Page 9 of The Riders’ Reign

She’s been through too much.

If they are here for Ledger and they find out he’s dead, they’ll go after her, and the rest of the club, too. I need to keep them thinking Ledger is alive, until the club can regroup. There must be a traitor in our midst… except, if they told the cartel where we’d be this morning, how come they don’t know Ledger is dead? It makes little sense.

“Well, it did happen, and if Jack doesn’t survive, then we’re in a whole new world of trouble,” I point out. “Do you know who I am? Since you seem to know who Jack is?”

Christ, if Jack dies, I won’t be able to control the fallout from that. I can only imagine trying to tell Big Mike he can’t come after these fuckers, guns blazing, without a thought-out plan, because of Camile. That could put her in more danger.

“You’re the enforcer, I do believe? I have Jack, you, and someone called Saul noted as the people to speak with, but now you’re here, and Jack is… indisposed, that leaves only Saul that I have on my list, unless you know better.”

Definitely a spy in our midst back at the club. Fucking hell. We thought that ended when we dealt with the Numbnuts.

Right now, I must keep calm, focus, and play along. My training taught me ways of talking to those holding you without giving too much away. I can lie so calmly that I’d fool a lie detector. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s a fact. Part of our training was to endure torture techniques for as long as possible.

They’d lock us in darkened rooms, and pump heavy metal music nonstop, or play a baby screaming for hours on end. We’d be wearing heavy covers over our faces sometimes, so we had no sense of where we were, and we’d be beaten with sticks until every bit of our body hurt, but never hard enough to break bones. Then there’d be the water torture, God that was the worst of all.

“Like I say, I just want my son back.”

“Do you know what he was doing here? He took a girl who matters to us, and he fucking hurt her. I don’t know if the club will trade him for me.” I watch carefully for his reaction.

“They’ll trade him for an assurance that we will return to our country, and Camile will be left alone, safe with you. I only wish to know where her brother is. I can’t let him live to come after us at some point in the future. Her mother, I will let live. Hell, she can take a flight on one of my jets here, to live with Camile, if she agrees.”

Keeping him talking is the name of the game, so I do. “You knew your son was here all along?”

Why the hell didn’t he come earlier? He could have stopped all this. I presume once he’d taken out Camile’s family’s compound, he had control of the geographical areas he needed. Why not leave some men in charge there and bring his wayward son home?

“Ledger has been in America for some time, undercover at the college to keep an eye on Camile, or so he claimed. He reports back to me occasionally, but otherwise I leave him to his own devices. He is a grown man and makes his own decisions. After we took out the girl’s family’s compound, he indicated he wanted her for himself, as a bride, once he’d gotten the information from her that we needed. He’d been insistent that he had everything under control.”

It seems fucking weird to me that a leader of the cartel would let his son come over to America on his own. “Why not send some men with him? Seems risky.” I could be setting myself up for trouble speaking to him like this, but it’s true.

Hector purses his lips and gives his head a slight shake. “He wanted the autonomy. Felt I never trusted him and wanted to prove himself. Plus, he was supposed to be undercover here. Perhaps I’d been a fool for believing him and not trusting my own instincts. I should have known he’d fuck up even a simple job. He came back to us with information, which we acted on, but the girl clearly had lied to him. Her family members are not there.”

He rubs his face wearily. “Then Ledger dropped out of contact, so I had to send a couple of my men here to check on him. It took a little digging, but they discovered he’d gotten involved with the bikers, and some other unsavory characters.”

He looks at me as if I’m a slug when he says unsavory characters. He can damn well talk.

He shrugs, and I grit my teeth, wanting to wipe that unholy smirk off his face.

“One of my men, Jose, called and said something had happened. Ledger had fucked up and been taken.” His eye roll tells me he was almost expecting to hear that news. “I was going to let it play out. After all, at least Ledger was showing initiative, even if it was somewhat screwed up. But then he got taken by your club. And now… I am once more clearing up his goddamn mess. Bueno para nada.”

I know what that means. Good for nothing.

“Perhaps the son will always disappoint the father, no? Still, however badly he messed up, I must now insist your club return him. In exchange, you can go free, and I will even bring the girl’s mother to America, safe and sound. You have my word, so long as the girl tells me where her bother is.”

Camile wouldn’t do that, even if there was a Ledger left to exchange, but this fucker doesn’t need to know that.

“I’d have to make a call,” I say.

“I can allow that, but first, come sit with me and tell me just what you did to my son while he was with you. I don’t imagine it was pretty, and I will rain down on the Montez son the same treatment.”

Fucking hell, I’ll need to put on a good act when I get through to the club. Who can I ask to speak with who’ll understand to play along? Ace is too fucking unpredictable. He’s just as likely to blurt out that Ledger is dead and good riddance. Big Mike is massive and dangerous, but he’s not the fastest thinker. Saul is smart, but his head is going to be wrapped around Jack being shot and him stepping up as president now. He won’t be thinking of Camile. No, it needs to be either Phoenix or Rook.

Rook will know what to do, I believe. Plus, he and I are aligned when it comes to Camile’s safety. If I call and ask for him, I think he’ll play along, which is good because I’m sure this piece of shit will want to listen in. From what I’ve seen, I figure there are about twelve men with him, unless there are some I don’t know about. There are only two planes here, and one is only a single engine, which carries maybe four people. That leaves the other as Hector’s, and it’s not big enough for more than a dozen people max.

“Come, we can sit in my plane, and you can make the call.”

He walks ahead to the larger of the two jets resting in the hangar. A man follows me, and when I slow my step for a moment, he shoves the cold, hard metal of a gun into my back.

“Move.”