His to Own: 50 Loving States, Arkansas Read online

  June stares right back. But he can tell she’s definitely not checking him out. More like taking him in, getting the measure of him.

  Mason lets her, even though he’s sure she ain’t going to like what she sees. He knows he’s scary as hell. Partly thanks to genetics, partly because of him going the extra mile to cultivate a look that says, “the last thing you’ll do on this earth is fuck with me.”

  Yet for one crazy second, he wishes he looked more…normal. Less threatening. That the black girl named June in the cabin doorway could see someone else when she looked at him. But those fragile wishes burn to ash when her eyes wander down from his face to the patches on his leather vest…

  Oh fuck. Mason suddenly becomes aware that she might not have gotten a good look at his vest under the orange streetlights in Razo’s hood. What with all the drama, she might not have taken in every single bit of him the way he’d taken in every single bit of her.

  Her brow furrows as she studies the patches. Puts two and two together.

  Then a look comes over her face…

  One that stabs Mason in his chest, with a rough, sawing pain far uglier than any inflicted by the serrated blade of his ever-present bowie knife.

  “Are you seeing this, June?” the kid asks excitedly from the kitchenette, still clueless about the newly arrived tension in the room. “You can start cooking again like you been wanting to!”

  The girl’s excruciating gaze finally swings away from Mason and towards the kid.

  And she smiles. For the boy’s sake, Mason senses.

  But then her forced smile wobbles, and she doesn’t so much sit as collapse on the bed nearest the door.

  “June!”

  The kid rushes to her, face drawn into a frown of concern rather than the usual “happy-all-the-time-for-no-fucking-reason” look he’s had on since Mason met him.

  The woman’s about to pass out. Mason can tell. But she squeezes the kid’s hand and gives him a reassuring smile. Her face is on par with an angel’s, even as her lids flutter and she keels over on the bed.

  “June? June?!” the boy calls out, his voice cracking with worry.

  Mason pushes the kid aside and crouches down over his mom to run diagnostics. This is definitely not how he pictured their first touch, but he shoves that thought to the back of his head and does what he has to: checks her eyes, her pulse, and all that other shit.

  The good news is she doesn’t seem to have a concussion. She’s hasn’t really even passed out. She wakes easily when he pries one of her eyes open. And when he shines his pocket flashlight into it, she doesn’t flinch. Only closes her eyes as soon as he’s had his look.

  “She on anything?” Mason asks the boy.

  The kid shakes his head. “No, she don’t do any of that. That’s how her mom died. She don’t even drink.”

  No drugs. No alcohol. But the kid’s not quite looking him in the eye. Mason squints at him, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on.

  “You hungry?” the kid asks all of a sudden, like his mom’s not near passed out. “Maybe…maybe we should get something to eat.”

  “Kid, what in the hell does food have to do with—” Mason starts to asks…but then his instincts switch on. “Hold on…when was the last time she ate?”

  A long, sober beat passes…then the kid’s answer comes back in a tone way more quiet than any he’s used so far. “Uh, well, Razo brings us food and tells us when we can eat. But sometimes he forgets. And if you remind him…”

  The kid trails off in a way that tells Mason everything he needs to know about what happens if anyone asks that little beaner shit for food. It all makes sense now. June’s complete lack of reaction to all that’s happened to her thus far, her slumped position in the car, her sudden need to take a nap. Like, right fucking now.

  Mason stands, shaking his head. He really should have killed that cholo prick when he had the chance.

  “She was supposed to get something tonight, you know…when Razo let her out,” the kid continues. “But then you showed up. I wouldn’t have eaten our last can of spaghetti if I’d known she wasn’t going to eat at all. But she ordered me to eat…” The boy looks down, a guilty expression on his face. “I should have said no. Made her eat some, too.”

  Shit… Mason wearily scrubs a hand over his face. “Okay, okay. Just tell me, when did you eat that can of spaghetti?”

  “Two days ago…”

  Well, fuck me…

  Mason heads for the still open door.

  “Where you going?” the kid calls after him.

  “To get some food for you and your mom,” Mason calls back over his shoulder.

  Then it occurs to him to say, “And kid, just in case you’re thinking about running while I’m gone…don’t. I’ll find you way before you can find your way out these backwoods.”

  It’s a threat. A clear one.

  “Name’s Jordan.” The kid shakes his head. “But June’s not my mom. And we’ll definitely be here when you get back.”

  He folds his arms across his small chest in a way that makes Mason revise his earlier impression about the boy being clueless. “It ain’t like we got anywhere else to go.”

  Chapter 3

  June

  She opens her eyes to an all too familiar scene. Jordan, seated in a chair beside her bed, watching a soccer game while he waits for her to come to. If he’d been dealt different cards, June thinks there might’ve been a chance he’d grow up to become a medical professional. Maybe a paramedic—or a doctor or nurse. Because Jordan’s always there after the incidents with Razo, wielding ice packs, pain killers, gauze bandages—you name it—like a pro. Taking care of her, so she can take care of him.

  But…something feels off. She feels…off. Jordan is in his usual position, but…

  It’s been so very long, June has to search long and hard for the word to describe her current state: fine. Better than fine, even.

  She still has the Band-Aid on her chest where Razo burned her, but she’s not aching with bruises. Her head is clear, and her stomach—well, for the first time in months, it doesn’t have the awful clawing feeling inside…that ever-present sensation of hunger.

  This more than anything confirms she’s not in the cul-de-sac anymore.

  “What’s going…?” she begins, slowly propping herself up on one arm. Her voice sounds croaky and dry from disuse.

  “June! Hold on, let me get you a drink,” Jordan says, hopping up from the chair.

  June pushes into a seated position and takes a good look around. No, I’m definitely not in the Cul, she thinks, blinking at the room. In the Cul, she and Jordan slept on a bare mattress in one of the otherwise empty pre-fab houses that dotted the neighborhood. But if anything, this room seems overstuffed. With heavy wooden furniture, and not one, but two beds. She glances down at the coverlet she’s under. It’s thick and covered with palm trees, so yellowed with age, she has to wonder how long it’s been on the bed. Decades not years, she suspects.

  The room reeks. Of cooked meat, sweat, and smoke…

  But not the same pungent-scent that overlays the Cul. Not weed. More like…Razo’s cigarettes—

  Razo.

  The previous night comes back to her like a bucket of icy water, cold and clear. The biker. The gun. The sale.

  Oh, God. She remembers it all in stomach-churning detail. Razo sold her. He sold her! To…

  A white supremacist. Razo sold her to a white supremacist. And she suddenly remembers everything in excruciating detail. The hand off. The drive. The moment when she finally realized what and who the biker is. The patches on his leather vest…

  “Here, drink this.” Jordan reappears by her side and pushes a huge, open bottle of Gatorade into her hands. “Mason said you’d need some electrolytes.”

  June takes a big gulp of the blue liquid. Just enough to wet her throat so she can ask, “How long have I been asleep?” without croaking.

  “Almost a whole day,” Jordan answers. “We fed y
ou some soup, and you got up to use the bathroom a few times. But mostly…you slept.”

  They fed her. She’s struck by a flash of memory. Of large hands pulling her up. Of a gruff voice ordering her to drink, to eat…

  Strangely, it takes a full stomach and a day and night of sleep for June to fully grasp just how bad her situation is. How her and Jordan’s luck has turned. From really awful to unbelievably shitty.

  Razo sold her. The only reason she’d been with him in the first place was because she didn’t know how else to take care of herself and Jordan after both their moms overdosed on a bad batch of heroin.

  “I got a cousin…” Jordan said after the shelter didn’t work out.

  Unfortunately, his cousin turned out to be a small-time drug dealer and thug named Razo.

  Better than the streets, June told herself when Razo offered her a position in his bed. Sleeping with Razo had to be way better than hooking, and it let her keep the promise she’d made to Jordan: that they would stay together, and out of foster care, no matter what.

  That had been six long years ago. And her first two years in the Cul were a fairytale compared to the last two.

  From the beginning, Razo hit her. Slaps for talking out of turn, backhands for accidently wearing a rival gang’s colors. But then the slaps turned into punches. And the backhands into beatings that kept Jordan home from school, tending to her wounds.

  By the time June realized she had to get them out of there, it was too late. She was a virtual prisoner in the Cul that Razo’s rapidly growing gang called home. She was penniless with a growing kid to feed. And she was reminded daily by Razo’s treatment of her that she was his to abuse, forever and ever. No amen.

  The years dragged by. She and Jordan lived firmly wedged under Razo’s thumb, and June disappeared further and further inside herself. Until the naïve high school kid she used to be disappeared, along with her teenage years, into the Arkansas night. June had found herself questioning her past, wondering if the teenage girl who’d once dreamt of becoming a graphic artist had ever really existed. Maybe June had only imagined that girl…read about her, or seen her on TV. Because the hell she lived in with Razo and his gang eventually felt like it was the only thing she’d ever known.

  Then, during those last few months in the Cul, things came to a head. Razo had moved on to younger, barely legal girls who were either too naïve or too dumb to see through his dangerous charm. And that wouldn’t have been so bad. Any real feelings June ever had for Razo—and there weren’t a lot there to begin with—had withered and died years ago, and her body welcomed the respite from his sexual attention. But unfortunately, just because Razo had moved on sexually, did not mean he had any plans to let her go, or relax his “rules” where she was concerned.

  No touching Razo’s girl. No talking to Razo’s girl. No looking at Razo’s girl for too long. Only he was allowed in the house she and Jordan occupied, and only he could bring takeout or groceries when he arrived to fuck her. Those were his rules, constructed out of sheer pettiness and not remotely influenced by any feelings of affection or love on his part.

  Even after he’d tired of her, Razo enjoyed keeping June as his prize. The nice, middle class girl he’d corrupted and now owned. Another notch on Razo’s belt.

  But it hadn’t been so bad. Well, not at first. Jordan still had access to regular meals at school. And he filched cans of food from charity boxes whenever he could. But then the school year ended, and their food supplies started dwindling fast.

  When they were down to their last few cans, June was forced to get creative. She went to the main house to meet with Razo.

  They didn’t discuss food or the lack thereof. Razo liked power games too much to just give them what they needed. Asking him for something he hadn’t offered could result in him starving them for longer, or worse, earn her a beating. And given how weak she was from lack of nutrition, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to recover from one of Razo’s attacks.

  Instead, June showed him her notepad with the design she’d been thinking about for his back. It was a beautiful sketch and she knew he’d be impressed although he would work hard to downplay it. The image consisted of two Dias de los Muertos-style Virgin Marys on opposite sides of an ornate cross, praying over a field of skulls. Skulls that could be interpreted as fallen Hijos or fallen enemies. Unlike her previous torso work, this image was further accented by two blood red rubies. One for each of the Hijos the gang lost in a recent skirmish with their enemies, the 2nd Streeters.

  Razo liked the drawing. Of course he did. June worked hard to design a tattoo worthy of the future cartel leader he wished to become.

  “There’s just one problem, though. See, I’ve never worked in color before.” June kept her eyes downcast, attempting to look as deferential as possible. As always, she found it much easier to talk with him—with anyone, really—as long as they discussed tattoos.

  Then she mentioned Greco, a master tattooist from that TV show, Lost Angels Ink. She told Razo he’d be at a nearby convention center on Thursday night, teaching a free master class on coloring techniques.

  In the end, it didn’t take much convincing for Razo to decide she could go—so long as she left Jordan behind, of course. Collateral in case she might be entertaining ideas about taking off.

  June agreed to his terms. After all, she didn’t have a choice.

  Plus, she and Jordan had a plan. Jordan would kick soccer balls in the front yard like always so Razo wouldn’t suspect anything. He’d stay out there until someone eventually complained about the noise and told him to go back inside. Then he’d hop over their back fence. Meet June at the food bank closest to their house.

  They’d pick up something to eat. And after that…

  Well, she hadn’t planned that far ahead. Her number one focus had been on getting them fed. And she’d hoped a full stomach would shed light on ways they could get out of this mess without breaking her promise to Jordan about staying together, no matter what.

  But then the racist biker happened before they’d been able to implement any part of the night’s plan.

  “Where’s our backpack?” she asks, setting the Gatorade aside on the nightstand. Like all the other furniture in the room, it’s well made but from at least four decades ago, if not more. “We’ve got to go,” she tells Jordan, swinging her legs to sit up on the side of the bed. She’s relieved to find she’s still dressed. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  No head-spinning, even though she sat up real fast. Wow. She hasn’t been able to make any quick movements without feeling dizzy for months now.

  But Jordan doesn’t move from the chair he’s already sat back down in. “We can’t leave,” he says. “He paid a lot to get you off Razo. And we don’t got any money.”

  June curses inwardly. It’s true. About them not having money. Also, about that guy buying her…and probably expecting something in return for his investment.

  With a chill, she recalls the previous night. When she got her first real look at him in the full light of the cabin. Oddly enough, she found him even more intimidating inside the decently lit room than he’d been back at the Cul. Maybe because now she could see him clearly. He was huge, at least a foot taller than she was and wide. He had long, coffee-colored hair…longer than her weave, even. And his mustache was so thick and heavy, it was impossible to tell where it stopped and his bushy beard began. Long hair and beards may be in style, but this guy is definitely no plaid-shirted, man-bun wearing hipster.

  He’s a wall of leather, denim, and muscle. A biker. And obviously so. Not like the ones on TV shows like Sons of Anarchy and that reality program, Hell Riders. More like the kind you see in old seventies films. Not anti-heroes or fascinating character studies, but villains who exclusively steal, rape, kill, and sell illegal goods as a way of life.

  And the way he’d looked at her. Those unsettling crystal blue eyes, staring down at her, intent, frustrated, angry. Like even though he made the decision to pur
chase her, she’s the one who’d done something wrong.

  This guy looked exactly like what he was. A death dealer. Like Razo. But way, way worse.

  Last night, while she stood there trying to digest the overwhelming presence of her new “owner,” she spotted the patches on his leather vest. The Hijos had patches, too, and most of them were subtle to the point of being difficult for a non-member to decipher.

  But you definitely didn’t have to ask for the meaning of the patches on the biker’s leather vest. Because it was loud and clear to June…from the Sgt at Arms patch with the old-style German cross, to the diamond shaped “1%” overlaying the confederate flag, to the round WHITE POWER patch with a tight fist square in the middle.

  Those patches told her all she needed to know about the man standing in front of her.

  And now….

  Now she’s wide awake with a full belly and a very alert brain. So she’s more than capable of understanding just how bad their situation is. White supremacist biker. Cabin out in the middle of nowhere. Oh God, oh God…

  What was he going to do with them?

  June looks around for their backpack, her mind in a panic. She needs to figure out a way for them to get away.

  “We don’t need to run,” Jordan informs her as if he’s reading her mind. He sounds calm, like he’s the voice of reason and she’s crazy for wanting to go. “He’s okay, this guy. I think we should stay here with him.”

  But June knows he’s not okay. He’s totally not okay. She thinks once more about the patches on his jacket, and has to swallow down the bile rising in her throat.

  “June, he didn’t hurt you when you stepped in front of his gun to protect me,” Jordan points out. “And he’s been feeding us. He went to the store and bought soup, and now he’s picking up a pizza. He’s okay!”

  June looks at the little boy she’s sworn to raise. She has no idea how to clearly explain their current situation without scaring him. Because this guy might be acting nice now—feeding them, giving them a safe place to sleep—but she feels certain it’s for reasons she doesn’t even want to imagine. Razo fed them at first, too. Made sure they had what they needed. That’s what bad men do…lower your guard, lull you into thinking everything’s going to be okay, and then strike.