[English] The Viper

The Viper
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He should have never agreed to a week with Katie.

Hell, he shouldn’t have left Miami to begin with.

He got the impression that he was being sent a message. He grew up with Angel. It was hard to imagine Angel actually taking out a hit on Marcos’s aunt, but he also didn’t trust him anymore. The possibility was there, and Marcos was a very long drive away. He was tempted to call Chuito despite the fight, because his pull in Los Corredores had always been much stronger than Marcos’s, who never had any inclination to be a leader. His cousin, on the other hand, had been running Los Corredores before he took off to Garnet and turned the job over to Angel. Most of the OGs, original gangsters, still had loyalty to Chuito first, especially now that he was killing it in the UFC.

His cousin was practically a god to Los Corredores, and Marcos was starting *****spect Angel hated that. That was why he was always buying out tickets to the fights, putting himself in Chuito’s face and reminding him that he still had power over him. Making it seem as if Chuito was somehow in that cage for his entertainment.

Marcos was starting to feel like a pawn too—another way for Angel to remind Chuito he was in charge now. He could put up with a lot of ****, but being a pawn against his cousin wasn’t one of them. He’d take himself out before he let that happen.

He slipped his arm out from under Katie, watching as she rolled toward him, as if unconsciously seeking him out when he pulled away. He waited until she settled on her back, and studied her for a second before he let himself out of the bedroom. He found his jeans by the couch and pulled them on.

He needed to get outside. To see the stars and clear his head. He grabbed Katie’s keys off the table and put on his shoes. He walked out the door shirtless, and the cold night air smacked him in the face.

“¡Me cago en ná!” he cursed as he locked her front door. “Spring break, my ass.”

He had parked his truck in the garage, because he didn’t want Katie’s neighbors to see it in her driveway. The garage was off from the main house and had a back door that Katie left open.

Of course she did.

He rolled his eyes as he got into the cab of his truck and grabbed his jacket that he’d tossed back there. He slipped it on and then walked down the street. There weren’t many houses on the block, but he decided to keep his voice low when he called Angel. People here would probably call the cops on his ass just for walking and talking on the phone.

Angel answered on the second ring. “¿Hola?”

“Who told you it was okay to go to my aunt’s house?” Marcos growled in Spanish.

“Hey, bro, take it easy. Paranoid much? Sofia was happy to see me. It’d been too long. I need to visit her more often.”

Marcos stopped walking. He hadn’t been wrong.

It was a threat.

“You don’t get to say her name,” Marcos warned him.

“Always so confrontational, Marc.” Angel sighed. “It’s getting old.”

He should have called Chuito, because his cousin was much better at this kind of bull****. Marcos couldn’t play the game. He wasn’t able to move the chess pieces on the board like Chuito. All Marcos was inclined to do was shoot first and ask questions later.

“What’s the deal, Angel?” Marcos asked when he accepted Angel was really doing this. “Why are you ****ing with me?”

“I thought we had a deal. I have work here for you.”

Marcos took a deep breath, forcing down the fury rolling under the surface. “I had things to do here first. I was just wrapping them up.”

“The gringa? Katie whatever.”

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, because he heard another veiled threat, and he couldn’t hold back his fury this time. “You don’t get to say her name either.”

Angel laughed, sounding more than a little amused at Marcos’s expense. “Mia told me about her. She said that’s where you went. She’s not too happy with you.”

“I don’t give a **** what your cousin thinks about it.”

“Always after the *****, right, Marc?” Angel laughed again. “You never change. Whatever. **** the gringa if you have to. Be back next week.”

“Stay away from my aunt. I swear to God, Angel, if you talk to her again—”

“We’re brothers,” Angel reminded him, his voice suddenly harsh. “Best not to forget that. I’m being nice because we go way back, and I know how you are. You’re the only one I’d be this understanding with.”

“I don’t come back next week, then what?”

“You should come back,” Angel said rather than answer the real question. “Your brothers miss you.”

“I’m an OG. I’ve bled for Los Corredores more than anyone,” Marcos reminded him. “I did my time. I don’t have to work for you anymore. I’ve done it by choice since I got out.”

“Come back,” Angel repeated rather than argue. “No worries. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. I’m fair, Marc. It’ll be good business for both of us. What? You think you can make it somewhere else? You bring the heat down on any place you try to work. Stop fighting it. It’s either that, or go crawling to Chuito instead. We both know that’s not your style.”

Marcos was breathing heavily. He wished he was in the same room with Angel so he could slam his fist into his face and tell him what he really thought about the situation. This wasn’t about needing money any more. Angel thought he owned Marcos. That wasn’t going to work at all.

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No one owned him.

He managed to make it through a lot of years in Los Corredores without being controlled. He would strip cars if he needed the cash. Hell, he would even take the fall rather than sell them out, but everyone knew Marcos didn’t follow the rules like the others. Try to control him, and Marcos was going to fight back with everything in him.

Rules had never been his friend.

And Angel knew that.

“I’ll be back next week.” Marcos’s voice was ice-cold even to his own ears.

“Good.” Angel sounded pleased, as if he didn’t hear the threat. Maybe the power really had blinded him. It was Marcos and Chuito and their thirst for vengeance that earned Los Corredores the rep Angel had been riding off of all this time, but he must have forgotten as he said, “I’m glad we’re finally on the same page. Say hi to your chica for me.”

He hung up before Marcos could respond.

“¡Coño!” Marcos screamed at his phone, and then walked over and kicked a boulder in Katie’s neighbor’s yard. The pain radiated up his foot, and he shouted, “¡Hijo de la gran puta!¡Chúpame el bicho!”

He threw his phone into the grass and then really let loose with a stream of colorful words. The only comfort was Katie’s neighbors wouldn’t understand him, but then he saw a front light come on. He went to search for his phone and found it resting in the wet grass.

Angry or not, now he had to call his cousin.

He stared at his phone, seeing that he’d cracked the screen. It just pissed him off more, and he pocketed it, deciding he needed a little more time to cool off before he talked to Chuito.

He limped back to Katie’s, still fuming.

This was probably karma for giving Chuito **** about the extra ink.

If he were in Miami right now, he’d be adding ink to his own arm.

He was going to kill Angel.

With his bare hands.

Who did he think he was?

Chuito let him take over.

Marcos hadn’t realized until right then how much he’d enjoyed elite status in Los Corredores, but what the ****? He’d lost his soul earning Los Corredores’s hard rep. He deserved a little elite status for that ****.

He stopped when he rounded the corner to Katie’s, seeing a shadow by her front door. Then it opened, shining light into the darkness as a man walked right into her house like he owned the place.

This was what he got for being in Garnet and letting his guard down at every turn. His gun was still in his truck.

He ran so fast the guy was barely into the living room before Marcos got to him. Marcos grabbed the intruder from behind. He fisted his hair in one hand and pushed him down. Not knowing if he had a gun or not, Marcos slammed his face into the coffee table with enough force to hear bones crunching.

The scream that burst out of him would have embarrassed Marcos’s Aunt Sofia. Really, this guy screamed like a girl as he crumbled onto the carpet, clutching his nose.

Marcos had never heard a guy wail like that before, and he just knelt over him, breathing hard, staring down as the smaller man tried to scramble away from him. It was hard under the blood, but now that he saw his slim frame, Marcos recognized him.

It was Katie’s ex-husband.

Marcos rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “Coño.”

He couldn’t really hit him again. It felt like hitting a woman. What did she ever see in this guy?

“What—” Katie came running into the living room. She was still putting her arms into the sleeves of her robe but stopped and screamed when she saw her ex bleeding all over the living room. “Oh my God, Grayson!”

She ran to him, and that really irritated Marcos.

Grayson was still crying, like actually crying, as he held his phone to his ear with one hand and held his nose with the other. “I’m walling the wops!”

“You broke in!” Marcos shouted at him before he turned to Katie, who had run into the kitchen. “He broke in, Katie. I locked the door when I left and—”

Grayson stopped his conversation with the cops to yell. “He’s stawing here?”

“That’s right, mother****er.” He gave Grayson a hard look. “Now she knows how a real man’s supposed to do it.”

“Marcos, don’t.” Katie brought back a roll of paper towels and fell down on her knees next to Grayson. “Just be quiet while I deal with this.”

“He’s crying like a woman,” Marcos pointed out. “Come on.”

“He’s bleeding all over the place.” Katie’s voice quivered as if she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “He’s not like you.”

“Are you sure he has cojones?”

Grayson narrowed his eyes up at him, though he still held the phone to his ear like a lifeline. “What does dat mean?”

“It means balls, chica.”

“Marcos!” Katie shouted. “Stop!”

“Fine.” Marcos threw up his hands and turned away. “Have fun with your girlfriend.”

He went into the bedroom and grabbed his things. He tossed half his clothes on the bed. Then he ripped off his jacket and pulled on a shirt since he was going to have to be dealing with the cops.

He might as well get it over with now, so he called his cousin because he didn’t dare go out there. He should’ve hit that Grayson mother****er a second time just to shut him up.

“What?” Chuito answered on the second ring, making it obvious he was still pissed.

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“Don’t give me any attitude,” he yelled in Spanish. “I just got done dealing with Angel’s bull****. He went out to your mother’s to threaten me, and now Katie’s ex-husband is bleeding in the living room. How can you take this town? He cries like a woman.”

“What?” Chuito barked back. “Angel went to my mother’s?”

“Send her to Puerto Rico.” Marcos rubbed his hand over his face. “Get her out of Miami. Tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Chuito was obviously still trying to get his bearings. “Did you say Katie’s ex-husband is bleeding?”

“He broke in!” Marcos shouted at him in Spanish. “What was I supposed to do? Now he’s calling the cops and—”

“Coño, Marcos!” Chuito yelled over the sound of a door being slammed. “I’m coming over there.”

“No. **** you. I don’t need your help!” Marcos growled, but the phone went dead.

He could hear the sirens, and he broke out in a cold sweat against his will. He leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath, cursing himself again for coming back to this town.

He really hated the cops.

He was hoping to God they didn’t search his truck, because he didn’t have a permit for his gun, and that was the last thing he needed. With his record, he could serve real jail time for an arrest like that.

For just a moment, he thought of jumping in his truck and ***ching this town, but he knew it’d just come back on his cousin.

And Katie.

He flinched when he heard the police come in.

Grayson shouted. “He’s win there!”

The door burst open, and he stiffened when the entire door frame was filled with the biggest, meanest redneck cop Marcos had ever had the misfortune of knowing. Sheriff Wyatt Conner was worse than his sister, and that was saying something, because Marcos really hated Jules Wellings.

“Let me see your hands!” the sheriff shouted, his gun leveled at Marcos’s chest.

Marcos held up his hands and said as calmly as possible, “He broke in.”

“On the ground. Now. I’m sure you know what to do.”

“Really?” Marcos asked in disbelief as he got to his knees with his hands behind his head. “Mother****er broke in.”

Instead of listening to him, the sheriff forced him onto his stomach and handcuffed him. He put his gun away and said, “Boy, you’ve been in my town two times, and two times I’ve had to show up.”

“Yup,” Marcos said rather than argue.

He was still sweating over the gun. He didn’t need this asshole searching his truck, or he’d have a real reason to arrest Marcos.

“He walled me a woman,” Grayson was shouting from the living room. “He’s wangerous!”

“I did call him a woman,” Marcos assured the sheriff.

“Boy—”

“I’m not your boy,” Marcos growled when the sheriff forced him to his feet. “I just happen to be the only mother****er within five miles who doesn’t have a white ass.”

“Hey,” someone shouted from the living room.

Marcos looked over when the sheriff led him out and saw a very large black cop talking to Katie. The cop was glaring at Marcos as if he took personal offense, but all Marcos could do was sigh and shake his head.

He really did have the ****tiest luck.

Katie jumped to her feet. “You can’t arrest him!”

“Katie, let me do my job,” the sheriff said in a stern voice.

“Marcos is staying with me.”

The sheriff was still leading him out toward the front door, but Katie followed after them. “Grayson did break in. This is my house. I own it. He doesn’t have a key. Marcos probably didn’t recognize him. I was just telling Adam that it’s all a big misunderstanding.”

The sheriff stopped walking. His hold on Marcos’s shoulder forced him to stop too.

“Now you believe it, when she says something.” Marcos snorted. “So tell me, Sheriff, is it just Latinos you have an issue with?”

“You can’t arrest him.” Katie’s voice was still quivering in panic. She actually grabbed Marcos’s arm as if that would somehow save him. “You can’t. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t recognize Grayson. I know he didn’t.”

“Are you staying here, Rivera?”

“Sí.” Marcos answered in Spanish on purpose.

“Did you recognize him when you attacked him?”

“No, I don’t hit girls.”

“Your mouth is ’bout to get you in a whole heap of trouble.”

“Vete pa’l carajo.”

“Please un-handcuff him,” Katie pleaded. “Doesn’t he have a right to defend my property if he’s staying here?”

“Grayson said the attacker came at him from outside.”

“Is taking a walk illegal in Garnet?” Marcos asked.

Katie still sounded frantic as she said, “Grayson must’ve used the key under the mat and—”

“You have a key to your house under the mat?” Marcos looked at her like she was crazy. “Chica, he could’ve done anything to you. Why would you do something like that?”

“He wouldn’t do anything violent.”

“Why’d he break in at one in the morning, then?”

“Okay.” The sheriff sighed behind them. “I take it y’all are involved.”

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“Yeah.” Marcos turned his head to glare at the sheriff. “Someone in this town likes Latinos.”

“Look, boy—”

“I told you I’m not your boy.”

“Jesus, let me just put you in the car until I can sort this out.”

“What?” Katie shouted. “No! You can’t put him in back there like a criminal.”

“Let the ambulance get Grayson out of here first.” The sheriff forced Marcos to step around her. “Having the two of them in the same room is obviously a mistake.”

“Are you gonna arrest her ex?” Marcos asked. “What if I wasn’t here? Isn’t it your job to protect people like Katie?”

“If he broke in, you bet your ass I’m gonna arrest him. Did he have permission to enter your house, Katie?”

“No, he did not,” Katie answered without hesitating.

Sure enough, the sheriff talked to his deputy on his mic, and Marcos understood enough about what he was saying to know Grayson was about to be in a whole world of ****.

That made Marcos feel almost upbeat, and he let the sheriff lead him to his sheriff SUV without complaint. He sat there, obediently, with his hands cuffed behind his back. “Can you make sure I get a good view of you hauling him off to jail?”

“He’s going to the hospital first. You broke his nose, Rivera.”

“So?” Marcos snorted as he looked up at the sheriff, who was co-owner of the Cellar and a former UFC fighter. “You’ve had your nose broken, I’m sure. Did you cry like that?”

The barest hint of a smile tugged at the sheriff’s lips. “No.”

“Look, I didn’t know it was him. I honestly didn’t. I wouldn’t have used as much force if I did,” Marcos assured him. “I saw someone breaking in. I thought he was trying to hurt Katie. I just acted.”

“Where were you when you saw him breaking in?”

“I took a walk to make a phone call because I didn’t want to wake up Katie. I came back and saw a man opening the door. I thought someone was trying to hurt her, so I stopped him before he could. I didn’t even hit him a second time.”

Wyatt stepped back and looked from Katie, who hovered nervously near the car, to Marcos, who sat in the backseat. “Trouble seems to follow you two.”

Katie’s huffed. “I realize that.”

The sheriff left Marcos in the car and walked inside. When he came back, he took the time to take a real statement from them, but Marcos noticed he didn’t take the cuffs off him.

The ambulance showed up.

So did Chuito.

“Wyatt!” Chuito yelled as he got out of his car. “Come on, man. That’s my cousin.”

“I’m not arresting him. We’re just letting everyone cool off. He was irate when I got here,” Wyatt said as he went back to writing. “We don’t need you making things worse.”

“Her neighbors are looking at him,” Chuito argued as he pointed across the street. “Is her ex-husband handcuffed?”

“Yes, he is.” Wyatt gave a Chuito a look. “I’m gonna have to ask you to back up, Mr. Garcia. You aren’t part of this investigation.”

Chuito rolled his eyes and took two steps back. “Happy?”

The sheriff just gave Chuito another hard look but went back to writing. He took a statement from Katie too, who didn’t pull any punches. She backed Marcos up completely, and she didn’t seem too concerned about Grayson being arrested.

Which made him feel a little better after the living room incident.

“Has he been harassing you a lot, Katie?”

“Yes,” Marcos answered for her. “I saw him grabbing her in the school parking lot.”

The sheriff’s eyebrows rose. “Grabbing her?”

“Like he was trying to hurt her,” Marcos told him.

“He’s just never gotten over the divorce.” Katie shrugged. “I don’t think he’d hurt me, but—”

“But?” The sheriff pressed.

“I don’t know.” Katie sighed. “He calls me all the time. He bothers me at school, and he’s made it very clear he doesn’t appreciate me divorcing him.”

“And tonight he broke into your house?” the sheriff went on. “That’s harassment, Katie. Did my sister know about all this? I know she helped you with the divorce.”

“Well, not the breaking-in part.”

“But the rest of it?” Wyatt went on. “And she didn’t tell you to talk to me? I find that hard to believe.”

“She might have suggested it, but—”

“Are you gonna take the handcuffs off him?” Chuito pointed to Marcos. “He was protecting his girl, Wyatt. I know you get that.”

“Okay.” The sheriff cut off Chuito with a stern look before he turned back to Marcos. “Are you calm now?”

“I was calm then,” Marcos argued as the sheriff glared at him. “I was.”

The sheriff let him go, and Marcos rubbed his wrists self-consciously as he took a step back from the SUV. It was cold out, but his back was still sticky from the nervous sweat that didn’t want to stop despite his short sleeve shirt.

Ending up on his face with handcuffs being slapped on his wrists caused an extreme case of post-traumatic stress. Irate. Hell, if the sheriff only knew what was going on in his mind. He had wanted to fight it with everything in him.

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They brought Grayson out on the gurney, but he was handcuffed to the bars and crying. “This isn’t bair, Sheriff! Don’t do dis!” He pointed at Katie as they wheeled him past. “You did dis to me!”

The deputy escorting Grayson nudged his shoulder. “Quiet.”

Then he really started sobbing, and Marcos almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“He is a woman,” Chuito said in Spanish, sounding disgusted. “No wonder she was driving me crazy for your number.”

Marcos laughed. “Right?”

“Okay, y’all can go back in the house.” Wyatt gestured to the house. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I can’t wait,” Marcos said drily, but was stopped from saying any more when Chuito kicked the back of his leg hard enough to make him trip.

“Thanks, Wyatt,” Chuito called out instead.

“Hey, can y’all make sure this is the last time I have to come out and deal with some catastrophe revolving around you two?”

“It’s the last time,” Katie promised.

Marcos was almost to the door, when something about the sheriff’s comment hit him, and he turned on his heel. Chuito tried to grab his shirt, but Marcos broke out of his hold and ran up to the sheriff so fast he jerked. Marcos didn’t miss his hand on his gun, but he didn’t let that stop him.

“Hey, Sheriff, since you’re so quick to judge, I noticed you never found the gringa who tried to kill Katie.” Marcos couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice. “It took me twenty minutes in this town to find her. Great police work there. Did you even look?”

“Excuse me?”

“The accident. With Katie and me, I know who caused it.”

The sheriff looked uncertainly to Katie and then turned back to him. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“It’s that girl, the one her ex is dating.” Marcos turned back to Katie. “What’s her name?”

“Do you mean Ashley Moore?” Katie looked shocked. “Marcos, I don’t know that he’s actually seeing her and—”

“No, it’s her. She drives a red ’09 Toyota Corolla, but it’s not a factory red. It’s a new paint job; I can tell. And I told you that night, it was a ’09 Toyota Corolla. Look back on your notes, you’ll see. It was her car. I’d bet all the green in Chuito’s bank accounts on it.”

“Marcos knows cars,” Chuito told the sheriff. “If he says it was that car, it probably was.”

“I guarantee you it used to be blue.” Marcos pointed at the sheriff. “That puta caused the accident. She was trying to run Katie off the road. She was probably jealous. She must like girls.”

The sheriff ran a hand over his face and sighed. “Okay, this is getting more complicated. Let me just follow y’all back inside and take another statement.”

It was obvious he really wanted to be done with them.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me this when you saw it a few days ago?” Wyatt asked a short while later as he sat at Katie’s table, writing again.

“No offense.” Marcos took a sip out of the water bottle Katie handed him, when what he really wanted was a rum and coke. “You’re not my favorite person, Sheriff.”

Wyatt arched an eyebrow at him. “So what were you gonna do with the information?”

“Tell Katie. Let her talk to you about it.”

“But you haven’t told Katie your suspicions until now.”

Marcos grinned. “We’ve been busy.”

“Okay, Rivera, whatever.” The sheriff rubbed his face again. “I don’t know how you and Chuito grew up in the same house. Y’all are really nothing alike. You got a mouth on you that would make a saint swear. Chuito’s got more self-control than anyone I know.”

Marcos laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it.

Wyatt looked up curiously.

Chuito kicked him.

Marcos just gave the rest of the statement rather than argue.

Chapter Twelve

Then the three of them sat there shell-shocked after the sheriff left. The only rum Katie had was coconut flavored, but Marcos decided to make an exception. He drank it straight on ice. Katie mixed hers with orange juice.

Chuito drank water as he sat in the chair across from the couch, looking at the two of them. “Wyatt’s right, you know? You two are a catastrophe.”

“**** you, Chu,” Marcos said as he glared at his cousin before he turned to Katie. “So much for your two negatives theory.”

“I’m sorry,” Katie whispered, sounding miserable.

Marcos knew the night had been stressful for her, and he couldn’t help but reach over and squeeze her knee. “It’s okay, chica.”

Chuito wasn’t quite so forgiving as he narrowed his eyes at Katie. “You’re bad for my cousin.”

“Please shut up, Chuito,” Katie snapped at him. “I think it’s obvious your cousin can take care of himself. Let him make his own bad choices.”

“Feisty.” Marcos laughed, and leaned over, draping his free arm around Katie. He kissed her and whispered against her lips, “I like it.”

Chuito stood, giving them a disgusted look as he spoke to Katie. “Look, I realize he may have some skills you appreciate, but do you think this thing between you two will last? You think he’s gonna move here, Katie? You think you can fix him? Make him blend? You can’t. Trust me on this. I’ve been trying it for years. Marcos doesn’t know how to follow the rules. Even when it would save his ass, he can’t do it. Trying to get him to fit into your world would be like trying to teach you Spanish. Impossible.” Chuito pointed at her. “You’re a high school teacher, for Christ’s sake. You are one big rule.”

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“Don’t call her big,” Marcos snapped at him. “Lush. ***y.” He liked the sound of that and amended his cousin’s statement. “She’s one ***y rule I wouldn’t mind following.”

“I could learn Spanish,” Katie added defensively. “For example, right now I think you’re being an enormous pendejo when we’ve already had a very trying night.”

Marcos laughed again. “That was Spanish.”

“Ay Dios mio.” Chuito turned from them and ran both hands over his face and through his hair. “Great plan, learn Spanish from Marcos. Let’s see how well that works out for you in public. That was one of the nicest words in his vocabulary, chica.”

“You are being a pendejo,” Marcos couldn’t help but point out. “Big-time.”

Chuito glared at him. “Can I talk to you in the kitchen?”

“No, you can’t.” Marcos drained the last of his drink, deciding there wasn’t near enough alcohol in this coconut mierda. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Now, Marc.” Chuito’s dark gaze glowed with fury. “We have other **** to discuss.”

“Chúpame el bicho,” he said to his cousin before he turned to Katie. “You want me to translate? I don’t mind repeating it.”

“Don’t say yes.” Marcos eyes were still narrowed as he said to Marcos in Spanish, “It’s actually a serious situation. Can I please speak to you?”

Marcos huffed in frustration. “Fine.”

“I’ll take a shower,” Katie said when he squeezed her hand and stood. “Meet you in bed?”

“Sounds good.” Marcos followed Chuito, but then turned around and watched Katie walk off. “She has the nicest ass,” he told his cousin in Spanish. “And she’s waxed. Did I tell you that? How ***y is that?”

“What did that mean?” Katie called from the bedroom.

“Nada,” Chuito answered for him and jerked Marcos’s arm so hard he nearly face-planted on the tile in the kitchen. “Come on, man, you better hope she doesn’t learn Spanish.”

“I bet I could teach her.” Marcos poured himself more coconut rum. “She’s smart.”

“What is it about this chica?”

“I like her. A lot.” Marcos took another long drink, wincing over the sweetness of it. He went to look in the fridge, considering orange juice to mix with it like Katie had done. “I hate this ****. Is there a real liquor store in this town?”

“Just tell me about Angel.”

**** the orange juice. He just drank it straight again, because he didn’t want to think about the Angel situation.

“You get your mother out of the house. I’ll deal with the rest when I go back.”

“Why? What’s going to happen?”

“That would be my problem.” Marcos raised his eyebrows. “We stopped being a team a long time ago.”

Chuito leaned back against the counter, his body tense as he eyed Marcos critically. “You’re planning on doing something stupid.”

“My issue.” Marcos gestured to himself, because he wasn’t going to let Angel win at using him as a pawn against his cousin. “I told you what you need to know. Now get out. Let me enjoy Katie while I can.”

“I can’t just get out, Marc,” Chuito snapped at him. “I can’t drop it.”

“Yes, Chu, you can.” Marcos drank again. “I’m not giving you another option.”

Chuito ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in dark spikes. “There’s no way that chica is going to put up with you for a week. I can barely stand you, and you’re practically my brother.”

“Okay, you keep telling yourself that. Me and Katie, we actually get along really well.” Marcos looked at his glass, eyeing the melting ice cubes. “My mother would have liked her.”

“Marcos—”

He glanced up, seeing his cousin standing there with the stricken look on his face. Aunt Sofia talked about the dead a lot. Marcos and Chuito never did, but for just a moment, he considered a different life, one where he could have taken Katie home to his mother. “She would have liked her a lot. I know it. She’d be proud of me for finding a girl like that. A teacher. She helps kids turn out like Juan was supposed to turn out.”

Chuito put a hand over his eyes and took a deep breath. “Please just tell me how I can help you.”

“You can’t. Sorry.” Marcos sighed. “Sometimes I miss the good ol’ days. Us against the world. It made it easier, somehow.”

“It’s still us against the world.” Chuito dropped his hand and gave him a hard look. “I’d smoke Angel tomorrow for you. Easy. I’d smoke just about anyone for you, Marc. You tell me the problem, and I’ll take care of it.”

“I know.” He walked up and patted his chest. “That’s why you got to go.”

“Why are you doing this?” Chuito sounded as lost as Marcos felt. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“Because you think we owed it to my mother and Juan to get even,” Marcos started, hating that his voice cracked. “And I believed you. For a long time I thought that was true. Now I’m not so sure. I’m starting think I owe it to Juan to make sure his older brother doesn’t lose any more of his soul to this bull****.”

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“So, what? You give up yours instead?” Chuito shook his head, his gaze suddenly hard. “No. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not giving up any more of my soul. Not for you,” Marcos assured him. “And I’m certainly not doing it for Angel.”

“Do you think he’s going to try to take you out?” Chuito asked, his voice anguished. “Is that what you’re trying to say to me?”

“I don’t know what Angel is going to do.” Marcos shrugged and then took another drink. “Go home, Chu. Go take advantage of a pretty chica crawling in your bed every night.”

“Life isn’t just about ****ing a pretty chica, Marcos.”

“Yes, it is.” Marcos gave him a smile as he thought about Katie. “And if you did it with the right one, you’d know that. I know why you won’t screw your neighbor, and it’s not because her father’s a preacher.”

“Why, then?” Chuito laughed manically. “You tell me why, genius?”

“Because you’re afraid she’ll stop giving you a reason to be so angry, and you can’t handle that. Anger is the only thing that’s kept you going for the past eight years. I’m so tired of it.”

“Fine, you know what, go do something stupid and reckless and give Angel a reason to smoke you.” Chuito pushed away from the counter and walked past him. “This chica has made you more crazy than usual, as if that was possible, but I don’t care anymore!”

“Good!” Marcos yelled as he followed his cousin out of the kitchen. “I hope you mean it!”

“I do! You know what I’m tired of? I’m tired of trying to help someone too ****ing stubborn to help himself!”

“**** your neighbor. Please. You need it. Desperately.”

Chuito slammed the front door rather than respond. Marcos looked out the window, watching his cousin storm to his car. He locked the front door when he saw the headlights go on.

Then he downed the rest of his drink, thinking if Chuito really did have more self-control than any other muchacho that asshole Wyatt Conner knew, he sure didn’t want to meet his other friends.

His cousin was an atomic bomb waiting to go off, and Marcos seemed to be the only one who knew it.

* * * *

Marcos found Katie in the shower, with the hot steam billowing up around her, making her seem almost dreamlike. He could see the way her hair clung to her bare back, like chestnut waterfalls against her pale skin. The deep curve in her waist. The flare of her hips. Her ass was nice and round, and it made him just want to grab it every time she walked by.

Coño, she was beautiful.

He kicked off his shoes and grabbed the collar to his shirt at the same time.

“You coming in?”

“Yeah, I need a shower worse than you do.” He tossed his shirt aside and then tugged at the button to his jeans. “Is there enough hot water?”

“There’s plenty.”

Katie stepped back when he opened the door, letting him have the spray. Something about that didn’t sit well with Marcos. She was too nice, and it bothered him. He wasn’t used to a woman like her, so completely trusting it didn’t enter her mind that her ex was here to hurt her.

What would have happened if Marcos wasn’t there?

For the first time, he really allowed himself to think about it. He was used to women like his Aunt Sofia, who’d stab someone with a kitchen knife without thinking if they broke in. Who was Marcos kidding? His Aunt Sofia would shoot the dumbass who tried to break into her house.

But Katie, he wasn’t so sure.

“You don’t give me the water,” he said as he stood behind her, turning her toward the spray, letting it roll down the curve of her breasts. “You’re supposed to say, ‘Chico, if you want the water, you stand behind me.’”

“Why would I do that?” Katie turned her head and frowned at him. “You just said you needed it.”

“It doesn’t matter what I need.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him, allowing her to feel his **** that had hardened the moment he saw her naked. “You’re a woman. You got what I want. Use it against me every chance you can get.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, you are. I’m gonna make you.” He draped his other arm over her front, sliding it between the valley of her breasts as he held her possessively. “You scared me tonight.”

“You didn’t look scared.”

He reached up and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. He stared at her eyes—soft honey-colored eyes, trusting eyes. They were framed with long eyelashes that made her too kind for his sanity.

“I was scared,” he assured her as he ran a thumb over her lip. “I don’t want you talking to your ex anymore. Promise.”

“I work with him,” she reminded him.

“I don’t care.” He kissed her, and she parted her lips to let him slip his tongue past them. When he pulled away she leaned in, silently begging for more, but he resisted and said, “Get him fired.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sí, you can. He tried to attack you. Make sure he’s fired for it.”

“I’m not going to ruin his life,” Katie argued. “I don’t think he would attack me. I honestly don’t. He was probably just mad I was ignoring him and—”

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“Get him fired,” Marcos reiterated a third time. “Promise me.”

“I already told you I promised enough.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Wash my back?”

That idea distracted him enough to grab the soap off the dish in front of her. He used the shower spray to make his hands nice and soapy before he rubbed the bar down between her breasts. It felt so good to touch her, to see his tanned hands against her pale stomach. They didn’t match, but he liked the contrast better.

He used his other hand to trace the line of her *****, making her toss her head back against his shoulder. “Why do you wax, chica?”

“I’ve been doing it for years. I did it once on a dare in college. Grayson hated it. Told me he never wanted me to do it again. As you can tell, I don’t like being told what to do.”

“You’re stubborn,” he agreed as he dropped the soap, deciding he could wash her back after he was done with her. He crossed his arm over the front of her again, letting it rest between her breasts and wrap around her waist, holding her up as he used his other hand to get her off. “I think the wax is ***y.”

“Really?” She was breathless, but her voice was playful. “You’ve said it a few times, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Very ***y,” he assured her.

He fell back against the wall with her, because he was turned on and crashing from almost getting arrested. The coconut rum was choosing now to hit him because he didn’t drink that much these days. Certainly not like he had when he was younger.

He was getting soft in his old age.

But it didn’t really matter, because he had a very wet, very lush gringa in his arms, looking like a goddess with the water hitting her and her head tossed back against his shoulder.

He slid his knee between her legs, forcing her to widen her stance as he alternated between pushing his fingers into her crazy tight, unbelievably slick *****, and then using the slickness to rub her clit. He was teasing her, but he was sort of hoping she would tell him off for it.

Instead Katie wrapped both her hands behind his neck, giving him free rein over her body, and it was turning him on like crazy. He should be tapped out, but when she started arching into his hand, it made the slide of his **** against her bare back wet and erotic, and he realized he was teasing himself too.

He focused all his effort on her clit, and Katie started moaning, her chest heaving because she was always responsive. Scarily so. If a real man found her, instead of that chica Grayson, he could really take advantage of her.

A woman like Katie was made to ****.

She craved it as much as he did, and that left her wide open to getting hurt, but that didn’t stop Marcos from taking advantage of it, because he was born a thug, and he couldn’t help himself.

He groaned when she came with soft, panting gasps of pleasure that made all the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. She was still shaking, her pull on his neck heavier as her legs started to give out, but Marcos just tightened his hold on her and then pushed not one but two fingers inside her just to feel her clench around them.

“I love to feel you around me.” He arched his hips and pushed his **** tighter against the curve of her back. “You feel so ****ing good.”

Katie pushed his hands off her and turned around. She stood on her toes and cupped his face to kiss him. He pulled her hair and kissed her back, taking her mouth the way his **** wanted to take her body. He liked the feel of her tits against his chest and her ass in his hand.

“Tell me not to pull your hair anymore,” he panted against her lips.

“No,” she argued and then leaned in for another kiss, but he resisted rather than give it to her. She used her hold on his face to force him back to her and breathed into his mouth. “I like when you pull my hair.”

He groaned and kissed her and pulled her hair and licked the water off her neck and bit her earlobe until he was so ****ing desperate he could barely see straight.

“I left the condoms in my jeans.” He moaned as he grabbed her ass with both hands and arched his hips against her, enjoying the feel of her smooth, wet skin against his ****. “****.”

Katie reached out and pushed at the shower door. Then she broke out of his arms and bent down, getting the floor wet as she reached in the pocket of his jeans. He eyed her ass and the line of her ***** as she tossed his cell phone and wallet onto the tile.

“You cracked your phone.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled as he stared at the way she looked on her hands and knees.

Katie found the two condoms that were in the back pocket and got to her feet. She tried to rip them apart, but Marcos yanked them out of her hand and pulled the door closed before she could.

“Like this, chica.” He turned her around and pushed her hands against the wall. He used his foot to nudge her legs apart as he admired the line of her back and all that hair, usually so wavy, now flowing in rivers down over her wet skin almost to those little dimples above her ass. “Coño, eres bella.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re beautiful, cariño.”

He leaned into her because he couldn’t help himself. He just wanted to be near her, to be skin to skin and know that for this exact moment, no one could hurt her.

“I should’ve killed him.” Marcos decided as he tossed the one condom aside and then used his teeth to tear open the second. “Then that’d be one less problem for you.”

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“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, I do,” he promised as he fought with the condom that never wanted to play well in the shower.

He kissed her neck when he was done and cupped her tits because they looked so good in his hands. Then he touched her again, stretching her for his ****, but he didn’t have the patience to wait more than a few minutes before he was holding her hips and pushing into her.

All that tight wet heat wrapped around him, dragging him down to a dark place as the pleasure hazed his common sense, and he pulled her hair again when he was buried to the hilt.

“He ever touches you. Hurts you. Looks at your wrong. Even breathes in your direction,” Marcos growled into her ear, using the hold on her hair to prove his point. “I’ll ****ing take him out, chica.”

She pushed her hips back rather than respond, and he couldn’t help but **** her. Hard. He bit his lip rather than come, using the pain as a distraction when she cried out and gave in to the pleasure.

Then he touched her again, forcing her to get off a third time.

It was the least he could do after taking all the aggression out on Katie’s lush body. When he did finally come, he bit her neck more harshly than he meant to and pulled her hair harder than he should.

Katie just climaxed with him rather than complain.

* * * *

Later, when they lay in bed, Katie snuggled into him with her head on his shoulder and asked, “What happened to your phone?”

“I happened to my phone,” Marcos said as he typed a group message to all the OGs that were loyal to him and Chuito, telling them to watch their backs because he suspected this little stand Angel was making could come back in all their faces. “I threw it earlier.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I’m a mean, angry thug who throws things when I get mad.”

“We could go to the mall in Mercy and get it fixed.”

“No, I’d rather stay here with you,” he said as he finished his message and sent it. “There are malls in Miami. I’ll fix it when I get back.”

“What are you saying to all of them?” Katie asked.

“I’m telling them I’m laying low.”

“That’s a lot of words to say you’re laying low.” Katie yawned. The first pink of morning was starting to shine in through the bedroom curtains, but still she watched his phone as his friends started responding. “How can so many of them already be awake?”

“They’re not waking up. They’re going to bed.”

“Oh my God.” Katie yawned again. “That’s crazy. What do they do all night? They can’t all be thieves. There’s not enough stuff in Miami.”

Marcos laughed. “Most of ’em have real jobs now. They just stay up because they picked up bad habits when they were younger.”

“I see Chuito’s name in there.” She pointed to Luis’s comment in the thread. “What does that say?”

“It says, ‘Why not tell Chuito? He’s the original OG.’”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he’s the original original gangster.” Marcos laughed and typed back. “Luis, dumbass, you should’ve stayed in school.”

“Are most of them dropouts?”

“Yup.”

“I think that’s sad.” Katie yawned again. “Must be hard to get a job.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not the only reason why it’s hard for most of ’em to keep a job.”

“What’s the other reason?”

“Most of us have records. If it wasn’t for the original OG, they’d probably still be chopping cars. He makes up for the cheap-ass minimum wage most of them make so they can feed their kids.”

“You mean Chuito?”

“Yeah.”

“He gives them money?”

“Yup.”

“Does he give you money?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I won’t let him.” He tossed his phone aside and rolled into her. He kissed the top of her head and said, “Enough questions.”

“Have you really stolen a car before?” Katie asked rather than listen. “Like broken into it and taken it from someone else.”

“I have really stolen many cars before.”

“Could you steal my car?”

“Your midrange car with no theft prevention devices that you keep unlocked in the garage that is also unlocked?” Marcos snorted in disbelief. “Yes, I could steal it.”

Katie seemed to ponder that for a while. “Huh?”

“Yeah, more real when you start thinking about it, huh, chica?”

“Has Chuito stolen a car?”

“No, he got to be the original OG by being a nice guy.” Marcos kissed the top of her head again. “I said go to sleep.”

Katie got quiet, and Marcos thought she had started to drift off to sleep, but then she whispered into the darkness, “I still don’t want you to go. Do you think that makes me guilty by association?”

“No.” He sighed. “I think that makes you too sweet to keep. I’m leaving in a week. You promised.”

“And what does a promise mean to you? A thief.”

“To an OG, a promise means everything. You don’t break a promise once you make it. Got it?”

She sighed and tightened her arms around him. “Yeah, I got it.”

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Chapter Thirteen

The thing about a week, when you’re living in the moment, was that it ended up lasting forever and going way too fast at the same time. Katie felt like she’d lived a lifetime with Marcos in her little house, holed up with enough food to keep them alive, and enough privacy to make love in every corner.

Her father and brother showed up the day after the break-in. They were grateful to Marcos for protecting Katie, and then dragged her outside and told her she was bat**** crazy for letting him stay in her house.

So she largely ignored her phone, and Marcos largely ignored his because he was having issues too. They talked to the sheriff once when he showed up, because he found out Ashley’s car had once been blue just like Marcos claimed.

The sheriff went to question Ashley.

Katie didn’t care.

She didn’t care about Grayson’s legal issues either.

All she really cared about was that it was Saturday, and tomorrow was the last day of spring break. She knew she’d promised to let him go, and she knew that promise was something that actually held real value to Marcos when so little in this world did, but that didn’t stop her from being desperate for something, anything, that would keep him here.

So she sat on the floor by the couch, folding laundry and thinking of ways to talk Marcos into staying, but no argument seemed fair. Why should he stay in a town he obviously hated? And with good cause. Everyone he dealt with here, even his own cousin, was rude to him at the very least, and tried to arrest him at worst.

“I think I’m sick of this town,” Katie mused to herself. “I’m starting to hate it here.”

Marcos leaned over from where he was stretched out on the couch and wrapped an arm around her chest. “Why do you hate it?”

“I dunno.” Katie did know; she hated it for pushing Marcos away, but rather than admit that, she just put a folded towel up on the coffee table Marcos had used to break her ex-husband’s nose. She searched for another reason because she didn’t want to fight with him and finally settled on, “I’ve never fit in here, to be honest.”

“You don’t talk like them.” Marcos placed a kiss against her neck before he said, “How come you don’t have a hee-haw accent like the rest of these pendejos?”

“Grayson and I went to college out of state. Maybe if I’d stayed close like Jules, I’d still be Garnet born and bred.”

“I like how you talk, chica.” Marcos took a long drink of his rum and coke that he’d started downing before the sun set as if he was feeling the clock as much as she was. He kissed her neck again and said, “I feel smart just sitting next to you.”

“You’re crazy. You speak two languages fluently. That makes you smarter than I’ll ever be.”

“Whatever. You teach school. I couldn’t do that. Even if I was smart like you, I couldn’t do it. Teenagers are such mother****ers. I deal with them all the time, and they annoy the **** out of me. Thinking they’re tough ’cause of the ink on their arm. I’m gonna go back and apologize to all my old teachers when I get home.”

“You should ask them why they didn’t make sure you graduated instead.” Katie set another towel on the table.

“Ay Dios mio, I was such a thug in high school.” Marcos gave a pained chuckle. “I’m sure they couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I was a bad apple rotting out all the other apples just by being there.”

Katie reached up and caressed his hair when he buried his face in the curve of her neck. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“No, it’s true,” Marcos assured her. “If I had to teach a prick like me in high school, I’d beat his ass on principle.”

Katie laughed. “Teaching probably shouldn’t be in your future.”

“There’s not much of anything in my future.” Marcos took another drink. “Dirt or prison bars.”

She turned around and glared at him. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” He drained the rest of his rum and set it on the table. “Forget the laundry. I’ll fold it later. Come sit on me.”

Katie abandoned the chore and crawled onto the couch. She straddled Marcos, looking down at him in nothing but a worn pair of jeans. She put her hands on the stars on his shoulders that told the world he was a thief and asked, “Why are you drinking tonight?”

“’Cause I’m gonna miss you, chica.” He used both his hands to push her hair away from her face and then cupped her cheeks as he tugged her down. He kissed her, his tongue pushing past her parted lips to brush against hers, and she moaned into his mouth at the feel of it. He tasted like rum, warm and spicy, making her drunk on him almost instantly. When they did part, he was as breathless as her as he asked, “You wanna ****?”

“Yeah,” she agreed as she cupped his face and ran her thumb over his bottom lip like he usually did to her. “That sounds nice.”

“I don’t have any condoms here. We left them in the kitchen.”

“I’m on the pill. Let’s just do it without them this time.”

“Coño, no, are you crazy, chica! You don’t **** thugs without condoms.” He rolled out from under her and ran a hand through his hair as he stood. “Promise me you’re not gonna trust people like you do once I leave.”

She sat up and frowned at him. “Why?”

“Because someone could hurt you,” he growled in exasperation. “This world is mean.”