The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(63)
Chuito was 1,000 percent certain Katie hadn’t heard Marcos suggest marijuana to a fourteen-year-old.
“You are starting a gang,” Chuito observed, deciding like Marcos probably had that if the worst a kid who jumped into a gang did was smoke a little bud, then it’d be a miracle. “You’re acting just like Victor. He used to call us his kids too.”
“Motherf*cker,” Marcos started in warning. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m serious,” Chuito pointed out. “You got a bunch of teenagers working for you. Loyal to you. Spying for you. This is sounding suspiciously like a gang.”
“I didn’t ask them to spy.” Marcos sounded slightly abashed. “Not really. They talk. I listen.”
“Now listen to me,” Chuito said slowly. “I don’t know how you and Katie are finding that many Boricua teenagers. There cannot be that many potential gang members in Katie’s classes at the high school.”
“They aren’t all Boricuas.”
“Co?o.” Chuito groaned, because that meant Marcos was pissing off other gangs too. If he was rescuing Cubans, forget about it. The playing field in Miami was endless. “Are you stealing from the Bloods? Please tell me you aren’t doing that.”
“Anyone who wants to work can learn. I don’t care if they’re Latin Bloods. I’m over that. It’s not their fault Juan died. They were babies when it happened,” Marcos explained simply. “If they need Katie’s help, she gives it too. We’re trying to help them do something real with their lives. If they want to go to college, I want them to do that. Juan didn’t get it. I want them to have it.”
“Any kids with ink can’t come back to the shop,” Chuito said in the hard, firm voice of a crew leader. “They can’t come to the house either.”
“Suck my dick!” Marcos cursed, and then added, “Suck it hard, cabrón. I’m not abandoning them. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“Marcos!” Chuito shouted back. “The ones with ink are spoken for. You can’t have them. Let them go. They shouldn’t have jumped in if they couldn’t handle it.”
It was harsh, but in their world, teenagers weren’t like the teenagers in Garnet. They were born with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Chuito didn’t make the system; he just learned how to survive in it.
“No,” Marcos said firmly, sounding unrelenting. “If these kids want out, I’m giving them an out. Angel or the Bloods or whoever wants them, they’ll have to kill me first. Good luck with that. I’ve taken care of plenty of Bloods in my time.”
“What about Katie?” Chuito asked him. “You don’t think Angel would come after her to hurt you?”
“She cares about these kids too,” Marcos said, before he added, “Besides, she promised me she’d go back to Garnet if something started to go down, and she’ll take tía with her.”
Chuito stared out the window to the trees behind the office. The few leaves left were withered and brown. It happened every year, but Chuito never got over the novelty of it. Every year, the leaves changed in Garnet right on schedule. They did the same thing until, for some cruel reason, life took them out. It was what nature programmed them to do.
Just like Marcos.
Even if his leaves changed, he was still a f*cking gangster. He needed a war to fight. Something bigger than himself to bleed for.
Marcos got out, but he was still in.
He was in more than ever.
Now Marcos had a f*cking cause.
God help them all.
“These are rules, Marc,” Chuito tried to say as evenly as possible, because how the hell was he supposed to compete with a cause like that? “These are rules that have been around a lot longer than you have. If they’ve got ink, you can’t touch them.”
Marcos’s response was quick and predictable. “Fuck the rules.”
And that, right there, summed up Marcos’s life.
Chuito called him Hurricane Marcos for a reason. Most of the time Chuito even loved him more for it, because one didn’t come across someone as flat-out ballsy as Marcos every day.
Even Tino didn’t have anything on Marcos.
Marcos was so fearless it was awe-inspiring.
But that didn’t fix this problem.
Tino’s brother Nova, who was easily the smartest gangster Chuito had ever met in his life, would often say, “There’s always a solution.”
It might not be moral, it was more than likely illegal, but an answer was out there somewhere. One of the small benefits to being a born criminal. Their playing field was wide-open.
Chuito wasn’t real sure what the solution was yet, but he liked Nova’s theory that one was out there, so he decided to go with it. “Give me a day to think.”
“Chu—”
“I’m hungover. I’ve got a concussion. I’ve got shit going on here,” Chuito confessed, for one moment letting himself sound as tired as he felt. “I need a day.”
“I’m not giving up on these kids,” Marcos warned him.
“I’ll factor that in,” Chuito promised him, surprised to find that he meant it. “If they’re your kids, I guess they’re my kids too. I’ll think of something.”