Chapter Five
“Holy fuck.” Ironman growled. “That’s inhumane.”
Lily nodded. “It might be as you say... inhumane but hell that was Eduardo. I got stronger and people began to fear me. There were many rumors about me. A killer. A woman with no soul.” She shrugged.
“They avoided me like the plague and that made Eduardo proud. And he used that belief in me to his advantage. Then he made a deal with Joel Prescott. He arranged a marriage to make himself stronger.”
“So Joel was your fiancée?” Titus cocked his head at her.
Lily nodded, then she said, “Not by my choice. I hated the idea. I wanted to pick my own husband. People believed I chose him and that we would be a feared couple in crime.” She rolled her eyes. “Again, all by the design of Eduardo.”
Canto nodded. “But that didn’t sit right with our father, that you wanted to pick your own husband. He wanted control over his children and he thought Lily would pick a loser just to defy him. He didn’t give her a choice. They were to be married next week.”
Looking surprised, Lily gasped and turned to stare at her brother. “Next week?”
Canto nodded. “He was going to wait to tell you. So you wouldn’t know until it was too late to stop it. I tried to tell him not to do it that way but you know him. He wouldn’t listen to anyone.”
Lily clenched her hand into fists behind her back. “I would have shot him myself. It could have been different if Joel was a decent man, but he is one that is just like Eduardo. Just like Ricco. Cruel, controlling and greedy.”
Canto nodded and hung his head a bit. “Dad knew this. That’s why he didn’t want you to know until it was too late.”
Lily growled but she didn’t say anything.
“I think what we have here is a dilemma,” Boomer said.
“These two never fired a true shot at the compound,” Ironman added.
“They also surrendered without a fight,” Tracker said.
“It seems like you aren’t who we thought you were,” Titus said.
Lily snapped, “You think? I hated Eduardo Sanchez. I hated that man most of my life and he knew it. But he used that rage inside me to control me.”
“How did he use it against you?” Titus wanted to know.
Lily raised her head and said, “By telling me he’d hurt my mother if I defied him and after she died, he used Canto against me. He said if I defied him, one morning I would wake up to find Canto had his throat cut in his sleep. He knew we were close and he hated that too.”
Canto gasped as did several of the bikers. “What?” Canto whispered. “He threatened to kill me in my sleep?”
Lily turned to him with tears in her eyes.
“You may not remember this but when Mama brought you home after giving birth to you, Eduardo pushed you into my six-year-old arms and told me I had to earn my way in the house. Mama was afraid of him and with good reason, he was downright nasty to her after I was born. He said she failed him by not having another son. She was just worn out. I took care of you from that day on. At least until I was ten and he started my training. He told me I needed to grow stronger by doing housework. I was scrubbing floors at first then he would weigh me down with bags of sand and if I spilled the sand he would load the entire floor with sand and make me scrub it until I cleaned the floors properly. Then when I was ten he began training me with weapons.”
The men in the room all stared at her as they said not a word.
“Then at fifteen, he put you in the ring with professionally trained fighters?” Ironman growled. “What kind of father does that?”
“Eduardo Sanchez,” Lily spoke in the quiet of the room.
“What a bastard.” Titus growled.
Lily just set her jaw tight and waited. Then after a long moment she finally broke her silence, “Did you know that my father set up Todd Lawler?”
“What do you mean he set him up?” Crank finally asked, breaking his own silence.
Lily wouldn’t look at him or anyone else in that room.
“He did a background search on Todd and suggested to Ricco that he get into business with the man. He wanted something on Todd and it didn’t take him long to get inside his business.
Todd was all too eager to get on the good side of Ricco.
The only problem was that Ricco was an extension of my father.
So when Todd and his boys signed that loan contract Eduardo was very pleased.
He got inside and he was going to wring Todd dry then stomp him into the ground. ”
“Did Ricco know all this before they signed that contract?” Crank wanted to know.
Lily nodded at him. “Si, he did. Ricco knew damn well how Eduardo worked. Only thing he fucked up on was Ricco had thought this was his deal, his money, his way in, not Eduardo’s. He forgot what a bastard our father could be, he only thought of himself.”
“How did your father take that little wrinkle?” Boomer asked.
Lily turned to look at him and her eyes were blank.
Not cold, just blank. “Eduardo knew what Todd was doing with Ricco’s wife.
So he had Stella taken out into the woods of the national park.
His men led her deep into the dense forest and she wasn’t with them when they came out.
They killed her and buried her where her body would never be found.
When Ricco found she wasn’t at home, he went a little crazy looking for her.
Eduardo saw all this and he laughed at Ricco behind his back.
” She paused then said, “I think Ricco knew what Eduardo did finally and that was days before he brought Todd up here. When Ricco saw that video he turned his men on Todd, didn’t he?
He knew what would happen next, with Todd dead and the boys under his thumb, Ricco knew the cops would freeze Todd’s accounts.
I think he knew the brothers would double-cross him.
Ricco set it up that way. He lost his way inside Todd’s empire but he also blocked Eduardo’s way inside too.
” She snorted, “Ricco was just that kind of a selfish monster... he was just no good.”