The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(87)

“Yeah, go ahead and get me one,” Tino said as he looked up at Chuito. “I mean, drinking hospital coffee is an insult to my heritage, but maybe they have an Italian roast or something? I can drink French coffee in an emergency. Most places have a dark-roast option.”

“They don’t,” Romeo assured him. “It’s all merda.”

Tino huffed in annoyance. “Forget it.”

“Italianos,” Chuito mumbled under his breath. “Son unos consentidos.”

Tino flipped him off in response, making it obvious he understood loud and clear that Chuito had just called his people spoiled.

Because they were.

Unbelievably so.

He walked by Wyatt and Tabitha, who were still standing there, as if they couldn’t bear to be in that room any more than Chuito could.

“You want coffee?” he asked Wyatt.

“Nah, we’re good,” Tabitha answered for him. “But thank you.”

Wyatt laughed in spite of everything. “I guess I’m good.”

Chuito arched an eyebrow at that, thinking once again of Alaine and how she had a tendency to boss him around whether he wanted her to or not. This woman really was Wyatt’s Alaine. It made something dark and angry burn in Chuito’s stomach, compounding with the thousand times he had lain in bed, looking at the ceiling, and wondered just how horrible it had been for his mother to be raped.

And then discover she was pregnant with the devil’s spawn.

He had found pictures when he was seven, in his grandmother’s drawer at her house in Puerto Rico, of his mother after the attack. Bruised and battered, looking so very young, for once her beauty damaged by the evil of her attacker.

But the beauty had won in the long run.

His mamá healed. She overcame. She stood strong and tried to teach Chuito to be strong too rather than give him away like others would.

“I do think it’ll be okay,” Chuito whispered to both of them, but he looked at Tabitha as he said it, because women really were so much stronger than men. Then, before he could give himself away, he asked, “You don’t want anything?”

“Water.” Wyatt reached for his wallet. “I’ll give you cash for it.”

“Ay Dios mio,” Chuito said in disbelief. “I think I owe you the bottle of water. I got it.”

He owed him a lot more than that.

And he planned to make sure he paid those debts.

Even if Wyatt never knew it.

He found Nova alone in the cafeteria, looking at his phone, with a Styrofoam cup in front of him. Chuito sat down across from him, taking a sip of his coffee that really was crap.

“I’m surprised to see you drinking it,” Chuito said as he watched Nova take a drink of his own coffee. “I thought Italians were too good for hospital coffee.”

“It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t taste like mierda to you?”

“Nope.” Nova took another sip to prove his point. “What? Was Tino bitching about the coffee options?”

“Yeah, Romeo was too. What kind of Italian are you that you’re not?”

“I dunno; they say there’s something wrong with me.” Nova shrugged. “I can eat anything. I’m not f*cking picky. My ma could burn shit, and I’d still eat it. They’d f*cking starve to death first. I don’t know how two guys who grew up as broke as they did can act like food is their enemy.”

“Yeah, I’m not picky either,” Chuito admitted. “Probably grew up more broke than you.”

“Then I’m sorry about that.” Nova set his phone aside and gave Chuito his attention. He studied him for a moment and then asked in Spanish, “What’re you doing out here with me? Change your mind?”

Chuito shook his head and then answered in Spanish, because it was a sure bet no one in this cafeteria understood him. “I’m not going to let Wyatt go down for what happened. That’s bullshit. If someone had done that to my chica—”

“Are you going to be cool about this?” Nova asked in concern. “Can you do it how we discussed?”

“It pisses me off,” Chuito admitted, keeping his voice low even though they were using Spanish. “It’s too easy.”

“It’s not personal. You have to look at the bigger picture,” Nova explained reasonably in the cool, easy voice of a boss with class. “It’s just about solving the problem, Garcia.”

“I know.” Chuito nodded, because he did. “I got it.”

“Gracias,” Nova said with a smile and seemed to mean it. “I appreciate it. Genuinely.”

Chuito considered that and then asked, “Do you want to move to Garnet?”

“I want to be closer to my brothers. I’d like my nephews to know who the f*ck I am.” Nova picked his phone up, looking at it with a distant stare as if it was a habit he had developed as a defense mechanism. “But they’re better without me here. I can see the bigger picture. They can’t. Even Tino can’t, and he knows they’ll never let me go. I do something the old man can’t get from anyone else. They’re not going to let me go. I’m in until I die.”

“Everyone’s replaceable.”

“Not everyone,” Nova whispered sadly. “I have a photographic memory. Not too many people can do what I do for the administration. I don’t think anyone can, but if I find someone, I’ll let you know.”