Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Oro
Three hours.
AZ and Digger spent three full hours with the two remaining assholes who tried to do damage over at Seda.
They got everything out of them painfully. I’m sure those jerks even gave up their social security numbers.
In the end, neither was allowed to live. There could be no witnesses.
It was nearly dawn when AZ came to find me in the main room. I hadn’t gone to sleep. I couldn’t. Every time I close my eyes all I can see is the fear and the tears coming from Estrella’s eyes. I don’t know why it affected me so much, but it did.
“They didn’t even know who the hell Sina was.” AZ has a rag and he’s meticulously cleaning his nails.
If I were someone on the outside I would never know that he had just spent a good portion of the night brutally torturing someone.
“Well, that’s good news. One less thing for us to worry about.” I shrug.
“I wish it were that simple. It wasn’t this Sina woman you asked about, but they were part of the Canos. It seems a few of them are straggling around, and they are a little pissed about how we helped to destroy their club.” AZ sighs but doesn’t look up from his hands.
The fucking Canos? Shit, it’s been a while since we’ve had to deal with any of them. In fact, I was almost certain that all of them were wiped out back when Carina first got here. Now we’re going to have to deal with this shit.
“Damn it.” I groan and rub the back of my neck. “Y Vado? What’s he saying?”
“He’s going to want to have church about it in a few hours. He’s already making his calls to check on shit. You know him. Any threat, big or small, needs to be eliminated.”
“Yeah. I know.”
AZ finally looks up at me. “What’s the deal with this Sina woman though? Does she need to be on our radar?”
“I don’t think so. Estrella is stressed about her, but it doesn’t sound like something we need to worry about.” I wave my hand, letting him know that it’s nothing serious, but he doesn’t let it go.
“Obviously we need to be worried about it. If she’s thinking this woman would go as far as sending armed men into her space, then maybe we need to make sure she’s truly not a threat.
If she thinks Sina sends hitters, we verify.
No surprises. If it’s nothing, then so be it, but I’d hate to be caught off guard by something no one bothered to really look into.
” AZ tilts his head once before turning on his heel and walking away.
He’s right. I need to do my due diligence.
I could ask Estrella about it, but then again it didn’t seem like she could give me any real information. Besides, I had already sent her home for the night.
There’s only one other person here who would be able to give me information. Our IT savant. I’m going to need Pooh for this.
I check my watch and realize it’s close to five in the morning. Still super fucking early.
When I was a prospect, I would never even dream about disturbing anyone with my issues this early in the morning, but I’m a patched member now. He’s here to help the patched members no matter what time it is.
I need him now, early or not.
Making my way toward his room, I knock a few times on his door and I hear some grumbles I misconstrue as him telling me to come in.
When I push the door open I’m surprised to see that he’s not in bed alone. For a second I’m stuck in shock.
Coca is there lying next to him. Thankfully nothing is going on.
It looks like they were just sleeping, but this is highly irregular.
Still, it doesn’t look like this is a one-off thing, like she just came in here because she was rattled by what happened at Seda earlier on.
She’s comfortable, like she has slept in this spot many times before.
I would have never thought that something was going on between Coca and Pooh.
“Give me a second, please.” Pooh grumbles as he heaves his large frame up from the bed. I nod and close the door, but I don’t leave. I simply lean against the doorjamb.
Just as he said, a few seconds later Pooh is out of his room. His hair is pointing in every direction, a wrinkled oversized shirt and boxers on.
“You need something?” he questions, and even though his words are respectful, I can see in his eyes that he’s pissed off.
“Yeah, I need you to do some digging on someone.”
There are no questions or complaints. He just walks to the next room where we have all his electronics set up.
Even though Pooh isn’t a patched member, he’s so important to our club that he’s the only one besides Vado with two rooms. One of Pooh’s rooms is just his computers and electrical equipment.
The both of us go into his command center and I wait for him to power up his gear.
About ten minutes later he’s asking me questions that I have no answers to.
“I can’t really do a search for someone if I have no information.”
“Look, man, this is all I know. Estrella says she’s bad news.
Just do a check to see if any of our people have come across anyone who answers to her or has any connection to a woman named Sina.
Even if you get a hundred hits, I can have Estrella go through them and see if they are the girl she is talking about. ”
“Yeah, you got it, man.” Pooh focuses on the computer screen.
This is going to take a long time, and I know it’s only going to take that much longer because I don’t have the information. I need to find out what Estrella knows.
I groan and let my head fall back. I already sent her home for the night and I don’t know where home is for her.
I go back to Pooh’s room where I know Coca is. She will have gotten all that information when she had Estrella fill out the paperwork to work for Seda.
I knock on the door, but this time I don’t just walk in.
“Come on, Oro,” Coca yawns.
I push open the door and peek my head in. “Sorry to disturb. I just need to get Estrella’s home info. I need to pick her up.”
“I’d tell you to call her, but she doesn’t have a phone.” Coca huffs as she picks up her phone, I’m assuming to check through her electronic files.
“Why the hell doesn’t she have a phone?”
“She can’t afford it yet.” Coca shrugs.
What the hell. Estrella told me that she had lost everything, but I didn’t think it was that serious.
I don’t say anything. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m concerned more than I need to be. Still, it’s extreme.
I wait for Coca to look through her phone and give me the address.
She doesn’t ask what I need it for or what I’m going to do at Estrella’s house at five in the morning.
She trusts me. I only hope Estrella doesn’t see this as a breach of her privacy.
I’m not sure I’d be happy if someone randomly popped up on my doorstep this early.
Trying my hardest not to overthink what is going on, I hop on my bike and make my way to her place.
What surprises me is she is living in a small three-story building.
It looks like it was a three-family house at one point, but it has been made into apartments.
The construction of the place looks very second rate.
It’s not my problem.
I park directly in front of the building and look around. This isn’t my area and I’m on my own. I really hope no one around here is stupid enough to fuck with my bike.
Making my way up the wooden warped stairs, I stop in front of an apartment and knock. I back up when, instead of Estrella, a man comes to the door in a pair of briefs that have seen better days.
“Shit.” I groan and take another step back. I don’t want to have to deal with some jealous boyfriend.
“Yeah?” The man slurs. It’s not even six in the morning, but it’s clear he’s off his ass drunk.
“I’m looking for Estrella.”
The man blinks once slowly before he squints his eyes at me. “Who?”
“Estrella. She lives here?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific than that, buddy. There are three other apartments in this section.”
Fucking hell. How many people live in here. Whoever the landlord is for this place needs to be put in fucking jail. This shit has to be a damn fire hazard or something.
“Long dark hair, green eyes.”
“Oh, the one with the fat ass. Yeah. I tried to get a piece of that. She wasn’t having it.” The man jokes, and it takes everything in me not to reach forward and rip his fucking face off.
I don’t want to cause any extra trouble for Estrella in this place. In fact, I don’t want her in this place at all.
My emotions are a swirl of confusion. This is what I should want for her. I should want her to be in the gutter, to be on the bottom of the bottom. Yet all I can think about is what I can do to get her out of here.
“Yeah, her. Where is she?” I shove my hand in my pocket and wait for the drunkard to give me the information that I need.
“That one. Careful, the other girls in there aren’t very nice either.”
Shit.
I walk through what seems like a large room. It has been sliced into four. Three so-called apartments and one main space that includes the kitchen and bathroom. Seems like all three of these apartments share one bathroom.
I knock on the door the man told me Estrella would be in.
“Who the hell is knocking on the door so fucking early?” I hear someone say, but the voice is rough, like they’ve spent decades smoking. Definitely not Estrella.
It swings open and a young woman with sores on her face and arms stands in front of me. “We paid the rent this week.”
“I’m not here for rent. I’m here for Estrella.”
“Estrella? Are you going to pay her share? She’s three weeks late now.”
“Three weeks late? For rent?” I ask.
“Yup, we’ve been covering for her, but I’m about ready to sell her clothes and put her ass on the street naked.”