Hard Rider

“Fift…fifteen?” I could barely stomach it.

“That’s right, Detective. Fifteen girls have been stolen from their homes, from their families, from their communities… and nobody cares. The parents go to the police and end up fucking deported. The law isn’t going to help them. The media isn’t going to represent them. They’re being sold into sexual slavery, and nobody has the balls to put their own necks out and save any of them.”

“Nobody but the Devil’s Dragons…”

“You’re goddamn right.”

Keeping his eyes on mine, he stiffened his back, pulling away from the island.

“You’ve come here, asking questions about those fucking cheerleaders. I’m not saying their kidnapping isn’t a tragedy. Of course it is. But don’t even try and tell me that you or anybody else noticed what’s really happening down here.”

“I didn’t know,” I sorrowfully told him.

“Of course you didn’t know. Everybody turns a blind eye, but we’re going to do what they won’t… We’re going to go after these fuckers and we’re going to stop them before they take anyone else.”

“You didn’t go to the press with this?”

“Of course we did. Missing, undocumented girls don’t exactly make compelling headlines as far as the local stations are concerned. Believe me, we tried to drum up some other eyes on this thing…”

“How long have they been doing this here? Two months, did you say?” I asked him, lost in thought. I was doing some of the math in my head.

I was starting to realize how this all fell into place… the girls, Hunter’s relation to my case, everything…

“About two weeks after they took the cheerleaders across the border… It took them a while to iron out the kinks, but they have a well-oiled machine now. Up until half a month ago ago, they’d taken maybe ten or fifteen girls, maximum. They’ve abducted that many since… I laid everything out for the Tucson Police and they fucking turned me away,” he snarled, staring out at the moon. “They didn’t give a single fuck. Bullshit about jurisdictions, and unreliable testimonies… for my efforts, I got myself interrogated for hours, along with some of my best men… and then thrown out on our asses.”

“They didn’t believe you?”

“Like I said, illegal immigrants leaving this country isn’t exactly one of their primary concerns.”

I bit my lower lip. “Have you reached out to the El Paso authorities?”

“That’s why it took me a while to make it to Tucson,” Hunter bitterly replied. “They wanted even less to do with the problem. Held me up a while. Spent a few nights in jail under some bullshit charges… they’re not exactly happy to have us around, even if we try and clean up the things that they won’t touch.

“When the leader of their newest resident club knocked on their front door… evidence or not, they made some trouble for me. That’s why I rolled the dice with Tucson… I thought that the people at Ground Zero on the missing cheerleaders would want to know that I’d found their abductors.”

“And they didn’t,” I repeated.

“You tell me. You read the file…”

We stood in silence together for a short while, contemplating these things. It was starting to get late – I glanced up over at the clock, realizing that it was getting close to midnight already.

“I want to help,” I blurted out.

He didn’t seem to notice my words.

“Hunter, if there’s anything–”

“I heard you,” he cut me off, his handsome, stern glare matching my gaze. “And I don’t doubt that you can handle yourself. There might be a use for you in the coming storm…”

“Coming storm?” I asked, looking for clarity.

“That’s right, Sarah,” he replied. “I’m waiting on information from one of my scouts in the area. These twins that were abducted… I have reason to think that they haven’t gone across the border yet. If that’s so, I might be able to rescue them – and from there, we can figure out how to track the cartel’s movements.”

“What? Seriously? That’s huge!”

Hunter ignored the praise. “With a pinch of luck, I might be able to save whoever they haven’t sold off yet…” His eyes cut to mine, “…And maybe your cheerleaders will still be around.”

“You think I can help?”

“Maybe…”

He crossed the kitchen, pulling me into his strong, tender arms. I relaxed into his embrace, my face resting against his shoulder.

I thought back to how naïve I had been as a teenager. All that I could see was a reality in which Hunter’s world had molded him into a selfish killing machine, serving the leaders of his club with thoughtless, sterile precision.

But none of that had happened.

He’d bent the club to his mold, flushing out the wicked and leading the Devil’s Dragons MC to a new era – one of honor, respect, and fighting for the right causes.

The young Sarah had been so foolish.

Hunter was never going to be in danger by joining this world; instead of his light being snuffed out in the dark, the fire within him rose until it burned away all the shadows.

I was ripped from my thoughts by a buzzing in his pocket. My lips pressed against his tight skin as he flipped open a heavy, durable phone, glancing down at the screen.

“Hunter… I will do everything that I can to help you,” I promised him. “Whatever you need.”

“It makes me happy to hear that, Sarah…” he murmured softly before I heard the satisfying click of the phone snapping shut again. “…Because according to that message, Víboras Verde is moving the girls tonight.”

Chapter 47

I followed behind Hunter as he rushed off on his bike towards the club. He had every intention of sobering up as many of his bikers as he could in order to launch a spontaneous strike against the cartel.

A feeling of dread overcame me.

Hunter seemed fit to ride and my mind was spinning at the prospect of what he was asking me to do… Even if the two of us were fit for whatever was coming, there was no telling what debauchery his club had gotten up to after we left.

Compounding my dread was my ringing phone. After the third missed call, I finally dug it out and almost panicked.

It was Lieutenant Crabbe.

What on Earth is he doing calling at this hour?

My worst fears were realized as I reluctantly, fearfully answered the fourth call.

“Well, if it isn’t my wayward fucking detective,” the Lieutenant’s voice crackled out over my speakerphone. “When I told you to get a lay of the land, I didn’t exactly think that I had to say Stay in motherfucking Tucson.”

“I think I might be onto something,” I answered as carefully as I could. “After our last conversation, I wanted to be certain before I–”

“You think you’re onto something,” he snuffed down the line

. “Alright, Detective, let me give you the benefit of the fucking doubt. What do you possibly think you have FOUR FUCKING HOURS away from the city I specifically sent your ungrateful ass?”

“Cartel,” I answered quickly. “There are some other disappearances down here, and I have reason to believe that it’s the same people behind both.”

“You know, the funny thing about GPS trackers is that I know you left Tucson an hour after you rang,” the Lieutenant snarled over the radio waves. “I knew the moment you drove outside of a fifty mile radius of that city…”

What, seriously? What the fuck?

“So, tell me,” Lieutenant Crabbe continued, “Who the fuck exactly did you find to interview to give you this lead of yours?”

I was backed into a corner with no other way out… and I had only one card to play.

“There was a secondary investigation, done by people in the area with vested interest in these girls,” I answered. “A biker club by the name of the Devil’s Dragons.”

“ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME?!” He screamed down the line. “Are you telling me that I have to hold your goddamn hand through the fucking case files?”

“But Lieutenant, I–”

“You listen to me right now. I don’t know how much goddamn clearer it had to be for you to discredit the bullshit spewed by some biker fucks that went vigilante… Our people in Tucson vetted their shit. And that’s what it was! Shit! Grade A, primo horseshit purveyed by the local thugs to put the police on a wild fucking goose chase! They wanted less heat around so they could swap drugs, you stupid, miserable fuck!”

“I think there’s more to it,” I calmly replied. “I’ve met with these people. These aren’t your typical thugs. They’re trying to do something meaningful. They want to give a voice to all these abducted girls–”

A sharp intake of air over the line silenced my words, and I felt my chest seize up.

“This is over that photograph, isn’t it?”

The wind was sapped out of my sails.

“That’s what I fucking thought. I saw how you looked at that guy. You know him, don’t you? How the hell did you get mixed up with a fucking biker gang?”