Chapter Eight
Camila sat at a table in the middle of a huge room with two women she’d just met, and staring into the cup of coffee in front of her as she tried to process everything she’d been through in the last twelve hours.
Had it really been less than a day ago that she was at home, wishing she could escape her life? How had so much happened, so much changed, in such a short amount of time?
“What kind of work have you done?” Winter asked.
“Or what are you good at, what do you like to do?” Miranda put in.
“I’m not sure. I am okay at social chat. But other than light housework, I’ve never done much work.”
Winter frowned. “You’ve never worked? What about school? Do you have a degree?”
Camila shook her head, not bothering to hide her sad smile. “I never even went to normal school. I had a tutor until I was eighteen.”
“You didn’t graduate?”
“No, but my tutor used an online program to make sure I got a bachillerato.”
“What’s that?” Winter asked, clearly confused. “Is that like bachelor’s degree?”
Camila shook her head. “In Mexico it’s primaria, secundaria, then bachillerato.
Mine is the last one—high school I think you call it.
” She rolled her lips inward and bit them as she watched the two women’s faces, hoping she hadn’t gotten it wrong.
“The only thing I have that I would consider a skill is that I speak three languages, but what use is Portuguese here?”
Winter’s brows shot up. “You speak Portuguese?”
Camila nodded. Winter picked up a phone and seemed to be sending some kind of message, but Camila was afraid to ask. It wasn’t any of her business anyway.
“You never went to school?” Miranda asked.
“No. Never. I was rarely allowed to go into town, and when I was allowed, I had to stay with the housekeeper or my father’s men. I’m afraid I don’t have a lot to offer.”
“We’ll find something. We can always teach you how to do something.”
“Can I ask what you do? How do you earn your place?”
The other women stared at her long enough Camila became uncomfortable.
She itched to lower her head and pull her shoulders up around her head, but she resisted.
While Papá had expected her to keep her eyes down and never challenge him, he’d also taught her to never show weakness, at least not to anyone but him.
And even then he only wanted to see the ‘weakness’ he demanded.
He didn’t care about her pain, her broken heart, or anything that didn’t directly impact him or what he wanted.
“Earn my place?” Winter asked, a crease between her brows.
Camila frowned. “Maybe I am saying this wrong. Let me try again. How do you contribute? Not be a burden?”
Winter scowled, then her brows shot up. “You think they’re going to make you be club ass?” Winter shook her head. “That’s not how this club works.”
Camila shook her head. “No. Bulldog already told me I wouldn’t have to do that.
” She glanced in the direction of the woman she’d seen in the middle of a sex act only an hour before then back to Winter.
“I just wondered what you do so you do not feel like a burden.” While seeing what the woman was doing earlier had been surprising, it hadn’t shocked her.
Her father had made sure she’d seen more than a little porn as part of her education.
He’d made sure she had no hands-on experience, but he wanted her to be able to please whoever he’d bartered her off to, so she’d been assigned things to watch, then quizzed on what happened to make sure she’d actually watched.
“I think she wants to feel useful,” Miranda said to Winter, then turned back to Camila. “Is that it? You want to do something to help the club?”
“Yes, that is it.” Camila said.
Winter picked up her phone and looked at the screen then turned back to Camila.
“I do graphic arts work. I’ve been working on redoing some of the ads for the different businesses the club run. We’re hoping it will help bring in some new business.” Winter said.
“I don’t do much,” Miranda put in, with a half-hearted shrug. “Help with laundry and in the kitchen when I can.”
“She’s only been here a few weeks. She’s still settling in.” Winter leaned over and bumped Miranda’s shoulder with her own. “She’ll find where she fits, and you will too, if you want to.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you don’t want to fit, you never will, and maybe even if you want it, it might not work out. This lifestyle is not for everyone and some just can’t handle it.”
“Like the motorcycle clubs on TV?” Camila asked.
She hadn’t seen much of them but she’d seen enough to know they were rough men and had little regard for the law, though from the way the Sons of Sin had treated her, she had almost convinced herself she’d been silly to think that these men were like the ones she’d seen on the screen, one of her few windows into the real world.
“Kind of,” Winter bobbed her head from side to side, “but probably not in the ways you’re thinking.
The guys around here are rough. They can be assholes, they can be some of the sweetest people you ever met, often the one that makes you the angriest is also the one who does something so sweet it melts your heart.
What these men aren’t is two-faced. Once you’re one of us, they’ll never hide who they are from you.
They say what they mean and they mean what they say.
If someone tells you you’ll pay, they’ll find a way to make sure you do, one way or another, and usually not in a way you would ever have predicted.
But they’re also some of the hardest loving and most protective and passionate people I’ve ever met. ”
“You sound like you’ve been here a long time.” Camila was comforted by that. She never knew what kind of mood Papá would be in. She never knew if he was going to treat her like a pampered, loved daughter or a mannerless mongrel who couldn’t be taught.
“Only a couple of weeks longer than Miranda, but I grew up in an MC, an ally of the Sons, actually. None of this was new to me.”
“You haven’t been here long? But you fit in—you seem like you’ve been here forever!”
“Thank you. I think it’s just that I knew what to expect.
Every club’s a little different but The Sons are similar to my dad’s club, so it’s been pretty easy for me to find my place.
And don’t worry too much. We’ll find something that fits you.
You may not have given it much thought, but what do you think you would like, not just to do here, but in life. What do you want out of life?”
“Thank you. And I don’t know.” Camila’s face heated and she dropped her gaze to the table between the two of them for a moment, then back up at the girls.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. My father would tell me to read.
To study the families of Mexico, so I could be worth something.
But I hated that. I hate that he saw me as nothing more than an asset.
Something he could use to either spy for him or to trade for an advantage over someone.
I’ve seen enough TV and read enough that I know that’s not how a family is supposed to be.
” She turned wide eyes to Winter. “That is what I want. I want a real family.”
“Define real. What does real family mean to you?”
Camila scowled as she thought about that.
What was a family? Papá had taught her that while he was blood, he didn’t treat her like what she believed family should be.
He talked about blood and how important blood was, but he didn’t treat her like she mattered.
Only what she could do for him, either personally or what kind of alliance he could make by marrying her off to some stranger she’d never met.
“Can I think about that?” Camila asked.
“Sure, but let me add to what you’re considering, just so you have a little more to think about.
These men? They’re my family. Are they related to me?
Not at all. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love them.
That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t protect them just as hard as they’ll protect me.
Most of society, in the US for sure, and probably in Mexico too, doesn’t see that.
They don’t see that this is our family, our chosen family, and to come against one of us, is to come against all of us.
And if you’re thinking there’s not so many of us, You’ve just gotten here.
The Phoenix chapter has more than thirty brothers, but Phoenix is just one of I don’t know how many chapters.
We’ve got men all across the US. If things don’t work out here, or you want to be farther from the border, Bulldog can likely reach out to another chapter and find a place.
If you’re not looking for a traditional blood relation family, and you don’t care much what most people think of you, then club life might be a good fit for you.
If you care what the whole town thinks, whether you know them or not, then it might not be.
“None of us will blame you either way, as long as you don’t throw us under the bus.”
“Under the bus?” Camila frowned.
“Sorry. It’s slang. It means don’t betray us. Don’t hurt us to put yourself in a better place.”
“That would be a horrible thing to do. That would betray what you have done for me by getting me out of my father’s house. I’m grateful for that, even if I wasn’t the one Hammer and the others were looking for.”
“I’m glad you see it that way.” Winter said.
“You’re Camila?” A man stopped next to their table.
Camila looked up, and up, and up. The man was tall, taller than Hammer, she thought, from how far she had to look up to see his face, this was definitely farther.
When she reached the man’s face, it was even more surprising than his height.
He was nice looking enough but what caught her attention was the bright turquoise hair.
The sides of his head were buzzed short, but the top was long and hung down on one side of his face, almost to his shoulder.
“I am. Do you need something?”
“I hear you speak Portuguese?”
“Yes. Do you need something translated?”
“I don’t at the moment, but we’ve been having to hire translation out or have Hammer try to work it out with the help of the internet and his Spanish.”
She stared at him, horrified. They were missing so many of the subtleties of the language that way.
“I can help. I would like to help if you need it.” Finally, here was something she could do. Here was a way she could help contribute to the people who had helped her so much.
“I’ll let Bulldog know, see what he thinks. Have you eaten yet?”
Camila frowned and shook her head. That was random. She wondered where it had come from and watched as he turned to the girls across the table from her.
“Spitfire, why don’t you order something and have it delivered. I’m getting hungry and you three should eat too.”
“All right, what do you want?” Winter asked.
“I don’t care. You know what I want from most places. Just get me something when you get your own stuff.”
“All right.”
He grinned, then grabbed a handful of Winter’s short-cropped hair and used it as a handle to tilt her head back.
Camila’s eyes went wide at the rough treatment.
It looked much like how her father used her hair to drag her where he wanted her.
But he didn’t drag her out of the chair like Papá would have.
Instead, he bent at the waist and kissed Winter. Not a peck, but a deep, involved, open-mouthed kiss. When he stood, Winter had a dazed look on her face, making Camila wonder if she was okay.
“Order enough for Hammer too. I’ll be in his office. We’ve got to figure out how much trouble chica here will bring us,” the blue haired man said as he headed toward the short hallway where Hammer had taken her to use the phone.
“Who was that?” she asked once he’d disappeared from sight.
“Bishop. He’s my old man. What do we want to eat?” Winter said, picking up her phone.
“Does he always handle you like that?” Camila knew it was none of her business, but she wanted to know what to expect if she was going to possibly remain here, or with any branch of this group.
A sappy smile tipped Winter’s lip. “He wasn’t hurting me, he wouldn’t ever hurt me.
Besides. I started the hair thing. I find it so hot when he does it, and he knows it.
He’s trying to make me hunt him down and drag him back to our room.
” Winter glared in the direction where he’d disappeared, though Camila didn’t think she was seriously angry. “So what do you want to eat?”
“Anything is fine with me.” She’d never had much choice in meals.
She ate what Maria put in front of her or when Papá wasn’t home, she often ate with the older woman, but she'd only helped Maria in the kitchen once. Her father’s men had told him about it and that had been one of the worst beatings she'd ever endured. She’d not made that mistake again.
“I can order pretty much anything you’d like. There are a couple of Mexican places, pizza, burgers, Chinese, Thai, Italian, whatever. Is there something you’re craving?”
All the options overwhelmed her. Having never had anything but what Maria cooked or that was served at whatever event Papá had taken her to, she had no idea.
Camila shook her head. “You decide where, then I’ll pick something.
” She wondered how long Papá’s men would wait to tell him she has disappeared.
Had they even noticed yet? She didn’t have much to do with them unless she went outside or needed to go into the nearby town for some reason.
It wasn’t uncommon for her to go several days without seeing them if she never left the main house.
And with the courtyard in the middle of the house, she could sit there or putter with the plants and not have to go deal with his thugs.
Because she’d figured out years before that while he claimed they were there to make sure she was safe, more often they spied for him and reported back everything she did.
When the time came, she chose food, not that it mattered—most of it would be new to her—but she was excited to try things she’d read about and seen on TV for most of her life.
Looking around, she thought that this group was much like a family.
While they weren’t blood, they treated each other much like she’d imagined a family would.
Well, the men were louder and there were a lot of insults going back and forth, but no one seemed to mind.
They tossed another insult out and kept going as if it was something they did or said every day.
But she’d also noticed they didn’t treat the women the same way.
It was odd but she was drawn to it. Then there was Hammer.
She’d only just met him but knowing he was close, that he would make sure she was safe, comforted her.