chains Burns held the key for—he was a ruthless man and my salvation all wrapped into one.

We
had one meeting with him. One time where it wasn't his right and left hand men handling us. Dig had convinced his two best men, his trusted advisors, that this was a good more for the cartel, but now it was up to Dig, Son, and me to seal the deal with
El Jefe
. What am I saying? I didn't do shit. I fucking sat there, looked like a beast, wore my meanest face, which wasn't hard as it was also my face of utter despair and desperation. Dig and Son did all the talking. Man, I may have grunted, as if to punctuate my grizzly presence.

It was the same thing we'd talked about with his two boys. The same plan.
The one I knew backwards and forwards. The one that might kill me, but I could of given a fuck. I was in, one hundred percent. I listened as Dig laid it out one more time for
El Jefe.
There was a reason he got to the top of the Zetas' organization. For one, he had zero tells. Son was a gambler and could pick up on someone's tell within a few minutes of meeting them. Everyone had a tell, a twitch or an action that let you know what kind of hand they were holding. He said
El Jefe
was the picture of impassive, almost like a statue as Dig rattled all the details off. He listened, made no moves, no sounds, no head nods in agreement. He just listened and stared Dig straight in the eye.

Dig wanted this plan as much as I did, even if for different reasons. He hat
ed that Burns and our MC were killing Missouri, one needle at a time, the same way his father had died. He only stayed in MM after Burns took over so he could be on the inside when the opportunity to right Burns' wrongs presented itself. He'd been plotting this from the moment Ratchet died. He knew what Ratchet's death meant, and that it was no accident.

I'm not sure how Dig hooked up with the Zetas. It's
not that I wasn't paying attention, he just never told me, and I never asked. I tried indirectly to find out, but Dig was keeping that information close to the vest. As powerful as MM was in Missouri, we were small change compared to Los Zetas, even I knew that. So how Dig got in was his own private story to tell one day, if ever.

When Dig finished telling the plan,
El Jefe
was silent. Seconds stretched into minutes while he processed it all, hands in a steeple on the round, marble table we sat around. Dig was calm on the outside, but I saw a single bead of sweat drip down the side of his head and around his ear, letting me know he wasn't as sure about this as he led me to believe.

As
it was,
El Jefe
finally spoke, his English almost perfect with only a hint of accent. He agreed to all the terms Dig laid out. He was willing to work with the Delmarcos and offered men to help when Burns was taken down, and MM as we knew it fell. The rebuild was on us. Once he informed us of this, he quickly left the room, leaving us with his two head men to work out the details. The first being a meet-up with Ernesto Delmarco.

******

We didn't come straight back to Missouri, instead stopping back in San Antonio to touch base with the Zetas faction stationed there. They existed on the fringes, as far underground as you could get.

The
Delmarcos had slowly been expanding from El Paso to Dallas and Houston over the past decade. By the time Dig approached them, they owned San Antonio the way MM owned Missouri. This deal would allow them to take over drugs in all of Texas, giving them over twelve hundred miles of the two thousand Mexican/American border. Their alliance with the Zetas would be a mutually beneficial endeavor; the Zetas supplied the product, while the Delmarcos moved and sold it.

The Sinaloans had
long since owned the California and Arizona border, but New Mexico and Texas had been a bloody war. I should use present tense as the battle for territory along the border was one that would never end. Lives would continue to be lost over it. The Zetas' and Delmarco's control over Texas would further their domination over the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as undoubtedly create more dead bodies.

Though lost in constant thoughts of Elle and how she fell apart in my arms when I'd gone into her apartment, in San Antonio
I was forced to face certain truths about the plan I was a part of. When the cards were all laid out, I knew that more deaths would occur, and I'd have a hand in it. Drug wars were going on all over, all the time, and they weren't my fault. Despite this, I knew I was a part of the violence in running
this
plan with Dig, something that weighed on me day in and day out.

I was tired of death, tired of violence, tired of the darkness I felt gripping my soul. Being away from Elle had dimmed the light she gave me. I needed it like an
addict needs their next fix. She was always in the back of my mind, never quite going away. And like an addict, I was willing to take lives for my drug of choice—a woman who possessed me, consumed me, radiated light from her pores, and had no idea of the power she held over me. For her, I'd push the boundaries of morality to their limits, such was the hold she had on me.

We spent three solid weeks in San Antonio, me, Dig, Son, and the two Zetas, Jorge and Beto
. Dig and I went back a ways, so I knew him like he was a real brother, not just a club brother. Son was the spitting image of his dad, green eyes the ladies loved and dark hair they begged to grip handfuls of. He was tall and solid like his dad, though not as tall as me or as wide. The three of us together, though, were a menacing trio. And man, that boy got ass in every city we went, here and south of the border. He fucked chicks who didn't even speak English. Don't ask me how, I just know he busted a nut almost every night one way or another, his only celibate nights being the ones Dig forced on him due to meetings or club business. Despite planning a major operation that would tear apart MM, redirect all the drugs in Missouri, and bring together three major organizations—MM, Los Zetas, and the Delmarco family—Son still got it in with the ladies whenever possible. Dig swore it was going to be his detriment, and I listened to one too many sex, love, and baby mama drama speeches in those three weeks we spent together in Texas. It made me appreciate Elle and her Christmas present all the more. How many chicks gave their man clean STD test results for Christmas? None. Just Elle. My Elle. Fuck, I missed her...

Dig was the brains of this plan, Son provided all the techie knowledge and gadgets you could i
magine, and those you couldn't, and I was the brawn. Not that I wasn't involved in the plan, Dig ran everything by me, every piece of the plan, the pros and cons of each potential move. We balanced each other out, being level headed when the other couldn't, or pushing to take a calculated risk when the other wanted to pull back, but Dig was the obvious ringleader, knowing that my head was in a different place. That place being in the hands and between the legs of a 5'9" curly haired goddess who stole every other thought in my mind. She was my unknowing siren, calling me to her. Dig thought she'd make a perfect old lady, and couldn't wait to get MM back to its roots so she could be just that.

It wasn't that I was against the club or getting it back to how it was when I thought I was patching into Ratchet's MM. I loved my brothers, despite the mutiny we were in the middle of leading, and the brothers I knew would fall in this battle. I just wasn't the same boy Ratchet taught to
check the tightness of a rear sprocket, or the importance of keeping brake fluid off the body panels so I didn't fuck up the paint job. I feared Burns had changed me, forced me to alter who I was to the point I was unsure if I could be the same J that patched in all those years ago. I didn't know how Elle would feel about club life. Although Ratchet ran a clean club, he let the boys party as hard as they wanted for the most part. Sure, he had to regulate every few months when they got out of hand with the booze or the women, but we were a fucking motorcycle club. Booze and women came with the gig. Hell, that's why half of the brothers patched in to begin with—they loved pussy almost as much as they loved their bikes.

Dig and I had a few short conversations about what post-Burns MM would look like, but he never seemed excited to partake of these ideas. Though he'd never admit it and I'd never force the issue, I bet he held some uncertainty about the future of the club. He was in control of the demise of Burns' MM, but
would not be of the rebuilt MM, and Dig was a man who liked control. Control of his bike, control of his work, control of his women, and control of this plan, whereas I gave up control to Elle the moment I heard her smooth velvety voice at Eight Oh Eight. Like I said, we balanced each other out.

With Jorge and Beto, we planned each detail of the plan out, from when Burns would
cease to get his shipment and the Delmarcos would receive it instead, to how we would handle both factions. Ernesto came to San Antonio as well, finally having the official sit down with the Zetas representatives and shaking the proverbial hand regarding this plan. He made sure Jorge and Beto knew they were one hundred percent on board. Together, we planned what had to be one of the biggest drug trafficking changeovers of the century.