Chapter 72 Santos
SANTOS
“Faster,” I shouted at the remnants of traitors who scurried out of the compound.
It would be a game of speed now between us to recruit soldiers to our side, see how many men Ronan would want to take back home. Saying it was weird, not saying it was… well, wrong for one. It was home.
Because she was there.
I wasn’t sure if the surreal part was that it was with her, or that I was finally getting to live in the place where my family came from. Reconnecting made you feel like an imposter somehow, like an outsider intruding in.
Which meant Kane and Zerkos were feeling a thousand times more weird about it, poor gringo-ass motherfuckers.
I made a mental note to put some effort into checking in with them about all of these changes.
Culture shock was a real fucking thing, and I wasn’t even sure the last time I’d seen Mateo eat anything not seasoned with mayonaise.
“We should end this thing with Archer Jr. before it gets out of hand,” I told Zerkos without even looking back at him, gun still pointed at absolutely nothing since the last of the Crow traitors had evacuated.
“Killing him won’t end this beef with the Russians,” he said, his jaw clenching tight, making me realize Archer was just a fly on his food.
He wasn’t threatened.
That was a mistake. It was always the smallest bugs that left the worst bites.
“Killing him will stop it from getting worse. Stop the men that up until five minutes ago were considered our family for the last seven years from getting killed in the process too.” I scowled, my anger rising to the surface.
“Do you all feel that way?” Ronan asked the room.
“He needs to die brother,” Fletcher said plainly.
“Traitors don’t get to live,” was my only contribution.
The rest of the men in the room all gave their silent agreement.
“How do we find him?” Ronan asked, accepting the fact he couldn’t declare he wasn’t the boss anymore while still trying to hold authority over our men.
We were all equals now.
“If he’s cozying up to the Bratvas then he’s hiding out in all their spots too, he wouldn’t stray far from their protection,” Ethan answered.
“Is Sokolov’s daughter still here?” I asked.
“Yup. Looks like she’s real comfy too.” He smirked.
“I’ll go find her,” I announced before turning on my heels and exiting the room.
She wasn’t in the main area with the bar and all the pool tables. I took the stairs up, skipping one or two at a time until I got to the top before I realized I had no idea which room she’d be in. I wasn’t gonna be barging in on any of these fuckers’ privacy. I didn’t have a death wish.
Well, I did. But being pulverized by a biker wasn’t how I intended to go.
A prospect tumbled out of his room with one of the little club bunnies in tow. He practically jumped when he saw me, distancing himself from her and scratching his head suspiciously. I could use a dumbass right about now.
“Hey kid,” I beckoned him over and his eyes jarred open anxiously.
“Uh… What’s up?”
“You know where and who everyone is around here?” I asked him and he beamed with pride.
“You know it.”
“I’m looking for a Russian, blonde hair, all legs. Where’s her room?” I asked.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to tell that kind of information to just anyone dude.” He scratched the back of his head.
“I’m not just anyone, and that’s my prisoner.” I clutched his shirt in my fist and twisted it pulling him closer to me.
He scoffed.
The fucking kid scoffed in my goddamn face.
“Tell that shit to Ladrón cuz he’s already pissed all over her.” He freed himself from my grasp, and I wrapped my hand around his arm,
“Where the fuck is the girl?” I pulled my Glock out of my pants and pressed the barrel to his chin.
He was green as fuck.
He trembled, stuttering nonsense about how he didn’t mean to offend me or some bullshit.
“I just need to know where the fucking Russian is. Point. Now.” My patience was wearing thin and if I didn’t come back with her, Ronan would be coming for her instead.
For everyone’s sake it was probably better I handled interactions with other humans.
Ronan only had a soft spot for one person, and even his soft spot was full of spikes when it came to Celia Flores.
His finger shook as he raised it up and pointed to a shut door. I shoved him off of me, he stumbled back and fell before scurrying away on all fours and running down the stairs. Whatever, if the kid couldn’t handle conflict, he definitely wasn’t cut out for a motorcycle club.
I made my way to the door and tapped my knuckles.
“Yes?” she called from inside.
I sighed. I didn’t like dealing with this bitch.
Maybe I was holding a grudge but she stabbed my girl with a fucking fork, not to mention the tracker on her arm was the entire reason Papa Sokolov was able to find the high-rise in the first place.
My jaw ticked at the thought, and I pushed the door open.
“Güera.” She looked up from her book and scowled when she saw my face.
“I thought I was a free woman now.” She had that look on her face like my presence was a bother to her.
I chuckled.
“You’re a free woman when we tell you so. Your prison’s changed, but not your circumstances. Maybe you give us a little more of what we need and we can consider your crimes paid for, Susana.” I gestured my chin towards the hall, and she stood up with a dramatic sigh.
“From one entitled cock-bearer to the next.” She clucked her tongue and walked in front of me as if she knew where she was going.
“Maybe it’s the company you keep, you ever think about that?” I asked and she stopped in her tracks to look back at me.
“When you’re born into this life as a woman, you don’t get to choose your company. You go where the man with the most power points you to.” She turned forward again and walked down the steps.
“And now that man is telling you to go that way.” I pointed to the closed door where Ronan sat with our men.
“You’re an irritating one, but you already know that don’t you? Irritating men always do.” She swung in and out of her accent so often I couldn’t figure out if it was an act.
Like she knew it made her sound less innocent.
Innocence could be perceived as weakness.
It made sense.
I didn’t change my expression, and I didn’t acknowledge her little attempt to disarm me.
I wasn’t the same man who entered that basement wondering how my own flesh and blood could stomach to hurt me. I was the man who came out of it.
And at my core, I knew it wasn’t a me problem.
But maybe if I’d been stronger I could have saved Celia from all of the pain that was born in that basement.
Maybe the real torture would be living with that knowledge forever.
I opened the door and shoved her in. Ronan was leaning back on what was obviously César’s chair, his feet propped up on the table. He was laughing about something with the guys who were still at his side, but the laughter cut short once Susana walked in.
“Bratva Princess,” Ronan chided.
“Not anymore.” She raised her eyebrows at him, but he just looked at her with disbelief. “You don’t believe people can want to change?” she asked.
“I think violent people keep breeding violence,” he told her.
“Was your father a violent man, Ronan Zerkos?” She crossed her arms over her chest with interest.
“No. He was a weak man. Cheated on his second wife too and ended up dying of cancer. Got what he deserved.”
“Hmm.” She sauntered over to him crossing one leg over the other.
“So where does your violence breed from then, I wonder?” She leaned her elbows on the table and stuck her ass up too high in the air.
She was wearing jean shorts and a tank top with the MC’s logo on it.
Maybe her goal was to try to seduce Zerkos into leaving her the fuck alone.
“None of your fucking business,” he grit through his teeth leaning forward on the desk so that his face was just an inch away from hers. “Where do your people play?”
She slumped into the nearest chair, looking around the room and taking in the rest of the men who sat waiting for information with blank stares on their faces.
“You’re signing my death warrant,” she said, a bit of anger rising to the surface.
“Heard you were getting real comfy out here in Grimm fuck nowhere,” he challenged her back. “Would be a shame if our enemies found out you were hiding here.”
“What do you want, you son of a bitch?
“I want to kill my rat, that’s it. But if a few Bratvas get in the way, they might have to go as well.”
She let out a defeated sigh once she looked around the room.
“If he’s under my father’s protection you’ll find him at Club Moscow, if he’s just clutching his coat tails you’ll find him with the lower crowd, at Vosk. I can’t help you otherwise. I wasn’t privy to every safehouse he kept.”
Zerkos nodded over to Liam, one of Taylor’s henchmen in the tech lab. He wrote down all the information and made his way out of the room to start researching.
“Now, forget me. Haven’t we had enough of each other? Unless you mean to fuck me, please, get a hobby Ronan.” She chuckled and stood from the seat, getting up without permission.
She was a gutsy bitch and it worked in her favor. Ronan let her leave, and no one seemed to mind.
“You’re good with this?” I asked him.
“I think we milked Sokolov's daughter for all we could, let her live her miserable life in peace. If she’s happy in the Diablos compound let's wash our hands of this mess and call it a win.”
“And Dezmond?”
“Let’s go into the city. Tonight.” Zerkos rubbed the blond scruff growing on his chin before he pushed up from the chair and left the room.
Another night in the Diablos Locos compound, meant another night drinking to forget we were away from our girl.
I would have rather killed a man instead of getting belligerent and coming into my hands to forget the only thing I cared about was south of the border, probably still getting railed by Mateo Kane.
Did she miss me like I missed her?
Doubtful.
All I ever did was say the wrong things, all I ever did was underestimate her.
I still couldn’t figure out why she wanted me around. The more I dwelled on it the more I went down a dark spiral of self-loathing. Fuck I needed out of it. I kept bouncing around from desperately wanting to be worthy of her to hating myself because I knew I could never be.
“You good?” Zerkos asked and I stopped in my tracks, realizing I was anxiously pacing back and forth in the small conference room.
“Yeah, I…Uh…I need some air.” I nodded at him and pulled my phone out, dialing the number and holding my breath while I waited with a heart full of hope.
The video-call connected on the first ring.
“Hey,” she said, all breathy like she was just now finishing up the little scene we’d watched her and Mateo entwined in.
“Hey,” I said shakily as I walked out of the farmhouse and sat down on the porch swing.
She wrapped herself up in a blanket and found a chair to cocoon herself in.
“Weird being away from each other, right?” she asked like she knew exactly what I was feeling.
I didn’t care what anyone else said.
There was no trauma like shared trauma.
And there was no shared trauma like watching the person you loved go through something you wished you could prevent.
We were the same side of the coin printed on both ends.
Her and I…
We’d always have violent images of each other’s pain painted on the back of our eyelids every time we closed our eyes to go to sleep.
Was I grateful?
No, I wasn’t fucking grateful.
But had Guillermo turned me into mincemeat any further, I didn’t think she’d be looking at me the way she was right now. I was ugly now, but I was, at least, still within the threshold of “ugly enough to feel sorry for.”
“Ronan quit the Crows.” I wasn’t sure why I told her instead of letting him tell her.
I just wanted to talk to her, and I didn’t want to deal with the silence. Sometimes I called her and just stared at her face. She was okay with that too. She would just breathe and awkwardly laugh every now and then while waiting for me to say anything at all.
“What?” Her eyebrows furrowed harder than I’d ever seen before.
“I probably should have let him tell you that. I guess that was my way of telling you that I did too.”
“Wait, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“I mean, I guess it’s not that we quit the Crows, I guess really the Crows are done. We’ll be bringing some men back with us.” I corrected myself.
“This is crazy, what happened?”
I tried giving her as much clarification as I could, going over the meeting and explaining in detail everything that had happened the last few days while we’d been in Grimm’s Reach.
“I never intended for either of you to have to pick between me and the Crows,” she said, seeming deflated.
“You didn’t. We made choices on our own. This wasn’t on you. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Morena,” I started. “When we come home. I want to do things differently. I want to give you the love you deserve.” I forced the words out before I turned into a chickenshit and took them back.
“No,” she said, piercing through my heart. “I don’t believe in starting over. We’re fine building from what we already have. I just wish you could see that too.”
“I wish I had your perspective on things,” I told her, and she shrugged.
“Doin’ anything dangerous tonight?” she asked with a teasing tone.
“On the Diablos compound? Babe you must be out of your mind,” I joked, keeping our plans from Dezmond off of a recorded line.
We’d tell her when we got home.
Prison was worse than death for a relationship.
People could say whatever they wanted but at the end of the day, nobody waited. I’d seen plenty of my tío’s lose their families in a cell for Los Muertos.
Time was a fickle bitch.
“Be good. Come home in one piece, okay Santito?” She sounded sweet but I knew it was a command.
“Yes, reina.” I smirked, hanging up the video chat and sighing out loud.