Page 35 of Rebel
Cade snorts. I can hear him shuffling papers or something—must be in my office. He takes care of the paperwork for the Ink Bar and the general running of the compound while I'm gone. "The day you marry anyone is the day hell freezes over. But maybe you could just talk to her. Have a quiet word in her ear or something. Fuck, man, just tell her it wasn't meant to be or something. I don't know."
If he were anyone else, I'd tell him to go fuck himself good and hard. "I'll think about it."
"Great. Now, the Mexicans want more—" Cade cuts off. I think it's just because he was about to say guns, and you can't say the Mexicans want moregunson the fucking telephone. Especially with the attention our little community out in the desert attracts. But Cade makes a guttural growling sound that tells me this is something else. Something bad.
"What? Tell me."
"You in front of a TV, man?" he says. "You'd better turn it on."
Oh, boy. When Cade sounds worried like that, it can only mean trouble. I hit the power button on the TV in the room, waiting for the old piece of shit to blink into life. The sameJeopardy!show Alex was watching materializes slowly, pixel by pixel, onto the screen. "Which channel?" I ask.
"Any. Just look for a news station. You won’t have any problems finding this."
Fuck. If something's happened that's made it to all news stations across America, it must be big. I stab at the programming buttons on the bottom of the TV, searching, until I come across a stricken-looking woman in a pale green suit, staring straight out of the screen at me. She clears her throat, taking a deep breath, as though pulling herself together. "Again, eighteen people have died and seven further people are injured in what is perhaps the most violent gang shooting in Los Angeles for years. Eyewitnesses reported that at three pm this afternoon, a group of men dressed in leather jackets and black jeans entered Trader Joe's on Sunset Boulevard and began indiscriminately shooting at shoppers. It's unclear how many gunmen there were at this time, as security cameras within the store were shot out as soon as the men entered.
"Our sources have confirmed that the reason for the attack is most likely drug related. It is believed an undercover police officer working for the DEA was meant to meet with a handler at the grocery store. Police are yet to confirm if this is the case, or whether a DEA agent was in fact shot and killed, but the tightening of security around the crime scene and the LAPD's notable silence on the matter would lead us to believe this is correct.
"Once the shooting was at an end, the men involved in this senseless, violent attack sped off on motorcycles. Footage here shows three of the men celebrating as they prepare to flee the scene."
The image turns fuzzy as camera footage replaces the news studio, showing a clear image of the supermarket from outside. From the angle of the footage, this camera was covering a small food court outside the entrance, but you can clearly see three men emerging from the left, heads bowed, long hair ratty and hanging in their faces. One of them spins around, must hear something, and then there it is: The Widow Makers’ emblem. Our patch. Right in the middle of the motherfucker’s back. I can’t hear what’s being said between them, but they’re not fucking celebrating. Their wild arm movements, the way they’re shoving at each other as they hurry off screen—they’rearguing.
“Police are yet to release an appeal for information. Should a member of the public recognize any of these men, we at News 541 want to help. If anyone has any information about these individuals, call in on…” The newsreader rattles of a telephone hotline, the screen frozen on a shot of the three men, bodies all pointed in different angles as they survey the area, faces nothing more than charcoal smudges. The only thing I can make out clearly is that goddamn patch.
“Oh my god.”
I jump, hitting the mute button on the television. Sophia’s standing right behind me, her body wrapped in a towel, breasts crushed together by the way she’s fiercely holding the material tight around herself. Her bare shoulders are speckled with water drops, her hair almost black now that it’s wet. Once more, it hits me like a kick in the gut: the woman is fucking beautiful. And she’s staring at me like I’m some kind of monster. “What—what have youdone? That’s your club, isn’t it? The Widow Makers? Why would you have all those people killed?”
SOPHIA
Rebel just sits there, a tiny wrinkle in between his brows the form of an expression on his face. His eyes somehow look even colder than they normally do, which is saying something. “This wasn’t us,” he tells me. He stares grimly at the television for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw and throat working, and then gives a small shake of his head. “This was a fucking punishment.” He lifts his phone to his ear—I didn’t even realize he had it in his hand—and then starts speaking into it. “You still there, man?”
I sink slowly to sit on the edge of the bed next to him, not sure if I should pretend not to be listening. If I should be sitting so close to him. If I should put some clothes on. I don’t know what I should be doing. All I know is the news has this story on repeat and for all the world it looks like Rebel and his boys have been out murdering people for fun in Hollywood.
“Yeah. I know,” Rebel says. I can almost hear his teeth grinding. “She obviously didn’t take our refusal as well as I’d hoped. Now she’s gone after her DEA agent and had him killed. And she’s pinning it on us publicly, just to fucking spite us.”
There’s talk on the other end of the phone, but all I hear is my heart beating in my ears. The television’s quiet now, but they keep cycling through the same three or four images: a woman running out of the supermarket, dropping a plastic bag on the ground as she staggers away from the madness ensuing inside. A cashier holding up his hands, walking backward. Three men, pushing each other outside, arguing. And then a close-up of one of their leather jackets, complete with grinning skull and double drawn pistols, Widow Makers at the top, New Mexico underneath.
“She’ll be expecting that,” Rebel says, getting to his feet. “We can’t afford to retaliate right now. We need to account for every single member of the club for the past—no, Iknownone of us did this. Fuck’s sake, Cade. But the cops, they’re gonna be all over this. They’re gonna wanna know where everyone was.” He starts to pace, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. I was struck by a wave of horror when I first saw what he was watching as I came out of the shower, but now, watchinghim, I know his club is innocent. I just have no clue what the hell’s going on.
Rebel makes eye contact with me as he paces, and I don’t know what to do. I should maybe look away, give him a little privacy or something, but I’m too confused to do that. So I just look back at him, my heart in my throat, waiting for him to say something that I actually might understand. He stops in front of me, facing me, eyes still boring into my skin, and I feel a little lightheaded. “Burn everything we have on the Desolladors. Bury the guns. Burn the weed. Make our house safe,” he says into the phone. “The cops are on their way.”
The cops are on their way to the compound. I’m suddenly torn between laughing and crying. The cops, showing up at the compound? If I’d been a little more stubborn, they would have found me there, locked away in a room inside their clubhouse, still plotting a way to escape. I could have been home free.
Rebel slides his cell phone into his pocket and crouches down in front of me, the flashing images behind him on the television casting a blue light around his head, throwing his features into relief. He exhales and places his hands on my bare knees. “Soph?”
This feels like the first time, the first time I’ve ever been looked at properly in my entire life. Those pale, icy eyes of his almost burn my skin as he studies me.
“Yeah?”
“I need a stiff drink,” he says. “I can only have one if you swear you’re not gonna try and do something fucking stupid.”
He’s asking for my word that I won’t try to escape if he has a drink? He doesn’t need to do that. He could handcuff me to the bed or something and get as drunk as he liked without having to worry about me, but…he’s asking me if he can trust me instead. Absolutely crazy. I nod, trying to keep myself from appearing a little too over-enthusiastic. If he doubts me, he will cuff me. And after being restrained so frequently of late, I really don’t feel like trying to sleep with my wrists pinned up over my head. “It’s fine. I’ll behave,” I tell him.
“Thank you.” He stands, heading for the discolored, yellowing Bakelite phone that sits on the bedside table in between our two beds. He picks it up and stabs one button—must be 0 for reception. “Hey, Alex. Need some whiskey. What you got?” He frowns, but then says, “That’ll do. Bring it over?”
He puts the phone down. He doesn’t move for a moment, his back to me, his shoulders barely hitching up and down with his breath. Then he tips forward, taking hold of the phone cable, and rips it out of the wall.
Turns out he doesn’t trust me enough to leave it plugged in. Definitely smart on his part, but crappy luck for me. He picks up the entire phone and carries it to the door just as someone starts to knock on it. I don’t even see who it is. No words are spoken. Rebel shoves the phone through the gap in the door and then takes hold of a bottle of liquor, pulling his arm back through the gap, and then the door is closed again. Whoever was on the other side must be used to this kind of behavior; he leaves without a single comment.
