Hellion, page 1
part #3 of Cazadores MC Series
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Hellion copyright @ 2019 by Brook Wilder and Scholae Palatina Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
BOOKS IN THE SOUTHERN BIKERS SERIES
WRECKED
SHATTERED
DEFILED
PROTECTOR
GUARDIAN
SENTINEL
MONSTER
SAVAGE
HELLION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
HELLION
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
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BOOKS IN THE SOUTHERN BIKERS SERIES
WRECKED
SHATTERED
DEFILED
PROTECTOR
GUARDIAN
SENTINEL
MONSTER
SAVAGE
HELLION
HELLION
Chapter One
CARLOS
I hate this city. I don’t know why I even live here. It was gray even when the sun shone. And in November, the walls, the street, and the sky, it all looked gray. Even the people looked gray. White, black, brown; skin color didn’t matter. They all looked gray in sunny Mesa, California.
I heard laughter and followed it to the corner market looking for Armando. The Navarro’s owned the market and their son, Armando, was our prospect for the Cazadores. He survived the run on the Disciples, so odds were good he’d be getting his colors soon. Our president, Emilio Nieto, had decided anyone who survived that blood bath was hardcore badass and worthy of our colors.
The store looked brighter and cleaner since the Navarros repaired the damage with the help of insurance funds covering the costs. The Disciples had driven a truck into the store to prove their point; they didn’t want the Cazadores in their city, or anywhere else. Even though our city smelled like piss and shit, they still felt the need to claim it.
A banner hung down from the new awning of the corner market announcing ‘Grand Re-opening.’
They had replaced the old, dim lights with LED fixtures. The inside looked like a franchise store in a good neighborhood, but I knew better. Appearances were deceiving.
Armando accepted a payment from a customer for a brown bag. I knew a person could get high for hours and feel no pain on what was concealed inside. Those plain brown bags were how the Cazadores distributed our drugs.
I laughed as I entered. “Armando, are you trying to impress your old customers?”
Armando stood behind the counter giving me a pointed look, his hand resting on a brown bag. I shook my head. I needed to get off the stuff. With a sly grin, Armando put it away.
“I wanted to hang a ‘New Management’ banner,” he said, “but I didn’t want the old customers to be disappointed when they saw me still behind the counter.”
Armando and I had the same jaded view of life; everybody’s a thief so you might as well steal it first. The MC considered us clever, and we were used for our brains, stealth, and cunningness. Armando and I had similar builds: tall, lanky, and wiry. I didn’t have the bulk of some of the other the Cazadores, but we could fight to the bone. I’d coil up like a snake to strike my target over and over again until they were dead cold on the ground.
“Where’s your bike?” Armando asked. “You sold it? You need another? I might have one to sell you.”
Laughing, I threw back my head. Nothing got past Armando. “It was at the shop,” I replied. “when the cops busted the place. I’m using my muscles until I can get it back.”
I look down at the rack of newspapers in front of the counter. The headline announced Mayor Pryor’s big win and displayed his posse in four color glory. Prick. They might not have worn flannel like the Disciples, but they were all the same. Suits and better haircuts were the only difference between this scum and that. I picked up a paper and pounded my index finger against it.
“Emilio lost his chance to move us into the Mayor’s clubhouse,” I announced.
Laughter came from the front of the store as Simon, Armando’s younger brother, walked in carrying a case of bright orange soft drinks that would kill a person faster than cigarettes. Simon wanted to join the club, but the kid was barely a teen and as skinny as my wrist. He’d have to wait.
Simon laughed the loudest to show his approval. “If we all go straight, we’ll win next time.”
“You think it’s that easy,” scoffed Armando. “You don’t know about these things, little bro.”
“I do know,” said Simon. “Mayor Pryor doesn’t ride a bike or wear leather, but he’s still a thug. He hides it better so the rich people can pretend he’s not a crook.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” I said.
That encouraged Simon to continue. “It helps when your sheriff can’t find a clue. Maybe you should sell him one in one of your bags, Armando?”
“He’s crooked,” argued Armando. “Not clueless.”
Simon disagreed. “No, he’s just dumb like that sheriff in the movie who chases the red car.”
“You mean the Dukes of Hazard?” I asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” continued Simon.
The boy was cheerful to be included in our conversation. Usually when we talked business, we made him leave.
“Didn’t his belt slide down around his ankles and he fell over every episode? That’s West.” Simon pantomimed. “Where’s my gun? Where’s my gun? Oh, it’s in my hand.”
We were laughing hard and loud, but we stopped when three white men entered in flannel shirts. Disciples.
The Disciples were a white supremacist group that misused the Bible for their hate rhetoric.
Simon picked up the crate of orange soda, while Armando unlocked his drawer. I knew enough to get out of the way, so I stepped into an aisle. We all eyed the men as they eyed us.
“Can I help you?” asked Armando. Usually, he had a light accent, but around strangers he made it thick and unwelcoming. His lips were firmly pressed together and his hands remained out of sight.
“Just passing by, amigo,” said the heavy man in front. “You carry any brands not made in China?” The man had a tiny white bandana wrapped around his shaved head. He wore mirrored glasses so we couldn’t see his eyes, but we didn’t need to see them to know they were hard and cold.
Armando glanced at Simon, and I took another step back.
“What brand are you looking for?” asked Armando.
“The Cazadores?”
Armando sighed then looked around the new interior of his store with a resigned look. I knew what he was thinking. A week hadn’t even passed, and he would need to clean it up again.
“That’s not a brand we carry,” replied Armando. “Sorry cannot help you today.”
“Funny because it looks like you carry it,” the man said as his buddies chuckled.
“Look, we don’t want trouble,” replied Armando.
The heavy man stopped laughing and his face snarled in anger as if Armando had made a rude request. “Well, you should have thought of that before you started making trouble.”
“We didn’t start it,” shouted Simon in a high-pitched voice. “Why don’t you leave? This isn’t your territory.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said a skinny teen in a denim jacket standing behind the heavy man. “Pryor is in office, and all of this is our territory.”
Simon scoffed, making his opinion known. The men directed their gaze on him. Armando’s arm reached under the counter. It was time for me to step in.
“Look, man,” I said. “Why don’t you leave so we don’t have to ask you again?”
“Listen to this one,” said the heavy man to his buddies. “Threatening me.” He glared at me and stepped away from the other men. “I don’t like threats.”
“I don’t like ignorance, but I encounter it every day I walk down these streets,” I answered.
“Listen to that,” said the third man with a greying moustache. “The Mexican can use big words. Do you even know what those big words mean, boy?”
I threw up my arms in frustration as I stepped out of the narrow aisle toward the men. The leader was wider than me, but I had more height. His companions hung back, and I could tell by the moustache man’s beady eyes that he’d run if things got out of control.
“This is private property, and you have been asked to leave,” I said.
“You hear this, Jerry?” The heavy man turned to the moustached man. “This immigrant is telling me to leave my own country.”
“I was born here,” I replied.
“And how do you know that?” he sneered.
“Because your mother’s name is on my birth certificate.”
He reached for my shoulder, but I was one step faster. Simon ran toward us, ensuring this wouldn’t escalate too far. I knew Armando wouldn’t pull a gun while his brother was in harm’s way.
I threw a punch, and the heavy man stumbled backward into a baked goods display. The teen with him came forward with a knife, but I got another hit in before the moustached man grabbed hold of my neck.
“I’ll cut your dirty tongue out of your lyin’ mouth, you’re full of shit...”
I punched the moustached man in the balls before he could finish his sentence, but the heavy man who’d been wheezing on the floor was up and standing by then. Simon charged forward, but the thick Disciple tossed his small body out of the way as the other two men dragged me toward the door. Bent on destruction, the heavy one threw down a display rack. Smashed glass and pickles spread across the shiny floor as the men hollered and shouted slurs.
I couldn’t free myself from a choke-hold grip. Helpless, moustache asshole dragged me outside. They tore down the banner from the awning and wrapped it around me. My arms were pinned to my body then my legs and the end piece of nylon was wrapped around my head. I couldn’t see, and my anger grew as I was dragged across the hard, bumpy sidewalk.
“We got one,” shouted a voice. “Get ‘em in the truck.”
I landed hard against the metal bed of a pickup. On the sidewalk, Armando shouted threats and obscenities over the engine rumbling to a loud start. Random shots were fired as the truck lurched forward, and horns blew from all directions as the truck accelerated. Disoriented, I opened my eyes. A diffused light shone through the fabric of my makeshift blindfold.
For a moment, my body relaxed. I wouldn’t have to kill myself today if someone did it for me.
Chapter Two
MARIA
I walked the beat aimlessly. So, this was how I would spend one of my few days off. It wasn’t even my beat. Technically, the entire state was a deputy’s jurisdiction, but this area wasn’t my assignment. I walked down streets surrounded by the sights and sounds I knew would distract my mind. I lived on the Southside now, but Northside still felt like home because I didn’t stick out. I was just another Latina.
If I was in a serious relationship, I’d know what to do with myself, or not. The last few hadn’t lasted long, and the sex was always disappointing. I needed somebody. I needed a friend. Someone, anyone, I could talk to about how I felt and what I knew.
But I couldn’t find anyone to trust. So, I wandered alone through my old neighborhood, keeping my feelings tapped down until they ruined my thoughts. I could feel the negative effects of sleepless nights on my psyche. I had loved my job as a deputy once. But the reality hadn’t lived up to my glorified expectations. I should’ve just quit, moved, married, and got a job in an office.
Looking up, I saw the sign for Mission Street and headed down it. I hadn’t been there since the drive-by and Sheriff West’s meltdown when he found his pure and virginal daughter hanging out with the Cazadores. I shook my head thinking about how he lost it that night. West hadn’t been the same since his other daughter died, and now the other one had taken off. No one was immune from crime.
I eyed the back of the corner market through the chain link fence. Armando Navarro had become quite the broker of secrets courtesy of the homeless he served food to at the soup kitchen. I betted Armando never thought that being charitable would become profitable.
My feet hurt, and I thought about turning back to head home. I must have walked over seven miles. I tapped my fitness tracker and it beamed like a flashlight. I was approaching Carmen Nieto’s house, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to walk past it.
“Hey, hey, chica. Come make an old man happy. I got some sugar for you.”
I turned to look at who could be saying such disrespectful filth. Why I stopped I don’t know. I should have ignored it. Old man Diego Hurtado sat on his porch with a six-pack cooler by his feet. I stared at the beer and wondered if I could arrest him for having it out. He caught me looking at it.
“You want a beer, chica,” he called out, “you can have one if you sit on papa’s lap. How old are you anyway?”
Even off duty, I carried my badge in my wallet. I flashed it as I marched toward his wraparound porch on the one level stucco house. That wiped the leering grin off his face.
“I hope you aren’t offering alcohol to minors, sir.”
“No officer,” he stammered. “I asked your age. You heard me ask. I card. I just wanted the company of a pretty woman. Too bad,” he sighed, “that you’re a cop.”
“Diego, don’t you recognize me?” Both my hands on my hips, I leveled my eyes on his.
Diego squinted as if he were staring at the sun then he put on his glasses.
“Maria Lopez? Little Maria? You’ve grown up.” His eyes traveled down to my breasts. “Come give Uncle Diego a hug?”
I shook my head, and he shrugged.
“I’ll put my badge away and take a beer instead.” I leaned down and grabbed a cold one out of the cooler.
Diego only drank the cheap yellow stuff out of the can, but it was cold. I popped the tab and sat down a safe distance away from his knobby hands. My feet needed a rest before I headed back. And it would be okay if I spent some time visiting with the old man. As long as he stayed put in his chair, that is.
“What’s been going on Diego?” I asked.
“My arthritis has been acting up,” he said with a hangdog look. It was late November and a throw rested over his legs. Diego would sit out on the porch until his balls froze.
I scoffed. “You know what I mean. The MC’s have been at it again. Did you see anything?”
As he considered what a piece of information might get him, Diego smoothed down the edges of his salt and pepper moustache. He looked side to side as if someone might be lurking on the wide porch.
“The Disciples are paying them back,” he muttered.
The moment he said it, I knew I wouldn’t quit law enforcement for an office job. I got up to sit in the empty seat beside him.
“Pay back for what?” I asked.
“Some men were shot in the woods. But I’m not sure if the Cazadores were there. I think it was a rumor to make them look bad.”
I rolled my eyes. There was truth in what Diego said but not much of it.
A female voice called, “Maria!”
Waving, Carmen Nieto crossed the lawn toward Diego’s porch. It looked like she was expecting a special guest. She wore a pretty floral dress under a fuzzy lavender cardigan, her black hair was in a bun at the nape of her neck, and her nails were polished a pretty pink beige. I couldn’t settle the fact in my mind that this domestic, church-going, middle-aged goddess had been married to the founder of the Cazadores, and her son was a felon. Carmen seemed not to notice or acknowledge her house was filled with lawbreakers.
