The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(71)

“You can stay here, Chu.”

“I cannot stay here,” he said with grim certainty, the pain of it making his chest hurt, because admitting it to her made it true. “Even if my cousin wasn’t in trouble, which he is, I shouldn’t stay.”

Rather than argue, Alaine reached for his forearm, spreading her open palm over the Los Corredores snake on his arm.

He laughed bitterly. “I can’t wait to hear this one.”

“Loyalty?” she suggested.

He nodded. “That too.”

“What else?”

He looked to his arm, seeing the head of the snake peeking out past her spread fingers. “Satisfaction.”

“That’s it?”

“Vindication,” he went on, still staring at the way she touched something so dark with nothing but love. It almost burned him to see her hand on his Los Corredores ink, and he wanted it to burn her too. To make her run away from it as fast as she could. “Revenge.” He let the word bleed out of him like the poison it was. “Hatred.” He closed his eyes, remembering how he had earned all the blood drops that covered the full expanse of the snake’s back. “Murder.”

Her fingers twitched on his arm, and he opened his eyes to look at her hand as the stillness descended on them. He waited for her to pull it away, but she didn’t. She just stayed where she was in the ominous silence after his confession.

“Actual murder?” she whispered.

“Actual murder.” He nodded rather than deny it, even if he was leaving himself wide open to prison for the rest of his life if she decided to do what any normal gringa from a place like Garnet would do. “This tattoo means I’m a killer, Alaine.”

“But I thought it was just your gang tattoo. Your cousin has one too.”

He turned back to her, seeing her eyes were wide and stunned in the darkness. “Yes, he does. Did you notice the difference between mine and his?”

“Yours is finished.”

He shifted on the bed and put his thigh up on the mattress to fully face her as he held out his forearm to her. He grabbed her hand and forced her finger to run down the body of the snake once more, making her touch his sins rather than ignore them. “You have to earn the blood drops. Some Los Corredores can retire without getting any, but most have a few. They’re easy to get in the hood. Someone tries to jump you while you’re dealing. You defend yourself, and if you’re lucky, you get a blood drop. If not, the other muchacho’s getting the ink, and your mamá’s burying you. If a gang war goes down, you can earn a lot real fast if you live to talk about it. Or maybe you’re el diablo and you earn so many you run out of room.”

Alaine touched the last two ink drops that were outside the snake on her own, tracing her fingers over the blood drops on either side of his Los Corredores head like a woman who knew his tattoos very well. “You got these after you moved here.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “I did.”

“Chu—”

“You should’ve stuck with the church muchachos, Alaine.” His voice cracked as he said it, because even with his crimes laid bare, he didn’t want to see her with someone else. “And I should’ve loved you enough to push you away. I’m selfish. Most thieves are. I wanted to stay here with you in this prison forever. Even if it hurt you.”

“God forgives sins,” she said almost to herself, as if looking for an excuse. “If you repent.”

“I don’t want to repent,” he admitted harshly. “I like my sins. The blood on my arm means I got to kill the motherf*ckers who destroyed my family. That matters to me. Very much. It matters so f*cking much I am willing to go to hell rather than repent for them. I want to keep my sins.”

“Would you repent for me?” she whispered, her voice quivering with emotion. “To spend eternity with me?”

He was silent for a long time as he looked at his arm. Then, almost as if he were in a dream, he shook his head and admitted, “No, not even for you. I will not apologize for what I did. I am not asking a God that has never been my friend for forgiveness after he took my brother and Tiá Camila from me. Screw him.”

“This really is a ticket to hell.” She sounded so shocked by the revelation, as if she hadn’t been listening to him for five years. “You said I had to buy a ticket to hell to be with you. You meant it.”

“I did, yeah,” he agreed, remembering the angry twenty-year-old gangster from long ago making that offer to Alaine. “Luckily you’re smarter than that. I’m gonna move back to Miami. You’re gonna stay here and find someone who deserves you. I’m sorry I made it harder. I should’ve left before I touched you.”

“I don’t get a choice?” she asked him, sounding hurt by the suggestion. “After what happened tonight, you just decide for me like a caveman?”

He opened his mouth, stunned, before he tilted his head and gave her a look of disbelief. “Did you hear what I just confessed to you?”

“I heard you,” she assured him. “It’s like a war. You said it was like a war. How is a gang war different from any other war? You were protecting your family.”

“I wasn’t protecting my family. I was avenging my family. There’s a difference. I did it for revenge. I am not nice. The man you think you love is capable of terrible things.” He gestured to the tattoo on his hip. “And this ink, this brand-new ink, means I will never be allowed to be nice. I can never live the lie for you. I can never pretend I wasn’t that gangster who smoked all those motherf*ckers for killing my family. It means the mafia owns me forever. I am never getting out. I am going to be a gangster until I die, Alaine.”