Malo - Page 49

I make my way downstairs, and the kitchen is mercifully empty. I grab some bread and make a sandwich, anything quick and easy to fill me up before I head to bed.

I can’t stop thinking about Malo, and wondering how the fuck he’s doing. I’ve seen him fucked-up before, we all have, but this? This is something else entirely. His limits are sky-high, and for him to have overshot that, the shit he must have taken had to be seriously potent.

Maria seems to be sure that it’s something her father had a hand in, something from Las Rosas Negras, and that just raises even more questions. Like who the fuck could have given it to him. What is he, a warning of how bad it’s going to get once it’s out on the streets? I just have to pray this doesn’t take Malo down.

We can’t afford to lose anyone right now, not a single person. We’re stretched thin, even with the arrival of the other Kings, and it bothers me to think that he might have been willing to throw it all away just to get high again. Though, if he’d known what he was really taking, I doubt he would have put himself in that position. He knows as well as I do how serious things are getting.

Three times in the last four days, the wires have been tripped around the edge of the compound—a sure sign that the information we passed through Rayo to Las Rosas Negras before his death reached them, but we don’t have that kind of through line to them anymore. The cartel are moving in, and it’s only going to get tougher for us to hold them at bay, especially without Malo up and fighting for us.

I lean on the table and stare out of the window, toward the cluster of bikes that the New Orleans committee drove in on. We thought we had cut the head off the snake the first time only for them to come crawling back, but no more. We’re ready to strike, ready to do what needs to be done to take them down for good.

And, after everything El Serpiente and his men have done, they’ll be lucky if we let a single one of them walk away. I’ve seen the harm they’ve caused, and, all too vividly, the harm they intend to cause with this new drug if it is indeed theirs like Maria thinks. If this is tied to Las Rosas Malo was a warning, and he’s lucky that he’s got a doctor this close to him. For the addicts out on the streets, when they get hit with this shit, it’s going to be a goddamn massacre.

All the more reason for us to stop the cartel before they can make a move. I yawn, and am about to turn and head back up to my room, when I find myself faced with someone standing in the doorway.

“Harley?” I mutter with surprise. “What are you doing up? You should be asleep.”

“Good to see you too,” she shoots back, with her usual sarcastic attitude, but there’s a small smile on her face. In the last few weeks, she seems to have loosened up, just a little. But she still has this sense around her, as though she’s a coiled snake, ready to strike at any moment.

“What’s up?” I ask her, and she slips into a seat at the table. I take one too. I always have time for Harley, no matter how tired I am. After everything she’s been through, I just need her to know that I’m here for her, I’m willing to do whatever I can to make her feel comfortable again.

“It’s busy around here,” she remarks, gesturing to the bikes outside.

I nod. “Yeah, well, we’re getting in the troops,” I remind her. “We’re going to need as many as we can if we’re going to stand a chance against the cartel.”

“I know,” she replies, her jaw tightening slightly at the sound of that word. She’s doing a good job pretending it doesn’t bother her, but what she went through is more than most people would have been able to survive. It’s only natural that she’s still struggling with it.

“I want to fight, too,” she adds, and I stare at her for a moment, certain that I must have heard her wrong.

“Harley, I?—”

“I know what you’re going to say,” she tells me, cutting me off before I can launch into the spiel I have planned. “And I know why you think that. I know you don’t think I’m ready for it.”

I shake my head. “It’s not that,” I reply. “It’s that you could get yourself hurt. Or worse…” I trail off not letting that thought out into the world to take form.

“Taken back to where I was before,” she finishes up for me, her eyes flashing. “I know. I’ve thought it through. And if they… if they win, they’re going to take me again anyway, aren’t they? It’s not as though they’re going to spare me this time.”

I cock my head to the side, pondering her words, putting myself in her position. I guess she has a point. If they manage to break through our defenses, no doubt they’re going to take all the women they can to use in their twisted business. It’s not something I’ve given much thought to before—not something I’ve wanted to, to be honest—but she’s just laying out the truth, no matter how rough it might be.

“So I might as well fight for myself,” she continues, narrowing her eyes and nodding, as though she’s already made the call. “I know how it sounds. But I know what I’m up against. I’ve seen what they do, how they act. And I can use that when I fight against them.”

I eye her for a moment. There’s a certainty blazing in her gaze, and I’m sure I could sit up all night and try to convince her against this and she wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say.

“I want to do this, Sin,” she mutters, meeting my gaze steadily. “I know I can. I’ve been training for months, I’ve got a better left hook than half of the guys here, and you know it.”

I chuckle. “Don’t tell any of them that,” I warn her, but I know she’s right. I’ve seen her training harder than ever, really pushing herself. I’d trust her to back me up in any fight, she knows how to handle herself, and what bigger fight was there than the one we were facing off against right now?

She manages a smile. “I want to show them that I’m not just a victim,” she continues. “I want to… I want to show them the person I really am. And I deserve a chance.”

I sigh. “You’re not going to let anyone talk you out of this, are you?”

She shakes her head. “Bella’s already tried. And no, I’m not. I need to do something. I feel like I’m going crazy, just sitting around and waiting for all of you guys to call the shots.”

“I’ll talk to Beast,” I promise her. “See if I can get him on board. I’m not promising anything, though.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs back, her eyes softening as she gazes at me. Sometimes, just for a moment or two, I can see the woman who existed before all the shit that happened to her—before she was dragged into this nightmare and given no choice but to survive it.

No, it’s not the same girl I knew before. It’s someone else entirely. Someone who has endured, who has fought her way through the mud, who’s done everything she could to survive. Who’s hardened and tough and ready to take on whatever comes her way, no matter how difficult it might be, no matter how much it hurts her.