Craving Redemption

  I thought I was free and clear. I’d been stoked to be headed home with money in my saddle bags, and I was looking forward to the long ride with nothing to worry about but piss breaks and truck stop food.

  When El Presidente asked me to stop by and handle some business with Jose, saying he had a quarter of the money they owed in his house safe, I was irritated as hell, but I went anyway. Apparently, Jose had been dealing for the gang, and he’d just come into a shitload of cash, but he hadn’t yet paid up. It was supposed to be just a quick stop on our way out of town, but when we pulled up to the house I knew shit was going to go down.

  The dude had a fucking house full of people when I knew he’d been told we were coming. I didn’t know if he was feeling squirrely, or if he just didn’t care who knew he was doing business, but I wasn’t pleased with either scenario. It was business, and I was getting tired as hell of these fucking dicks acting like they were hot shit and not giving us the respect we deserved.

  We parked our bikes by the road, and my brother Deke pulled in behind us in his little rice-grinder car. I wasn’t sure why Deke felt the need to follow us, but the hair stood up on the back of my neck when he told me he was coming along for the ride. I never ignored that feeling, so I just slapped him on the back before I climbed on my bike. I met Dragon’s eyes before we took off and I knew he was feeling it, too. Something was off.

  The house was as full as it appeared from the outside, with people everywhere when we walked inside. I kept my guard up, but lucky for me, the dick I was looking for was standing in the entryway when we showed up. He had his arm around a woman who seemed to be having a hard time standing up, but I just barely registered her as I took everything in.

  I didn’t see her as a threat, but I should have.

  I glanced around the house and looked back at Jose just as the woman dropped her head back against his shoulder and I got a good look at her face. She was gorgeous. Nice tits, tan skin, and light blue eyes; a weird mix that seemed to work on her. But those weren’t the things about her that were the most apparent. She wasn’t a woman; she was a girl. Her cheeks were still a little chubby, and when her mouth went slack I could see braces in her mouth with little purple rubber bands. It made my stomach clench that Jose, who was at least ten years older than me, was groping the girl, but it wasn’t my problem, so I deliberately looked away from her face even though it fucking killed me to do it.

  There was something about her. I’d been around a lot of bitches in my life, whores and good girls, but this girl was different. She didn’t fit the situation. She was like a colored puzzle piece mixed in with a black and grey puzzle. It bugged the shit out of me—but I couldn’t let it break my focus. Whatever she was doing there had nothing to do with me.

  I started talking to Jose, telling him we had business to discuss, when four of his boys showed up from somewhere in the back of the house. As soon as they were close, Jose dropped the chick he was holding and I knew shit was going to get bad. Really bad. Three of his boys were packing, and what had seemed like an easy pick-up suddenly turned into something I hadn’t seen coming. I was trying to assess the situation, wondering why Jose was being an idiot instead of just handing over the money, when the girl he’d been holding crawled across the floor and grabbed a hold of my leg.

  It only took a second.

  I looked down at her when she grabbed a hold of my thigh, her fingernails scratching across my jeans, and that was enough of an opening for the fuckers. The pulled their pieces, and before I could say a word, started firing.

  When people are shooting at you, it isn’t like the fucking O.K. Corral. You don’t stand there and shoot back and hope you don’t get hit. You get the fuck down and then you shoot back. So that’s what I did. I dropped hard on top of the girl as I reached for my piece in the back of my waistband.

  When all was said and done, there were people all over the house fucking screaming and running, but Jose and his men were dead. My boys may have been new—or in Tommy’s case, completely fucking stupid—but they’d done their job. I climbed to my feet as people rushed out the back of the house and started to step toward the front door, but the look on Dragon’s face stopped me. He was staring at the floor, and that’s when I remembered the girl.

  She was completely out of it, sprawled out on the hard wood. She wasn’t wearing revealing clothes, nothing that a normal teenager wouldn’t wear, but the way she was sprawled out on the floor made her short shorts and tank top look fucking obscene. Her legs were spread wide with the legs of her shorts gaping, one of her arms was crossed over her chest and the other was close to her face. With the way her hair covered everything from the neck up, it almost looked like she was sucking her thumb. She looked so goddamn young that I felt like I’d been punched in the throat.

  I couldn’t leave her there like that—alone and vulnerable to any dick that came across her.

  So I took her with me.

  Getting her on a bike wasn’t going to happen, so I stuffed her into the back of my brother’s car before we headed to a motel by the freeway. We’d been staying further south, but after that mess with Jose I wasn’t going to stay where we’d been. The gang had to have known within minutes what had gone down and I wasn’t about to be ambushed for something that wasn’t my doing in the first place. Their boy had decided he felt froggy and was going to stiff me the twenty-five grand he owed us. Bullshit. He took the first shot—fucking bad luck for him that he didn’t make the last one.

  I wasn’t thinking straight. The adrenaline was flowing, and I was trying to figure out why I hadn’t just left that girl behind, so when we got up to the motel room, I was blindsided by the fact that I actually had a teenage girl in our room and my brother was pacing the floor, mumbling to himself. When the shit hit the fan, I hadn’t thought about what that would mean for Deke—he’d been put in a really bad position.

  “Deke, man, follow us up. I can get you a meet with Slider, no worries,” I reassured him, but he wasn’t interested.

  I tried to convince him to leave it all behind, but he wasn’t having it. He seemed to be under the impression that he wouldn’t have any problems, and he was a grown-ass man, so I wasn’t going to argue. If he wanted to stay, that was on him. Even though I was older by a little less than a year, I couldn’t tell him what to do. He’d been taking care of himself for a hell of a long time.

  We were arguing about what had gone down, and the fact that I had a chick we didn’t know in my bed, when the girl woke up.

  Everything after that was like some sort of fucked up version of The Twilight Zone that I couldn’t escape. She was as young as I’d thought when I saw her with Jose, but it wasn’t just that. She had to be around seventeen or eighteen in age, but Christ, in experience? She was a ten-year-old. She had no sense of self preservation and she thought I was some kind of hero for saving her ass from somewhere she shouldn’t have been in the first place. I knew she was young, goddamn, but when she climbed into my lap I felt myself growing hard underneath her.

  It’s not like I was much older than she was, I was only twenty, but I’d stopped fucking girls her age when I was fourteen. There was a huge gap in life experience that made anything I wanted from her impossible, which was proven when she told me she had to call her grandmother and spoke to her like she knew she was going to be in trouble. When we introduced ourselves to her, she wrinkled her nose in confusion and I could tell the wheels were turning in her head as she gave us her name. For a split second, I thought she might have given us a fake one, but I could tell by looking at her face that she hadn’t—and she was kicking herself for it.

  I made plans to meet the boys about an hour north of San Diego and took Callie to her grandmother’s. There was nothing else I could do. She was fucking jailbait, and even if she wasn’t, there was no way she was staying the night in my motel room. The girl had fucking braces on her teeth. She came from an entirely different world.

  When I got her home, I thought I’d feel relief, but
I didn’t. She’d spent the entire ride rubbing up against my back, with her little hands clenching and releasing my chest like a kitten, and her not quite innocent actions had me hard as a rock. I wanted her. Bad.

  I’d programmed my number into her cell phone back in the motel room, but I didn’t see any reason why she’d ever need to call me. So when her grandma ordered me in for food, I took her up on her offer. I told myself that I just wanted some home cooked food, that I didn’t want to ride with my jeans strangling my dick, that I wanted to make sure she was okay from whatever she’d been given earlier in the night—but none of those reasons were the truth. I just didn’t want to leave her yet.

  She was so sweet—the way she looked at her Gram, the way she served up my plate without even asking what I wanted, and the way she smiled with her mouth closed, trying to hide her braces. I’d never been around sweet like that before—I fucking loved it. She didn’t talk a whole lot, but I figured that might have been because of whatever she still had in her system. Her Gram was watching her with an eagle eye while we sat at the table, but Callie didn’t seem to notice. By the time we were done eating, she’d passed out at the table.

  It fucking killed me to leave her there, but I knew that her Gram would take care of her and it really wasn’t any of my business. I had gotten her home safe and sound and I’d look like a jackass if I hung around too long—not to mention the fact that I probably had forty Mexican guys gunning for me.

  I needed to get the fuck out of there before I did something stupid and got myself killed.

  Chapter 6

  Callie

  I woke up alone in Gram’s bed to bright afternoon sunlight shining through the lacy white curtains. My head was throbbing, and my mouth tasted like something had crawled in there and died. I tried to roll over, but gave up with a groan when my entire body protested the movement. It only took a few seconds for me to go from wondering why I was so sore, to remembering exactly why I felt like shit.

  My mind raced over the events of the night before, and I was completely baffled by everything that had happened. Shit like that just didn’t happen to me. I rarely got into trouble, and when I did it was for normal things, like talking back to my parents or staying out past curfew. I couldn’t have imagined the night before if I’d tried.

  I was busy sifting through my memories, trying to catch the elusive ones, when Gram came into the bedroom to wake me up.

  “Oh, good. You’re up. I’m heading over to Aunt Lily’s and figured I’d drop you off at home on my way. How you feeling?” she asked me as she walked around the room, pulling on a sweater and a pair of tennis shoes.

  “Eh. Like I got ran over by a truck. My mouth is dry like the freaking Sahara.”

  “Yeah, well getting drugged by some piece of trash will do that,” she told me with a glare, sitting down beside me on the edge of the bed. “I know you were just having fun, Callie, but crap like that has a way of getting out of hand. I took care of things for you last night, but something like this happens again and I’m calling your dad myself. You put me in a hell of a position.”

  I felt like shit when she was through talking, but had to hide my smile at her subtle guilt trip. Sneaky old lady. I forced my achy body into a sitting position and wrapped my arms around her waist, cuddling up to her as I apologized. “I’m sorry, Gram. I won’t ever do something like that again. I don’t want to get you in trouble with Dad.”

  She wrapped her arms around me and rubbed my back for a minute while I relaxed into her, knowing I was forgiven. It was amazing what one simple hug could do to soothe us both. Before I could grow too comfortable or fall back asleep, she pulled back, jarring my throbbing head that was resting on her shoulder.

  “Callie, I love you, baby, and we’re fine … but your breath smells like shit. Go brush your teeth,” she grumbled with a wrinkled nose and a smile.

  I loved my Gram.

  I pulled myself out of bed and went to brush my teeth, sliding by Gram at the kitchen counter and rubbing her back lightly as I went. She was making sure her “billfold” and keys were in her purse, just like she’d done every single time we’d left the house for as long as I could remember. She always checked and re-checked her purse for everything she needed and it had been like a treasure trove of goodies when I was younger. There was always a little notebook and pen if I was bored at the grocery store, a hair tie if she needed to pull back my hair, or a Band-Aid if I scraped my knee. Gram’s purse could solve any problem, no matter where we were.

  As soon as she made sure she had everything she could possibly need, we climbed in the car and took off for my house. We didn’t usually chatter much in the car, but that ride was significantly quieter as I thought about the night before. I was so relieved that my little ordeal was over. I was lucky—I was going home safe and sound, when I could’ve been dead. The thought of that man touching me, or the way the gunshots sounded in the entryway of that house had me shuddering in fear, and I quickly turned my mind to my parents and what I’d be facing when I got home.

  I wasn’t sure what Gram told my parents, but whatever it was had calmed them down enough that they weren’t calling my phone over and over like I’d been expecting. I was glad for the reprieve, but I knew it wouldn’t last long. I’d been missing for hours between the time when they would’ve been home for dinner and when Gram called them at 3 am. They were going to be livid—especially my dad.

  Gram was my dad’s mom. She’d raised three boys with a drunk for a husband, and she’d pretty much seen it all. Unfortunately for my brother and me, my dad knew every trick in the book because he’d used them, which meant we rarely got away with anything. All of Gram’s sons were hellions while growing up, but somehow my dad had pulled himself off the road they’d been on and was living on the straight and narrow. My uncles hadn’t been so lucky.

  I remembered my uncles as fun and a little crazy, but I’d only seen them once a week for the family dinners that Gram had established to keep us all connected. They would tease me constantly by pulling my braid and calling me ‘little senorita’, and I’d loved the attention even though my mom’s mouth would tighten every time they did it. I hadn’t understood until a few years later that my parents saw it as a dig at my dad for marrying a Mexican woman. I didn’t know if I agreed with my parents’ assessment, but soon it hadn’t mattered anyway.

  I’d viewed them with a sort of hero worship, never understanding why we saw them only at my grandmother’s and only for a couple of hours at a time. My parents had kept me out of the day to day drama, but when I was ten they’d been unable to shield me and my brother Cody any longer when both uncles were killed in a bar fight in Los Angeles.

  I’d been too young to understand the implications of their deaths; I just knew that I’d lost two people who I thought had hung the moon especially for me. My parents, however, saw all too clearly that my dad’s brothers had died the way they lived—with a blatant disregard for the law and a recklessness that they’d wanted no part of. I’m not sure what happened—my mother must have said or done something during those few weeks after Gram lost her boys—because we never again went to family dinners and my mother and Gram never spoke again.

  When we pulled up to my house, I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned toward Gram whose hands were tense at ten and two on the steering wheel. She didn’t put the car in park, just sat there with her foot on the brake, waiting for me to hop out. It didn’t surprise me, though, I knew she’d never step foot in our house if she could help it—not even if I needed her to run interference.

  “Thanks, Gram!” I told her with a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call you this week—I have Thursday and Friday off from school so maybe I can come spend the night.”

  “Sounds good, baby girl,” she replied with a tight smile. She was anxious to leave, nervous that she’d have to interact with my mom if she came out of the house.

  I pushed open my door and climbed out, leaning back in to give her one more smile. I hated leaving her
even though I knew I’d see her again soon.

  “Love you!”

  “Love you, too. Get on inside,” she ordered with a nod as I shut the door behind me.

  I knew Gram wouldn’t pull away from the curb until I’d walked in the front door, so I jogged to the front of our two-story house and let myself inside. It was quiet, almost eerily so. I slid my shoes off and dropped them into a basket by the front door and walked further into the house, finding my parents sitting in the living room waiting for me. My mom was on the couch facing the wide doorway, and when I met her eyes, she stood up and started toward me.

  I couldn’t tell what she was thinking—her face was completely blank—so I stood there stupidly as she got closer, and I didn’t even flinch when she raised her arm. I wasn’t prepared for her to slap me across the face before my dad, who’d jumped out of his recliner, could stop her. She was screaming in Spanish about what a horrible daughter I was, and all I could do was stand there in shock while she berated me. I could feel myself crying, tears were rolling off my chin and my cheek was on fire, but I was too stunned to do anything.

  She’d never hit me before.

  Finally, my dad pulled her away from me and took her place, speaking in a low but furious voice.

  “We got a call from one of your friends this morning. I’m pretty sure I told you to stay away from Mallory, but according to her, you two went to a party together last night,” he hissed, clenching his jaw. “She was worried when she tried to leave and couldn’t find you. She said she called your phone over and over, and when you didn’t answer she decided to try and call us. Funny thing about that, I thought you’d been at your grandma’s last night.”

  “Dad—” I tried to explain but he cut me off with an angry movement of his arm that had me jerking away from him.

  “Don’t even try it, Callie! Obviously, you can’t be trusted and neither can my mother. I’ll call her when I’m done with you,” he stated menacingly, causing guilt to rush through me at what I imagined my Gram would go through. “You’re grounded. I’ll let you keep your phone on the off chance that Cody calls from school, but I’ll be monitoring when you use it. Don’t use it,” he told me, his voice icy.