The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(64)
Chuito felt like he had just gotten jumped into another gang without his permission. He already had his old crew to worry about. Half the money he made went into ensuring his old crew was taken care of. He owned houses in Miami that he rented for a buck a month to any Los Corredores OG who had earned the right to get out of gang life and was trying to stay straight while still caring for their families, which wasn’t easy. When a new one decided to get out, Chuito bought another house, telling himself at least it was a f*cking investment, and he told them that too, hoping to ease the guilt. Some fighters put their cash in money-market accounts; Chuito put his in houses he rented to retired gangsters. He had loaned just about all of them money he never expected to get paid back for. He footed the bill for their kids’ dentist and bought a crazy amount of new school clothes every August. He had an attorney on retainer for when, inevitably, one of them f*cked up and ended up in jail.
Technically, they were Angel’s crew, and they were getting arrested for Angel’s crimes, but like Marcos said, Angel didn’t care about that shit.
This day officially sucked balls.
“Look, I know you got your own shit,” Marcos started, sounding guilty. “I don’t mean to dump on you, but maybe the Italians can pull Angel back. They already got their hands in his business; why not rein him in on recruiting?”
Jesus, Chuito had to practically sell his soul to the Italians to get Marcos out. They owned him for life now. What would he have to do to get all these kids out too?
Nova Moretti wasn’t a man one walked up to and just asked for a favor.
Nova hated favors, maybe because he spent most of his life taking care of everyone else’s shit. It never stopped for him. Every day was one problem after another.
Everyone wanted a piece of Nova.
Chuito knew how he felt.
“You know I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important,” Marcos went on. “Life-and-death important. Omar is the last kid Angel’s stealing from me, and if I have my way, I’m getting him back too.”
“I know,” Chuito finally admitted, because he did know. “Give me a day. Life and death. I get it.”
Chuito hung up with him and stared at the trees, knowing what Marcos was telling him.
It wasn’t just anyone’s life hanging in the balance.
It was Marcos’s life.
Any cause worth fighting for was worth dying for.
Chuito needed more to drink, but he had just promised himself while lying in jail that he was going to lay off the Patrón for a while.
Plus, more importantly, he was out and didn’t have a car.
Alaine probably wouldn’t appreciate Chuito jacking hers.
That was inconvenient, especially considering his only other form of stress relief didn’t need a gangster f*cking up her life any worse than he already had.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alaine said she would cook, but she sat at the kitchen table instead, staring at her stove. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, and she was angry, so very angry, because not only was Chuito thinking of moving back to Miami.
He was discussing it with Tino instead of her.
She was Chuito’s friend first.
Why was he discussing it with Tino? Because Tino was a man? Because the two of them could do ridiculous things like beat the shit out of each other and bond in jail afterward?
Then there was Tino’s very chauvinist, very caveman suggestion that Alaine simply change Chuito’s mind with sex. Someone needed to punch Tino, preferably Alaine now that she was over her shock. She’d taken every self-defense class Jules taught at the Cellar; now she was glad for it.
The insult to her firmly held feminist beliefs aside, sex and Chuito never equaled a solution to anything. For some reason, it hit her right then that she had actually attempted to date men she not only wasn’t attracted to, but shared absolutely no common interests with.
She was a lawyer, for Christ’s sake.
Why was she shopping in her father’s church for men who wanted a housewife?
That was as unfair to them as it was to her.
Alaine was officially done sacrificing her happiness for Chuito and the delusion he had that she should be someone she wasn’t. It didn’t matter how soulful his eyes were, or how endearing those dimples made him.
If he couldn’t get his shit together, then he could leave, and Alaine could finally start figuring out how to live without the sexy scent of his aftershave fogging up her dreams with something that was clearly never going to happen.
She heard the downstairs door open, and she dashed out of her apartment, determined to intercept him before he could do something like lock himself in like he had last night. He could go back to Miami if he had to, but Alaine wanted answers first, and she wasn’t going to get them by stripping down and begging Chuito to stay.
Tino could shove his advice.
Alaine had her own ways.
Chuito stopped on the stairs, as if he sensed the fury in her. “What?”
“Anything you want to share?” Alaine shrugged. “Anything at all?”
Chuito just gave her a dull stare. “Not particularly. No.”
“Well, you and I need to have a conversation,” she said simply as Chuito walked the rest of the way up the stairs. “Because it seems like you’ve been talking to everyone but me.”
“Yeah, it does seem like that, doesn’t it?” Chuito’s voice had an edge to it, something more than the hard, unyielding way he usually dealt with problems. It was almost manic, like he was about to completely come unhinged. “I’m done for today. I don’t have any Patrón, so—”