23. The Past Is Trying To Kill US

Chapter 23

The Past Is Trying To Kill US

M eredith

"I am sure this is all a misunderstanding. Why don't you explain it to us, Pulse?"

My aunt was using the same tone she'd used on me as a child. I clearly recognized the sweet soft tones that lured you in, only for you to tell your secrets. She'd then hit you with the disappointed tone. By then, it was too late. You were in trouble.

"Shut the fuck up. They'll probably just kill you or send you to the brothel. Have you even been on your back, you old hag?"

Pulse wasn't very good at this. He was trying to watch the road, but when he glanced to check the gun in his lap, the car would swerve.

I wasn't sure what to do, but I wasn't going down without a fight. No one spoke to my aunt that way, including me.

"Pulse," I said. If my tone had a name, it would have been Resting Bitch Face Meets Pissed Off Pregnant Woman. "Real talk. What the fuck is going on?" I wasn't sure he would take the bait, but if I could get his attention, maybe he'd forget the gun.

"They want you," he said, as he met my gaze in the rear-view mirror.

I flippantly said, "Yeah, get in line. I am a hot commodity right now." Tossing my hair over my shoulder gave the right impression. His eyes widened as he watched me through the mirror. I didn't know how to steer this conversation, but we needed information .

"You sure know how to pick ‘em. Shitty taste in men, sweet cheeks." Pulse clicked his tongue against his bottom lip as he refocused on the road. I could do this. I could keep him talking.

"Tell me about it, stud." Come on asshole, give me what I want so we can stop this car.

"You were going to marry Brandon. That's pretty self-explanatory. How he ever got it up, who knows? They put Rosetta in front of him, naked, and he didn't even have a chub." Pulse kept looking behind us, but I could have told him the MC would maintain their distance until they came up with a plan. They had Bluetooth helmets and were probably chatting.

"He did alright. Nothing spectacular, but it got the job done." I went in for the kill shot and said a silent apology to my aunt. "I bet you could do better."

"Boss won't let me fuck you. I tried to explain it wasn't a problem, but the jefe had his reasons." He side-eyed my aunt. "No one cares about you."

"I'd break you in half." My aunt was playing the bad cop to my good cop. I didn't know she had it in her.

I leaned forward and shifted in my chair so that my feet were on the floor mat. I pretended like I was interested in this conversation, but I really wanted to know how far I could reach. Aunt E and I side-eyed each other. We were on the same mental page. There was no plan, but we were buying ourselves time.

I was out of ideas, but I needed him to talk, so I started with the obvious issue. Grizz would be so proud. "So, Pulse, you know the brothers will never patch you in now."

"I never cared about their patch. It doesn't mean shit since they're not one-percenters." He glanced in the mirror, out the back windshield. The brothers must have been too close because he stepped on the gas. I didn't want to know how fast we were going.

"So, how did you prospect? You obviously passed the background check." I threw in a laugh that I hoped sounded sexy. Less scared, more sex bomb .

"It wasn't hard. They didn't dig deep enough." The gun was pointing down, like he'd forgotten he was holding it. I leaned forward a little more to create intimacy, and my belt rubbed against my skin.

Something in my mind clicked, and I focused on one keyword. "Who are you related to?" I asked him.

"El Sombra Roja."

"The Red Shadow," my aunt whispered. I did a double-take. What secrets was Aunt E hiding? I telepathically sent her a message that we would have a chat later. "I have a past," she said to placate me.

"Okay, who wants to fill in the rest of the class?" I truly did not know what was going on, but it seemed like these were pieces of the mystery. Sabre would want to know, and it might get me a few brownie points. I quickly scolded myself. I didn't give a shit what Sabre thought.

"Story time, sweet cheeks. Pay attention." We'd already passed four exits, heading in the opposite direction. How much longer would this continue? I'd felt safer on the back of Grizz's bike than in this car.

"El Sombra Roja used to be the most powerful man in Mexico, but he decided a few years ago to expand his legit businesses. That's all fine and dandy-like, but you still have to reign supreme over the not-so-savory ones. It's what gives you power. Control." He looked over at my aunt. "Right, Mom? You dated him."

My head pinged back and forth between them as I tried to grasp what was happening. My finger pointed in each of their directions in tune with my head, while my mouth hung open. I didn't look down, but I could feel my toes tapping their own beat. Aunt Elizabeth was Pulse's mom? If she was, then that would make him my cousin, right? I'd heard of people finding relatives they didn't know existed with DNA kits. This was too much, and I loved other people's drama. "What in the fuck are you talking about? That has to be a lie. Aunt Elizabeth, what's he smoking? "

Pulse was well aware that he had the upper hand in this conversation. He sneered at my aunt, who'd gone pale. She looked like she was a few seconds from passing out.

My aunt turned in her chair to face Pulse. "I met your father when he was in college," she said to him, ignoring me in the back. "Back then, he was just Alex. I knew nothing about the cartel or his family history. He kept it from me." She still was pale, but now it appeared as if she wanted to cry. Her eyes never left the side of Pulse's face, looking for any family resemblance.

"Peter," she breathed, "I only spent a few hours in your life. People always say that if a loved one returned, they would recognize them instantly, but you were only a baby. I should have looked closer when you were first introduced. It's easy to define where each of your features come from."

She brought her hands around her neck, massaging the muscles in the back. "I loved your father, but he lied to me. When you were born, he couldn't maintain those lies. He walked right out the front doors of the hospital with you in his arms and vanished back to Mexico. I wouldn't understand until much later why the hospital let him. They didn't have a choice." Now there were actual tears in her eyes, but she quickly wiped them away.

"I tried to contact him. I called, I wrote, and I even planned to cross the border with my father's help. Right before the trip, an invitation came in the mail. It was your father's wedding to Lucia." She chuckled dryly. "The note stated that if I fought for you, they would send you back to me. In pieces." She choked on a sob. "I didn't have a choice. I let you go and hoped for the best."

"That's a great sob story there, Mom. Don't worry. I've made my way, and when this is over, I'll be the most powerful man in Mexico. I can probably bury the fact that I am half-gringo."

"What's going on, Peter? The truth." My aunt reached out to place her hand on his forearm, but he pulled away from her. She dropped her hand back in her lap, her bottom lip quivering .

I tried to lean to the side to look at Pulse, but my best viewpoint was through the rear-view mirror. As I listened to them, I could see the family resemblance. He was dark-haired and had a darker complexion, but if you looked closely, you could see my family's bone structure in his cheeks and forehead. He also had my aunt's turned-up nose.

"Lucia's dead, and dear old dad has decided that he wants to put the family back together after twenty-seven years. Speaking of which, Uncle Gerry really needs to stop taking cartel cases. He's missing the minor details. He needs to be put out to pasture before the cartel gets a hold of him." Pulse's eyes shifted to the back of the car. "Your boyfriend is at the back of the pack, sweet cheeks. Doesn't he want to protect his baby?"

"How do you know about the baby? I didn't tell anyone until last night."

"Dr. Vargas is very resourceful. She's banging one of the sicarios, so when you booked your first appointment, you stepped into the hornet's nest. They really wanted Grace, but you'll do for now," he sneered at me through the mirror.

"I am always second fiddle to Grace." I was in the middle of an identity crisis, so there was some truth in my voice.

When the first pregnancy test had come up positive, I had grabbed my phone to call Grizz. I had wanted him to know immediately, but something had stopped me. It was this intuition that maybe the test was false. I ran out to the store and bought ten more. I was still in disbelief when they all turned positive. That was when I'd made the appointment with Dr. Vargas. Since I was Grace's sister, she'd put two and two together.

It was all Grizz's fault. I'd wanted to tell him the weekend that everything had fallen apart. When he was about to leave the clubhouse, he'd called me and let me know some brothers were coming with him. It'd ruined my plans, but I couldn't tell him to ditch them. There would have been too many questions, possibly an argument, and I would have had to tell him over the phone. I was going to make the best of it, and when I had a moment alone with him, that was when I was going to spill. That moment never came, and we never discussed the future .

My life had imploded when I'd watched Sabre put his arm around Grace. I'd heard him claim her and the baby, but I hadn't thought about the ramifications of what they really were. They hadn't seen each other in two months, and I hadn't thought there was any way something was going on. I hadn't thought she'd even called or texted him back.

It was all predetermined from that moment forward. It didn't matter that Grizz was my perfect match. Sabre wanted Grace, and watching my sister, she was going to let it happen. All my hopes and dreams with Grizz had crumbled into dust, to be swept away into the trash. My life had become too entangled with Grace's, and I needed to distance myself. Brandon had called the next day, and I took it as a sign to run in the opposite direction. That was when I knew my relationship with Grizz was over. I didn't think twice that I hadn't told him about the baby.

I probably should have unpacked years of trauma and seen a therapist, but it was easier just to play the selfish bitch. I was good at it, and no one questioned it. It was what I knew best, but I'd picked Brandon when I'd seen his name pop up on my phone. He was the one I had run to, even if he was the worst likely choice.

"Why are you doing this if your father is trying to expand again? I haven't talked to him since the day you were born." My aunt was pleading with Pulse. I thought she really wanted him to pull over and just hug her.

"See, that's the thing, Mom. Men in power forget how they got it. I don't plan to make that same mistake."

"What have you done, Peter?"

"It's not what I have done. It's what Dad has forced me to do. The Lopezes rode into town and slowly took business away. Dad should have gone to war then, but he didn't. He figured hitting a few random targets of theirs would work. Newsflash: it didn't, and the Lopezes just grew in money and in power.

"Arranging a marriage between two cartels didn't work either. The only thing that will work is for me to help legitimize the Lopezes. They'll start the war. El Sombra Roja will be dead. I'll be so distraught that they killed my father, I'll wipe them out completely. Win-fucking-win. "

I leaned forward again in my chair. My belt buckle rubbed against my skin as I shifted. It was uncomfortable, but it gave me an idea.

"What do you need a baby for if you have this amazing plan, cousin?" The word burned on my tongue. Though we shared the same blood, I would never claim him. He'd be lucky if he didn't see the inside of a body bag after all of this.

"Manuel Lopez plays too rough with Lucia's daughter. She's already had a hysterectomy." He smiled as if this was funny, but my heart went out to the girl. "Manny needs the baby, so the arranged marriage will seal the covenant between both factions. Dad will never see the war that's already brewing on his front lawn."

I tried to catch my aunt's eye as I slowly slid the strap of my belt through the buckle. I didn't want to make a sound, and as long as Pulse didn't completely turn around, he'd never see what was coming.

I paused. Checking on my aunt again, I saw she wasn't paying attention to me either. In any other circumstance, I would understand. However, her demon spawn was trying to kidnap us.

I went back to my belt and loosened it so that both flaps were open. Checking on them again, I found Pulse still staring at the road, and my aunt was still staring at him. I pulled the belt through the loops in my pants, giving a silent cheer when it came free.

I looked for the gun. In all the excitement, Pulse had set it down on the console. He was too busy telling my aunt what a horrible mother she'd been. My aunt, like the poised woman she was, sat there and took it.

I waited.

I shifted forward and curled my body over my knees. I didn't want him to see the belt until it was too late.

I waited some more, gripping each end of the strap in my hands.

When Pulse turned to look at the road again after his last diatribe, I struck. Wrapping the belt around his neck, I pulled as tight as I could. He was trying to keep the car steady while reaching for the gun. My aunt fought the gun out of Pulse's hand. I held on to the straps as tightly as I could, digging my knees into the back of the chair for leverage. He was quickly losing the battle to breathe.

A shot rang out.

Pulse slid back against the seat, losing control of the car.

He was dead, but his foot was still on the accelerator.

"Mer, open the door and jump," my aunt screamed. "Now!"

I said a silent prayer. Please protect my baby and make sure Grizz knows I love him.

I tried to land on my back, but when I hit the pavement, everything went black.