Page 23 of Bought By the Biker

Yolanda’s face reddens with excitement, but then the fear and doubt flash in her eyes again. “But . . . but Kazi has Durand’s body and your gun. Also, Kazi’s bodyguards all know you killed Durand. The real story will eventually get out, won’t it?”

I shake my head. “Kazi’s bodyguards were all out of the room when I shot Durand. They can talk, but their word won’t mean shit against mine once Kazi is dead.” I watch as Yolanda uses the hairbrush I asked the maid to pick up, her gaze focused on my reflection as she faces the mirror. “And so long as I get my gun back from Kazi’s meat cooler, Durand’s body can stay frozen in there forever and it won’t matter who finds it and when. Nobody can match those bullets to my gun if nobody has my gun. It’s a good plan, Yolanda. It might even free all those kidnapped girls in that underground whorehouse.”

Yolanda is brushing her hair in long downward strokes. She stops suddenly. “Really? How?”

I rub my stubble and take a breath. “With Kazi suddenly dead, there’ll be a shake-up in all these operations. Different Cartel-supported gangs and mafiosos will try to muscle in on Kazi’s operations. There’ll be a temporary period of uncertainty and chaos, and I think if we call in an anonymous tip to the Juarez Police, they’ll go in and free the kidnapped girls.” Still rubbing my jaw, I offer a hopeful shrug. “The cops aren’t all bad, Yolanda. They want to do the right thing, but usually their hands are tied because the Cartels have so much control from the top down, politicians included. But with everyone distracted, the local cops might do a quiet raid on that underground whorehouse and free all the rest of the girls.” I huff out a breath when I see the doubtful look in Yolanda’s narrowed eyes. “Listen, we can’t end the global sex-trafficking business in one day. We can’t save every stolen woman in the world. But if we pull this off, it might save dozens of women trapped in Kazi’s hell.”

Yolanda takes a long breath, nods, resumes brushing her hair. Then she stops again. “What about Mother Kazi?”

I chuckle at the flash of almost murderous rage in Yolanda’s eyes which will never shine with that same innocence again. “What about her?”

“She gets to walk away?” Yolanda glares at me.

I shrug again. “Let’s see how it plays out, all right, baby? Let’s get Marybeth out safely, get you two across the border. Then I’ll figure out the best way to hit Kazi in his auction-house. Maybe Mother Kazi gets what’s coming to her then. She saw me kill Durand, but she’s never had any contact with the Skulls, barely speaks any English either. It’s not a priority to put her down, Yolanda. She might have to wait to take her place with the demons in hell.”

“Oh, all right.” Yolanda pouts at the mirror, gets back to brushing her hair, then cocks her head and frowns. “Wait, what did you mean by that part about getting me and Marybeth back across the border?”

My eyes narrow. “I meant exactly what I said. Right now we’re going to take a taxi back to Marybeth’s car. It’s an older model, without that modern computerized stuff. I can hot-wire it easy. We’ll drive it to the underground brothel. You keep it running outside while I go get Marybeth. Then we drive straight to the border. I’ll hop off at the taxi-stand on the Mexico side. You two cross back to Texas while I head back to Juarez and finish things with Kazi.”

Yolanda frowns at my reflection, tosses the hairbrush onto the dresser, then turns to me with her hands on her hips. “Marybeth will cross back to Texas, but I’m staying with you, Brock. We’re together, which means we finish this together.”

Now it’s time for me to roll my eyes. “Look, it’s going to be tricky enough to kill Kazi without also having to worry about protecting you, Yolanda.”

Yolanda puffs out her cheeks like a pouty schoolgirl. “Maybe I can help.”

“You can help by giving me a reason to make it back across the border free and clear from my past.” My gaze softens as I take Yolanda’s hands in mine, pull her into me for a warm hug. “So we can ride off to our future together. Come on, Yolanda. You know there’s no way in hell I’m letting you walk into that filthy auction-hall again, no way I'm letting you within a mile of that perverted monster Kazi again. You do understand that, don’t you?”

Yolanda burrows into my chest, nodding her head against my body. She looks up and sighs, then nods again. “Yes,” she says softly. “I’d just be a distraction. Maybe even a danger. All right. You win. Let’s just go hot-wire a car and rescue my friend from an underground whorehouse. I guess that’s enough adventure for a girl who was a helpless virgin princess until yesterday and now gets pouty and sulky because her knight refuses to let her ride along when he goes to kill the big bad dragon.”

11

TWO HOURS LATER.

YOLANDA

Turns out I don’t feel so big and bad sitting here in a hot-wired car with the motor running, my white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel like I’m holding on for dear life, like if I let go I’ll spin off into full-fledged panic from the anxiety of what needs to happen for this dreamlike fairy-tale to not collapse into a nightmare.

“Except it’s already a nightmare for poor Marybeth,” I remind myself out loud as I peer through the windshield of her little blue Toyota hatchback at the red metal side-door from which Brock was supposed to emerge ten minutes ago.

Of course, the timing was only an estimate. There’s no need to panic yet. I showed Brock a picture of Marybeth on my phone. He would have described her to the pimps as the type of woman he was looking to fuck this morning. And as sickening as the thought makes me, I’d understood that maybe some pervert was already in the room with Marybeth and Brock would have to wait.

The waiting is killing me, though. My mind spins through all the horrible possibilities of what goes on in this unmarked block of a building with no windows and not a whole lot of doors either, thick walls through which you wouldn’t hear the screams, wouldn’t notice the cries, wouldn’t know that in a world with golden sunshine and sparkly rainbows there is also desperate darkness and monstrous misery.

Misery that monsters like Kazi and his mother impose upon the innocent.

Now rage blazes through me again, burning away the fear just like the past few days have burned away my innocence. I don’t know if it’s this newfound confidence that Brock has awakened in me or if some part of him is rubbing off on me, awakening some unknown darkness that perhaps always lived inside me like a snake in the shadows.

“Where are you, Brock?” I whisper, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, the toe of my new sneaker nervously revving the accelerator, my other foot pressed firmly on the brake. The automatic shifter is already set to DRIVE so I can shoot out of this side-street the moment Brock comes out with Marybeth. “Oh, please, please, please let everything be OK. Please let nobody have recognized Brock. Please let Kazi and his mother not be here.”

My heart hammers beneath my boobs, and suddenly this yellow pullover feels too hot and I want to take it off. So I take my hands off the wheel and get the pullover up over my head, messing up my carefully brushed hair, causing my tresses to flop down over my face as I toss the pullover into the back seat.

It takes a moment to get my hair out of my face, and when I glance through the windscreen at that red door again my heart almost stops.

Because outside that red door, reaching to open it and go inside, is the demon-witch herself.

Mother Kazi has just been dropped off by a black Mercedes SUV that’s pulling away from the curb. She must be making a visit to check her cages, to make sure her captives are secure and well-fed so they last longer, to do whatever it is demon-witches do in the nightmarish underworld inside that ugly building.

Except I can’t let Mother Kazi go inside that building.

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