Rogue (Dead Man's Ink #2) (10 page)

I’m sure Hector Ramirez will do the same.

CHAPTER

SOPHIA

I can’t get the image of that headless woman out of my mind. It’s there, every time I close my eyes for the rest of the day. Horrifying. The most awful thing I’ve ever seen. Rebel, Cade and Carnie kept their cool, but I could tell the sight had disturbed them, too. Rebel’s hands were shaking as he walked with me back to the compound. Still shaking when he pulled me to him and lay with me on his bed for half an hour in silence as I cried.

He left me shortly after to go find the woman’s boyfriend in town, and I’ve sat in his cabin ever since, staring at a wall, wondering how this can really be my life. I find myself thinking about Matt again. I made a choice to stay with Rebel back in Alabama. I’ve thought myself crazy many times since then. I could have gone back to my old life and to safe, boring Matt. I’d never have been exposed to mangled, headless corpses if I’d stayed with him. I’d have had a Costco account and checked out books from public libraries. I’d have visited wineries on the weekends and eventually had some kids and rescued a dog from the pound. I would have had a mundane, safe life I’m sure. Everything would have been fine.

But
Rebel
.
 

It’s inexplicable. It’s the worst decision I’ve ever made, and yet all the same, headless corpses or no, here I am, still sticking to it. What does that say about my mental state? It’s dark by the time Rebel returns. He never told me what time to expect him back, so I haven’t been worried, though when I catch sight of him that changes. He looks way,
way
worse than before if that’s possible. He looks like he’s literally nearly dead on his feet. Cade helps him through the cabin door and dumps him on the end of the bed, and I can do nothing but stare at him with my mouth hanging open.

“What…what the hell happened?” Rebel lies back on the bed, exposing the lower half of his stomach, which is red with fresh blood. It’s then that I notice the two small holes in his black t-shirt. “And what the hell happened to your clothes?”

“He got hit with a Taser,” Cade says dryly. “And then arrested by the DEA. I don’t know, man. I leave you alone for five fucking minutes and look at the state of you.”

Rebel groans. “I appreciate your concern.”

“
What
?” My ears must be playing tricks on me. Rebel is so damned nonchalant, like being arrested and Tased is an every day occurrence. As soon as the thought hits me, I realize that perhaps it really
isn’t
so uncommon for him, though. “You feel like explaining what happened?” I say.

“Love to. I kind of need a second, though,” Rebel replies, pressing his knuckles into his sternum—he’s in a lot of pain, though
 
I know him well enough to know that he’ll never say so.
 

“You should get into bed, man,” Cade tells him.

“Not yet. We need to go to the clubhouse. The others will be raging if we don’t explain all the cloak and dagger bullshit before the end of the day. They deserve to know.”

Cade shakes his head, throwing his hands in the air. “Why the fuck did I just drag your ass up the damn hill, then?”

Rebel slowly turns his head to look at me. “Because we had to come get Sophia. It’s time the rest of the club met her properly. I’m sure they’re all asking questions.”

Cade laughs. “That’s one way of putting it. They were about ready to lay siege to this place this morning in order to find out who the hell she was.”

Rebel’s face takes on serious expression. “I hope you informed them how unwise that would be?”

“I did. And they didn’t like it.”

“They don’t have to like it. They just have to do as they’re told.”

I haven’t seen this version of Rebel before. He’s angry, that much is obvious, but he seems focused, too. Determined. He’s been intimidating since the first moment I met him, but right now he’s downright scary. He looks at me again, taking a deep breath. “This is what you wanted, right? Free rein of the place. Freedom to see and talk to whomever you like? Well, this is it. Do you want to come with us to the clubhouse?”

I bite my lip, images of Costco and the fiction section of a Seattle public library flashing before my eyes. I slowly shake my head, feeling slightly hysterical. It’s the challenge in his eyes. The look he gives me that tells me I need to be strong in order to immerse myself in this life.

I fold my arms across my chest, tilting my chin up in acceptance of his challenge. “Sure. Okay. I’ll come.”

Rebel’s eyes flash cold steel. “Fuckin’ A.”

******

My memories of the clubhouse the other night are pretty hazy. I was too concerned with getting Cade to follow me back to Rebel in order to assess my surroundings, but now things are different. Now I have plenty of opportunity.

The place is cavernous—an old remodelled barn with high rafters and recast concrete floor. Long wooden tables and benches line the room, and smaller tables dot the edge of the space. A bar runs the length of the back wall, stocked with a multitude of different bottles of scotch as well as everything else you might expect to see in any normal bar.

There is a sea of people gathered inside, seated at the benches and hovering by the bar. Most are men, huge guys with arms full of tattoos, larger than life, scary as all hell. There are a few women and kids, too, all of whom look generally terrified and out of place. Everyone stops talking when they catch sight of Rebel. And me.

A woman at the back of the hall gets to her feet straight away. I recognize her—she was the woman who gave me the dirty look as I raced out of here behind Cade. She’s different to the other women packed into the clubhouse. She’s inked up, her nose pierced, pink hair pinned back in a messy topknot. She’s wearing a torn Sepultura t-shirt and a snarl on her face that already spells trouble. Beside me, Rebel hangs his head, apparently sensing the same thing.

“What the fuck is going on, man?” she snaps. “We’ve been sitting here with our thumbs up our asses all day. Keeler’s missing, and Cade hasn’t told us shit. And who the fuck is
she
?” The woman stabs her finger at me like I’m an invading alien and she’s ready to go Independence Day on my ass.

“Sit down, Shay. And shut your damn mouth. This isn’t how we’re doing things,” Rebel says. His voice is monotone, controlled, but even I can tell he’s irritated by her outburst.

The woman—Shay—shakes her head. “That’s bullshit, Rebel, and you know it. You can’t keep us in the dark, and you can’t bring random women—”

“I SAID SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH, SHAY!”

I nearly jump out of my skin as Rebel explodes. His face, completely colorless for the past five days, is suddenly bright red. His body is shaking, shoulders tensed, hands clenched into fists. “Today has been a seriously shitty day. Do
not
make it worse,” he hisses.

Shay blanches, the hostility falling away from her. She looks very much like a frightened little girl, which I’m betting is a rare event. I’m also betting it’s not very often that Rebel loses his cool; nearly every single person in the clubhouse looks stunned. Shay slowly sits down, and everyone else keeps their lips tightly sealed, clearly waiting for Rebel to speak.

Eventually he does. “This morning, Hector Ramirez sent us a very clear message. Carnie discovered the body of a woman hanging from a tree on the dirt road into town. It was Bron, Keeler’s girlfriend. She’d been decapitated, her hands and one of her feet removed. Her body had been hung upside down from the tree.”

The room explodes into sound. Forty people start shouting at once, the sound of their anger deafening. The obvious club members, the men with Widow Maker tattoos and leather cuts, are the angriest. In the corner of the room, a tall, skinny guy with long blond hair jumps out of his seat and rushes forward, limping ever so slightly. “Where the fuck is Keeler? And where the fuck is Ramirez? We have to kill the bastard. He’s gotta fucking pay, Rebel.”

Rebel blows out a deep breath. “Keeler’s just taking a beat, Brassic. And Ramirez is holed up in a farmhouse on the other side of town. He was arrested this afternoon, as was I.”

He goes on to explain that Ramirez showed up at their tattoo shop after Cade left and made some poorly veiled threats, at which point he’d laid into him with a baseball bat. I stand beside him, listening in horror as he goes through the motions of describing how he was then shot with a Taser and taken down to the local sheriff’s department. Cue one very angry DEA agent, ten hours of very aggressive questioning, and then he was allowed to call Cade who came and got him. The tension in the room is at boiling point by the time Rebel finishes his story.

Brassic, the tall, blond guy who asked about Keeler, slams his palm down onto the table in front of him, sending an empty glass shattering on the floor. “When are we going after him, Rebel? We can’t let this stand.”

“And we won’t. I know you’re all angry. I’m angry, too. But we need to be smart. If you can come up with a solid plan of attack that doesn’t end up in most of us dying and the rest of us in prison, I’d love to hear it. If not, then we need to take some time to figure this thing out. That DEA agent was intent on getting answers out of me. I’m sure she was the same with Ramirez. She told me plainly that she was in town with a crew, and that they weren’t leaving until they get what they came for. That includes Hector Ramirez on charges for drug trafficking and murder, and the Widow Makers locked up for the LA shooting at Trader Joe’s.”

“We were cleared of that, man! The cops arrested the guys the Desolladors hired to frame us. They admitted everything!”

“I know that. You know that. Lowell knows that. She’s pissed, though. Anything she can pin on us is a win for her. We’re living under a microscope right now, guys. If we put one foot wrong, we’re all fucked.”

Rebel’s words don’t seem to have any effect. Or certainly not the one he’s clearly hoping for, anyway. From the snatched words I overhear from people’s conversations, it sounds like no one cares if they get caught, sent to prison, shot or killed. They just want revenge.

“You still haven’t told us who
she
is,” Shay repeats. She moderates her tone this time, but it’s clear she’s furious over my presence. Rebel fixes her in an artic stare.

“She was witness to my uncle’s murder in Seattle. Hector and Dela Vega kidnapped her and we had Julio arrange purchase of her. She’s my guest here, Shay. That’s all you need to know.”

“So Hector and Raphael found out you had her and came here looking for her, right?” A rumble of dissent goes up amongst the crowd. Shay can hardly keep the hatred from her face as she locks eyes on me. Rebel does something that surprises me next. He steps in front of me, blocking me from her view. “You look at her again like that, Shay, and you and me are gonna have problems. In fact, best not to look at her at all, you read me?”

“She’s put us all in danger, Rebel. And you brought her here without telling any of us,” she spits. “Don’t you think we had a right to know about this? Don’t you think it would have been smart to tell us if you were bringing danger to our doorsteps?”

“It sounds very much like you’re questioning my judgement.” Rebel’s voice is all gravel and hard edges. He sounds like he’s about to go off at the deep end. Cade places a hand on his shoulder but Rebel shakes it off. He looks around the room—I can’t see the expression on his face, but I’m betting it’s terrifying. “This is not a democracy,” he says slowly. “This is not a fucking day spa. You don’t get to question me or go against my wishes. I’ve always done my best by you guys. I’ve always done my best to keep you safe. As of this moment, if any of you are unhappy with my leadership or think the threat Ramirez and his men poses is too great to your safety, I invite you to leave. No repercussions. No hard feelings. However, if any one of you so much as thinks of stepping out of line and putting this club in further danger, I’ll strip the motherfucking ink out of your backs right here and now.” I can see the hairs on the back of his neck slowly rising. The silent pause that follows is uncomfortable to say the least. Half the Widow Makers are looking at their feet when Rebel continues. “And should any one of you so much as think about making life here difficult for Sophia, you’re going to have to deal with me personally. Old or young. Man or woman. You’ve trusted me for the past five years, followed me through hell and back, so trust me now when I say this: you have
never
seen me pushed to my limit. Do
not
fucking test me. It will
not
end well.”

NINE

SOPHIA

When we get back to the cabin, Rebel puts me in his bed and tells me he’ll be back, and then I watch him through the half open bathroom door as he strips down to his boxers and methodically washes the blood from his body. He’s constructed beautifully, the planes of his muscles twisting and shifting in unison as he moves carefully around the bathroom. I can tell his side is still bothering him. And now he has two angry looking purple bruises planted in the middle of his chest where the prongs of the Taser made contact as well. There’s a lot of grunting and wincing as he cleans himself up. Sloane would tell him to sit his ass down so she could help him, but Rebel…he probably wouldn’t comply. He’s fiercely proud. He’s used to this—I can tell. If I try and interfere, he’ll probably shut down and instead of making progress we’ll be backtracking. I leave him to clean his wound and replace his bandages himself. He throws back what I’m assuming are more pain killers and antibiotics, and then he braces against the counter and stares at himself in the mirror for what feels like a very long time. He doesn’t seem to like what he sees.

When he comes to bed, I’m still intimidated by his performance back at the clubhouse. Intimidated enough that I pretend to be asleep. He sees through the ruse, though, pulling me to him without fear of waking me. He doesn’t say anything. He just strokes his hand over my hair, breathing deeply in the darkness, and I listen to his heart charging underneath his ribcage. He’s running a fever, his skin burning against my cheek as we lay there. I wonder if he’ll be a little better by the morning. Probably not. I mean, it’s going to take longer than a few days to recover from a serious injury like that, especially if he keeps moving around, attacking people with baseball bats and getting shot by DEA agents. I get the impression that tomorrow will be more of the same, somehow.