Page 79 of Blood Revealed

“It’s the best I got for you right now.” I pull a smoke from the pack, light it, and inhale deep to calm my nerves. Been smoking more since this shit started than I have in my life. We don’t end this soon I’m looking at an early grave from a bullet through my head or fucking black lung.

“Love’s a joke,” she says oddly. There’s sadness and a touch of anger to her voice.

“Why you say that?”

“Think about it, Raif. If the Lords were more like the Horde—women are disposable to them. Lose one, that’s okay, there’re plenty more where she came from. If you were like that, then you wouldn’t be putting yourself in danger for me, and I wouldn’t be standing around feeling useless while my man cleans up my messes. Should’ve just left me to the trucker.”

“The fuck you saying, Han? You think I regret any part of meeting you, baby? Think Boss regrets Elise for one fucking second? That he doesn’t live for his family? My sister and Chaos? Hell, your sister and Hero—think he’s not over the fucking moon becoming a dad thanks to your sister? Or Duke. You saw how he was after Dawna. Caity changed his life.”

“But if he’d never fallen in love with Dawna, then he wouldn’t have needed Caity.”

I take another drag off my cigarette, blowing the smoke before tackling this hill again. “I get you’re scared, Han, but having you in my life, baby, it’s given me purpose. Given me reason to be a better man—to be different from my dad. I loved him, but that old man truly cared about one person. Himself. His bike parts meant more to him than my mom, Liv’s mom, or Liv. I could’ve easily ended up like him.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” she says softly. “You’ve loved your sister your whole life.”

“And I’ve loved you for going on a decade.”

“Got the meet,” Scotch calls out.

“Listen, baby,” I say to Hannah. “I gotta go now. But I’m not hanging up this phone until I know you understand—that if I had to choose between a long life without you or a short one with you by my side, I’d gladly pick you every single damn time.”

“Oh, Raif.” She sniffles into the line. Then there’s a soft “Love you” before she hangs up.

I shove my phone in my back pocket and look up in time to see every man in the room with an old lady shoving his phone in his pocket.

All the brothers who took the plane are stuck in the vans we rented, but the Outcasts are expecting us, which means we put more distance between us and the women instead of cutting it down. Rather than head all the way back to their compound, Boss puts in a call to Duke, who’s at the ghost town waiting for us and then we head south for the border.

One lesson the brothers learned years ago is to keep our passports with our wallets because we never know when one or all of us will get the order to hop a plane or cross at a border checkpoint in our business. They stop us at the border crossing, vans and all, where each of us is made to hand over our licenses and passports, and because of our cuts, we’re patted down, but we’re not stupid and are going in unarmed. God help us. We locked the guns and ammo in a bus station rental locker. Anguino’s either going to be a man of his word or we’re going to die.

From there, we’re directed back to the vans and border patrol waves us across into the city of Matamoros, where Anguino is visiting his brother, or so we were told. He’s given us directions that lead outside of the city to a sprawling estate, and it’s here we find the soldiers we expected to find with Escalante. Armed guards with AKs pointed at our heads step out from the trees, stopping the vans before we turn down the long stretch of road that will eventually lead us to the estate grounds.

Hero’s the only one of us able to speak Spanish. Though he’s not fluent, he does a good enough job that we don’t die yet. After patting us down and calling in our arrival to the main house, the soldiers wave us through, only to be stopped at the next security post guarding the drive to the main house. There we go through it all again. This property has twice as many guard towers as Escalante’s property, occupied by at least three soldiers per tower. I know because they make themselves purposefully visible. What a joy, more AKs aimed at our heads.

The road takes us up to the circle drive, where we stop in front of the main house. Each of us exits the van and we wait for the front doors to open. It’s a spectacle when they do. All these guards spill out, forming a circle around us and pushing in to where each of us keeps stepping backward until our back collide.

“Move!” one of them shouts. I guess they know some English. As a group, we walk through the foyer down a hallway, as wide and longer than any place I’ve ever lived, and out to the back patio. It’s partially covered to keep the sun from shining directly into the house. Sitting at a table wearing his signature dark sunglasses and white Tommy Bahama suit matching the white streaks in his hair, Anguino holds a half-empty glass of either clear alcohol or water and ice in one hand as he waves us over to him with a hand that has two gold rings on his pinky finger and two more on his ring finger. He’s a sight to behold.

Scotch takes the lead, approaching first. Anguino gestures to the seat next to his for Scotch to sit. “You must be thirsty after such a long trip,” he says. “Manuel, drinks.” A manservant in full uniform of white jacket and black slacks slightly bows his head to Anguino without words and spins on his foot to walk back inside, presumably to get us drinks.

“Please, Mr. MacGregor,” Anguino offers. “I welcome you to explain your visit today.”

“Scotch,” Scotch corrects him. “Call me ‘Scotch’ and I’m here to call my marker.” Every armed man standing around us takes a fighting stance. The guns that were lowered are pointed at our heads again. I can feel the electrons moving in the air, bouncing off each other, raising the atmosphere into a frenzied chaos.

It’s now, of all times, that the manservant shows up with his tray of drinks. He’s seen guns raised at men’s heads enough times to not even flinch at the scene he’s walked in on, handing off a glass to me first only because he stopped closest to me.

Club soda on ice. It’s refreshing if nothing else and when Scotch receives his, he takes a sip, sets it down on the table, looks Anguino directly in the eye like the badass motherfucker he is and lays it out. “I took a bullet for ya. Shoved ya out the way. That’s a life debt.”

Anguino raises his hand and with a finger flick sends the soldiers away until it’s just him and us. “You must havegigantecojones,mi amigo, to come at me like this.”

“Ya said it yarself. Ya owe me for savin’ ya.”

The man narrows his eyes at Scotch. “What do you ask of me?”

“I’m only here to collect on the debt because yar man gave us no choice.”

“My man?” he asks.

“Escalante,” Scotch answers. “He’s obsessed with one of our women. Blood’s wife.” Scotch flips his hand out to point at me. “Kidnapped her a few times and no matter how many times we get her back, he won’t let it alone.”

---