Page 10 of Hammer’s Fall

“I don’t care. You know what I want from most places. Just get me something when you get your own stuff.”

“All right.”

He grinned, then grabbed a handful of Winter’s short-cropped hair and used it as a handle to tilt her head back. Camila’s eyes went wide at the rough treatment. It looked much like how her father used her hair to drag her where he wanted her. But he didn’t drag her out of the chair like Papá would have.

Instead, he bent at the waist and kissed Winter. Not a peck, but a deep, involved, open-mouthed kiss. When he stood, Winter had a dazed look on her face, making Camila wonder if she was okay.

“Order enough for Hammer too. I’ll be in his office. We’ve got to figure out how much trouble chica here will bring us,” the blue haired man said as he headed toward the short hallway where Hammer had taken her to use the phone.

“Who was that?” she asked once he’d disappeared from sight.

“Bishop. He’s my old man. What do we want to eat?” Winter said, picking up her phone.

“Does he always handle you like that?” Camila knew it was none of her business, but she wanted to know what to expect if she was going to possibly remain here, or with any branch of this group.

A sappy smile tipped Winter’s lip. “He wasn’t hurting me, he wouldn’t ever hurt me. Besides. I started the hair thing. I find it so hot when he does it, and he knows it. He’s trying to make me hunt him down and drag him back to our room.” Winter glared in the direction where he’d disappeared, though Camila didn’t think she was seriously angry. “So what do you want to eat?”

“Anything is fine with me.” She’d never had much choice in meals. She ate what Maria put in front of her or when Papá wasn’t home, she often ate with the older woman, but she'd only helped Maria in the kitchen once. Her father’s men had told him about it and that had been one of the worst beatings she'd ever endured. She’d not made that mistake again.

“I can order pretty much anything you’d like. There are a couple of Mexican places, pizza, burgers, Chinese, Thai, Italian, whatever. Is there something you’re craving?”

All the options overwhelmed her. Having never had anything but what Maria cooked or that was served at whatever event Papá had taken her to, she had no idea.

Camila shook her head. “You decide where, then I’ll pick something.” She wondered how long Papá’s men would wait to tell him she has disappeared. Had they even noticed yet? She didn’t have much to do with them unless she went outside or needed to go into the nearby town for some reason. It wasn’t uncommon for her to go several days without seeing them if she never left the main house. And with the courtyard in the middle of the house, she could sit there or putter with the plants and not have to go deal with his thugs. Because she’d figured out years before that while he claimed they were there to make sure she was safe, more often they spied for him and reported back everything she did.

When the time came, she chose food, not that it mattered—most of it would be new to her—but she was excited to try things she’d read about and seen on TV for most of her life. Looking around, she thought that this group was much like a family. While they weren’t blood, they treated each other much like she’d imagined a family would. Well, the men were louder and there were a lot of insults going back and forth, but no one seemed to mind. They tossed another insult out and kept going as if it was something they did or said every day. But she’d also noticed they didn’t treat the women the same way. It was odd but she was drawn to it. Then there was Hammer. She’d only just met him but knowing he was close, that he would make sure she was safe, comforted her.

Chapter Nine

“Yo, you know that woman you brought back speaks three languages?” Bishop asked as he came into Hammer’s office.

“Really?” Hammer glanced over at the SAA, then back to his screens. He was reviewing what had come up when he input Camila’s name into his systems. It wasn’t much. He could see a birth certificate and, yes, her father was listed, but his name wasn’t uncommon, and since he wasn’t married to her mother, he must have previously assumed that it wasn’t the same man as the one he was looking for. He could see that she had the Mexican equivalent of a high school diploma, but he couldn’t find any records of her attending school, either before that or after. That was telling. Especially with the news that she spoke three languages.

“What’s her third language, do you know?”

“Portuguese.”

Hammer blinked as he slowly turned to look at Bishop.

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. She mentioned it to Winter, who sent me a text. I went and talked to her, and she confirmed. Think it will help?”

“We’ll see. We need to be sure we can trust her before we have her do much for us.” Hammer turned back to the screens. “I’ve only talked to her a little, most of that with Bulldog this morning. She seems to have no loyalty to her father. And from the little bits I’ve pulled from what she’s said, I can’t blame her. It seems he had her trained to be a wife or mistress with thoughts of using her to make some kind of alliance, to tie himself to another group by becoming part of the family. I can’t know without time, but having someone who can translate the Portuguese would be easier and likely far more accurate than the muddling through I’ve been doing.” He clenched his teeth, then forced himself to relax. The last thing he needed right now was to give himself a migraine. He scrubbed one hand over his face and took a deep breath then turned to the SAA.

“How do we know if we can trust her? How do we know she won’t take everything she learns about us and take it back to her father?”

“I don’t know that there’s a way to test something like that, at least not without a little risk.” Bishop tilted his head to one side as he watched Hammer, making Hammer feel a little bit like a bug under a microscope. He ignored the urge to move or fidget and continued to watch Bishop instead. “What’s your gut say?”

Mine! It was what his gut had screamed when he found her curled asleep in her bed in her father’s hacienda. He’d heard that same scream this morning when he’d woken with her in his arms. Not that he was ready to tell anyone that, not even Bishop or Bulldog. Hell, he was probably imagining it. He was not ready to risk his club and his brothers on a gut feeling with nothing to back it up.

“I’m not sure,” he turned back to the screens. He avoided looking at his brother. He didn’t want to chance Bishop seeing on his face what Hammer didn’t know how to express. He felt the other man’s eyes on him but ignored it. “You need something?” he asked when Bishop didn’t leave after delivering his news.

“Did you have time to make sure the cameras on the back fence are still working and there are no blind spots?”

“No. I got wrapped up in my rescue mission, and I didn’t even manage to find the girl I was after.” He shook his head and opened a couple of new windows. “But let’s do it now.” He pulled up the feeds. “Want to send one of the prospects out to walk the back fence so we can look for blind spots?”

“Sure.”