49. Kali
49
KALI
“K ali.”
I didn’t want to wake up, and I started to roll over when who was saying my name got through to me, and then everything came back in a flash. I sat up, instant alarm pumping through me. “What is it? What happened?” My heart was racing.
Shane was sitting by me, and at my reaction, his eyes widened a little. He let out a breath. “We need to talk.”
No.
No.
I shook my head because noooo.
The alarm moved aside, and impending doom sank deep inside of me.
I closed my eyes, one second. “Why do I feel like I need to start crying right now? Just to get some of the tears out of me?”
There was no good look on his face. Nothing that was telling me to feel otherwise. No reassurance. Just resignation, like he was about to tell me someone in my family was dead. “Shane, you’re terrifying me. Tell me this feeling is wrong.”
“I can’t.” His eyes matched his tone, sad, but ready. He nodded to the bathroom. “You need in there? Maybe get dressed? You're not going to want to go back to bed when this is done. If you’re going to trust me on anything, it should be that.”
Enough said.
I shut down. Everything.
The gates came around my heart. The lock was turned. I went numb because that impending doom was a monster that took root in me. It was growing with each word he said, each look he refused to give me, each tone he used.
When I was finished, I came back to the room. Dressed. Washed up. Fucking ready for whatever was coming my way.
I stood just in the room, and crossed my arms over my chest.
“You want to sit?”
I ignored that. “You’re a dick.”
He sighed, and ran a hand over his face. “I know.”
Nothing I said or did was going to shield me from whatever he was going to tell me. I knew that, and my heart was already splintering. “Just tell me, Shane. Get it over with.”
He nodded, his head hanging down for a moment before he went and sat in the chair in the corner of the room. He leaned forward, elbows on his legs, his hands clasped together and his head was down again. “I gotta break the code in order to tell you what I have to tell you. I need to tell you club business. We’re not supposed to, but sometimes we enter into gray areas and I think we’re in one. Or, hell. Maybe I’m just saying that to deal with my own guilt. I don’t know, but you already know we’re battling with a cartel. What you don’t know is why or how it all started.” He lifted his head now, and his eyes were so haunted I felt them pierce through me.
A shiver went down my spine.
“We got in with them from the beginning. It was supposed to be one trip. We’d carry something for him, and by him, I mean Marco Estrada. One time trip, lots of money. It worked. Money was great. The guys were happy, but Estrada wasn’t. He wanted another trip, and another, and another until we find out that he’s using us as his pitbulls. He’s got a hold in the States because of us. We helped cement it. Then…” He stopped, and his Adam’s apple moved up and down. Once. When he continued, his voice was thick. “I don’t mind doing shit to bad people. Never grew up worrying about that. No skin off my nose. Had no family growing up. All I did overseas, couldn’t do what I did there if that was the case, but bad people. People who steal, kill, lie without a second thought. Got no problem taking them out. It’s another thing when it’s someone innocent.”
My heart felt like it was being crushed.
“The request came through, but it wasn’t a request. It was fucking blackmail. We had to kill someone, and who Estrada said to kill wasn’t who it turned out to be. They were innocents. Not even in this life, but it didn’t matter. Estrada is a snake. His whole cartel is set up in a way where it’s not just him at the top. He’s got other guys who can step in if something happens to him. They can make a call and end families. Lines of families. We know this because we’re the ones who set them up because they ain’t hiding down in Mexico. Oh, no. Marco was smart. He thought his ‘second-in-commands,’ that’s what he calls them, wouldn’t be safe down where he was, and he didn’t want to worry about them being free. Being able to walk around, infiltrate, take over before he was ready for them. I need to be real clear about these guys. They know the names, the codes, the bank accounts. If for any reason, someone takes Marco. He’s kidnapped, taken, whatever, these guys can be let loose and they will do what he’s already ordered them to do. He stashed them away and they’re making millions from him, but that money isn’t going to just them. It’s going to their families, extra insurance for keeping them where they are. Their own families want them there so even if they did get free, they got no one to turn to. Family is everything to them, and he was smart in who he picked.”
“Where are they being held at?”
“East Bend Penitentiary.”
“What?” That didn’t make sense.
None of it–what?
I frowned. “That’s where Connor is.”
He was just watching me. One blink. One nod. “I know.”
“No.”
Nope. I wasn’t believing him. That made no sense. “Why–they’re up here? That makes no sense.”
“They’re in Indiana. At a prison. At a prison where all of the guards are being paid by Marco. All of them. There was a new hire and he turned down the payout. His family was decapitated the next morning. He has every single guard in there on his payroll.”
“No, but…” Connor.
Not Connor.
My chest was caving in. An invisible pressure was pushing down on me. My knees were threatening to buckle.
Please. Not Connor.
“The favor?” Everything in me was hurting because the pieces were coming together now. “The favor he’s doing for you, he hasn’t done it yet. Has he?”
Shane shook his head, so slowly.
I was being torn open, slowly by one piece of skin being pulled apart at a time. It hurt to breathe. Felt like I was inhaling blood. I could taste it.
“They were big favors. Sending bikers to Ruby’s, that’ll set her for life. My sister, you were going to buy her a hair salon.”
“The club was, not me personally. You didn’t ask for anything.”
I was remembering and that wasn’t right. “I asked for you to leave.”
“We did. It’s why we left, for you.”
But Claudia. Fucking Claudia. She followed, and I went after her. “My friends went with me because they thought I was running from Foley. I pulled them into all of this based on a lie. I wasn’t running from Foley.” I couldn’t take much more, but I had to face the truth. “Ruby asked me to go after my sister and I went because I was following you. I pulled Harper and Aly into this life because I wanted to fuck you.”
He let out a soft curse. “Kali–”
I shook my head. “No! You’re not done. We’re not done. No masks, Shane! Your words. You’re going to finish telling me everything. You’re going to tell me the favor my brother is doing for your club and you’re going to tell me why this all had to happen how it happened. I want answers. I want…” I couldn’t get air. My chest was imploding.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded, my neck was so stiff. “Just finish it, Shane. Tell me fucking everything.”
“Okay. I will.”
“No more masks.”
He agreed. “This is all the cards.”
He told me about their club’s meeting. That he brought it to every charter they had, that he was the one who was pushing to leave the Estrada Cartel. And I got that. I did. My heart was still hurting, but I understood. Marco’s hold was strangling them. I didn’t understand that part, but I didn’t need to. No one would want to work with a cartel. No one who had family and loved ones and children, and some of these men did. I also knew I only saw the tip of the iceberg, but I got it.
“What is Connor supposed to do?”
“Marco couldn’t put them in separate prisons. It’d be too much for him to control to keep them safe, but one prison was enough. And it’s set up where all four of those men are never together except for one time. And the expiration is running out. It’s an animal training course. The men signed up for it. They themselves did. It’s short-term. It’s only given to the best inmates. One instructor. One guard. And those four men.”
I was really getting it now. All of it.
“Connor loved animals.”
“Yeah.”
I knew what he was going to tell me, but he had to say the words. I had to hear them out loud. If I didn’t, I’d never believe them. I’d have hope it wouldn’t happen or that it didn’t happen.
I grated out, “Say it, Shane. Just fucking say it.”
“Connor’s going to kill all of them. Every one. We got a weapon smuggled in for him. He’s going to take out the guard, and then he’ll take out the rest. They won’t be able to get to him to unarm him, and they won’t be able to run. The room is locked down. The guard will go first so he couldn’t call for help. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
“It’s suicide. This is the favor. He’s going to kill Marco’s four ‘second-in-commands’ so you can kill Marco and know that his cartel won’t be taken over. Right? That’s the plan?”
“ His cartel will fall. Another will take its place, but it won’t be the same one. It’ll be chaos in Mexico for a while until another gets in power. That means we’re free. We’re not under his hold anymore. You don’t understand how sick Marco Estrada is.”
They were going to kill my brother to save their lives. That was the bottom line.
He was right about one thing. I did not want to go back to bed. I would never want to go back to bed, not with him, not ever again.
I would never be the same.
“You killed my brother.”
He didn’t answer, but that was fine. I heard it all, knew enough.
“How could you do that? How could you go to him and ask him to do this for you? Find another person, another way!”
He didn’t answer. He just sat there, looking down until he said, “I didn’t.”
“Bullshit! Bullshit !”
“Kali.” His voice was soft, but lined with regret. “I never went to your brother with this proposal.”
“What?” Again, he wasn’t making sense. None of this made sense. All this death. All of it was pointless. Except, God. It wasn’t. It wasn’t at all, and I hated that the most.
“ He came to me with this.”
“No.”
“He knew what was going on. You know in prison. You hear the worst of the worst in there, and he was hearing how Estrada was controlling us. He did this. He set it up, all of it up. He knew what was something in common those four men had. He knew. They all liked dogs. He asked for the animal training to come into their prison. He researched it and he rallied the inmates to want it too. Kali, he was the instructor. He was the only inmate that was allowed to be in the same room as all four of them. The only one. Ever. He did this, and he asked us to finish it, and then he asked us to take care of his family. That’s what we’re doing. We were trying to do this for him!”
I snapped, unleashing, “IT MAKES NO SENSE! Why would he suddenly decide to create this whole program?! And what inmate is allowed to instruct a class on their own?!”
“He was!” Shane roared back. “He was because he’s fucking perfect. Because he doesn’t deserve to be in that place, but he’s in there and you know how he is. He’s a good person.”
Tears were rolling down my face, but I wasn’t feeling them. “He’s getting out. He went in for burglary–”
“He burglarized a judge’s house. He killed the judge’s kid. He’s never getting out. That was just one charge they brought against him.”
“No.” I was adamant. Just, “No.”
“Yes.”
“NO! It was an accident. He didn’t mean to hurt that kid. He thought he was taking a toy gun with him.”
“They don’t care. They didn’t then, and they won’t now.”
“But–” Why did the world have to feel so heavy all the time? “Why? Connor’s not a mastermind manipulator. He’s dumb in some ways. Why’d he decide to do all this? That takes thought and planning and reason. He had no reason to…” I trailed off because it was in his face.
Guilt.
“What’d you do?” I asked.
“He did it for me. Because of me.”
“Why Shane? Why specifically because of you?”
“Because he heard about someone that died, and he knew who really killed the person. She was an innocent. She didn’t even know about this life, but your brother’s cell is next to one of Marco’s second-in-command. He’s privy to information that most don’t know, and he knew that I was the one to kill the person. I found out afterwards that she was an innocent, but yeah. It’s me, Kali. He did this for me. He knew I would never have killed the woman if… He did this all for you, for me, for your family, for the rest of my club. He had time and he planned it all, knowing that it’ll cost his life, but he doesn’t care. Trust me. I have tried to talk him out of this so many times. He’s doing it. And he said that it’s on me to make it mean something. So that’s what I’m trying to do, and Marco Estrada is as vulnerable as he’s ever going to be today. We have a chance right now to do this. RIGHT. NOW. There’s no going back.” He stood and picked up his cut, pulling it on. “The club is ready. We’re riding out so you have a choice. You can stay, I’ll make sure someone stays back with you and gets you to wherever you want to go. Or you can come with us. The choice is yours.”
He left after that.