Unbreakable: Unrequited Part Two (Fallen Aces MC Book 2) (13 page)

“Because in ’97,” Devon explains, “his old lady was still living with the enemy.”

Hooch squints and cocks his head to the side as he shakes out a smoke. “Come again?”

“Apex left. Got kicked out. His old lady? Her daddy was the then VP for the Eagles. Your beloved leader stuck his fuckin’ dick where it wasn’t welcome, and they both paid the price for it.” Devon wiggles his fingers, indicating he’d like a cigarette. “She was promised to the then president’s son. The officers were tryin’ to keep Eagles blood true, ensuring that the kids who grew up to take the place of their parents were pure-bred Scandinavians, just like their moms and dads.”

“Sounds fucked up to me,” Callum mutters.

“Nothing short of it,” Devon agrees, taking the light Hooch offers.

I pull my pack out as well, the urge for something to calm my angered nerves strong. “The clubs split them up, then?”

Devon nods, the end of his smoke burning bright. “Uh-huh. Sent him packing with the express condition that he never contact her or see her again. When the Eagles found out she was pregnant with his kid, he was exiled from the entire state. If the Aces rode to an inter-club rally that the Eagles were attending, he wasn’t welcome. The Aces knew that, and so he was never made an officer to ensure he had no reason to attend.”

“But how did he become pres if he was never optioned?” Hooch asks.

“We were told he was sponsored into a role, and that his loyalty to the club when Denver happened was why he was a shoo-in to make president when his predecessor died,” I fill in.

“Know how the predecessor died?”

“Accident. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Wasn’t it?” Devon asks, his eyebrows raised as he takes a long pull of his smoke.

This shit’s just getting more and more absurd. “So back to Denver,” I prompt, keen not to spin off onto another story that could make this conversation last all night. “Why no comeback?”

Devon pulls in a deep breath and rolls his shoulders back. “His old lady, right? She’s still living with her daddy at the Eagles compound. That ambush went down,
completely
condoned by the officer of the club, and stirred things up. Apex catches wind of the Aces decision to hit the Eagles clubhouse at night, and understandably, flips.” He runs the side of his finger along his lips before he continues. “He talked to one of the officers, the road captain, his friend, and managed to spin enough of a fucking
Romeo and Juliet
sob story that the officers on the trip convened and decided to go in a whole other direction—got his woman out, along with their kid.”

Fuck.
He was me. Apex was
me
. So why the fuck is he so hell-bent on not helping out?

“Anyway,” Devon says with a sigh. “Whole thing went pear-shaped. The boys—me included—got busted after we cut through their fence. She was supposed to sneak out with the kid, but she ran at us like a fucking banshee, screamin’ that they had the boy and they wouldn’t give him up. Yeah, we got him out as well, somehow managed to get away without anyone dying, but the Eagles pres had delivered one final blow before they let that kid loose.”

“A permanent reminder?” Hooch hazards a guess.

Devon nods. “Kid was walking toward his momma when one of the brothers pulled a steel baseball bat out from behind his leg and swung one hell of a home-run into that boy’s back. Kid never walked again. Spat all hope Apex had of him riding a bike out the window.”

“Doesn’t stop him being a member, though,” I muse. “So what if he can’t ride?”

“The kid had surgery eight times over the next two years to fix the splintered bits of bone that were floatin’ around the kid’s spinal cord. One of them had complications. He got an infection in his blood, straight up the spinal cord to his brain.”

“Fuck,” Hooch utters, pre-empting what we all know Devon’s going to say next.

“Yeah. Kid’s a vegetable.”

I push my beer away, my stomach too unsettled to even think of adding to it. “If the Blood Eagles fucked him over so bad, then why the fuck is he tryin’ not to go to war with them now?”

“You at war again?” Devon asks.

“Should be,” I answer.

Devon huffs out a heavy breath, shaking his head as he turns his bottle between his hands. “If he’s anything like he was when I left that fucking bunch of sheep—no disrespect—he’ll be avoiding the chance that somebody else delivers his final blow. That president of yours has a grudge the size of Mexico on his fucking conscience. If somebody fucked up your life, your family that much, what would you want to do?”

I stare at the guy as he waits on our answer, my thoughts on Carlos, Elena, the hate I have toward that fucking asshole for holding her captive. “I’d want to kill him slowly and with my bare hands.”

“Exactly.” Devon nods once. “You’d want to be the sole deliverer of that fucker’s final minutes on this God-damned earth, wouldn’t you?”

Too fucking right I do.

Elena

“Don’t forget about the sniper, Elena.”

I release the catches on the window, giving up on my efforts to make them budge, and cock my head in Carlos’s general direction. “It’s still a better choice than going with you.” He hasn’t moved from the far end of the hallway.

“I’m tired of this.”

“And you also still don’t have the balls to step foot in here, so what are you going to do other than wait it out like a good little boy scout?” Last glimpse I got of him, he’d removed his shoes. Either he’s getting himself comfortable, or he’s silently freaking out being here. I’m tending toward thinking the latter.

“Rage can make people do funny things, and you’re making me very angry.”

I’m supposed to be scared by his words, but they don’t panic me. Thinking I’ll never get off this damn property alive is what scares me. I haven’t had a chance to live
my
life yet. I’ve sacrificed and served from when I was a child, helping Mama, looking after Papa, and now bending to Carlos’s will. When do
I
get a chance to decide how my days are spent, and with what my future will hold?

I stare out the window at the guard tower and the man whose rifle permanently rests in my direction. There’s little to no cover between the window and the fence; the lawns are vast and wide. I’ve been testing the guard’s tendency to shoot at me for the better part of half an hour now. He doesn’t seem intent on doing much unless I actually get out; only when my hands ret atop the latches does his little red dot find my chest.

“Don’t you have guests to entertain?” I snap at Carlos.
There has to be another option for escape.

“I’m sure they’re entertaining each other.”

A shudder ripples through my body at the visual. My hormonal bladder’s fit to burst again, so I make my way through to the bathroom and set about rectifying the issue. Avoiding my less-than-stellar reflection in the mirror, I cast my eyes over the ornate tiles that are speckled in between the plainer, standard white ones. They appear like any other mosaic design, but then again, this
is
Carlos Redmond’s house, so I could place money on them being worth more than the average weekly wage,
each
.

Finished, I stand and shake out my bunched dress. My hands fall limp when I spot something that’s escaped my notice until now. Stepping toward the frosted shower wall, I pull the wide door open, my jaw slack as I stare at the answer.

A window.

I didn’t see it last time because of the frosted shower stall, but there above the feature tiles on the longest wall is a wide, short window. I reach up and hook my thumbs under the latches to discover that they aren’t locked. My heart pounds a beat to rival a sprinter’s footfalls, but there’s only one problem.

Well, two.

The window is short and narrow, and I’m a full-grown woman with a baby bulge hindering my chances.

Secondly, the latches pivot outward in an arc, and whilst they open, the window would never actually come unhinged.
I’m going to need tools.

“I won’t wait forever,” Carlos calls, his voice smaller through the obstruction of the bathroom door.

My frantic hands pull open the vanity drawers carefully so as not to make much noise, one by one, searching for anything that could be used as a screwdriver or even to apply leverage against the hinges. Predictably, they’re all empty.
Think, Elena. Think.

The picture frames.

I edge the bathroom door open and come to a grinding halt when I realize that to get to the pictures, I have to cross past the open doors and therefore attract Carlos’s attention.

“If you can’t be bothered waiting,” I reply to his earlier statement, “then why not send somebody else in to get me?” I use the pause before his answer to check out how he’s positioned.

“Nobody is allowed in here except me.”

He’s seated with his back to the wall that runs the length of the hall between his position and mine, his arms hooked over his knees. A sheen covers his pale skin. He’s not coping with this well at all.

“And yet you can’t bring yourself to move past where you are. Why?” I dash across the doorway while his face is buried in his knees.

“The memories were good up to that night. Why taint them with who I am now?”

“You’re no different to who you were then, you realize?” I collect up as many frames as I can hold in my arms, not wanting to risk the need to come back for another.

“Is it that hard to believe that I was once a loving, adoring husband and father?” He laughs bitterly.

I set the frames in my right hand down on the bed quietly, and pull open the drawer of the nightstand to check just in case they have something more useful. “Yes, it is. But surely I could be forgiven for that considering our history.”

There’s a pause before his reply, enough to have my lungs constrict with the idea he might finally be on the move. His husky response drifts to where I am, collecting the frames again after finding the drawer empty. “You’re a lot like her, you know.”

I hesitate, mid-step, genuinely surprised. “I am?”

“Mmm,” he hums. “Same independent streak, that stubbornness that defines your will to fight.” He pauses as I edge closer to the door again, peering at his position. “Makes it strange then that I don’t feel any of the same affection toward you as I did her.”

He fusses with the toe of his sock as I leap across the opening with two long strides. Safe on the other side, I reply, “She was the mother of your child, though. That probably changed things.”

“Perhaps.” Another pause. “What are you doing?”

I freeze, two steps from the bathroom. “Talking to you?”

“You’ve passed by the door twice now.”

Damn it.
“Just looking around.”

“Well don’t,” he snaps. “None of this is yours to look at, to touch, or even breathe. I want you out.”

“I need the toilet.”

“Didn’t you just go?”

“Call it a nervous bladder.”

He grumbles, slamming something—presumably his elbow or fist—against the wall. “This isn’t your house!” he roars. “
I
make the fucking rules. Get. Out. Now.”

I slam the bathroom door in response and lock it. His garbled yells are muffled by the solid wood as I dump the frames on the floor. A white-haired boy smiles up at me from the arms of a brunette woman whose eyes are the kind that hold genuine compassion. She’s the type of person who you immediately trust not to hurt you, whose expression holds no trace of the cold, calculated evil her husband breathes.

Pushing my guilt at destroying the memories aside, I crack the frames open and split them into the back, front half, and the glass. Two have a solid wooden stand hinged on the back, and I rip each off with all intent of using the point of the stand as a makeshift screwdriver.

My hands can only just reach the window though. I hop up and down, trying to see what I’m working with as thunderous bangs echo through the walls. My time’s limited, my seconds too precious to waste. I rip the vanity drawers out of their slides, thankful they have proper dovetail joins and not flimsy balsawood bases. Stacking two up as a stepstool, I lever myself up with my fingertips biting into the window frame to keep my balance.

The catches have a single screw securing their ends to the wood. I run my eye over the hinges, making sure there aren’t any arms restricting how wide I can push the window once I have the catches off. It all seems okay.

My breath jams in my throat when a second voice joins Carlos’s. I can’t make out who it is, but the resonance is too low for it to be Sully.
Damn it.
Hopping off the drawers, I snatch up the stands from the picture frames and try them on the screws. One’s too fat, not giving me any leverage to get the damn thing moving. The other is too flimsy, bending when I try to turn the tight screw. I look across at the mess of pieces on the floor, praying for an answer as the repetitive pounding of footsteps moving closer tells me I have company.

My heel catches the shower frame as I dash across to the bathroom door and check the quality of the lock. It’s a bolt slid inside the thick door and seems too much to be able to kick in. The thought gives me some hope for this crazed plan.

A piece of frame glints under the overhead fluorescent, catching my eye. It’s steel and has an angular join at the corner. Latching onto the frame with both hands, I smash it down on the marble counter, hoping to break it apart.

Several agonizing moments and a bleeding hand later, I have it in three bits. My palm throbs where the frame sliced in as it tore apart, and my ears drum with the beat of my heart, matching the tempo of the fists on the bathroom door.

“Open up, Elena.”

Hammer.
Carlos has finally got his guest to do the dirty work. “No.”

Heavy thuds rattle the door in its frame; he’s trying to kick it in. Pushing the pain in my hand aside, I mount my “steps” again and use the corner of the frame to work the screws. The blunt edge bites into my hands, pulling at the flesh as I finally get movement. I cry with relief and bite my lip to try and deal with the burn of my injured palms as I undo the two screws.

The bloodied frame and steel screws hit the floor with a clang.