Owned: An Alpha Anthology (17 page)

"Sophia Letitia Marne," Raphael reels off. "Twenty-one years old. Student at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle."

I can’t avoid my reaction now; my head whips around so I can look Raphael full in the face. He’s lying to his boss. Sophia isn’t my name. I sure as hell don’t study at Cornish. Raphael’s almost black eyes are glinting with a barely suppressed fury that confirms my suspicions: he hates having to answer to someone else. Hates it with a vengeance. Hector holds out a hand to Raphael; he seems to know what his employer is requesting from him. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an intimately familiar object —my wallet.

He snaps the clasp open and fishes out a card, which he hands over to Hector. It hits me then, why he thinks my name is Sophia. I’m hardly a party girl, but last year a group of my friends wanted to hit a club to see a DJ play, and I was the only one underage at the time. Luke, the boyfriend of one of the other girls, made up a fake driving license for me. I’d memorized the card’s details before going in, chanting my borrowed name and date of birth over and over again in case any of the doormen asked me, only to be let in without even having to produce the damn thing. I then proceeded to forget my fake persona altogether.

My real driving license is sitting on my bedside table at home, snapped in two. I broke it at least a month ago, and since I’m living on campus and don’t have a car at the moment, replacing it has been very low on my list of priorities. There are no credit cards in my wallet, either. Nothing else to give away my real identity. A cold sweat of relief breaks out across my face. Hector studies the license, studies me, studies the license again. He grunts, handing it back to Raphael.

"Well, Sophia," he says, giving me a small smile. "It would appear you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of a situation. Are you content with Raphael as your new master?"

Am I content with Raphael as my…?
I’m at a loss for words. I’m pretty sure I’m covered in my own blood from where I was hit over the head. I reek of vomit, and each of my wrists are banded with a deep purple ribbon of bruising. I hardly look like the sort of person who came willingly to their newfound servitude. My mouth opens, but I struggle to find the right response to the question.

"Let me put it this way," Hector says. "Are you going to make trouble inside my home, Sophia? Because I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to trouble within in my home."

I haven’t given much thought to the building Hector is standing in front of, but now I take a closer look at the place. The two-story Colonial, white weatherboard with green shutters, looks like something out of
Little House on the Prairie
. It’s quaint, with its wrap-around porch, swing bench, and multitude of potted flowers balancing on the windowsills. I’d expect this place to belong to some frail, little old Southern lady. I can picture her rocking slowly on the swing, drinking her endless glasses of sweet tea. There are no bars on the windows, and no security gates or armed guards. But…there is also
nothing
else out here. Not a single building for as far as the eye can see. Just desert. A burnt, alien landscape with no roadways, no stores, or any way of making contact with civilization.

"Well?" Hector asks.

"What if I say yes? What if I
am
going to make trouble?" I don’t really need to ask this question, though. I know all too well what he’s going to tell me before the words have a chance to leave his lips. Raphael snickers, a wickedly sharp, crackling laugh. Hector just shrugs his shoulders.

"One of the many bonuses of living out in the desert, so far from prying eyes, is that shallow graves are easy to come by, my dear. Should you wish to incite chaos here, to disrupt my peaceful life, you can bank on finding some permanent real estate of your own out here."

Somehow, I’ve strangely been holding myself together since I was grabbed from the side of the street. I’ve cried, yes, but I haven’t completely lost it. Until now. My legs buckle out from underneath me, ditching me in a heap at Hector’s feet.

"I need to go home. I have to go back to Seattle. My family...my family will be worried about me. The police—"

My head is kicked to one side, pain slamming through my already delicate skull. I didn’t see the hit coming, but I can certainly feel the echo of it relaying around my body. I can’t breathe. I can’t see through the tears welling in my eyes.

"You’d be wise not to mention the police in my presence again, Sophia. They aren’t a group of people I like to discuss." Hector sinks down into a crouch. He reaches into his pocket and then holds his hand out to me, offering me something inside—almonds. I was right about the smell. Candied almonds. "Why don’t we just say…no kind of law enforcement should be spoken of from this point forward? It will make a happier life for you, and a happier life for me. Don’t you agree?"

I nod, cautiously touching my hand to my face, trying to cup the stinging sensation. To make it go away. Hector’s eyes narrow at me. "Why don’t you take an almond? They’re delicious. Don’t you find them delicious? And then Raphael will take you inside so you can speak to Ramona. If you’re polite to her, she may find you some fresh clothes."

This man is insane.

Certifiably insane.

He flipped so quickly, violence surging out of him like the unexpected eruption of a geyser. He’s unstable, and I don’t want to risk pissing him off again. I get the feeling he wouldn’t flinch away from killing me if he thought I wasn’t going to be compliant. I reach out and take a sugared almond between shaking fingers.

"Good girl. Eat it," Hector coaxes.

I force the small almond past my lips, and the explosion of sugar that follows makes my mouth ache.

"That’s it. Perfect." Hector nods appreciatively. He stands, the action so quick and fluid that he makes me jump. He strokes one hand against the top of my head,
shhh
ing me, and then turns his attention to Raphael.

"Get her inside. Make sure she’s given a room on the south side of the house." He turns and climbs back up the steps that lead up to the wrap-around porch, opens the screen door, and disappears back inside the house.

That leaves Raphael and me, with my stomachful of knife-wielding butterflies. "On your feet, girl," he snaps at me. The insanity is back in his eyes again. I want to turn and run. I want to blindly flee this malevolent, charming house and run until my legs can’t carry me any further. I would do it, too, if it weren’t for the group of grim-looking men leaning up against the van I arrived here in. They all have weapons—a vast array of different shaped guns and knives, small and large. But mostly, I don’t do it because of the baiting edge in Raphael’s words. It’s almost as if he’s willing me to disobey him, to run, to try and free myself…so he can have the pleasure of capturing me all over again and teaching me a lesson.

I get to my feet.

I go inside the house.

I think, perhaps, I will never see my family again.

REBEL BY CALLIE HART

3 - Rebel

Three years ago, my best friend went missing. Three years ago, my whole life changed. It’s amazing how dramatically the foundations of your very self, the very basis of what makes you
you
can tilt on its axis, and you can become something
other.
Something dark. Something disreputable. Something bloodthirsty and violent.

Suffice it to say, I am not the man I used to be.

I am no longer good.

As president of a motorcycle club, I find I’m presented with daily opportunities to prove just how
bad
I have, in actual fact, become. A beating here. An armed robbery there. That’s the small stuff. The shootings, the gunrunning, the drug dealing—that’s the stuff that scandalizes the ghost of the man I used to be. But guess what? Fuck. That. Guy.

He let his family walk all over him. He had his heart ripped out when the one bright element in his life was taken from him. He was the weak bastard that cowered in the dark when he should have fought. If I’d have been the man I am today back then, on the night Laura was kidnapped, I might have reacted more quickly. I might have found her. I might have saved her.
I might have saved me.

But I didn’t. So now I’m the guy who steals and breaks shit, and I’m the guy who enjoys it as I’m doing it.

"Put him on is ass, Carnie," I say, snapping open my Zippo. Carnie, one of the original Widow Makers, does as I tell him. He shoves the man he’s holding at gunpoint down onto the ground. Meet Mr. Peter Hartley, forty-three, severe gambling problem, and a penchant for beating small, defenseless Asian women.

Do I care that he gambles too much? Not particularly. I care an appropriate amount, since Mr. Hartley is really fucking
bad
at gambling, and it’s my money he’s been losing.

But, do I care that Mr. Peter Hartley likes laying his fists into the bodies of small Asian women? That would be a resounding
hell yes
. I probably would have let poor, blubbering, snot-nosed Mr. Peter Hartley off with a couple of black eyes and a week’s extension on his loan repayment, had I not seen the black eyes on the girls who run his massage parlor. A real man does not hit a woman. A real man does not hurt a woman. Fuck, even sorry-ass, pathetic attempts at men do not raise their hands against women while I’m around. Not unless they want to lose their balls in the most painful manner possible.

"Pl—please, Rebel.
Please!
I swear, I’ll have the money to you by the end of tomorrow. I can sell—I can sell—"

Mr. Hartley has nothing left to sell. He knows it, and so do I. "I don’t care about tomorrow. I care about the phone call I just received. I care about my boy here having to bring me down to this shithole to see what you’ve done, Peter."

A look of confusion transforms the guy’s face. "What—what do you mean?"

I grab hold of his arm, lifting it up so I can take a look at his hand. His right hand. The one that carries the full force of his blows when he swings. His knuckles are red raw and covered in half-healed scabs. "You’re a fucking mess, Pete. What on earth have you been up to?"

He lifts his shoulders slowly, an uncertain shrug. "Oh, y’know. I like to box."

"Who you been boxing with, Pete?"

"Just—just the guys, y’know."

"No, I
don’t
know. Which guys?" If there’s one thing I hate on the face of this planet more than weak men, it’s weak men who are also liars.

"Just some guys, some friends of mine. I train down at O’Rourke’s every Thursday. What have my knuckles gotta do with the five grand I owe you, man?"

I glance up at Carnie, who is still thrusting the muzzle of his Glock into the back of Peter’s neck. "He train at O’Rourke’s?" I ask. Carnie gives me a nod. A lot of my guys train at the permanently sweat-soaked fighting gym down on Fourth, though personally I choose to do my workouts in private. I let go of Peter’s hand, shaking my head. "So you know how to punch, then, Pete, huh?"

He looks up at me as though this is a trick question. "Yeah? I guess I do."

"See, now that’s bad. Very bad. That means when you hit those girls downstairs, you’re not just some asshole loser who takes his insecurities out on women. You’re an asshole loser who takes his insecurities out on women,
and
who knows how to make it hurt while doing it."

His eyes go wide—it’s like a light bulb’s just gone on somewhere inside that thick skull of his. "What? No, man, I don’t hit my girls. I would never do—"

I smash my fist into the bastard’s face. Peter isn’t the only one who knows how to hit, after all. I pull back my right arm again, considerably more powerful than Peter’s, and I power my fist straight into his jaw a second time, this time knocking him over. A welt of blood sprays from his mouth, raining down on the threadbare carpet of his tiny office. It smelled of stale sweat and Cheetos in here, but now it mostly smells of blood—that metallic tang never fails to set my heart racing in my chest.

"What the fuck, man? I said I never hit them!" Peter spits on the ground, ejecting a small, white pearl of a tooth from his mouth. "Fuck, man, you knocked out one of my—"

I hit him again. And again. And again. I hit him until I break out into a sweat. The motherfucker is out cold and lying in a pool of his own blood, and I can barely raise my arm by the time I’ve decided he’s had enough. Carnie laughs under his breath; he’s lowered the gun and is leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest with an amused look on his face. Makes his slightly crooked, many-times-broken nose appear even more off center.

"Well. Saved me a job there, boss. You know he’s gonna be out of commission for weeks now, though, right? You aren’t gonna see that money ‘til the end of the month at least."

I heave in a deep breath, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead. "If that motherfucker’s even walking before the end of the month, you come back here and go round two on his ass, you hear me?"

Carnie gives me a mock salute. "Loud and clear."

I’d stick around and wait for Mr. Peter Hartley to wake up, just so he knows the deal here, but Carnie and I are suddenly accosted by four small, defenseless Asian women. Turns out they’re not so defenseless. None of them are over five foot five, but that doesn’t stop them from charging into Peter’s office, screaming at the top of their lungs in Mandarin. They split up, two of them hammering their fists into Carnie’s back, the other two heading straight for me.

I duck around the overflowing desk, putting some space between the charging women and myself, but it’s a wasted effort. They come straight over the damn thing, still hollering and shouting.

"What the fuck they saying?" I shout over the top of them.

"You’re asking
me?
" Carnie yells back. One of the women bites his shoulder through the white T-shirt he’s wearing; he howls in pain, and that’s enough for my boy. He pivots around and grabs hold of the two angry masseuses by the hair, one in each hand. "I’m gonna start breaking some of your rules if we don’t get the hell out of here, dude," he yells.

I admit I’m losing patience, myself. So far my attackers have managed to scratch my face, and the most furious of the two is currently trying to go for my nuts. There’s one quick way to resolve this. I reach into my waistband and pull out my own gun, an AWR Hawkins 4.

The screaming women fall instantly silent. They back up, shooting both Carnie and me hateful glares as we sidestep out of the room. Once we’re out of the office and charging down the stairs, they start up with the screaming again, barreling at breakneck speeds after us.

"How fast can you start your bike?" Carnie calls over his shoulder.

"Faster than you, brother." We burst into the main room of Hartley’s massage business—the legal, non-brothel part—and even more women start screaming. From there it’s a short distance out onto the street. The door nearly rockets off its hinges as we slam through. True to my word, my engine’s snarling before Carnie’s. We leave the women in the dust.

* * *

We reach the clubhouse just after nine, our faces still aching from laughing so hard. Set back off the road, surrounded by high fences, the clubhouse is a squat, industrial-looking building from the outside. The front yard is crowded with bikes—rows of shining motorcycles, old and new, lined up like a pack of guard dogs. Every MC has a business front—a necessary evil when trying to explain to the law where your money’s come from and what you get up to all day long. The Widow Makers are ink monkeys. We’re the guys who mark you up with that pretty little butterfly you’ve always wanted, seductively placed just above your hip. We’re the ones who tattoo the name of your boyfriend onto the curves of your cleavage one week, only to be the ones to cover it with someone else’s name the next.

A neon sign—
Dead Man’s Ink Bar
—sends electric blue reflections across meters of polished chrome as it blinks off and on in a steady pulse. Dead Man’s never closes, so that light is never switched off. We pull up and park underneath it, kicking back our stands, and swinging off our bikes.

"Hey, lookit," Carnie says, pointing back over my shoulder. "V.P’s back."

And so he is. Cade Preston, Vice President of the club, went on a recon mission for me three days ago with some of our boys. His bike, a dirty great big Star Bolt with an olive green tank, is propped up in its usual spot against the side of the building.

We had news that a club friend was being leaned on by Los Oscuros, a mixed breed cartel. And not just a club friend—my uncle. The fact that he’s a CROWN COURT JUDGE is something I overlook on account of the fact he made his house my own whenever my father got sick of beating my ass as a kid.

"Sweet. He must have squared everything away quicker than expected." I rap my knuckles against the tank as I pass Cade’s bike—still warm. Inside the clubhouse, there are no celebratory shots of Jack being passed around. The place is full, nearly every single member of the club seated at tables, some parked on the edge of the pool table. There are a lot of stern looks on faces. Arms folded across chests. I spot Cade immediately, leaning against the bar. The look on his face speaks volumes.

"What? What happened?"

Cade speaks three words—
Raphael Dela Vega
—and I know my uncle is dead.