The boxes are full of fucking C4 explosives. No wonder Jamie said to be careful. On deployment people would lose limbs all the time fucking around with this shit. I carry the boxes one at a time, gingerly balancing as best I can with my load in my hands, pressed against my chest as I descend down into the basement, where we keep the rest of the club’s munitions. Takes me four trips to complete my task. I have no idea why the fuck Jamie brought so much back with him—there are enough explosives stacked up next to our semi automatics and live rounds to take out half of New Mexico—but I guess he’ll explain that when I head up to the cabin. I’m about to lock up behind myself and head topside when I hear screaming down the hallway.
“Fucking pigs! You’re fucking late. Let me out of here!” a loud, hollow, metallic sound vibrates down the corridor as Maria Rosa slams her palm against the steel door to her quarters. She’s none too happy to be missing her evening stroll, it would seem. “Fucking asshole! Carnie, I can hear you out there, you shit!”
I stop in my tracks. I shouldn’t. I should leave her to her screaming and her cursing, head straight back up the ladder and ignore her, but for some reason I find myself hovering.
“Get Rebel down here,” she spits. Her words are muffled, but I can hear the vitriol in them just fine. “Get him down here. I’ve had enough. I’ve fucking had enough, you bastard.”
Back in Columbia, Mother’s empire has undoubtedly been dismantled, warred over, torn apart and claimed by a hundred two-bit cocaine dealers. No new cartel head rose to power and took over the Desolladors after Maria Rosa went missing. Jamie’s had Danny monitor local news and our informants since the day we locked her down here, so we’d know about it if they had. No one has come to save her. Her people didn’t rally to rescue her like she insisted they would during those early days. She’s been down here alone, and every day for the past six months she’s been angry. Furious at the way she’s been treated. Listening to her pound and shout through the door now, though, she sounds different. She sounds as though she really has had enough. She sounds like she’s given up.
I don’t know how I get there, but I find myself standing in front of her door. Maria Rosa falls quiet, as if she can sense my presence. I can hear her sniffing on the other side of the inch-thick steel.
“Carnie’s up in the clubhouse,” I say. “We have guests. You’re gonna be stuck down here for the next few days.”
“Cade?”
I bite my tongue.
“Cade? Please, open the door. I fucking can’t stand this anymore.”
“Perhaps you should have considered that before you took on a guy who isn’t typically known for his forgiving nature.”
“Fucking shit,” she spits. “I tortured you for three days. I lost my temper and tried to pin something shitty on you. You’ve locked me away for months. I haven’t seen daylight in…in…”
She clearly has no idea how long it’s been. “You had people killed, Mother. Innocent people. You know how he feels about that.”
She’s silent for a moment. “We’re people who kill people, Cade. That’s who we are. You know this. When I die, the lord will judge me for my sins. He’ll weigh the acts of my life and I will have to settle the balance. Until then, I can only be who I am. Who I was made to be.”
Everything goes silent. She doesn’t say another word. I stand there in front of her door for a moment, her words ringing in my ears. I can still hear them repeating over and over again as I finally walk away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SOPHIA
I wake up in the morning, and a light, fluttering sensation is dancing in my stomach—the same kind of feeling I used to get every year when I woke up on Christmas morning and I could hear Mom and Dad moving about downstairs, organizing our presents and making breakfast. It should be a good feeling, an excited feeling, but today it’s not. I’m scared out of my mind. Today, we’re attempting to rescue my father from Ramirez’s farmhouse, and I have no idea if we’re going to be successful. He might end up getting killed in the process. Hell, all of us might end up getting killed in the process. I fucking hate that we’re having to use Julio Perez to distract Hector, and I especially hate the fact that his right hand guy, Andreas, came back with us yesterday.