“We’re not friends. We’re much, much more than that and you know it.”

“Jesus, you…you just have no shame, do you? Where do you get off saying stuff like this?”

“I find shame is usually a wasteful emotion. It occurs after an event or certain actions have taken place. There’s no sense in beating yourself up over something you can’t change or effect, right? I think you’re actually uncomfortable because I say what I think. I don’t sugar coat anything. And I’ve never been afraid to admit what I want, Sophia.” He rubs his fingers over the stubble on his jaw, piercing me with those blue eyes of his. “You, on the other hand… you’re afraid of admitting anything to anyone, ever. Must be exhausting.”

I don’t answer him. I don’t really know what to say. I want to be stubborn and hard with him, tell him he couldn’t be more wrong and he should keep his half-baked theories to himself, but I am so done. I don’t have the energy to fight or bicker with him. And besides, it’s becoming harder and harder to deny that what he’s saying isn’t actually the truth. Fuck him. Fuck him and his ability to see right through me. Rebel starts to laugh. “You don’t need to say a word, sugar. You know it’s true, and so do I. I can wait, though. If you ever feel like being honest with me, I’m ready to hear it.”

His voice softens out at the end of this statement, the laughter slipping away. He sounds muted, soft, almost pensive. I want him to put his arms around me so he can hold me and make the whole world go away again, but won’t that just be proving him right? Instead, I turn away from him.

My eyes land on a file sitting on the overflowing desk. Scrawled across the front of it in black, blocky capitals is one word: MAYFAIR.

“What’s Mayfair? Is that, like, a code for something? A place?”

Rebel sighs heavily. I can hear his boots grinding against the bare concrete underfoot as he paces the length of the room; he takes the file from me and places it back on the pile of disorganized binders and papers. “It’s a name. A guy back in Seattle. Cade’s been looking into him.”

“Is he connected with Hector and Raphael?”

“No. He’s not someone we need to worry about right now, Soph. We have other things to take care of. Namely Maria fucking Rosa.”

ELEVEN

CADE

I learned how to waterboard somebody without killing them back in Afghanistan. There’s a trick to it. If you pour the water too fast, shove the rag down their throat too far, you’ll drown them straight away. If you go too easy on them, they can hold their breath and they’ll never break. As I fill up a four-gallon canister with water from the outside tap close to the clubhouse, I spend a moment reflecting on how little Maria Rosa is going to like this. That’s probably the understatement of the century. She’s going to fucking hate it.

The roles are usually reversed in situations such as these. She tortured the ever-loving shit out of me when she found me and Rebel snooping around her place in Columbia. I spent three days strapped to a chair while she tried to ascertain if I was there to try and kill her or not. The experience was a frustrating one for her. Being in the Marines, you learn how to withstand torture. You learn how to keep your damn mouth shut and give nothing more than your name and rank, and Maria Rosa wanted me to be screaming. I was a disappointment to her in the beginning, but then later she confessed my silent stoicism turned her on. Wasn’t long before she was straddling me, grinding herself up against my cock, torturing me in a different way. That seems like a long time ago now.

She was unconscious when I carried her into the barn and down into the hidden basement, making sure to bolt the hatchway behind me when I came back up for the water. I trussed her up pretty tight when I tied her to the single, lone wooden chair down there, but she’s a wily one. No, not just wily; she’s a goddamn contortionist. I’ve had first hand experience of that. I’m yet to fuck another woman who can fold herself up into a pretzel the same way Mother can.

I try not to think about all the things Maria Rosa can do that other women can’t as I carry the canister of water back to the barn and unbolt the hatch. Down the stairs I carry the carton, along the badly lit corridor, water sloshing out onto the dusty concrete, onto my boots, not thinking about the things Maria Rosa can do with her tongue.

Jesus.

When I enter the very last room on the right, the woman in question is slumped forward in the chair, chin resting on her chest, a thick river of blood drying down her arm and her leg. She looks like she’s out cold, but if there’s one lesson I’ve learned in this life, it’s do not trust Maria Rosa. She’s a master manipulator. I’m sure Rebel would have a couple more very choice names for her, too.

She fucked with the club.

She fucked with my sister.

And now she’s fucked with Sophia.

It takes a lot to get Jamie to the point where he’ll bury you as soon as look at you, but we’re past that point now. I kind of feel sorry for the woman. He’s not going to go easy on her. Not even a little bit.

I pull the rag I found behind the bar in the clubhouse from the back pocket of my jeans and lean against the wall with the huge container of water at my feet, tearing the rag into long strips. This is where the boss finds me.

He’s not looking too shit hot.

“You tried to wake her up yet?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“All right. Let’s get this over with. I shouldn’t have reamed you out. I know you were only looking out for Sophia. I lost it. I’m sorry.”

I shrug.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You’d have lost it, too. You’d have blown a fucking gasket if that had been Laura.”

I lock up at the sound of my sister’s name. We’ll go weeks, sometimes months, without speaking of her. Both of us just knows that she’s the reason we’re here though, neck deep in stinking shit that makes us both sick, drives us both crazy. We’ll never be able to get out until we find out what happened to her, one way or another. And then make whomever is responsible for her disappearance pay. Dearly. That day will be the day Jamie and I lose our souls for good.

I shoot him a shitty look. “So you’re comparing Sophia to her now, is it? You really must love her or something.”

Rebel’s eyes narrow so dramatically, they almost disappear entirely. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

I throw one of the balled up pieces of rag at him, and it hits him in the face. “You’re so full of shit, man. I saw the way you looked at her the second she climbed on the back of your ride in that fucking disgusting yellow dress and I knew we were all doomed.”

The ghost of a smile flickers across his face. Bending to pick up the piece of rag I threw, he grunts. “Like I said. Maybe. Maybe not.”

Maria Rosa groans. It’s not the kind of groan she’d fake. She’d want to sound sexy, even through her pain. No, this is the kind of groan someone makes when they’re in agony and their head’s not working right. Rebel turns his attention to her, and I catch a glimpse of how much trouble she’s in…

If the look on my brother’s face were to be categorized by a single act of violence in recent history, it would be codenamed Hiroshima. He’s going to kill her. I can read that fact in every line of his body. He’s wound so tight, I’d be surprised if he even waits for her to wake up before he starts on her.

“Are you okay, man? I can do this on my own if you need me to?”

“And you won’t end up fucking her brains out instead of teaching her a lesson?” He lifts both eyebrows at me, clearly convinced that this is what will happen if I’m left alone in a room with her.