Unrequited (Fallen Aces MC #1) (23 page)

THIRTY

Elena

White noise. Constant screeching. It’s been burning my inner ear since I woke up.

I’ve been put to bed. There’s Advil and water on the bedside. I should take it, try and alleviate this incessant drone, but ugh, I don’t want to move. Moving only makes the ringing worse.

And the pain between my legs.
Did my period finally come?
It’s that kind of ache; the dull throb that tells you things are a little tender down there.

The sound of paper dragging over paper is as deafening as a rockslide. I screw my eyes tight, but the scraping continues. The snap of the book closing is a thunderstorm overhead.

“You’re awake.” Maria comes into view as I crack open my eyes, one of the classics I gave her clutched in her hand.

I lift my finger to my lips and shush her before pointing to my head.

“Ah,
sí,
” she whispers.

I let her help me to sit and down the Advil. The constant static roars with every movement. The longer I sit upright, the more I realize how bad it aches between my legs. I peel the sheet back and look down, seeing a facecloth lying on the mattress.

“Ah,” Maria says, snatching the damp cloth away. “Sorry. I forgot I had that there for you . . .” She flicks her wrist in a circle. “. . . to ease things.”

I should feel embarrassed, but I don’t. I’m more concerned about the sickening violation that takes hold of me—and not from her placing a cool cloth on my most private parts while I was out cold.

“What did he do to me?” I whisper.

Maria drops her chin to her chest and turns away.
No
. He wouldn’t have been that sick, would he?
Of course he would have.

“The doctor, she came. She said he’d been a little rough with you.”

Oh, God. He did.

The sunlight through the windows burns my welling eyes, and I gesture toward the curtains. Maria nods, slipping silently around the bed, and draws the heavy drapes. The rings pulling on the rail are like a train coming in to stop at the station.

I know what the problem is—concussion. I’ve got no idea how long I’ve been out cold, but with my memory of how hard Carlos swung my head before it connected with the cabinet, I’d say a while. I lift my hand hesitantly to the area above my ear and feel out the dent in my flesh and the swelling around it. I’m probably lucky he didn’t crack my skull.

I try to settle down on the bed again with Maria’s help when a bolt of nausea has me clutching my stomach. She rushes to the bathroom and brings back the waste bin just in time. I expel everything I’ve got, which isn’t much more than a lot of acid, and start to cry.
This is bad.

I keep testing him. And each time it gets worse.
Mama
.

Oh my God. Mama.

My tears intensify. Maria does what she can to console me. Does she know? Probably not. She probably just thinks I’m upset because of what Carlos has done. And I am, but not as much as I’m fucking torn in two at that final image of my beautiful mother. At seeing how she went.

I cry until the tears run dry. I cry until my chest heaves so hard with my hiccups that I can’t breathe, all while Maria rubs circles on my back and softly sings.

And then I sleep.

I don’t know how long I’m out for, or how many times I wake. There’s just daylight, then dusk, then daylight again. Once or twice I stay awake long enough to register my stomach is growling, but I don’t care.

I sleep.

The doctor comes in; I see her beside me and close my eyes.

I sleep again.

Maria’s there, pushing pills into my mouth and coaxing me to swallow. I do.

And then I sleep some more.

By the time I wake and
stay
awake, I’m sore all over. I’m stiff. And I need the toilet more than ever. Maria has stayed by my side—or maybe she’s come and gone? I wouldn’t know, since I’ve been mentally absent most of the time.

“I need the bathroom.”

Leaning on Maria, I hobble across the bedroom. She waits outside the door and talks to me the whole time. I guess she’s been instructed to keep me alert when I do finally wake and to check how responsive I am.

I should be in hospital.

I need to get in touch with King.

I vomit.

The nausea hasn’t gone while I’ve been resting, which troubles me. I’d hoped to wake feeling better, but if anything I feel worse. Taking my time, thanks to my shaken balance, I bend and search the towel basket with my hand. I pat under each rolled towel, finding nothing. My headache pounds, and my skin feels hot.

“Maria?” I use the shower wall as a walking aide, and lean on it to get to the door.

“Yes?” Her head pops around the frame, and seeing my plight, she rushes over to help.

“The towels. Did you change the towels?”

“No.”
Shit.
“Why?”

“My phone.” I close my eyes, trying to ground myself. “My phone was in there.”

“Ohhh.”

Yeah, ohhh.
I don’t have his number. Who does?
Damn it.
What if Carlos has it? I can’t take more of this, especially not when I’m still recovering from his last fit.

“I can’t do this any more, Maria.” She helps me on to the bed, fluffing the pillows behind my back. “I can’t take any more.”

“You can.” The usual smiley, happy Maria has vanished. The woman in her place is new, a harder side I’ve never seen. “And you will.”

“He’ll kill me next time.”

She stands at the foot of the bed and hesitates with her fingertips resting on the mattress. “May I speak honestly?”

“Of course.”

“You need to stop fighting.”

“But you told me not to give up?” I frown at her, ignoring how much it hurts.

“
Sí.
I meant stop arguing. Stop waving the red cape at the bull.” She sighs and sits sideways on the edge of the bed. “Think of it like a bull fight. The matador, he starts out aggressive, provoking the bull, no?”

I nod. My guess is I’m the matador in this story.

“But when he wins, when he brings the beast down, how does he do it?”

“With spears.”

“Exactly. He kills it slowly, one strike at a time.”

“So you’re saying I need to be more subtle, take him down blow by blow.”

Her smile returns. Her eyes are bright as she nods fervently. “
Sí.
You’ve waved your cape, you’ve made the animal angry—now
kill
it.”

THIRTY-ONE

King

Fifty-odd miles to go.
Callum’s arm hangs out the window of the crash truck in front of me, his hand surfing the cool night air. Nerves kicked in when I watched the load get stacked up at Carlos’s temporary stock warehouse—a veterinary practice that’s been shut for years down on Route 75 out of Tulsa. There’s a lot of coke in the back of that van, as in, I can’t even hazard a guess at what its street value is.

Lots. That’s all I need to know. More than we could repay if this goes wrong.

I had a missed call last night from Elena after her message. I called straight back as soon as I saw it, an hour later, but there was no answer. I know it was dangerous; fuck, if she’d been with him I could have got her in even more trouble.

I just needed to hear her tell me that she’s okay.

Twig and Gunner turn at the head of our procession, riding a good mile ahead of Callum so as not to draw too much attention to our convoy from civilians. The van follows, as do I, and then comes our tail-end Charlie, Hooch.

We’ve barely straightened out when a dark gray pick-up draws my attention. It passes by us, travelling in the opposite direction, and then does a U-turn to bring up the rear. Keeping eyes on my mirror, I drop my arm beside my leg and shake my hand as though trying to regain feeling. Hooch catches the signal and acknowledges it with a ‘scratch’ to his nose.

The pick-up trails us through two sets of lights and out of the town we’ve passed through to the open road. My muscles tense, my gut screaming at me to stay alert. Hooch tests the vehicle out, pulling his bike close to the center line to block the driver’s view of the road. The pick-up weaves left and right, appearing to try for a clear line of sight around Hooch.

Callum taps the brakes twice to indicate he’s noticed what’s going on.

I drift right, aiming to hug the side of the road and look ahead to spot where Twig and Gunner are, when from my right, a black sedan screams out of a side road, and cuts between Hooch and I.

The gray pick-up accelerates with a roar, overtaking until it’s side-by-side with the crash truck. I check my mirror as I reach for my gun and find Hooch unloading bullets in through the passenger window of the sedan behind me. The pick-up rams into the crash truck in front of me, and I whip the bike left so hard that my back tire slips out, skidding on the hardtop before I manage to right myself and pull up. The crash truck’s come to a stop further up the road, Twig and Gunner arriving just as Callum fires out his open window at the pick-up, which is wedged hood first into his door.

I kick out my stand and get off, gun drawn and at the ready as I approach where Hooch has ditched his bike and is currently bashing at the driver’s window of the sedan.

“Get the fuck out!” He smashes the butt of his gun against the glass again, the driver slumped over the steering wheel.

As I round the front of the vehicle, I see why. There’s two good holes through the windscreen.

“I think you got him, man.”

Hooch is as high as a fucking kite—no surprises there. His eyes are wide, and the pupils pin-pricks as he stares at me.

I lift my hands and jerk my head toward where there’s commotion at the truck. “Come on.”

I don’t wait for him. I turn and hotfoot it up the road to where Twig now has a man kneeling with both hands on the back of his head, and Callum struggles to wrench another person from the passenger side of the pick-up. The door’s all busted in, meaning he has to try and haul our attacker out the broken window.

I’m barely ten feet away when a third vehicle roars up the road from the way we’ve come. Bullets pepper the side of the crash truck, and Twig’s hostage decides it’s a good time to run. He doesn’t get far.

My boots strike the road with heavy slaps as I run the last few feet to the pick-up. Using it as a barricade, I fire at the oncoming vehicle over the tray. The car screams past our location, and brakes heavily a half mile up the road, the tires screeching as it whips around and comes back. More bullets scatter over our location. Callum dives inside the crash truck, cranking the key to turn it over. Twig, and Gunner lay down cover as Callum pulls around, and takes off back where we’ve come.

Hooch skids in beside me, and changes the clip on his gun. “Fuckin’ bullshit, ain’t it?”

“You don’t say.” I let off three rounds at the car’s tires as it flies past again, heading after Callum.

“Move!” Twig hollers as he runs toward his bike.

The four of us scatter, revving engines as we trail the car, and Callum. Gunner’s first, giving his bike hell to catch up. I follow close behind, before Twig and Hooch bring up the rear. The crash truck bounces, it’s rear wheel lifting off the ground as Callum swings it at speed around a corner and down a dirt road. I’m fucking thankful there’s no other traffic out here, the area we’re travelling through being rural.

Gunner slows for the corner, sticking his boot out as he drifts around the bend. I follow suit, putting my bike into a controlled slide to get around the turn faster. Gunner’s twisting his throttle hard, gaining on the car and Callum, when his back tire steps out and the bike starts to wobble. Tank slap.
Fuck
. He goes down hard, rolling along the road as I tear past choosing to stay in pursuit.

There’s fuck all between us now. I reach for my gun, and battling the wind resistance from the speeds we’re doing, line up the back tires of the car. Three rounds and I take the first one out. A flash of black in my mirror draws my focus away for a brief second, and I catch Twig hard on my rear. Our procession turns another hard right, snaking through the back roads. Twig pulls level, and on the next decent straight, joins me in firing at the sedan. I don’t know who hits, but regardless, the other tire goes, slowing the car to a stop as the rims starts to churn up the dirt road.

Callum pulls over further up the road as Twig and I dismount, weapons still aimed at the car. Twig pulls the door open while I cover him, and unloads two bullets into the sole occupant.

“Didn’t you want to find out who the fuck set this shit up?” I ask.

He shakes his head and steps back. “Nah. Got that from the other guy before he ran.”

“Blood Eagles?”

He nods.

What the fuck is going on?
Our rat’s alive and well it seems. “Who knew?”

“About the run?” Twig clarifies as Callum approaches.

“Yeah.”

“Just us, Apex, and Judas.”

Six men other than me. Five suspects.

“Somethin’ has to be done about this bullshit.” I tuck my gun away. “Before anyone gets killed.”

“Fuckin’ close, wasn’t it?” Callum asks, peering in the open door at the dead driver.

“Good thing you’re a hell of a driver then, hey?”

Twig glances back up the road and sighs. “Better go check on Gunner.”