Page 67 of The Vows We Keep
“Shit,” Catalina says, obviously coming to the same conclusion.
The room is some kind of office. It’s filled with boxes and papers. There’s a laptop on the desk. “Grab that,” I say to Catalina. “We can take it back to Vex.”
Catalina moves around the desk and gasps. “Oh.” She raises a hand to her mouth as she picks up a leather cut that lay across the chair. Her face screws up as she clutches it to her chest, and I realize she’s crying.
“Cat, sweetheart. What is it?”
She doesn’t answer, just hugs the cut even tighter as a tear drops onto the leather. A sinking feeling hits my gut, and I go to her, pulling her into my arms and pressing the cut between us.
I realize I’m offering her comfort rather than checking out if the cut belongs to her father as I suspect. Or whether there are any leads in his pockets. This isn’t me. The man who is known for focusing on the practicalities at times like this.
I kiss her forehead as she cries. When she stops and looks up at me, her face a mess of tears and snot, she simply hands me the cut and says, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
The patches sayPensa, which Catalina told me was her father’s road name when she first tried to kidnap me, andVice President. Catalina slides her fingers through two bloodstained holes, which, given their position, would have gone straight through his heart.
For a heartbeat, Camelot pops into my mind. I saw his cut, all scarred up after he’d gone beneath the wheels of a truck last year. The memory hurts.
“Did your father love you, Cat? Did he love his club?”
She opens all her layers and wipes her face on the hem of her hoodie. “The club? Yes. Me? I think so.”
“Then it doesn’t take a bloodstained cut with his name on it to tell you what you probably already knew. He’s dead, or he would have made his way back to you. If this was done to him by his own club, which is looking more and more likely, he wouldn’t have let this sit. If he were alive, he’d have driven back to the Los Reyes mother charter and raised a complaint for resolution. So, yeah, sweetheart, he’s dead.”
“Are you always this pragmatic?” she asks.
I think back over what I just said. “I have antisocial personality disorder. I don’t have the same sense of emotional attachment you do. I’m sorry if what I said hurt you. I was just trying to answer the question as honestly as I could.”
She nods, and I realize it’s not enough.
I take the cut and lay it back on the chair before pulling her into my arms and holding her tight. “I’m sorry about your papá, cariño. I wish I could make your pain go away. But I’ll make you a promise, right here. I’ll help you avenge him. I’ll help you figure out what happened to your club. And I’ll be by your side until it’s dealt with.”
21
CATALINA
The first sign we’re in trouble is the sound of a bullet passing by my ear that cleaves itself into the doorframe behind me. Both Niro and I drop to the floor and scramble on our knees into the hallway.
“Shit,” Niro curses, grabbing his phone. He pulls up Bates’s number and dials. “Bandits round the back of the fucking house,” he says when Bates answers. “Bullet through the rear window.”
Whatever Bates says in response, I don’t hear. Plus, I’m too focused on checking our current location. We both have our weapons drawn. The hallway is central to the house. We’re safe from a sniper, but not a forced entry.
“Keep down,” I say. “We should get to our bikes.”
Niro nods. “Let me lead.”
I hear the roar of Bates’s bike and hope it’s a distraction. “Fine. Go now.”
We hustle, keeping low and pressed tight against the wall. Gunfire sounds outside, and Niro runs for the front door. He throws it open wide without any concern for himself. A bullet splinters the door frame, but it doesn’t stop him. He’s fast to find the shooter and fires three shots in quick succession.
Our bikes are literally twenty paces down the path. Two gunshots sound from the rear of the house.
I don’t hear Bates’s bike revving anymore.
Niro tips his head toward my bike. “I’ll provide cover. Go.”
Without question, I do as he says. Then I return the favor by doing the same for him when he runs for his bike. We tear away from the front of the house and find Bates climbing onto his bike. Hand signals pass between the two of them, and we drive on. It takes less than a minute. But this time, Niro rides next to me.
I’m not certain when I made a conscious decision to ride with Bates and Niro back to New Jersey. What happened after I found Papá’s cut is a bit of a blur. The gunfight. The adrenaline. Niro and Bates’s hushed conversation about an organization called the Righteous Brotherhood, which was not only growing but had recently claimed Joplin. Bates’s best guess is that the arrival of our bikes in town alerted them to our presence. But I haven’t even processed what that could mean.
