The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2) (11 page)

“That too,” Chuito agreed with a laugh. “Better than dealing for them, right?”

Marcos shrugged, clearly ambivalent about it. “A motherfucker can go down for either one. What does it matter now?”

“I’m not going to let you deal,” Chuito promised him, because Marcos was a reluctant criminal at best. “You’re not going down like your father.”

His cousin just gave him a look, but then Juan appeared with paper and pen before he could argue.

Marcos took them from him. “Gracias.”

“Get lost,” Chuito said to his brother. “Go do your homework.”

“Is this about the cars?” Juan asked as he looked at the paper, because he knew the two of them weren’t going to be drawing diagrams for school. “’Cause Tía Camila said—”

“It’s not about the cars,” Marcos said as he put the paper between him and Chuito on the bench and started drawing. “It’s to make your brother chulo. You want to stay and get chulo too?”

“It’s about chicas?” Juan raised his eyebrows curiously. “I want to see,” he said in Spanish, obviously to get on Marcos’s good side.

“What the hell do you know about chicas?” Chuito barked at him. “Get out.”

“You want to be a doctor. Stay. Doctors need to know this.” Marcos laughed as he worked on his crude drawing. “It’ll be educational.”

“Get out, Juan!” Chuito shouted at him. “Now!”

Marcos lifted his head and grinned at Juan. “I’ll show you later.”

Chuito shoved his cousin. “No.”

“Go.” Marcos waved Juan off, but Chuito could have sworn he saw him wink at Juan. “Do your homework. Go be smart.”

Sure enough, Juan left with a smile.

Chuito shoved Marcos again. “You better not fucking show him.”

Marcos rolled his eyes but went back to working on his drawing. “What the fuck do you think you’re protecting him from? He lives in the hood. He hears a lot worse than this every day. Besides, I was making out with chicas when I was eleven.”

“You’re a pervert.”

“True,” Marcos agreed. “But all muchachos are perverts. Except for you. Look at this picture, motherfucker. I’m going to teach you how to make any chica love you if you want them to or not.”

* * * *

“Chuito.”

He jerked when the hand touched his shoulder, and blinked into the semidarkness, expecting to be back in his old garage. Instead of his cousin’s light eyes, he found Alaine’s staring down at him.

Her soft hand was on his bare shoulder. Her unusual shade of light red hair, so pale it almost glinted pink in the moonlight, fell around him like a veil, and he stared at her as he fought his way back from his dream.

Chuito’s mind was still far away, making him feel fourteen again, insecure in his own skin, already too big, too mean for love, and haunted by the sins of a man he’d never met.

It was an odd memory to find its way into his dreams, except it wasn’t. It had been a long time since he’d fought the demons Alaine was churning up. These particular ones were the most terrifying, and Chuito had fought a lot of scary-ass demons in his time.

“You were talking in your sleep,” she whispered when he still lay there trying to wake up. “I was worried you were having another bad dream.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he let his gaze dip down to the V of her nightgown that exposed more of her tits than he should be seeing. Against his will, his dick started to get hard, and he rolled over, showing her his back. “Go back to your bed, mami.”

“We agreed I was going to sleep with you until you were feeling better.”

“I’m feeling better,” he lied as his hands started shaking and a fresh surge of cold sweat coated his body now that he was awake. This time he wasn’t sure if it was wholly the fault of the crash. “Go back to your bed.”

“I’m staying.” Her voice was firm, unbending in a way that didn’t seem to fit her gentle nature, but for some reason it did. “Do you want to tell me what your dream was about? I’m starting to think you need someone to talk to about all this.”

“Carajo,” he cursed and just pulled the covers over his head, hiding from her. He could be mean and tell her to get the fuck out, but the problem was he liked bossy women, and it wasn’t in him to discourage her. That would be like his cousin discouraging a woman from wearing a tight skirt when his entire life revolved around finding the next big ass. It wasn’t going to happen, but that didn’t change how loco the situation was. “This town is crazy.”

“You keep saying that,” she whispered into the darkness, sounding hurt. “Are you going to leave?”

He wanted to leave. He was in his self-imposed jail less than a week, and his resolve was already cracking. He wanted cocaine and pussy from the right kind of woman, because if the crash wasn’t leaving him desperate, Alaine certainly was.

He missed his friends.

His mother.

His cousin.

He missed Los Corredores, because while they were a gang of criminals, they were
his
gang and his to protect, and he didn’t quite know what to do with having nothing else to fight for.

All he’d ever done was fight to protect what was his.

He needed to work out, but the gym was closed.

Chuito was fucking miserable, so with his back still to her, he said, “I dreamed I was back in my old house.”

“Does your mother still live there?”

“No, we moved after the drive-by.” He winced as he said it, and Alaine must have noticed, because she reached out and touched his shoulder so gently he found himself admitting, “That’s how he died. My brother. We lost my aunt too. We lived with her since I was born. It was like losing a mother. We didn’t want to live there afterward.”

“That’s very sad, Chu.” She rubbed his back in a way no one had since Tía Camila had died, because his own mother had never believed in coddling them. “I’m truly sorry.”

He could hear the sympathy in her voice, but he didn’t want it. He reached behind him and grabbed her hand, stopping the caress. “Don’t.”

She pulled her hand back, sounding abashed. “That was inappropriate.”

He felt bad for making her uncomfortable, so he went on. “It was more memory than dream. I was in the garage, working out with a cousin. We were fourteen. My cousin—”

“The one in prison?”

“Yeah, it was his mother who died. We grew up in the same house.” Chuito didn’t know why he was talking about this shit. Maybe a part of him was hoping she would drag out a real confession from him, and it would scare her enough to stop looking at him like he was the greatest thing to ever walk into this backward town. “He was asking me to double-date with him. He used to do that a lot.”

“Why?”

Chuito smiled into the darkness. “To keep his date’s friend busy. My cousin’s sorta a player.”

“A player?”

“He gets lots of women,” he clarified with a laugh.

“And you don’t?”

“I didn’t used to.”

“But now?”

“Why do you want to know, mami?” Against his better judgment, he turned back to her, seeing the barest hint of a blush staining her pale cheeks in the darkness. “Shopping for a muchacho to help you with that virginity problem?”

“No,” she said quickly and narrowed her eyes at him. “Now who’s being inappropriate?”

“I never told you I was appropriate,” he said with a smile. “Anyway, I’m not your kinda man.”

“How do you know?” she surprised him by asking.

“’Cause I don’t do innocent virgins. I didn’t do them when I was fourteen, and I don’t do them now.” He winced at just the thought of it. “You’d have to get a lot older and a lot more experienced to get in bed with me.”

“You only date older women?” She sounded shocked.

“That’s right, mami,” he said in a taunting voice. “I got fucked for the first time when I was fifteen, and she was
still
older than you are now. Get the picture?”

“A twenty-year-old woman slept with you when you were fifteen?” she gasped. “That’s illegal.”

“Why?” He wagged his eyebrows at her. “I wasn’t complaining.”

“That’s terrible. You were assaulted.”

Okay, this chica was too much. He rolled over and laughed. A hard, sincere laugh, and it was nice because he couldn’t remember the last time he was so genuinely amused by something.

“I was loaded too,” he added, because shocking her was way too easy and so very much fun.

“Oh my God. I’m horrified, Chu,” she said as he laughed harder. “Really. That’s appalling. She got you stoned and took advantage of you.”

“She did,” he agreed as his entire frame shook with mirth. “And it was
tan bueno
.”

“That is not funny,” she cut off his amusement. “I’m about to go to Miami and give that woman a piece of my mind.”

Chuito honestly wouldn’t mind seeing that, but the thought of it sobered him as he sighed. “You’d have a hard time doing that.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” Her voice was sharp in warning. “I don’t have a hard time speaking my mind, in case you didn’t notice.”

“I noticed.” It was one of the things he liked about her. “That’s not what would make it hard. Antonia’s dead.”

He tilted his head and looked at Alaine. Her mouth opened and closed in shock before she whispered, “How’d she die?”

“Dealing on the wrong corner.” He closed his eyes at that, knowing that to Alaine it made Antonia sound like a terrible woman, even in death. “Antonia was a good person, Alaine. She wasn’t taking advantage of my first time. She gave me the bud to help me recover from getting jumped into our gang. They beat my ass. Badly. I had a big rep. They were testing me. They knew I could take it, but it pissed Antonia off and she wanted to help. Same thing with the sex. She was just trying to distract me from the pain. Like you, she was sweet and took care of sick gangsters.”

“But you said she was a drug dealer,” Alaine argued. “I don’t mean to insult the dead, but—”

“She dealt to feed her three brothers. Her father was in prison. Her mother was an alcoholic. She had a lot of mouths to feed and—”

“There are other ways besides—”

“I dealt,” he cut her off. “And I wasn’t doing it to feed children.”

She was quiet for a long time, her eyes wide and bright in the darkened room. “You did?”

“Sí, I did.” He nodded. “I was dealing until I came here.”

“Why?”

One word, so innocent and choked with horror.

He considered the answer for a while before he shrugged. “’Cause it was easy.”

“That’s it?” She sounded so broken all of a sudden. “No excuses?”

He gave her a grim smile. “No excuses.”

He expected her to leave, but she didn’t. Instead she asked, “Is your cousin in jail for dealing drugs?”

“No.” He propped his head on his hand as he looked down at her. “He’s in jail for chopping cars. We used to have this warehouse where we stripped stolen cars and sold the parts. He was our main body guy. One night he was working late, and the heat raided us. He hung back so the other guys in our crew could get out. He let himself get caught.
Gracias a Dios
, I kept the drugs at another warehouse, or he would’ve gotten a lot more than two years.”

“Were you there?”

“No.” He whispered it miserably, because if he had been, he was certain Marcos wouldn’t have gotten caught. “I was doing other shit.”

“Dealing drugs?”

“Stealing cars.” He closed his eyes again. “I stole most of the cars Marcos went down for chopping.”

Alaine was quiet once more, before she asked, “Why are you here, Chuito?”

“Guilt,” he confessed without hesitation, and it felt good for some strange reason to admit it. “I found my own prison. I can ride it out until Marcos gets out.”

“And then what?”

“I get out of this loco town and go home.”

Chuito rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. A part of him realized he was telling her all this with the hope she would rat him out to the Conners and give them a reason to cuff him and send him back to Miami. He found himself missing the danger and constant adrenaline rush that came with always being on the edge of prison or death. Maybe they’d catch him; maybe they wouldn’t.

Either way, Chuito could handle jail if his luck did run out.

This pretty gringa testing all the boundaries he’d put up for himself a long time ago was freaking him the hell out.

“What if you have something to stay here for?” Alaine asked the question in a raw, pained voice laced with unexpected determination, which was the exact opposite of what he was hoping for. “What if you find something better here than drugs and stealing cars?”

“I won’t,” he promised her, thinking Alaine was nothing if not surprising. “Everyone likes their own poison, chica.”

“That’s not true. I didn’t like my own poison. My daddy wanted me to get married to a man like him and have a buncha babies and be a good church wife who made casseroles for Sunday potluck. I wanted something different.”

“Now you’re sleeping with me.” He gave her a pointed look. “You should’ve stuck with Sunday potluck.”

“People can change, Chu.”

“No, they can’t,” he argued. “I was born un diablo, and I’m gonna die one. Devils don’t change, just like angels don’t change. You shouldn’t be in my bed, mami.”

“You’re here because you have heart,” she said so earnestly he almost believed her. “Devils don’t feel guilt. They don’t tell women to get out of their beds either.”

“You keep believing that.” Chuito snorted and rolled over. “Now go to sleep before I decide to test your theory and jack your halo.”

Chapter Twelve

Chuito woke up to the sound of a phone ringing, old-school, like something big and heavy and attached to a wall. He blinked, knowing it was important, but his body didn’t want to cooperate. He hadn’t had much sleep, but he also hadn’t had any more nightmares either. Just one dream about Marcos being Marcos. That was amazing when he had so much worse shit to dream about. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d closed his eyes without having nightmares.

In the background he heard, “Hello— Oh.”

He rolled out of bed and groaned, because every muscle he had hurt, and his body didn’t want to move. He saw that he was still in his jeans but shirtless, and he rubbed at his chest as he looked around, because it was cold as fuck.

Giving up on the quest for his shirt, Chuito walked out of the bedroom and found Alaine standing there in her nightgown, holding the portable phone to her ear.