The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2) (14 page)

“Give me this.” Marcos yanked the phone back as if sensing the battle of wills. Then he said to Chuito, “Don’t ruin my day, man. My cousin just became a world champion.”

“Yeah, he did.” Chuito couldn’t hide the pain in his voice. “He’d probably set you up for life if you’d let him.”

“Too bad I won’t let him.” Marcos snorted as if the idea was ridiculous. “Buy your mother a house. A big house.”

“With lots of nice furniture!” Chuito’s mother shouted from the background.

“And a car.” Marcos sounded genuinely pleased at the idea. “My tiá doesn’t take handouts easily. That’s a fucking privilege.”

“It is,” Chuito agreed. “I wonder how many belts I’d have to win before my cousin would let me do it for him.”

“A lot more than one.” Marcos laughed. “You keep working at it. Beat down a lot more motherfuckers, and then we’ll discuss it. Represent.”

“We’ll see.”

“Weeepa!” Marcos shouted into the phone, as if it were physically impossible for him to be upset about the rest of the bullshit. “Say it!”

“I already said it.”

“
Say it!
”

“Wepa.” It lacked the enthusiasm he’d used in the arena, but Chuito said it because he didn’t want to ruin Marcos’s day. “I love you, Marc.”

“Ay Dios mio, are you gonna cry, chica?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna cry.” Chuito found that it was close to being true, but not for the reasons Marcos thought. “I think I’m gonna come home after this. Maybe it’s time.”

“Fuck you,” Marcos barked into the phone. “You’re not coming home. I’m not letting you. Stay in Garnet.” He still made his accent extra thick when he said it. “Win ten more titles. Then you can come home.”

“Marcos—”

“Nope,” Marcos cut him off. “Stay there. For both of us. Our family deserves this. Make this happen for me. I need this, Chu. I need to see it.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t ruin my day,” Marcos reminded him sharply. “Promise me.”

Chuito hesitated and looked back to the locker room, where Wyatt was waving him over frantically. “I have to go.”

“Promise,” Marcos demanded. “Promise me you’ll make sure my cousin wins another belt. Promise you’ll stay there.”

Chuito closed his eyes and then whispered, “I promise.”

Marcos was quiet for a long moment after Chuito said it. Then he whispered into the phone, “Wepa.”

“Wepa,” Chuito agreed. “I’ll call you later.”

“You do that,” Marcos agreed. “Bye, cabrón. I love you too.”

Marcos hung up before Chuito could respond.

* * * *

It was a bittersweet night for Chuito, reminding him once again that his life was one big roller coaster.

He won the Light-Heavyweight title.

And found out his cousin was in deep with Los Corredores again whether he wanted to be or not.

Chuito knew Marcos. He didn’t like being a gangster before he went down for almost two years. If he was doing it now, that meant something grim was going on.

Chuito didn’t trust Angel anymore.

The power was going to his head.

Maybe the power was going to Chuito’s head too, because for the life of him, he didn’t understand why all the money in his bank account couldn’t fix this.

He was a fucking world champion.

Even his mother was letting him support her. No one had more pride than Sofia Garcia, but Marcos wasn’t going to let Chuito rescue him. He had overstepped Chuito’s mother in the pride department.

That was a special trick.

It was depressing the fuck out of him.

“Okay, okay, okay, I’ll admit that he should’ve pulled out the left hook before the second round.” Wyatt’s voice was still loud in the aftermath of the fight as he sat in the living room of Chuito’s master suite. “But y’all got to admit, it was holding out that long that threw Evans off.”

“That’s not admitting anything,” Clay said in disbelief. “You’re asking us to admit you were right ’bout something you just said you were wrong over. You were gonna have him keep up the orthodox fighting for another round. Thank God Chuito told you to fuck off.”

Wyatt laughed. “That was on the footage too. Roll it back. Let me see it again.”

“You just wanna see yourself in the footage. They didn’t get that on tape,” Jasper said with a snort of incredulity.

“No, no, they did,” Wyatt argued. “Roll it back. You’ll hear it. He told me to fuck off in front of millions of people.”

Clay huffed, and Chuito tilted his head, seeing that Clay was messing with the laptop they had in front of them on the coffee table. Clay, Wyatt, and Jasper all sat there and listened. Then Wyatt burst out laughing again.

“He said,
‘Fuck this.’
” Jasper laughed with him. “I heard it.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Wyatt held out his hands as he looked at the laptop. “I need to see it again.” They all watched the footage of the second round, and Wyatt jumped off the couch. “Look at that! Whew, boy, I ain’t never seen a knockout like that. Just bam. One solid left hook and Evans is out. That’s gonna go in the top-ten-knockouts-of-all-time reel for sure. That was fucking beautiful.” He turned to Chuito, who was sitting on the bed just watching them. “It was fucking beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Chuito looked at the phone in his hand, seeing the text from Marcos that he had been staring at for the past five minutes.

Don’t worry about it, bro. I got this. Proud of you.

“You are gonna come out here and celebrate.” Wyatt gestured to the living room. “It just ain’t even right that a twenty-two-year-old UFC champion’s not out doing what twenty-two-year-old fellas are supposed to do, but if you got to hang with us, you’re coming out here and watching the video of this perfect knockout.”

“Clay doesn’t go out after a fight,” Chuito pointed out, because he’d been at Clay’s last three fights. “Why should I be different?”

“I wanna know why you’re so fucking down in the mouth,” Wyatt growled at him. “’Cause you’re on top of the world right now, and you’ve been sulking since before the press conference.”

“Leave him alone, Wyatt,” Jules called from where she was working on her laptop at the dining room table. “It was a grim first round. He’s got five stitches to prove it. Maybe he’s just unwinding.”

“Nah.” Wyatt shook his head at his sister and then gestured to Chuito. “Come out here. I ain’t putting up with this for one more minute.”

Chuito rolled his eyes and stood. He pocketed his phone and went into the living room. Wyatt met him halfway and gripped his shoulder, shaking it lightly. “Tell Wy what the fuck the problem is and I’ll fix it, ’cause I can’t stand to see you looking so miserable the night you won a title belt.”

“You think you can just fix it?” Chuito held up his hand to Wyatt. “What if it’s outside your area of expertise?”

Wyatt grinned. “I reckon you won’t know unless you tell me.”

“Family bullshit,” Chuito admitted with a wince. “Just shit going down with my family’s got me stressed.”

“Boy, if your family ain’t over the moon with you, then they don’t deserve you,” Wyatt said with such confidence Chuito believed it. “What is this right here?” Wyatt looked around the room pointedly. “This is your family, and we’re all proud of you.
You did it
. You did what I never got the chance to do, and I’m happy about it. I’m fucking ecstatic over it. I want to see you happy too.”

“Thanks, Wyatt.” Chuito patted his back, surprised at just how deeply that statement affected him. “Really, gracias. I’m glad you were there.”

Wyatt touched the cut over Chuito’s eye. “It was a good fight.”

“It was a great fight,” Clay agreed as he grinned up at Chuito from his seat on the couch. “That was an amazing knockout. Evans went down like a ton of bricks.”

“Come watch it.” Wyatt gestured to the couch. “You ain’t even watched it yet.”

“I’m not ready.” Chuito shook his head, because seeing his fight footage always affected him differently than other fighters. He saw the darkness in himself on the film, and though he had to watch it at some point, he didn’t want to right now. Especially not
this
fight, because that knockout had been brutal. “Tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Wyatt pushed Chuito’s head lightly, because he knew Chuito didn’t like watching fight footage of himself. “Tell me what that
weeepa
thing means?”

Chuito flinched. “Don’t ever say that again. That hurts my ears just hearing you say it.”

Wyatt laughed. “What does it mean?”

“It’s just a Puerto Rican thing.” Chuito laughed with him. “It’s something we say when we’re excited.”

“Boy, your country is proud of you. The only Puerto Rican not partying tonight is you.”

“It’s the same country,” Chuito reminded him as he gestured back and forth between him and Wyatt. “We are part of the United States. We’re a territory. We use the same money you do.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” Chuito laughed again. “I know what you mean.”

“Is your family really giving you shit?” Wyatt asked as if he sensed Chuito’s inability to move on from the conversation earlier. “Tonight?”

“Nah, they’re proud of me. They’re excited. I just worry about them.”

“Then worry tomorrow,” Wyatt said dismissively. “Make tonight ’bout you.”

“I have to make one more phone call.” Chuito pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Then we’ll do something.”

“You want to go out?” Wyatt asked him. “I’ll go out with ya.” He turned back to the couch. “Y’all wanna go out?”

“I’ll go,” Jules said from the table. “I’m almost done with this. I need to change first, though.”

“I’ll go,” Jasper agreed too.

“I’m staying in,” Clay grunted from the couch. “Going to bed.”

“Jesus.” Wyatt rolled his eyes and gave Chuito a look. “See what happens when you don’t learn how to celebrate? You’ll turn into this grouchy asshole.”

“I’ve done plenty of partying in my life,” Chuito assured him. “I think I’m good.”

“You’re coming out, Chuito,” Wyatt growled at him. “I ain’t giving ya a choice ’bout it.”

“Fine,” Chuito agreed, because Wyatt was riding high over this win, and just like he didn’t want to ruin Marcos’s day, Chuito didn’t want to ruin Wyatt’s either. “Let me make one phone call. Then we can go out.”

“Okay, then.” Wyatt hit his shoulder and gave him another smile. “Make it quick!”

Chuito walked to the bedroom and closed the door, hearing Wyatt snap at Jules. “Go now, Ju Ju. ’Cause I know it’ll take you an hour to get changed. Close the dang laptop and go get ready. It’s already late. The sun’ll be up before we get out of this room.”

Chuito fell down on the bed and looked at his phone. There were no messages from Alaine. No phone calls. So he texted her instead.

You up?

She wrote back almost instantly despite how late it was.

Yes.

He called her, and Alaine answered on the second ring. “I didn’t want to call you. I reckoned you were busy.”

“Yeah, it’s been crazy,” he agreed and then felt a flush of embarrassment on the back of his neck as he asked, “Did you watch?”

“Of course.” He could hear her excitement over the phone. “It was amazing, Chu. I cried.”

“Why’d you cry?”

“I’m just happy for you.” She sniffed, her voice choked with emotion. “Been crying all dang night.”

“Oh, mami, no crying,” he said with a laugh. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“I’m proud of you,” she went on. “You did it. You won. Was your mother proud?”

“Yeah.” He thought of Marcos again. “They were all proud. They want me to stay in Garnet. Win ten more titles.”

Alaine gasped on the other end of the line before she asked, “Are you gonna do it?”

He rolled on his side and propped his cheek in his hand, even if the action made his head hurt worse. “I told them I would.”

“Are you gonna move out of our place?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked with a frown. “I like our prison.”

She laughed despite the tears in her voice. “It’s not a prison.”

“I’d rather be in prison with you than partying with Wyatt, Jasper, and Jules,” Chuito admitted, feeling like he was having the first sane conversation of the night. Now Alaine was his normal, and the rest of the world felt intrusive and loco. He wasn’t real sure when that happened, but it had and he clung to it as he asked, “What’d you eat for dinner?”

“Frozen pizza.”

He laughed. “That’s not good. You need me to cook for you.”

“I still got black beans in the fridge from before. No rice, though.” She sighed. “I wonder what I could put it with instead of rice.”

“Go buy rice.” He frowned. “Go buy rice before it goes bad. Don’t waste food. You always waste food. Did you eat the pork?”

“I got a little left.”

“Ay Dios mio.” Chuito rolled his eyes. “Eating frozen pizza when you got a whole fridge full off leftovers. I love you, mami, but you are
so
white.”

“You love me?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” he whispered into the semidarkness of the room, the throbbing in his head and worry over his cousin forcing him to let walls down. “I love you. You’re my family too. You make it easier. Wish you were here.”

“But Jules is there. Who would run the office?” she said as she took a deep breath, as if she needed to remind herself how to breathe.

Chuito didn’t argue with her, because they both knew even though they didn’t talk about it that letting Alaine come to his fights would make it obvious to the whole world that they were closer than just neighbors.

He didn’t want that for her, not when all of Garnet would gossip about it.

Chuito had crossed her father’s path many times, and every time it was tense. The preacher didn’t say anything to Chuito, just stared him down as if he knew what Chuito didn’t admit to anyone.

That whenever he closed his eyes and thought of a woman…it was Alaine.

“Chu,” she whispered into the silence, pulling him out of his thoughts. “I love you too. Just so you know.”

“Love me. Don’t be in love with me,” he warned her. “You wouldn’t want to be
in love
with me.”

“So you love me, but you’re not
in
love with me?”

Chuito opened his mouth, wanting to say yes, it was just a friendship-type love he felt for her, because lying about how he really felt would shut down what was growing between them.