The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(20)

Fuck him.

Chuito would work hard. He wanted to work hard. It was the only thing that distracted from the crash, but he drew the line at waking up early, and he told all of them that.

He kept his eyes closed, trying to imagine being loaded as a placebo. He wasn’t sure if it worked, or if twenty-four hours of no blow, forty-eight hours of no sleep, and nothing to eat or drink except cookies and caffeine had him passing out so hard it was like he had died.





Chapter Nine


Alaine sat at the kitchen table, doing advanced calculus, even though she hated it. The numbers were swimming, and she was cursing the educational system for forcing her to learn this when she saw absolutely zero application to it in her real life.

She didn’t want to launch the space shuttle.

She just wanted to be a lawyer and help people write out wills and file for divorce. She wanted to support Jules, who had been the only one willing to listen when Alaine had said she did not want to be the daughter her father was trying to mold her into.

Someone meek and obedient. Who was supposed to get married and have a dozen babies. She didn’t begrudge anyone else that life. There were a lot of very happy women in the church, but it just didn’t feel like the life Alaine was supposed to have.

Her mother had always encouraged her independence.

She said if God had given Alaine a free spirit, it must have been for a reason. She saw the good in that streak of rebellion Alaine had been born with, but her father never had.

Now her mother was gone, and her father was angry.

It made Alaine sad; it really did, because she didn’t want to be alienated from him just for being herself. She had stopped going to church, which meant she didn’t have any friends anymore, when she had grown up with a huge social circle.

All her friends had sided with her father.

Now all she had was Jules, who was funny and kind and bold in a way Alaine would likely never be, but she was still so much older than her.

She wished she had a friend her own age.

All of a sudden a sound broke the quiet air, something raw and terrible and so heart-stopping she jumped out of her chair on instinct. She ran out of her apartment when she realized it was coming from next door.

She knocked, but no one was answering, and she could still hear the screaming. He was speaking in Spanish, but she didn’t need to understand the words to hear the horror in them.

“Mr. Garcia!” She pounded harder. “Jesus!”

When he didn’t answer, she tried the doorknob, finding that it was locked. Since it was an emergency, she went ahead and dashed back to her apartment to grab the keys. She opened it and found her new neighbor on the floor wearing nothing but a tight pair of blue boxer briefs she thought only men in underwear ads wore.

But she didn’t stop to ponder his nakedness, because he was still yelling in Spanish, and it almost looked like he was crying, if someone like him could cry, which she wasn’t really sure he could.

“?No tu tambien!” His words were raw and horrified. “Marc!”

She dropped to her knees next to him and shook him. Then she gasped, because he grabbed her arm, finding it blindly, and pulled so hard she ended up falling over him. She screamed, because her shoulder felt like it was on fire.

He jerked under Alaine and then rolled out from beneath her, tossing her unceremoniously onto the floor. She turned her head to see him crawl backward until he hit the couch.

His dark eyes were wide and horrified as he sat on the floor staring at her. He looked around the apartment, as if he didn’t know where he was.

She got to her knees and reached out to touch his leg, but her arm hurt, and she grabbed her shoulder instead. “Are you okay?”

“?Estas herida?”

“You’re speaking Spanish,” she reminded him softly as she rubbed her shoulder.

“?Que?” he mumbled and then narrowed his eyes at where she was still rubbing her arm. “I did that. I hurt you.”

“It’s fine.” She stopped rubbing it, because it was obviously upsetting him.

“Why, um—” His accent was extremely pronounced, as if he was having a hard time forcing his brain to work in English. “W-why are you in my house?”

“I think you were having a nightmare,” she whispered.

He tilted his head, staring at her as if she was insane. “You just come in my house? Naked?”

“I’m not naked.” She looked down at herself, staring at her nightgown. “You’re more naked than I am.”

“It’s my house!” he shouted so loud she flinched. “It was locked! How’d you get in?”

She held up the key in her hand. “I clean the apartment for Jules.”

“I don’t need you to clean for me.” He yanked it from her grasp. “Why are you here?”

“You were screaming,” she said with a pointed look. “Really loudly.”

“Co?o.” He was silent for a long moment, and then ran a hand over his face and lowered his head. “What did I do to you?”

“You just pulled my arm.” She rubbed her shoulder again, because it really was on fire. “I think it’ll be okay.”

“Never touch me when I’m sleeping. Never sneak up on me. Never break into my f*cking house,” he barked at her again, washing hot and cold so sharply it gave her mental whiplash. “You gringos are all loco. You don’t just shake a thug when he’s having a nightmare.”