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  “Of course you did.” I put both hands on her hips and matched my rhythm to hers. I was having a good time now.

  Christina approached me from the side. She pushed her chest in my face and rippled her sinewy body up and down my front. That was what I was talking about. I took one hand away from Tina and passed it around Christina’s waist to pull her against me.

  Tina took the hint and eased back to give us room. I danced with Christina for a while. More people crowded the area. You couldn’t call it a dance floor since it was nothing but an asphalt pad in front of the warehouse, but we would take what we could get.

  The song ended and everybody clapped. The music shifted into the next raucous beat, but before I could start dancing again, Christina put her mouth near my ear. “Would you get me a drink, sweetheart?”

  “Sure, baby.” I dug my fingertips into her back to draw her toward me and kissed her on the forehead. “Anything for you.”

  I walked away to the fridge. Over my shoulder, I spotted her heading back to Logan. She got herself a good one there. I couldn’t be happier for both of them.

  I got a margarita mixer out of the fridge and took it to her. I popped it into her hand and left her alone with Logan. I saw the two of them getting close behind the buffet tables, so they wouldn’t want me around making a nuisance of myself.

  I decided to give Martín some love by the barbeque. I couldn’t let him sulk too long about me taking Tina away from him. She still hadn’t returned to him from the dance floor, so I made a beeline for him.

  On the way there, Carlos sidelined me. He materialized out of nowhere and flung an arm around my shoulder. “Órale, vato, what are you doing later tonight?”

  I laughed in his face. “Sleeping, I hope.”

  “You know what I mean,” he countered. “Why don’t you come with us on that patrol job?”

  I whipped around to stare at him. “What for? You and Kane and José must have that under control. What do you want me along for? I would only get in your way.”

  “You would never be in the way. You know we need you.”

  I halted in my tracks and confronted him. “Does this have anything to do with…..?” I didn’t finish.

  “Naw, Ese,” he murmured. “Logan knows you and Christina are ancient history. He doesn’t hold it against you.”

  “He would have nothing to hold against me. I treated Christina like a queen. Everybody knows that. If you doubt it, just ask her.”

  “I don’t have to ask her,” he replied. “We all know you’re a prince with the ladies.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” I asked. “What do you want to assign me a shit detail like that for?”

  He glanced right and left at nothing. Then he eased his mustached face an inch closer. “It’s not a shit detail, Ese. We need you. I’m serious. We…..Don’t tell anybody I told you this, vato. We might run into trouble. We need another enforcer. We’d all feel a whole lot better if we had you with us. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I stared at him with wide eyes. “Are you serious, man?”

  “Dead serious. When I told The Boss who I planned to take, he said that’s not enough. He suggested I ask you, but hey.” He held up both hands. “If you would rather sleep, I won’t try to stop you. We all know you need your beauty rest for the ladies.”

  He swiveled away, but I lunged after him and caught his arm. “Hold up, man. I don’t need sleep that bad. If you really want me, I’m all yours.”

  “Thanks.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t drink too much tonight, all right? We need you sharp.”

  “You got it, man.” I clasped his hand and we parted.

  Four hours later, I was in the middle of a joke with Martín when Carlos moved into my line of sight across the yard. He didn’t do anything but stand where I could see him, but the look in his eye told me all I needed to know.

  I didn’t stop talking. I finished the joke and even waited until Martín told me a story about how he and Logan ran over a pig in the middle of the barrio.

  I tilted back my beer bottle. I’d nursed that one bottle of beer the whole night in anticipation of exactly this moment. “I’m going for a refill,” I told Martín. “Talk to you later.”

  He went off to find Tina and I dropped my bottle in the recycling bin, but I didn’t go get another one. I entered the warehouse at the same time as Carlos, Kane, and José. We converged on our bikes and mounted up.

  The crowd outside looked up in surprise when we fired up our rides. Logan just so happened to be opening the locked gate. Carlos must have told him to.

  The four of us motored out of the yard, and Logan locked it behind us. The night closed in and the miles zipped by under my wheels. The sultry summer air hit me in the face and whipped my hair back. I loved nothing more than riding with my brothers on a mission for the club.

  Every sense prickled when we neared our boundary. From the overpass, I peered down into the buffer zone between our barrio and the Chinese Longtails’ neighborhood. No Longtails patrolled that area, but a few headlights crossed the hill a few miles away. No doubt they were keeping us in their sights the same way we were keeping them in ours.

  Carlos braked next to me and pointed down the onramp toward the freeway. That must be where he expected trouble. My hand flew to my chest where I kept my sidearm holstered under my vest.

  We remained on alert driving to the derelict movie theater at the far northern corner of our territory. If anyone was going to attack us, it would be here. We filed into the parking lot, but no one appeared.

  We waited ten minutes. Nothing. Carlos circled his forefinger around his head. We convoyed back toward the warehouse, but by the time we hit Guerrera Street, I knew we were all clear. If our enemies didn’t show themselves by now, they wouldn’t magically appear in the center of our neighborhood.

  When we got to the intersection, I switched on my turn signal. I waved to Carlos, and he and the others returned the signal when I turned off toward home. We didn’t get into a fight to the death against the Longtails, but just thinking about it set my nerves on edge.

  I started to relax when I spotted my house in the distance. There was nothing better in the world than sinking into my own bed at night.

  I took one hand off the handlebars. That was how relaxed I was thinking about it when, out of nowhere, I turned the last corner and nearly had a heart attack. A girl with long blonde hair was knelt in the middle of the street.

  My headlight lit up her bashed and blood-streaked face. I barely had time to hit the brakes to avoid hitting her when she lunged to her feet and staggered away.

  She didn’t really stagger. She lurched. She fumbled two steps and crashed onto her knees. She tried to rise again, but she couldn’t manage more than a half-hearted crawl.

  She kept glancing over her shoulder toward my headlight. Tears streamed down her cheeks through the blood and gore. Jesus, she looked awful! I hadn’t seen a woman that ruined in…. well, we just didn’t get that shit around our club. No one laid a finger on a woman in Los Diablos. I would rip his eyelids off if anyone tried.

  I sat rooted to my bike gawking after her. She stared in all directions, but she was obviously too petrified to see a thing. She couldn’t even decide which direction to go.

  I took a minute to wake up from my shock. My house called to me from a few hundred yards away, but I couldn’t ignore this.

  I set the bike on its kickstand, swung my leg over the seat, and strode toward her. She screamed and made another pitiful effort to get to her feet. Her knees buckled. She caught herself on her hands, stumbled once, and jolted a few more steps away.

  Now that I got near her, I noticed the blood streaming down her neck from somewhere in her scalp. Her hands and knees were dripping blood everywhere. Her breathing grunted in broken sobs. My heart contracted just looking at the girl.

  I pushed myself to catch up with her. I put out one hand, but I didn’t dare touch her. I couldn’t see one spot on her that was int
act enough to touch. “Are you okay? Can I help?”

  She gaped up at me with the eyes of an animal caught in a trap. She flinched when I moved my hand toward her again, and when she tried to get away, she pitched over on her side.

  She scrabbled onto her back and made a pathetic effort to crab-walk backward. She collided with the curb. For a second, she couldn’t think what to do. She just stared up at me with those haunting green eyes.

  “Easy, girl,” I murmured. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

  Her eyes darted this way and that in search of any threat. She groped behind her. That was when I spotted a tattoo on her arm in the shape of a skull. A serpent slithered through its eye sockets. Its pointed, spiked head came out of the skull’s mouth and spread two wings on either side of the cheeks. Spikes lined the creature’s long neck and tail.

  A banner across the skull’s forehead announced to the world: Muerta—Death.

  I frowned down at this lump of destroyed humanity at my feet. Muerta? What was she doing all the way over here? La Muerta, our rival motorcycle club, defended their territory on our northern side. They never let their members, and certainly not their women, go running all over town in the dead of night.

  The girl’s frightened gaze skipped over me. She locked onto my eyes for half a second before she glanced down. A burning sensation stabbed me in the guts. She was looking at my arm.

  She must have seen the tat at my elbow. She couldn’t miss it, nor could she misunderstand the dragon symbol with the words, Los Diablos written in fancy italics around it. She knew. We were enemies—the worst kind of enemies.

  Something else about her didn’t make sense. She was white as the driven snow. La Muerta was a Mexican gang like Los Diablos. They didn’t go for any girl with white-blonde hair and green eyes like hers. They wouldn’t look sideways at her, much less mark her as one of their own.

  I should have walked away. Every instinct told me to turn around, get on my bike, and drive home. I should forget all about her. I should leave her to her own devices.

  Then again, La Muerta would come after her in no time. If they found out she ventured into our territory, they would want to get her back. I should take her into custody. That would be the smart thing to do. When La Muerta asked for her, we could hand her over.

  I lowered myself into a squat and considered what to do about her. I would only traumatize her more by grabbing her and bundling her into my closet. I could never treat a woman like that. Christ, I wanted to throttle whoever did this.

  It couldn’t have been one of La Muerta. They maintained a code of honor the same way we did. They didn’t go around bloodying their women. Only animals did that.

  La Muerta might be our rivals and our enemies. We might even have gotten into a few wars with them over trafficking rights and whatnot, but at least they weren’t so villainous as to lose our respect.

  None of that helped me figure out what to do with this poor soul. She kept gasping in fright every time I looked sideways at her. At least she didn’t try to get away anymore. Maybe she was just too exhausted from running. She must have run all the way here from her own territory. She must have been so blind scared she didn’t know where she was going. She just kept running and running from whatever or whoever did this to her.

  “Hey, chica.” If she belonged to La Muerta, she must have spoken at least some Spanish, even if she was white. I decided to try it. “No one’s going to hurt you, chica. You need help. Take it easy. You’re safe. See that house over there? That’s my house. Do you want to come inside? You can stay there for a little while until you figure out where to go. No one is going to touch you. I swear it. What do you say?”

  I didn’t wait for her to reply. I sauntered back to my bike and shut off the motor. I left it sitting in the middle of the street. No one in their right mind would touch my ride, and everyone in this neighborhood knew me.

  I walked around the girl in a wide arc. She followed my every move with a suspicious glare. I got to my front door and unlocked it. I threw it open and left it standing like that.

  When I returned to her, I crouched down one more time. “See? You can just go inside. I won’t go anywhere near you. You can sleep on the couch. Shit, you can sleep in my bed if you want. Just clean yourself up as best you can first, okay. That’s all I ask.”

  I gave her my best smile. Girls always loved it when I smiled at them. Maybe that was what made me so happy all the time.

  She blinked. I saw the prospect sinking into her mind. Poor thing. She was half out of her mind with pain and fear, and she looked like death warmed over.

  Rage boiled in my guts for the asshole that did this to her. He better not be stupid enough to come around me or I would thump him a thousand times worse than he did her. I might have been a big softy at heart, but inside lay a beast that no one wanted to mess with.

  She glanced toward the door. Come on, girl. You know you want to.

  “I’ve got some empanadas in there,” I offered. “I’ll make you some chili and maybe a few sausages. What do you say to that?”

  She looked like she hadn’t eaten in a few months. She wasn’t carrying enough padding to handle one punch, let alone a beating like this.

  I walked around her again in a wide circle. I positioned myself between her and the house and extended my hand. “Come on, sweetie. Come on. You’ll be safe in there. I promise. My name’s Francisco, but everyone calls me Cisco. What’s your name?”

  Of course, she didn’t answer. I wasn’t expecting her to, but I saw her resolve start to waver. I held up my hand. “Come on. Come on.”

  At that moment, a streak of motion hurtled out of the dark. It smashed into me with the force of a freight train. It barreled me onto my back and the biggest vato I ever saw tackled me onto my own lawn.

  The girl shrieked. Her hands flew to her temples and she screamed with more lung power than I ever thought she could muster.

  I didn’t see anything else as the hulk wound back with his fist raised high. He wanted to pound me into oblivion.

  A switch flipped in my mind and I went into battle mode. I swung at the same moment, but I didn’t form a fist. I tightened my fingers into an impenetrable blade and jabbed him full force in the neck.

  The soft tissue under his Adam’s apple gave way from the force of impact. The air stopped in his throat and his arm hovered in space. I rounded on him with my fists and cracked his jaw with one punch.

  He flipped over and crashed to Earth. The instant he fell, my brain shifted into gear again. I smelled the overpowering stench of booze seeping from his very pores.

  I drove myself to my feet. The girl still stood off a ways with her fingers laced into her hair. Her mouth hung open in a wordless scream of stunned shock. She gaped down at the thing.

  The fool passed out with both arms splayed to either side. From here, I could clearly make out the tattoo on his arm. La Muerta. So that was the shithead who attacked her. He tracked her down here and thought he could take me out. What a punk.

  The girl blinked down at him for a second. I blew out my breath and held out my hand. “Come on, chica. You’re safe. He won’t bother you anymore. Come inside.”

  She looked up at me. Her expression didn’t change at all. She regarded me with the same sickening fear as that pig on the ground. She didn’t see any difference between us. Fuck, he must have really done a number on her.

  Then, with no warning, she darted around me and raced for the house. She plunged through the open door and slammed it behind her, locking me outside.

  3

  Isabel

  I jammed myself as far back behind the couch as I could get. I wedged my body between the furniture and the wall where nothing could come at me. I hugged my knees to my chest and trained my gaze at the few inches of space right in front of me. If anything came after me, it would come from there.

  What the Christ was I doing here? What was I thinking, going into some strange Diablo’s house? Everyone in La Muerta knew abo
ut them. They were our enemies.

  I knew the instant I saw that guy’s tat that I was in serious trouble. I didn’t think when I left Diego’s apartment. I was so freaked out I could only think about running to get away from him.

  I made a big mistake. I didn’t pay attention to where I was going. I crossed into Los Diablos’ territory. Now what the fuck was I going to do?

  That guy saw my insignia, too. He didn’t lose his shit and blow my brains out, though. He didn’t try to get me out of his neighborhood, either. He didn’t say I had to leave. He invited me into his house.

  I wasn’t thinking. That much was clear, but something about him made me trust him. He looked like any other gang banger and I had seen enough to know. He wore his patched vest with a red bandana folded wide around his forehead. He kept his long black hair braided in a rope down his back the way all Los Diablos did.

  His thick, meaty hands bore the scars of a thousand fights. White, crisscross knife marks cut through the tats on his arms and disappeared under the black t-shirt stretched tight around his biceps and ripped shoulders.

  He looked for all the world like Diego—all except the eyes. His eyes danced with fun and kindness, even when he frowned. His lips tried hard not to curl into a smile, but he never quite succeeded.

  When he smiled, he stopped looking like a devil. He looked more like someone’s kid brother. He looked like he might at any moment burst into impish laughter, and that expression made any normal person want to laugh, too.

  I wasn’t a normal person anymore. I passed beyond being a person. Diego made sure of that. I could never laugh again. That part of me died. Diego didn’t have to kill my body. He’d already killed my spirit and that could never come back to life.

  I didn’t care anyway. I needed a safe place to spend the night. I needed a hole to hide in until I figured out how to get the fuck out of Los Diablos’ territory. If this guy didn’t kill me before morning, maybe he could make sure that happened. He sure as hell wouldn’t want me to stick around.

  I retreated into the most primal animalistic part of my mind. I huddled behind the couch and locked my gaze on that narrow space. I couldn’t relax an inch. I had to be ready at any moment to run or fight again.