Malo - Page 63

Beast’s hand is steady, and I can tell, even from a dozen or so feet away, that El Serpiente is anything but. El Serpiente is clearly used to giving orders, not fighting for his life when he has men who can fight for him. But where are they now? His eyes look wild with panic, and he fires off shot after shot, spraying bullets into the wall behind Beast. Concrete explodes beside him, but he simply steadies his gun, squints one eye, and then, finally, pulls the trigger and takes one last shot.

Everything slows for a second as the bullet leaves the gun, cutting through the air toward El Serpiente. He tries to run away, but it’s too late—he doesn’t make it. The bullet smacks into his shoulder, through his jacket, sending the right side of his body twisting back as he lets out a howl of pain. The gun falls from his hand, and he drops behind the wall, out of sight.

“Go get him,” Beast tells me calmly. “Bring him in. I don’t want this to be quick.”

I spring to my feet, and Bronco and I round the compound to drag El Serpiente to his feet. He’s nearly unconscious from the pain, and he squirms, trying to pull away from us, but it’s pointless.

“Give it up,” I snarl at him. “You’re done, puto.”

We lead him to the front of the compound, and, as soon as the Kings see that we have him in our grasp, it’s like a sigh of relief fills the air. There are hardly any of Las Rosas Negras left, killed or fled, and when Beast joins us, exhausted, he pushes his gun into the waistband of his pants and turns to Blue.

“Light the place up, Blue,” he orders him. “I don’t want a single inch of this place left by the time you’re done. You hear me?”

“Got it, boss,” he replies and takes off.

Beast grabs El Serpiente by his bad arm just as another bike roars onto the scene. My head snaps around, and, to my shock, I see a familiar figure climbing off the vehicle.

“Maria?” I mutter, taking a step forward, as she whips her helmet off. The woman driving the bike kicks down the stand, and then leaps off.

“Harley!” Beast thunders, shoving El Serpiente into the grip of his men. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Is it over?” Harley demands.

Has she been following us? It’s a miracle she didn’t get caught up in the fight. She’s lucky to be arriving this late. She’s not trained to handle everything that went down in there, and?—

Maria watches as the building explodes into flames, and falls to her knees. She lets out a cry of pain unlike anything I’ve heard before, deep, heart-wrenching agony tearing through her.

Beast and Harley are still yelling at each other, but there’s only one person I give a damn about right now. And I refuse to let anything get in my way. I push past the other Kings, and race to her side, wrapping my arms around Maria as she begins to weep.

CHAPTER 43

MALO

Icradle a sobbing Maria in my arms and turn to Beast, who is in the midst of giving out orders, instructing the guys to get back to the compound, and ordering Harley to do the same. But, now, as the flames reach the sky and what’s left of the building crumbles, there’s only one thing I can think of.

The promise I made to Maria. And how badly I’ve just let her down.

“Hey!” I yell to Beast, as I get to my feet again, Maria by my side. “We need to go back in there!”

“No the fuck we don’t,” Beast fires back, narrowing his eyes at me. “What are you talking about?”

“This is our only chance to get Jose back!” I exclaim. Something about the adrenaline in my system and the feel of Maria crying next to me, it’s making it near impossible to think straight. My eyes are clouded with anger, and I lunge at my Prez, grabbing him by the tattered edge of his jacket.

“We need to send people in, now,” I growl at him, and he steps back from me, refusing to engage. For some reason, it just makes me angrier. Before I can stop myself, I’m getting up in his space, pushing my face closer to his.

“Tell Blue to stop.”

“Too late for that, Malo,” he replies, keeping his voice as steady as he can. He doesn’t break my gaze for a second. I want to shake him, remind him that we made a fucking promise to Maria and I’m not going to let it fall through.

Sin grabs my arm, tries to yank me back, but I shrug him off. Even despite the recent overdose, I feel strong enough to take Beast on right now. I refuse to let Maria down like that, I fucking refuse, not after everything she’s done for me—for all of us.

“Back off, brother,” Thor warns me, stepping between me and Beast, but I shove him aside, squaring up to Beast. I know I’m not in my right mind, I know I might regret this, but all I care about right now is finding some way to lift the ache in Maria’s sobs, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

Beast lifts his hand to me—right hand, palm up. A small signal he’s used with me since the start, whenever I would start getting an attitude with him. It had started back when I was still using, and he was trying to help me get clean. When I wanted to put up a fight and get out there and find someone to hook me up with what I needed and he was the one standing in the way of my next hit. A small reminder of what he was doing for me, that he was on my side, even when it didn’t feel like it.

The sight of it snaps me back to my senses, and my shoulders slump. The ringing in my ears begins to slow and quiet, and I hear Maria sobbing once more. I turn to her, wrapping my arms around her. She’s what matters right now, she’s the only thing I need to be focused on. I don’t know where this leaves us in regards to getting her father to safety, but I can deal with that when the time comes. Right now, I need to get her out of here, rested, fed, and then we can figure out what we’re going to do next. There is a small hope that her father wasn’t even here.

“Come on, babygirl,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around her and holding her close. I tune all of the attention, all of the energy I’ve been using to get through this brutal day, into her once more. She is trembling, holding on to me for dear life, and all I can do is cradle her and keep telling her, over and over again, that it’s going to be all right, that we’re going to get through this. That her father will be okay, somehow, even if I don’t have any fucking reason to believe that.