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Chapter Eleven

Richard groaned as his cell phone shrilled, waking him up out of a light doze. He slid his arm out from under the busty ditz in his bed. He glanced at the caller ID. A number he didn’t recognize. He almost didn’t answer, but something in his gut made him think better of the idea. He pushed the Answer button.

“Hello, Daddy.”

The words sent jolts of excitement and victory down his spine. “Sierra? Sierra, sweetie, where are you? Are you coming home?”

She laughed, “Absolutely not. I met your little messenger boy.”

“What?”

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Her voice was cold and flat.

“What do you mean?”

“Sending some lackey after me in some pitiful attempt to get me to come crawling back to you like you’re some hero. You are disgusting.”

“Excuse me, young lady, who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Not someone I want to hear from every again. I’m just calling to let you know that I’m never coming home. Oh, and I told Chad Pender what you want me for and what you grand plans are.”

Richard had walked out of the bedroom and was pacing in the hallway. “What plans? What are you talking about? Why don’t you just come home and stop this nonsense.”

She laughed, “If you think I am ever coming home – ever – you are sadly, sadly mistaken. If you ever see my face again, it will be on my dying day. Or, perhaps, yours when I come to your bedside and spit in your face before I walk out again.”

“Can you just calm down for a second and stop being so damn dramatic? What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

“Force me to marry some asshole for your gain.”

“What? Why in the world would you think that?”

“Because it is true. Because all you’ve ever talked about is how your children owe you something.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Sierra. Please just come home.”

“I’m never coming home… and neither is Chad.”

“Why are you speaking for Mr. Pender?”

“Because he just left my apartment and is coming back tomorrow, and is going to make sure that I never have to go back to you. Because you are an evil, vile, selfish brute of a man.”

The call disconnected and Richard stood in the hall holding his phone. He stood there for a moment staring blankly ahead. What could he do? His first inclination was to call her back and scream at her that it didn’t matter what she wanted or thought. She had a responsibility!

His second idea was to call Chad and demand to know what game he was trying to play, but if what Sierra had said weren’t true, she probably wouldn’t have bothered saying it.

So, instead, he went to his office and looked through his collection of numbers and placed a call to the Shadow Souls MC. Obviously, no one would be there to answer the phone at this ungodly hour, but they would have an unpleasant surprise in the morning.

“Hello. This is Richard Hall, Scott Hall’s father. I don’t believe we have ever really spoken, but I have some important information to impart about the death of my son. As you know, Chad Pender was with my son when he died. The official report was that a drowsy trucker hit the boys and my son, tragically, died in the resulting crash. The truth is much worse: Chad was there because he was on orders from James Northorp to make sure Scott died that night.” 

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Candice Owen

CHAPTER ONE

The rustic roads making their way through the San Gabriel Mountains were a bit too vague. Blanche Herrera was a ways off of Little Tujunga Canyon Road, which was the last closest thing to a civilized road she had ridden on. According to her GPS, she was just a few miles from her destination, a boarding house on Main Street in what had been a booming town a hundred or so years prior when some lucky miner found a couple nuggets of gold.

She stopped when she came to a bridge that crossed a tree-crowded gully at the base of the mountain foothill. It appeared there had been a creek that ran through it. The gully was lined with smooth river rock. To the one side was the bridge; there was no rail or wall; it was long since missing from what she could tell, but it wasn't closed – not officially.

It was plenty wide enough. The fall wouldn't be that great. Not that she would fall. Mudslides from down the mountain slope had begun to swallow up the bridge, but on a bike, a driver could cross, no problem.

Luckily, Blanche – a shooter, also known as El Salvador, hired by the Norte Mexicali to take out the captain of the Seven Devils Motorcycle Club – was riding her Harley Sportster. With the bridge right there in front of her and the very long ride behind her, she was suddenly too lazy to go the couple hundred yards on the road around the gully to the other side.

The real question for her was not how was she to navigate across the bridge, but how the hell was the nothing-town of Gold Creek, California a threat to the most powerful drug cartel in Central America? Was it because Norte Mexicali wanted Gold Creek's drug business? They were such a small town, how could it make any difference one way or the other? It made no sense.

Blanche never got involved in the where's or whys, so long as the cash was good. It was way too much commitment and took away from her number one priority: herself. She was about her own gratification, no matter what that might be. She liked cash, beauty, really hot sex... and adventure.

She had no time for other people's politics, but when she heard that there was a gringo motorcycle captain who dared to make rules about who could use the drugs in this town, it was too much for her. It was one thing to make a personal choice about whether or not to indulge in recreational pleasures, but to forbid an entire town struck a negative chord with Blanche.

She hated, absolutely hated, oppressive, bossy types. Blanche was the type that hated chains of any kind. Rules were the worst kind of chain, as far she could see. She loved her freedom. She loved not answering to anyone and, ultimately, it made no difference to her what the deal was, but this one she would enjoy.

It was a long ride from Escondido, where she kept a house in the hills, to Gold Creek. The Santa Ana winds were whipping around and driving everyone loco. Blanche was no stranger to the Santa Anas, but they were getting to her, she feared. The air was hot and bothersome. Blanche shed her jacket down to her camisole once she got off the highway to the side roads towards town.

The neckline of her tank was modest, but her petite body was voluptuous. Her cleavage was endless and her breasts all but spilled over. Her necklace, from which hung a secret weapon she used when on the job, dangled precariously at the curve of her bosom.

She was done with the back roads. She planned on taking take the shortcut across the defunct bridge and get to the other side and be done with it. The long way around, the smarter, sensible way, was not happening at this point. The length of the bridge was probably like sixty yards.

She couldn't figure out why Gold Creek let it go to pot except that the population of the area was so scant, it probably didn't matter one way or the other. Blanche was about half way across the bridge when she heard the distinct sound of something giving.
Oh no
, she thought. Her heart was electrified with adrenalin. She had made a bad decision and it could very well cost her her life. She was out in the middle of nowhere chasing down the closest thing to a grudge she allowed herself to have.

***

Blanche remained as still as she could. She disregarded the annoyance that the perspiration trickling between her breasts and down the small of her back posed. The fall was one thing but the thought of caving in through an abandoned bridge was overwhelming and she couldn't move. She closed her eyes. Sweat drenched her and the salt stung beneath her eyelids.

"Don't move," came an ominous warning. "I'm going to get you off."

It was not exactly the moment to be thinking in double entendres, but it sounded almost like the smoldering voice just promised to give her pleasure. Hopefully it would be after he saved her life. Maybe she was hallucinating. Blanche was scared and that almost never happened…not if she could help it.

She kept her eyes shut through the whole thing. She could hear him somehow managing to make his way to the railing and, light as a cat and as quick, he was on her bike with her riding bitch. They flew to the end of the bridge safely reaching solid ground just in time to have the section behind them give. Blanche dismounted and darted a few feet before collapsing to the ground. She heard herself sobbing hysterically.

"Hey," he said placing a warm hand on the small of her back as she bent over. He hovered with her as if to shelter her. His energy was positively soothing. He was like standing next to a spa; there was something very disarming about him that made her unwind and relax and lazy.

Blanche realized he was somehow getting the better of her. Alert with alarm, she stood up straight and raged, "What is the idea of having a bridge like? Someone could get killed!" She punched his very solid arm.

For the first time since their encounter, Blanche got a glimpse of the stranger's face. She staggered backward, overcome by his handsomeness. In the barrage of shock from the bridge and his sudden appearance and now his overwhelming good looks, Blanche struggled to place him. She had seen him before, but how...

Oh no
. She shook her head. Jason Fowler? Gold Creek had just gotten ridiculously smaller. Again, she couldn’t figure how this small strip of nothing real estate could be a thorn in the side of the Norte Mexicali Cartel, but who was she to question?