Bound: Minutemen MC (2 page)

Chapter 2: Saved?

It felt like hours before the motorbike finally stopped. Camilla’s butt felt numb, her lower back ached, and her wrists were begging to be freed. Nonetheless, she sat as straight as she could and tried to muster up as much dignity as she could, given her current circumstances.

“Well, well, well,” a strange voice said. “What do we have here?”

“Get Dirk,” the man sitting in front of her on the bike said, terse and quick.

“Who is she?”

“No idea. She was riding with Tobias Alvarez,” the other man who had met her and Tobias in the middle of the desert said.

“Alvarez is back?”

“Was,” a third voice corrected. It sounded calm and cool and smooth—the kind of smoothness that gave Camilla the creeps. “I shot him.”

There was a pause in the conversation.

“Dirk won’t be too happy about that,” the stranger said. “Stephan, either.”

“He was going to shoot the woman,” the second man said. “What were we supposed to do, just let him blow her brains out?”

In spite of her determination to keep her cool, Camilla shivered. It had been a horribly-close call, and something told her it wasn’t over yet.

“Was he alone?” the stranger asked.

“He had Paco Herrera with him,” the first man said.

“Killed him, too?”

“Yep.”

“Dirk is going to be pissed.”

“Just get him, will you?” the voice belonging to the second man she had come in contact with finally snapped.

“Fine!”

Camilla waited. She had no idea who “Dirk” was, but she had the feeling he wasn’t good news.

The men were talking quietly amongst themselves, in excited whispers, cocky murmurs, and annoyed growls, but all of a sudden they went quiet, and Camilla knew that Dirk had arrived. She strained her ears to hear the voice of this newcomer who appeared to hold so much authority, but he did not speak. Out of the blue, the black hood was taken off of her with such a force that it seemed like the man might have been trying to tear her head off, and she jumped.

Camilla blinked furiously, as the glare of the late afternoon sun pierced her eyes. She waited for the black spots to fade, and when her vision was finally clear, she focused on the man standing in front of her. She knew she should be afraid, but for a few moments her mind and heart and stomach went blank, and she could do nothing but stare.

Standing before her was a man who was striking in every sense of the word. He towered over pretty much everyone else, even though most of the men who had gathered around weren’t so small themselves. Camilla gauged that he must be at least six-foot five, and yet, his height wasn’t the most impressive thing about him. It was his features. His cheekbones were high and his jaw was chiseled. He had skin made golden by the desert sun, and deep blue eyes that Camilla felt certain could pierce a hole through someone with the same ease as the gun resting in the holster hanging from his left hip.

The sight of the weapon prompted Camilla to lower her gaze and then raise it up slowly, taking in the rest of his appearance. He wore black jeans, biker boots, and a gray tank top that clung to his muscular torso in all the right places. He was muscular, but there was a lithe agility to him that reminded Camilla of a cougar’s grace and power.

He was watching her with his arms crossed over his powerful chest. He wore a pair of black mechanic’s gloves, filthy with grease, and he didn’t seem to care that he was leaving black streaks over his bare forearms. His blue eyes studied her from behind errant strands of brown hair that fell over his forehead.

There was a cutting kind of edge to him, a destructive sort of jadedness that just could not be ignored. Camilla silently took in his tattoos—the MC one on his right forearm and the tribal crow on his left shoulder—and marveled at how few there were compared to the number most bikers had. She couldn’t help but wonder if maybe there were other designs hidden underneath his clothes, to be discovered through an exploration of his formidable body.

She took in his scars, which were a more widely spread presence than his ink. There was a knife scar on his left forearm, and one that looked like it came from a burn on his right clavicle. There was a scar that ran from right underneath his left eye all the way down to his chin. While she couldn’t be sure about his clothes concealing more tattoo designs, she was fairly certain that there were more scars on his gold-tinged skin.

“Who are you?”

His voice startled her. He did not yell. He did not even speak particularly harshly. And yet, every word felt like ice shards leaving cuts on her skin.

Camilla swallowed. She briefly considered lying, but then she realized that would probably be the quickest way to get herself killed.

“My name is Camilla Hernandez,” she said, and she forced herself to meet his gaze straight-on and not look away from those blue eyes that had such a cold fire burning within them.

“You Mexican?”

“I’m from New York.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

It wasn’t, and she knew it. And he knew that she knew it.

Camilla focused on her breathing. She wasn’t going to show these men just how afraid she was. “My dad is Mexican,” she admitted.

“He with the cartel?”

Despite her fear, Camilla couldn’t help but burst out laughing. She tried to imagine her fruit vendor father smuggling meth for the Mexican cartel.

“He’s too jittery. He sweats when he lies.”

The men laughed raucously, and the shadow of a smirk even crossed Dirk’s impassible, gorgeous features.

“Are
you
with the cartel?” he asked, bullet-fast, almost without giving the laughter any time to die down.

Camilla lifted her chin a fraction. “No,” she said firmly.

Dirk took two steps forward. He was close enough that she could smell him now; he smelled like sweat and red desert dirt, and it wasn’t a bad smell.

“Then what were you doing with Tobias Alvarez?”

Camilla licked her dry lips. His proximity was doing strange things to her, things that she had no business thinking about in her current pickle of a situation.

“He was my informer…or so I thought,” she corrected herself bitterly. She still couldn’t believe she had fallen for Tobias’ tricks. She was no rookie; she should have known better. “He was supposed to be my contact.”

Dirk’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and confusion. “For what?”

Camilla hesitated. He was never going to believe her, but then again, her truth was the only truth she had. “I’m a journalist,” she said. “I was working on a story.”

Dirk recoiled as though he had been struck. The men looked at her with such disgust that she found herself squirming. Perhaps they would have preferred it if she actually
was
working for the Mexican cartel.

“A story on biker gangs of the California desert?” one of the man asked, and from his voice, Camilla recognized him as the man who had first spoken when she and Tobias had been attacked. He was a man in his late forties, with a strong build and a face whose round features had been hardened by the life he had chosen to lead.

Dirk shot a quick look at him, and Camilla was amazed to see the man lower his gaze and clamp his mouth shut. One single look and Dirk’s message had been heard loud and clear:
“I ask the questions here.”
Camilla was more and more intrigued by this man who ruled with a quiet voice and sharp eyes.

Dirk focused his attention back on her, and she knew that he was waiting for an answer.

“No,” she said after a moment.

“On what then?” Dirk demanded.

Camilla’s brain was working a mile a minute, but again she knew that the truth was her only chance of getting out of this alive.

“I’m an investigative reporter for TIME; I have been covering drug violence stories on the Mexican border for years. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that violence has been migrating up north in recent times. We know the Mexican cartel is involved, and we’ve come to learn that the Tar Mongols play a pretty major role in the game.” Camilla hesitated. She didn’t feel right telling all this to these men, but what other choice did she have, really? It wasn’t like her story would be of any interest to them, after all. “Tobias offered to be my link and assist me in uncovering everything I needed for my piece on how the Tar Mongols have brought the cartel’s violence past the border. He said it was his way of making things right.”

“He told you he was repentant?”

Camilla nodded, feeling stupid.

The men laughed.

“Alvarez repenting!” a young man cackled, and she recognized him as the second man who had ambushed her. “That’s rich!”

Camilla glared at him. “He was very persuasive.”

“Oh, he was a persuasive son of a bitch, alright.”

“Enough,” Dirk said simply. And the young man shut up. He looked at Camilla with an almost pitiful expression on his face. “So you’re here to expose the Tar Mongols?”

“Yes.”

“Well, lady, let me tell you, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day.”

Chapter 3: Dirk Coleman

“Wait! You don’t believe me?”

Camilla’s heart was racing as two men escorted her—wrists still bound and muscles still aching—to one of the sheds that made up what she understood was a Minutemen camp in the middle of the desert. This shed was slightly larger than the others, and it was directly connected to a warehouse that was used as a garage for the men’s motorbikes; Camilla could see them through the open door, shiny and fierce and ready to roar up a storm.

Inside, the shed was frugally but surprisingly cozily furnished, with a bed, a table, a couch, an armchair, a coffee table, and a paper-littered desk that stood in front of the window in the far wall. The men led her to the couch and pushed her unceremoniously onto the cushions. Camilla glared at them and shifted nervously, sitting as straight as she could, given the tired, aching muscles in her lower back.

“Leave us,” Dirk said, and once again his voice was calm, but Camilla still shivered at the underlying note of menace she could hear in it.

The men didn’t even hesitate. They gave Dirk a short nod and departed as though it was nothing, as though they weren’t leaving a woman at the complete mercy of a man who she could tell was as unpredictable as he was soft-spoken.

Camilla did her best not to adjust her position again so as not to betray her mounting tension. She looked up at Dirk, who was standing on the other side of the coffee table with his arms once again crossed over his chest.

“I believe you,” he said.

Camilla watched him. Somehow, his words didn’t bring her the relief that they should have. “Do you?” she asked.

Dirk nodded curtly. “It would be pretty stupid of you to lie to us, and one thing I can tell about you, is that you’re anything
but
stupid. Besides,” he grinned, “my men found your purse in a saddlebag on Alvarez’s bike. We found your press badge.”

“Oh.” Camilla hoped they wouldn’t contact Kurt, asking for a ransom or something equally humiliating; her boss would skin her alive for having been so unbelievably stupid as to get herself into this situation. Speaking of which… “So are you going to let me go now?”

Dirk stared at her as if she had just spoken in a foreign language. “What?”

She met his implacable blue eyes and forced herself not to look away. “You know who I am and what I’m doing here. You know I pose no threat to you. So why don’t you just take me to the nearest bus or train station and I’ll take it from there?”

A half-derisive, half-amused smirk stretched across Dirk’s lips. “Apologies, my liege,” he said sarcastically. “Shall I command for a carriage to bring you back to your kingdom?”

Camilla couldn’t help but glare at him for his mockery. And she also couldn’t help the way her stomach clenched in anxiety.
“My liege.”
With just two words, Dirk told her a lot about himself, and it was information that she wasn’t sure she liked. His words told her that he was a man of culture rather than of violence, and that was usually a formidable combination.

“I don’t get it,” she said after a moment. “What’s it to you if I go free? I wasn’t here for you in the first place.”

“I know. But you
are
here, and you’re an investigative journalist. It’s not a combination of factors that I feel particularly comfortable with.”

“I’m not investigating
you
!”

“Yeah, you’ve said that,” he said, unfazed. “But you’re still investigating. Within our borders. I don’t like it. Besides,” he reached inside his back pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes and a battered Zippo lighter, “it’s not my call to make.”

Camilla watched as he lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag. There was a calm, impassible demeanor to this man that gave her the chills. Every movement was calm, every gesture was calculated. He held the cigarette pack out to her, and she shook her head.

“Then whose call is it?”

“Stephan’s.”

“Your president?”

Dirk arched a dark eyebrow. “See? You know too much about us already.”

Camilla huffed impatiently. “Everyone knows who the Minutemen and Stephan Walker are.”

“Everyone in the area, sure. A New Yorker isn’t supposed to know. But then again”—he took another deep drag and exhaled spirals of smoke into the air—“you’re not just your regular New Yorker, are you?”

Camilla bit her lip nervously. “I guess not,” she said. She could admit at least that. “So take me to your president then,” she said after a moment. “Let’s sort this thing out.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet.”

She frowned. “Why not?”

“Stephan isn’t in California. He’ll be back in three days. In the meanwhile, you’ll stay here with us.”

Shit.
“You want me to be your prisoner for three days?”

Dirk shrugged. “You could see yourself as a guest, if it’ll make it easier on you.”

“You keep all of your guests bound at the wrists?”

He smirked.

***

Although she didn’t exactly feel like a guest, over the next three days the Minutemen treated her surprisingly well. They fed her, let her shower regularly, and gave her new clothes to replace those that had been ruined during their unwelcome run-in with each other.

But they still kept her bound at the wrists. It wasn’t with thick ropes this time—it was with handcuffs, and at the very least, she was able to move her fingers and her circulation wasn’t being cut off.

They kept her in Dirk’s shed. The Minutemen’s lieutenant and vice president—she had learned that was his role—refused to let her out of his sight and preferred to keep her at close distance. He gave her the bed and slept on the couch, a chivalrous gesture that surprised her.

But that was pretty much the end of his gentlemanly manners. He never touched her, but she could see the way he looked at her, and she knew he was impressed by what he saw. Once, she even caught the hint of an erection concealed by his pants. For all that, her situation was less than a desirable one; the knowledge that Dirk found her sexually arousing made her feel pleased and fearful at the same time.

She knew he was a man who was used to get what he wanted, and the look in his eyes at times was the look of a hunter watching a prey. He never acted on it, but it was there, and it was unsettling. Still, there was also something thrilling about knowing that she held such power over such a formidable and otherwise unbeatable man.

Camilla would be lying if she said she also wasn’t stealing certain less-than-pure glances at Dirk when he wasn’t looking. The awe-struck effect that his sculpted body and impressive features had had on her the first time she had laid eyes on him did not go away with time—if anything, it increased. She had seen him bare-chested a few times when he emerged out of the shower with just his jeans on, and the view had been spectacular to say the least. Just as she had suspected, there was no further ink on Dirk’s upper body, but there were a few more scars. One of those, on the upper part of his chest, looked like a bullet scar.

There was just
something
about the way Dirk moved, some inner, lethal grace that Camilla couldn’t help but admire…it attracted her. Even in her current situation, she had caught herself—more than once—fantasizing about what it would be like to have sex with a man such as Dirk. She had been ashamed each time she had caught her thoughts heading in that direction, but then again, it wasn’t like she had much else to do, other than let her mind wander and daydream.

Sometimes she read. Dirk had an impressive collection of books in his shed, ranging from a few of Shakespeare’s work to legendary American novels, to modern novels and essays on the world. He even had a copy of Stephen Hawking’s
A Brief History of Time
. She had been stunned when she had discovered it, and she had asked Dirk if he had really read it. He had said yes, and Camilla had had no trouble believing him.

She had been with the Minutemen for three days, and over those seventy-two hours, she had learned that Dirk Coleman was truly a remarkable man. She knew that made him even more dangerous than she had first thought him to be—and that was saying something. Somehow, however, instead of scaring her, that knowledge intrigued her all the more. Just what
was
it about Dirk that kept her up at night with thoughts of naked bodies and sweaty, golden-tinged skin?