Chapter 9
DEAN
Eight weeks blurred into survival.
On the surface, Dean was everything his father wanted.
The suit fit like armor, pressed to perfection.
His expression was as cold as steel, every movement precise.
He placed orders for weapons, arranged shipments, and killed without hesitation, but underneath it all, he cut deals with men who bowed to Carlos’s name, but studied Dean with new respect.
He learned to use his words like weapons. Numbers became ammunition, and the contracts he made were as sharp as any blade. When necessary, he signed off in blood.
Tonight, it was cold calculation.
Dean slid a file across the polished desk, his pen steady. “William thought he could take the European route. He won’t think that again,” Dean informed, as his father picked up the file and read the deal Dean just made.
Carlos’s lips curved with satisfaction. “Good. You’re learning.”
Dean didn’t answer. The act had been perfected, obedience laced with ambition, the perfect mask.
It had taken two weeks of beatings, and in and out of isolation to make his father think that he’d broken Dean’s resolve.
When Carlos threatened to kill Yasmine if he didn’t comply, he got down on his knees and said he’d do whatever was necessary.
That was the start. The beginning of the end.
What Carlos didn’t know was that every moment Dean spent in this place only further built his map out of here.
Every order logged. Every distributor tagged.
Every guard’s weakness catalogued. Every member of the Righteous working for his father memorized.
One day, all of it would turn and he would control everything.
Ricco had helped and was proving to be an asset.
Carlos’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen before answering and stepped onto the balcony, as he often did. But tonight, he left the door partially open.
Dean kept his head bent over his paperwork, pen scratching in deliberate rhythm. But his ears were focused on what his father.
“Are you sure she matches the description?” Carlos asked. “What’s the name? Maeve? Are you sure it is her? Slippery bitch.”
Dean’s breath froze in his chest, the air ceasing to move.
“Make sure she doesn’t leave the area. What do you mean you don’t know how to do that? Nicolo, I don’t give a fuck what you have to do. Frame her for murder for all I care, but make sure she is locked up somewhere secure. She cannot slip away before backup arrives.”
Dean’s pulse erupted into a stampede that felt like it was going to burst out of his chest.
Maeve…fuck no, no, no. What about Morry? Did Maeve leave the safety of the MC compound? Fuck.
Dean needed answers. His hand clenched the pen so hard it nearly snapped.
Isabella Alvarez, was who his little girl was named after.
She was the girl he’d stolen from his father’s grip when he’d run at eighteen.
The girl he’d left at a fire station before vanishing into the military.
The girl he prayed every night Carlos would never find.
And now Carlos had.
Dean forced his pen to keep moving, the ink dragging across the words as he fixed and changed things in the ledger. His father didn’t believe in keeping his financials on computers and everything was still done by hand.
Carlos’s voice carried, amused. “Yes, I want her intact. What kind of a fucking question is that? When she is delivered, she’ll regret every year she lived free.”
Dean’s jaw ached from holding back the roar in his throat.
The call ended, and all Dean could hear was the pen on the paper and the breeze stirring the sheer curtain, as if it were trying to whisper a warning. Carlos turned and walked into the office, sliding the phone into his pocket. His eyes glittered, testing Dean to say something, but he didn’t.
“Mercurio,” he said smoothly. “Did you hear that?”
Dean looked up, his face a mask of boredom. “No. Did you ask me to do something?”
Carlos studied him, searching for cracks in the veneer of his mask. Then his mouth curved into a grin.
“I have found something you stole from me, or should I say someone. She is hiding in California of all places,” Carlos reported as if that would set Dean off.
Dean leaned back in the leather chair, his eyebrow rising as if he were taking a moment to think. He got up and poured himself a drink, swirled the amber liquid, took a slow sip, and met his father’s eyes.
“I assume you are talking about the Alvarez girl,” Dean said, his voice was even, and cold.
“Unless you stole another from me that I’m unaware of…yes.”
It was Dean’s turn to smirk as he lifted the glass in a mock salute. “The funny thing about theft, old man…you can’t have something stolen from you when it was never yours to begin with.”
Carlos’s grin faltered. The reaction he’d hunted for slipped through his fingers. His gaze hardened, but he only chuckled, shaking his head.
“Careful, hijo. Even masks crack if worn too long.”
“Only if the mask is fake. It has been many years, and I do not care what you do to the girl. Keep her, kill her, fuck her, she is nothing more than a pawn. Unless I’m wrong?”
His father’s nostrils flared in obvious frustration. “No, you are not wrong.”
With that, his father left the office, irritation leaking from every step.
Dean let the smirk drop the second the door shut. He set the glass down, his hand trembling despite the ice in his veins.
Pulling out the phone Ricco had gotten for him, Dean slid open the encrypted app he’d hidden weeks ago on his father’s phone. Every text Carlos sent, every call he made, Dean saw it all. And there it was, the call from California.
His chest tightened.
There were only two people in California he could trust. Sandman and Crosshairs, if they were still there. He did a quick search for Trevor Anderson and found him instantly, but trying to fine Maeve would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Dean looked over Trev’s profile, he was a fancy ass lawyer and in the heart of Cali.
Good.
Dean really didn’t know how the two brothers would take to him calling out of the blue.
It had been a long time, but they didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye, and now Dean needed to confess to them both that it was his fault that people they loved were dead.
Shit, he couldn’t do that yet. He might need their help to rescue Maeve and wouldn’t chance them saying no.
Dean closed his eyes and shook his head, needing a moment to compose himself. Even if they hated him once they learned the truth, Trev would always do what was right.
Fuck.
He hoped Trev was still the same man who had been his commanding officer.
Dean slipped the phone back into his pocket, his expression giving nothing away once more.
Timing mattered. He couldn’t move too soon, couldn’t risk drawing Carlos’s eye.
Especially, since the caller didn’t have Maeve yet, and she could still escape.
If Dean acted too quickly, then he’d tip his hand.
But one truth carved itself deep into his bones. Maeve…Isabella…could never come back here. If Carlos touched her again, if he dragged her into this cage…God only knew what he would do with her this time.
There was no way in hell Dean was letting his father get his hands on her again.