The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(53)

His existence had always been about making sure he contributed to the strength of something bigger than him. His phone had never once stopped ringing with problems from Los Corredores in Miami. Living in Garnet hadn’t separated him from his gang like he wanted it to. Even when he tried to distance himself, somehow he always ended up dealing with problems. Long distance, and until recently, within the limits of the law, but life changed this past year as it always seemed to do right when Chuito started to think it was going his way.

For a short time he’d even considered trying to make it work with Alaine.

He’d started to believe he might deserve it.

Then reality showed up and reminded him that he didn’t.

Chuito was in deep more than ever since he finally found a way to buy Marcos’s way out of gang life when it was either get him out or bury him. Money hadn’t worked, so Chuito had to sell his soul to the Italian mafia instead.

Marcos was still pissed off with him about it, but he was also happy in Miami with his new wife, Katie, a schoolteacher he had picked up in Garnet. Now she taught at Chuito and Marcos’s old high school in Miami and did a decent job of keeping Marcos respectable.

Figured it took Marcos one week in Garnet to do what Chuito hadn’t managed to do in five years.

Marcos had always been the lover.

Chuito was the one born to be a gangster.

Now Chuito was back where he’d started, neck-deep in Los Corredores issues that were huge right now, but there would always be some reason to drag his tired ass into the gym and bleed just for the f*cking fun of it.

’Cause they were crew too.

And his family.

His life had become a series of contradictions in the past few months. One minute he was on the phone with a mafia underboss, talking in code about gang politics and stolen cars. The next, he was teaching self-defense classes or helping mop the floors of the Cellar when their cleaning guy quit.

Starting today, Chuito was in charge of babysitting some green fighter from California, because this new fighter was Mexican and Chuito was Puerto Rican and in the eyes of Garnet, that made them practically brothers.

Different f*cking culture, but that shit was totally lost on Garnet.

He was tired before the shit with Alaine got real, and he ended up on his knees in her bedroom, tasting what he’d been fantasizing about for five years.

Now he was cranky as f*ck.

Horny as hell.

Still hungover.

Queasy and sucking down coffee like liquid cocaine.

He turned off his car and sat there, drinking his coffee while blinking at his windshield. He needed to center himself, because this guy was not part of his crew, had stolen a fighting spot from his cousin, and had forced Chuito to come in when he needed a lot more recovery time after last night.

The Mexican was currently public enemy number one.

Hopefully he was as tough as they said he was.

Chuito jumped when someone knocked on his window, which made him angrier. This shit with Alaine was forcing him to let his guard down left and right. It was the worst possible time for everything with Alaine to come to a head. Now more than ever, Chuito couldn’t afford to get lazy, and his life in Garnet was falling apart instead.

He was one very small step away from a gang war in Miami.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Valentino “Tino” Moretti said in a singsong voice and then, just to make Chuito’s afternoon better, tugged down his fighting shorts and pressed his bare ass against the driver’s-side window. “Awake yet?”

Chuito caught a flash of tan skin and a tattoo over Tino’s left ass cheek.

100% Grade A Italian

He wasn’t in the mood for Italian attitude any more than he felt like dealing with a Mexican one. He opened his door. Hard. Forcing Tino to stumble with his ass still hanging out for anyone to see.

A lesser man would have fallen, but that was the annoying thing about Tino.

That motherf*cker never fell.

“Guess what I heard,” Tino said as he tugged up his shorts.

“No.”

Chuito grabbed his gym bag and locked his doors before he reluctantly crawled out into the late-afternoon sunshine.

“I heard that your punk ass got plastered last night,” Tino went on as if he hadn’t noticed Chuito’s disinterest. “Jules told Wyatt, who told Romeo that you were too f*cked-up to get out of bed. Two hours late. That’s bad even for you.”

“But I’m still here,” Chuito reminded him and then kicked the back of Tino’s knee, making him stumble.

Asshole still didn’t fall.

“Where was I when you decided to have a party?” Tino sounded genuinely hurt. “Bros who fight together drink together.”

“I drink without you all the f*cking time,” Chuito assured him.

“Drinking alone is never a good sign.”

Chuito flipped him off, letting him know what he thought of his signs. Tino might have ended up as his best friend somewhere over the past two years since he’d arrived in Garnet, but that didn’t mean Tino’s high-energy, ballsy Italian attitude didn’t grate on a hangover.

Tino laughed and followed after him. “You think you’re pissed off now, wait until you meet the Mexican.”

Chuito stopped at the front doors to the Cuthouse Cellar and turned back to Tino as he growled, “What about him?”

Tino laughed harder. “I’m not gonna tell you.”