“I can get it done.” And I can. Ever since Laura went missing, the closest we ever came to finding her was at Maria Rosa’s place. Too many people told the same story. Too many people said she had her. Rebel and I turned her place upside down once Mother let us have free rein, but there were those three days. Those three days where she was deciding if she hated or loved us. She could easily have had any girls she was hiding in her villa relocated, never to be seen again. Buried, thrown into a ditch somewhere for wild animals to pick their bones clean.

 Yeah, I can get this done.

I know he won’t agree to leaving me here with her, though. Even if he did think I was capable of making her talk all by myself, his conscience wouldn’t let him. He’d never ask me to do something he wasn’t prepared to do himself. That’s how we’ve ended up in this situation so many times. Together.

Maria Rosa stirs again. She makes a delirious, gurgling kind of sound at the back of her throat, and then her head lolls back, eyes finally shuttering open. Rebel clenches his jaw, readying himself. This is not going to be fun for anyone involved, but he’s angry enough right now that it won’t trouble him as much as usual.

“Good sleep, Mother?” he growls. Slowly, he begins to pace around her in a circle, wrapping the torn piece of rag around his fingers over and over again. “You’re planning on gracing us with your presence, I see.”

Maria Rosa’s pupils dilate, desperately trying to focus on her surroundings. She’s very clearly having problems, though. She’s lost a lot of blood. And she was hysterical before that anyway. God knows where they were before they came burning out of the desert, but something serious obviously went down. Serious enough to end Rico, anyway. Rebel told me about the last time he saw Maria Rosa in Vegas—that she and Rico put on quite a show for Carnie. She fucked Rico right in front of them. Even back in Colombia, it was fairly plain that Rico was in love with her. It was only a matter of time. The woman can never resist a man who fawns over her, no matter if she’s attracted to him or not. She’ll fuck a guy just to make him purr. From the show she put on as Rico was dying, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually had some form of feelings for the guy. Not real feelings, of course. She’s not capable. But some sort of…tolerance for him. More than she ever felt for me, that’s for sure. She repeatedly said she was in love with me, but you don’t attempt to stab someone you’re in love with to death. At least not in my limited experience.

She blinks drunkenly up at Rebel, and everything seems to hit her all at once—Rico dying, threatening Sophia…she probably remembers Trader Joe’s and the heat we pulled from the DEA last, because an ashen, gray color sweeps across her face, turning her into a ghost.

“Oh, my, my,” she whispers. Her words are slurred but still audible. “I suppose this is quite ironic, no?”

“Not really,” Rebel replies. “I’d say it was more…karmic retribution. Do you believe in karma, Mother?”

“Only the bad kind.” She leans forward and spits on the floor—blood and saliva mixed together. “I’m guessing you’re very angry with me, my love.”

Rebel laughs. He tips his head back and howls so loud I’m sure people in town can hear him. “You could say that. Yes, I’m just a little bit mad with you. Can you blame me, though? I mean, you sent men in to a grocery store wearing Widow Makers’ cuts and you had them kill a whole bunch of innocent people. That wasn’t very nice, was it?”

Maria Rosa rolls her eyes. “It was a warning. Nothing more. The cops were never going to charge you. That’s why I had that fat one wear the president’s cut. The police would do a little digging and pull up the club’s details, see your handsome face and know it was the wrong guy, and they would figure it out. That’s why I chose Los Angeles not New Mexico, you spoiled little shit.”

“I’m the spoiled little shit?” Rebel grinds his teeth. I just stand there, leaning against the wall, waiting. At some point one of them is going to drag me into this, but until then I’m quite content sitting it out on the sidelines. Rebel shakes his head, scowling at Maria Rosa.

“You’re petulant, and you have the stones to call me spoiled? I came to you for help in good faith, and now look at where we are.”

“We are here because you have no fucking sense of humor, Rebel. We’re here because I messed up your pretty girlfriend’s hair. Kind of pathetic, don’t you think? She’s still pretty. She still has all of her hair. Even though she killed Rico.”

It was plain to see that Rico was on borrowed time when they pulled up in those cars, but trust Maria Rosa to see it that way—Sophia didn’t save him, therefore she killed him. “There will be…consequences for that,” she wheezes.

“Oh? Consequences? You really think you’re getting out of here alive?”

“I do. I don’t think you’re a cold-blooded killer, Rebel. More’s the pity. I would respect you more if you were, I think.”

There’s only so much of this baiting Rebel will take before he eventually does snap. I’ve only seen it once before, and it was messy and brutal, and it took three weeks to get him to calm down afterward. If we can avoid that outcome, that would be great, but Mother loves to wind a guy up. She teased and tormented me for hours and hours at a time. Difference is, I handled it. Rebel will wrench her head off before he puts up with this much longer.

He slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looking around the room like he’s never been in here before and all of this is new to him. Like we haven’t had these kinds of conversations plenty of times before, with plenty of different people. This is the first time we’ve had a ‘chat’ with a woman, but then again Maria Rosa hardly counts. She loves to skin people, for fuck’s sake. She’s wielded the blade herself more times than any of us can count.

Rebel walks over to the container filled with water and plunges the rag he’s holding into it, so that his hand comes up running water everywhere. There’s no showmanship, no bravado. No drawn out production over it. He knows it’s pointless trying to scare Maria Rosa, just like I do. This won’t be about terrifying her into telling us everything she knows about Hector. This will be us bending her to our will, and then when bending doesn’t work, breaking her. And then she’ll tell us.

That undoubtedly makes us evil people, but this is a very unique situation. Maria Rosa really fucked up with that stunt she pulled. She should have gone back to Colombia and continued trafficking her blow. Threatening Rebel and then framing the club? Yeah, that was never going to end well.

“Open wide,” he tells her.

“I’m not normally so eager to please, but…whatever you say, my love.” Maria Rosa opens up, unflinching, unwilling to show that she’s even slightly afraid. Sophia reminds me of her a little, in a way. While Soph is admittedly a little more intimidated by our fucked up world, she wears this look of defiance wherever she goes, like she’s ready to throw down should the need arise. I respect that about her.

Rebel jams the rag into Maria Rosa’s mouth. He then gestures for another one from me. I wet it in the container and hand it over. That goes into her mouth, too. And then another. And another. He’s hitting her with this hardcore. She really won’t be able to breathe in between rounds of water being poured into her mouth, but it doesn’t look like Rebel cares. He kicks out Maria Rosa’s feet from underneath the chair and grabs her by the ankles, pulling her down so that her head is tipped back. The position looks sexual, especially with Rebel standing with one leg either side of hers, but it’s not. He stands like that in order to lift up the heavy water container without tearing open his stitches anymore. Maria gives Rebel a dead-eyed smile around all of the material he’s forcing into her mouth.