Bending at a precarious ninety-degree angle, I reach down for her small hand. “Put your foot in that hole. Yes, just like that.” She takes instruction, not saying a word. Not sure how much she understands, or if she’s just smart, I gently encourage her to on the assent.
Once she’s seated beside me, I hop down.
“I’ll catch you.” Holding up my arms, I do as promised when she launches herself into my arms without hesitation.
Cradling her in my arms, I make a mad rush into the house.
“Dios mìo.” Startled gazes meet mine as I burst through the kitchen with my bloody bundle.
“What happened, hijo?” my tia rises, hands trembling. She reaches out to me only to snatch them back, covering her mouth.
“Let’s get you all cleaned up.” Tio Manny says, like I didn’t just enter their home blood soaked with a child in tow.
“Hey, sweetheart, what’s your name?” Tia Pauline’s soft gaze rests on the little girl, who turns her somber eyes to meet hers.
“I don’t think she speaks Spanish, Tia.” Grimly, I supply as eyes, I now see are a deep espresso edged with amber meet mine now.
“What then?” My aunt asks. The little hand that has yet to relinquish mine tightens.
“Sabine. Sabine Touissant.” The soft lilt of a voice chimes out of nowhere.
Chapter One
THAT NIGHT
SABAN ~ PRESENT DAY
“Aye, get your gear. Come over to the clubhouse. Angel needs you.”
Listening to the rough gravel of his voice is like a serrated blade dipped in lust gliding over my skin. Not that I’d ever know what that experience is like with Snake, or anyone else, for that matter.
One, my guardian acts like he can barely stand me these days. Second, with the way my life is so locked down, I may as well be his prisoner, not his ward. Angel needs me — never Hadrián and definitely never the man he’s become — Snake — La Serpiente, a man as vicious as the viper he’s taken as his road name. Just as deadly as the fer-de-lance tattoo he has covering his entire body.
Closing my iPad, I shove it under my pillow. There goes my evening of reading my new favorite thriller author’s book about a sheriff hunting for a serial killer in a small Virginia town.
Ugh, I only think it. Not wanting him to hear me. Earlier he told me I sounded like a fucking child earlier when he forbade me to come to the club tonight.
“Guys are coming off the road. The only things they have on their minds are fighting and fucking. I ain’t got time to be putting motherfuckers down tonight.” He told me after we ate the dinner of ribeyes and fries he cooked for us. He saw me getting ready to go to el Diablo’s clubhouse with him and shut it down with the quickness.
“Sara has a tattoo she wants me to do for her. It’s an easy five hundred bucks, Snake.” The look he gave me would have peeled paint off a wall.
“And just why do you need money, martirio?” Just like the reptile, his road name denotes his eyes slit as he narrowed his focus on me, pulling his cut on. His voice slithered across me, cold and malicious, daring me to spill my secrets.
Already knowing I couldn’t win — I never win with this man — my designated guardian, the “ugh,” erupted from me like a geyser, my frustration clear.
I haven’t shared my hope of opening my own tattoo shop with anyone. Not even him. Especially not him. He’d shut that shit down so quick. He doesn’t have time to stand watch over a shop all day for me, he’d say.
As Angel’s primo, he doesn’t. I’m not asking him to. When I turn twenty-one next year, I can do it myself. With the money I’ve been saving since I started designing tattoos at sixteen, I can probably buy my shop outright.
“K.” He doesn’t respond, as is his norm. The line just goes dead.
Looking around, I grab my leather jacket, helmet, and gear. Maybe this night won’t be a waste after all.
Excitement rolls over me as I press Sara’s icon. Sending her a quick text: On my way!
Pulling my sisterlocs into the head wrap, I secure my hair under my helmet before getting on my custom-made bike when I see her praise hands reply.
There’srow after row of choppers as I pull into el Diablo clubhouse parking lot.
