The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(62)

Chuito considered that for a long time, before he shrugged. “I think my life’s going to hell here. I should probably move back. It’s not fair to have you dealing with all this Los Corredores bullshit. The whole idea was to get you out. This issue with Angel just won’t go away.”

“I haven’t been to the warehouse since everything with me and Angel went down,” Marcos promised him. “But some of the kids have been talking. You know Chu Jr., the kid Katie’s been tutoring at the house—”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,” Chuito complained. “Giving that kid a legacy like that is like putting an omen over his head.”

“He reminds me of you. Big, mean, angry…smart. Crazy loyal,” Marcos explained as if that alone was worth cursing the poor kid. “Anyway, he told me Angel’s been recruiting hard. Like he’s expecting something to go down. He’s grabbing them younger and younger. He said they just jumped in a kid who was thirteen.”

“I hate that motherf*cker,” Chuito whispered darkly, wondering how he had ever considered Angel his friend. “I never recruited kids that young.”

“You never recruited,” Marcos reminded him. “You just sort of took over for Victor after we buried him.”

“Mmm,” Chuito agreed, realizing for the first time that it was actually true. “I guess I didn’t.”

“Lucky for you Victor did a f*ckload of recruiting before the police bullet got him.”

“Don’t say shit about Victor,” Chuito complained, because Victor had been the closest thing he had to a father figure. “He did that to protect us. He did the best he could.”

“Yeah, that’s the same shit Angel’s selling,” Marcos said bitterly. “How protected were we, Chu? Safety in numbers. Boricuas need to stick together. Like hell. It brought the devil to our door. It didn’t save us from shit. It made us a target.”

“Ay Dios mio.” Chuito groaned in misery. “I’m already slitting my wrists this week. Spare me, please.”

“I’m going to smoke this motherf*cker myself, I promise you,” Marcos went on as if he didn’t hear Chuito’s pleas, because his cousin wasn’t one to be contained over a little guilt. “I think he’s planning on starting a war with the Italians. Your Italians.”

“He’s going to lose that war,” Chuito reminded him. “They’re a lot more connected than Angel.”

“And what happens to these kids?” Marcos asked him sharply. “My kids. He pulled one of them right out of my shop. Omar is fourteen. Angel already had his brother. That meant Omar should’ve been in the clear.”

“Brothers jump in together all the time,” Chuito reminded him, even if it was a common street rule that only one male member of the family needed to be in to have protection. “You jumped in.”

“He was one of mine,” Marcos snapped. “Angel’s stealing them from me on purpose. He’s f*cking with me.”

“You should’ve put ink on him,” Chuito suggested, and he was only half-joking.

“Are you serious?” Marcos sounded completely incredulous, which showed just how much being with Katie had changed his perceptions. “I’m trying to keep ink off them. I’m trying to give them a life. A real life.”

“Okay.” Chuito took a deep breath and tried to clear his head, because Marcos was passionate, and he did have a good point. “Look, you better make sure Angel doesn’t know these kids are talking to you about his shit. If Angel still sees you as that big a threat—”

“I am a threat,” Marcos growled. “I’m going to kill him with my bare hands.”

“Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll figure it out.”

“How are you going to figure it out?”

“I have no idea,” Chuito admitted out loud to himself as well as to Marcos. “Give me a week. I have to deal with my agent. He’s driving me crazy about the pending UFC contract.”

“What if we don’t have a week?” Marcos asked him. “What if he steals more of my kids?”

“How many kids do you have?”

“I got nine at the shop. Most of mine have ink. Omar and Carlos were the only ones who didn’t, but Katie’s got three tutoring groups a week and most of them aren’t affiliated.”

“How many does Katie have?”

“Maybe fourteen or fifteen.”

“Mierda,” he whispered in disbelief, because that was a lot of teenagers. “On top of your nine?”

“Two are crossovers. They’re still in school, so they work with Katie when they aren’t helping me at the shop. And Omar was coming over to the house on Tuesdays, but now he’s f*cking gone. I told Chu Jr. tonight to give him some herbal tea. Help ease the pain a little. He said Omar was bad off. You know Angel doesn’t f*cking think of that shit. He doesn’t care about them.”

Chuito rubbed a hand over his face, because that was Victor’s version of first aid. Herbal tea was their internal code for bud. A little bud cured just about anything, according to Victor, and it was the only thing Chuito knew for a long time. Apparently it was the only thing Marcos knew too. He had never seen the other side like Chuito had, but they did have drugstores in Miami that sold things like Tylenol and Motrin in them. It might not get the job done like bud did, but it wasn’t a gateway drug either.