Cross Fire (Padre Knights MC Book 3) (6 page)

“And then it was,” Ali agreed.

“When we killed Crocket’s old lady,” he started, and it was her turn to shake her head. “I listened to you, now you listen to me. What is it Cristina tells you all the time? Take your medicine?” He waited, and when she didn’t protest, he continued. “When we killed them, I thought, ‘That could be Ali.’ I thought, ‘That could be the woman I love.’ And yeah, I panicked, and I pushed you away for no sane reason. I took away your choice, because I was sure it was right. I’m sorry for that, Ali. Crocket— He was scared, for himself and for her, but they made their choice.”

There was a long silence, and it took everything she had, but she let it sit until he was ready to talk again.

“If we survive this, and we get rid of the Diablos Verdes, I’m going to do what I can to change things
, mi amor
. I don’t want more blood on my hands.”

She was ready to speak, but a loud bang downstairs made her heart slam into overdrive. Alejandro stood up, and pulled a weapon from God alone knew where. “Stay here,” he whispered to her, his voice low and tight, and then he was moving out of the bedroom.

Ali stayed put for a handful of seconds, then grabbed a button down shirt off the floor and pulled it on. She grabbed her own jeans, pulling them over her hips commando, wincing for a moment as the rough denim seam came into contact with her swollen and well-used pussy. And then she followed him.

Karen had poked her head out of the guest room door; Ali waved her back in. Karen rolled her eyes and fell into step behind Ali. They crept down the stairs as quietly as they could. Ali could feel Karen’s fingers clinging to her belt loops, and she smiled to herself, just a little.

She could see Alejandro in the kitchen, moving carefully towards the back door. He saw her then, and the expression on his face was pure anger. He started to gesture at her, but the banging came again, and he snapped to the wall. He glanced out the door, fast as lightning, and then she saw his shoulders relax, saw his entire body lose that snake-like tension that had poured through him as soon as he’d drawn his weapon. “It’s the guys,” he said. “Some of the guys who weren’t in the warehouse. Can I—”

“Yeah,” Ali said feeling her own tension level slide down a few notches. “Yeah, of course. I’ll make some coffee.”

Zig and Pitbull sat at Ali’s kitchen table. Slider was still in critical condition in the ICU. Most of the other guys had been killed in the shootout. Pitbull had been hit, but it had been relatively minor; the ER docs had patched him up, and then he and Zig had managed to give them the slip before Sheriff Hennesy got to the hospital to question them. “We gotta fly, Shakespeare,” Pitbull said, his eyes resting nervously on Ali. Big change from how he’d eyed her before, and it made Alejandro want to laugh at the same time that he wanted to rest his forehead down on the table and cry. To complicate things further, Turk had fallen into a coma. He’d made his preference known for Alejandro to take over as President when he was gone, but without the official transfer, he felt somewhat uncomfortable wearing the title of Prez. “We can’t stay here.”

Alejandro shook his head. Ali kept silent, passing out cups of coffee and putting cream and sugar on the table, and Karen had raided the fridge and started frying bacon and eggs, making toast, and chopping eggs for hash. “We can’t just turn this community over to the Diablos Verdes, either,” he said. “We’re no saints, but they’re killers.” He thought for a while, trying to clear the happiness out of his mind so he could focus. It was amazing, being with Ali, hearing her say that she was going to stick with him and find a way, no matter what happened. It left him feeling fuzzy, soft, smiling. That wasn’t what he needed right now. He needed to be the rock-hard soldier who had tattooed his exposed chest rather than call a girl and tell her that he loved her. He needed to be strong.

“I say we give them the drugs,” he said, finally.

Pitbull and Zig exploded up from the table, both of them shouting and cursing. He stared at them, like Turk would have done, until they subsided down into their chairs. “It’s just us. We’re decimated. How many of them were there, Zig?”

Zig grumbled. “‘Bout ten, maybe twelve, by my count.”

“They destroyed us. Even if we call up to San Antonio, and more guys come… They’re the weekenders, the casual guys. They’d be slaughtered. I want this to end, and I don’t want any more blood on my hands.” He let the silence play out, and then he said the truth—what he knew they’d both hear. “Crocket’s old lady was enough. That never happens again.”

“But if we give up the drugs, Shakespeare—” Pitbull started, and it was Zig who put his hand on Pitbull’s arm, stopping the flow.

“It’s Prez now, Pitbull.” He turned his eyes back to Alejandro. “I know Turk had been talking about cleaning things up for a lot of years now. Maybe this is a chance to make that happen.”

“But the rest of the guys—”

“The ones who were making money off it are dead, or sitting here at this table. Slider will go either way, you know that. He’ll go along to get along. So I need to hear it from you. Do we clean things up with the Diablos, protect our community, and run the club Turk would have wanted? Or do we go in there, guns blazing, and die for nothing?”

He knew the argument they could make, the argument he could have made just a few weeks before. Die for nothing but honor, and honor was everything. Only maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there was something to having more than just your honor. To having something—someone—at the end of the day who could wrap you up in their arms and tell you they loved you and take you to such blazing plains of glory that you thought maybe your heart would stop.

Maybe there was something to that.

He watched as Pitbull ran through the options in his mind. Zig was already with him, watching him steadily, but Pitbull needed to take some time. He’d been in the club almost as long as Alejandro had, and it was going to be a change, thinking of him as Prez and not just as another guy in the club. And that was fine; Alejandro would give him the time he needed. As long as he came around eventually.

He jumped a bit when he heard Ali’s soft voice behind him, her hand touching feather light between his shoulder blades.

“Say you turn everything over to the Diablos,” she said, and he watched as Pitbull and Zig turned to look at her. “Suppose you do, and you let them take over. What do you know about the Deputies in the Sheriff’s office?”

Pitbull shrugged. “They’re decent guys, with families. They put up with Hennesy because they don’t see an alternative. If they get one, get a chance to stop it, I think they’d be happy for it. Especially if one of them got the star instead of Hennesy.”

Ali nodded, and Alejandro could see her thinking as she stood there, staring off. “And if Hennesy were gone, and we had some actual law protection in this town, the Diablos would need to find another place to cross the border. Am I right?”

Alejandro saw where she was going, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, baby, they would.”

“All right, then. You men figure out what to say to the Diablos without getting yourselves killed. I’ll deal with Hennesy.”

He glanced back at his men, and saw them both grinning. “You gonna make her official or what, Shakespeare?” Pitbull asked.

“Yeah, Prez. We gonna start calling her Prospect next?”

He reached back and twined his fingers through Ali’s. She put on her thickest southern belle accent and giggled. “I just don’t have a thing to wear with a leather vest, boys, but you’re so kind to think of me.”

Pitbull and Zig laughed hard, and Ali joined them, a rumble coming up from her belly that felt more honest than anything he’d ever seen from her. Well, outside of the bedroom, anyway. He mouthed the word “mine” at her, and she nodded.

“All right, boys,” he said, turning back to the decimated remains of the force that had come to Arroyo Falls just a few months ago to sort out what should have been a simple handover. “Let’s start planning what to say to the Diablos.”

When everyone had eaten their fill, Ali excused herself. There were a few things she’d need to take care of before she could put her plan into action.

The first call she made was to Travis Lathrop. It killed her to say it, but the program was done for. Maybe somewhere else, she would’ve been able to expose what Bobby had done and show the townsfolk that the Padres Knights were good men, at the core, and rebuilt what she'd lost. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. Not here. There were too many memories. And a lot of them were good memories, strong memories, proud memories. Of growing up with her grandmother, of being loved by that old woman until the day she died. But some of them were of Bobby assaulting her, of losing her sense of self so fully that she'd almost married a man she didn't love, and of her parents pushing her to do it so that they could rise in the social standings of South Texas. And she couldn't do that. She couldn't be that woman any more.

The check Lathrop had given her had a phone number on it. She tried that first, and when she got his voicemail, she left him a simple message. "Mr. Lathrop, this is Ali Owens. I wanted you to know that my circumstances have changed, and I'm going to tear up this check. I'm not going to be able to move forward like I'd hoped. Thank you for your faith in me, sir, and I hope that everything goes well for you. Thank you." And she disconnected the call.

She had to spend a moment wiping away her tears before she could dial the next number.

She had to call back twice before Cristina answered the phone. "Ali?" She said in greeting.

"How bad was it, after I left?"

Cristina sighed. "Pretty bad. Your mother fainted, your father screamed at Carmac. Bobby turned shades of purple, and then he started asking people to get him a drink. There were reporters calling me all last night."

"Yeah, Karen warned me," Ali said. "I guess I made a mess of things."

She waited for Cristina to agree. She heard a sigh, and then heard some movement as Cristina closed the door to the room she was in and settled down somewhere. "Why did you do it, Ali? Was it because of Alejandro?"

"You remember when you kept asking me what I wanted?"

"Of course."

"I'm still not completely sure. But I know I don't want Bobby. At least, I don't want the life he's going to have. I don't want to live in the public eye, and I don't want to have to spend all day figuring out how to match my hat with my shoes. I want to go to the feed store in my shitkickers and take care of my horse and help some kids. When Bobby and I were going to do that together, I could deal with some of the other stuff. But he's turning into someone I never knew, someone I never wanted to know. And I kept waiting for him to switch back, to become that man that I fell in love with back in college. Only he never did."

"Did you feel differently once the Xanax wore off?"

Ali chucked. "I felt hung over as all shit, that's for sure."

Cristina laughed too. "You weren't supposed to take that many."

"Well, you told me to take my medicine."

They laughed together, light and easy, like they had months ago. Before Alejandro came back to town.

"Do you promise me that this wasn't because of my cousin,
mami
?"

There was so much sorrow and worry inside of Cristina’s voice that it plucked at Ali’s heart. “Why does it matter so much that I not be with him, Cristina? I know he lives a rough life, but I feel alive when I’m with him.”

“Because I introduced you,” Cristina cried out. “When he came to our cheerleading practice, I told you who he was. I let you flirt with him, I encouraged you to have a fling with him. And now— If you’re leaving for him, if you’re with him, and something happens to you, that means it’s my fault. That means I killed you, and I can’t live with that.”

Ali heard her friend collapse into harsh sobs, and the sound twisted her heart into bits. She searched for the words she needed. “Oh, sweetie, I promise. I’m making my own choices. I’m not leaving for him—though I’m not gonna lie to you, I am with him, at least, at the moment—but I’m leaving because I need to make my own life. I left Bobby because it was the right thing not to marry him. And being with Alejandro right now— It’s the only thing in my messed up world that feels right.”

She listened while Cristina cried herself out. “No governor’s mansion for me,” she said, finally. She was laughing, but there was a bitter hint in her tone.

“Not unless you get there on your own,” Ali said.

“Wouldn’t that be a sight,” she said, and just like that they were friends again. Not as close as they’d been once, Ali thought, and maybe they never would be again. But closer than they’d been when she picked up the phone.

“Look, I need to ask you one more favor.”

Cristina snorted. “The last favor I did for you ruined your wedding. Your very expensive wedding, as your daddy reminded me repeatedly.”

Ali let it pass for now. “I know. But this is the last matron of honor duty I’ll ask of you. Can you swing by my place in a couple of hours?”

“Sure,” Cristina said. “Happy to. After all, if this is the way things are going to go, Alejandro and I are going to have a few words.”

“Cristina—”

“What do I always tell you, Ali?” They finished it together: “Take your medicine.”

She disconnected the call, and turned around to see Alejandro standing in the doorway. “How long have you been there?”

“Just a second,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied, slipping her phone into the pocket of her jeans. “Just a couple things I needed to take care of. Cristina’s probably going to stop by later.”

His grin spread sideways across his face. “Oh? How much does she hate me right now?” He stepped close to her and put his hands around her waist. Ali let him hold her, let her weight relax back into his chest. 

“I don’t think she hates you at all. I think that she’s worried. About both of us. And you have to admit, there’s good reason for that. We’ve torn each other up more than once.”

She could feel him nod against her shoulder, his grip tight around her waist tight and firm. “That we have.”

“We probably will again.”

“I’ll try not to,” he said, and his lips pressed like rose petals against the nape of her neck. She sighed, feeling her body heat and relax against him at the same time. His fingers teased at her skin, dipping under the waistband of her jeans, and up under the hem of her shirt.

“Where’s everybody gone?” she asked, letting him take her weight, wrapping one arm up around his neck.

“Pitbull and Zig left to go find where the Diablos are holed up. We know it’s in one of the industrial parks outside of town, but the exact ‘where,’ we’re not sure. Karen went to go get a shower. She said she’d swing by tonight, make sure everything was okay, and to call if you needed her before then.”

She spun in his arms then, wrapping both arms around his neck and capturing his mouth for a firm kiss. “So we’re all alone is what you’re saying?”

He laughed softly against her mouth. “And I thought I was insatiable.”

Ali quirked an eyebrow at him. “I mean, we don’t have to, if you don’t want to.”

Alejandro’s thumb brushed over her nipple, which tightened for him quickly as she sighed. “Oh, I want to. I just assumed you’d be too sore. If I can be so bold, I was pretty rough earlier.”

There was a lot of bravado in his voice, but even more than that she heard a little boy who was still worried that he wasn’t worth loving. She caught his face in her hands and brought him to look right at her. “You were,” she said. “And I’m achy. And tight. And still wet and needy and wishing I was full of you all over again.”

He groaned against her skin, nipping at her neck. She moved with him for a moment, smiling to herself. “I mean, do you even
have
a gentle setting?”

He pulled back then. The look in his eyes, like he was accepting the challenge that she was putting forth. “Do I have a gentle setting?” he scoffed at her mockingly, and then everything about him shifted. The burning fire in his eyes banked into a simmering smolder, the tension in his hands melted away, and instead of driving her on with his fingers, she found him full of invitation and delicate warmth. He took her hand and pulled her along with him until he sat down on the couch, then tugged her down into his lap. She sat crosswise, her legs thrown over his right hip, and he kissed her, lips soft and gentle, his fingers exploring her with more delicacy than he’d ever shown her in all the years they’d been together.

“There were women,” he said as he pressed kisses along her jawline. “There were a lot of women, Ali. I tried over and over again to fall in love, especially once Cristina started telling me about Bobby. I knew she was just trying to get me to move on, to get over you, and I thought I could. But every time I thought of you and him—it was too much. So I had women, I had endless women, and I wished that every one of them was you.”

Ali knew she was supposed to be upset about this. It wasn’t some sort of revelation, after all. It had been a decade, and God knew Alejandro was a good looking man. And the way he made love to her— that wasn’t something a guy developed simply by daydreaming. But she couldn’t find any room in her heart for “upset.”

“Even if you didn’t think of me, every single time, it’s not my place to be upset. It’s not like you owed me anything during that time.” She laughed and kissed the tip of his nose, a gesture that made him glare at her. Mostly jokingly. She hoped. “Go sneaking off with someone else
now
, though, and we’d have a different conversation.”

He gave her a curious look. “And what if I didn’t sneak off? What if I brought someone else home?”

She resisted the urge to swat his arm again. “Talk to me about it first, please.”

“Are you saying that could potentially be an option?”

“I don’t really think this is the point right now.”

He sighed and laughingly rolled his eyes. “And you tell me this after you ask me to be gentle.”

She could feel him pressing into her, hard and ready. “If it’s too much for you to handle, we can stop.”

The heat in his eyes didn’t fade. “I’d really prefer not to wait.”

“So show me,” she said. “How gentle can you be?”

He made love to her like a summer rain, washing over her skin in delicate waves. His fingers brushed her nipples instead of twisting, caressed her sides instead of urging, stroked over her ass instead of gripping. He whispered to her while he did it, murmuring how much he loved her, how beautiful she was, how perfect it felt to be finally holding her. Her clothes fell away like flower petals, and they were naked together. He brought her down so that she straddled him, his cock hard and solid between them, pressed against her belly.

And then he leaned back and put his hands up behind his head. “This is how gentle I can be,” he said. “Show me what you want.”