The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2)(88)

Chuito raised his eyebrows, because he had to admit that made Nova pretty indispensable and explained why he couldn’t get out. It also explained why he was sitting here speaking Spanish like a Boricua instead of an Italian, but that didn’t make up for being irreplaceable to the mafia and losing his family in the bargain. “That sucks, man. I’m sorry.”

“It does suck.” Nova let out a bitter laugh. “I think you’re the first person who noticed. It’s sucked pretty much since the day I was born.”

“What if the old man bites it?”

“What, are you volunteering?” Nova asked with a laugh. “You going to take him out for me?”

Chuito shrugged rather than commit.

Nova laughed again. “You’re ballsy. Maybe I need more Puerto Rican friends. Loyal and ballsy, it’s a handy combination.”

“Not really.” Chuito sighed. “It’s sort of a f*cked-up combination. Bad shit happens. Do you believe in karma?”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Nova crossed himself. “If I believed in karma, I’d have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a long time ago.”

“I believe in karma.”

“Oh my God.” Nova gave him a look of horror. “How do you keep breathing?”

“I don’t know.” Chuito huffed. “I’m not even a real Catholic anymore. The only time I’ve gone to church since I was seventeen was for weddings and funerals.”

Nova looked genuinely shocked. “You don’t go to confession? I know you visit Miami. You don’t go when you’re down there?”

“No.” Chuito felt as shocked as Nova looked. “Do you?”

“Yes,” Nova said as if it were obvious.

“You tell them everything?”

Nova nodded. “Yup.”

“Holy shit,” Chuito mumbled, arching an eyebrow as he took another sip of coffee. “Really? Any priest I’ve confessed a real crime to told me to turn myself in to repent.”

“You think my people don’t have a priest who’s aware of what we do?” Nova asked him with a smile. “We have a whole friggin’ church. We built it in the forties. It’s like a wiseguys convention every Sunday.”

“Of course you do.” Chuito shook his head. “You even have God in your pocket. Fucking Italians. Money fixes just about everything for you.”

“Just about,” Nova agreed and then looked at his phone as if he was hiding again.





Chapter Thirty-Two


Chuito had lived in Garnet for over three years, and he’d never gone to the bad side of town. He’d driven through it on occasion, but stopped and spent time there, no f*cking way.

It wasn’t how completely run-down it was.

Poverty didn’t bother him.

It certainly didn’t scare him like it did others.

Hell, in a lot of ways he was more comfortable in it. There was something about the cleaned-up, whitewashed downtown of Garnet where he lived that still grated, with all its old-fashioned houses and shops, buffed and polished to look quaint.

It made him resentful.

He didn’t even know why it made him resentful.

It just did.

But Garnet, like most towns, had its poor sections too. He’d changed his running route when Vaughn was released, winding his way through the back roads where Garnet’s poor lived, hidden off in the woods, with its run-down trailers and broken front porches, even though he had avoided this area like the plague since he’d moved there.

He had stayed away because of the drugs.

Wyatt was a good sheriff, but Chuito found them the first time he ran past the trailer park. He’d known all along it was there, but he hadn’t actually seen it until he was forced to look for it. He could spot a drug deal from a mile away, and they were far more prevalent than Wyatt probably realized.

Like Tino said, the underworld would always be there.

Crime found a way.

Always.

And it was so f*cking creative.

Like a living body that adapted and survived.

What was interesting was for the first time, it repelled away from Chuito rather than find him like a magnet. These redneck criminals did not like that Chuito changed his running route.

The third time he ran past a house that was just down the way from the trailer park Chuito had been scoping out, a motherf*cker had the gall to flash a shotgun at him while he sat on his porch, dealing as the sun set in the distance.

A f*cking shotgun.

Chuito had seen a lot of different firearms in crime, but a shotgun? Not the most user-friendly weapon of choice. Sure, it’d kill a motherf*cker dead, but these redneck *s would still be sliding the chamber back while Chuito was putting holes in them. It wasn’t like he was a f*cking deer. He could shoot back, but for some reason that had escaped them.

So he started running strapped.

Even if it chafed like a bitch.

But he kept up his route for two f*cking weeks.

Through the backwoods, where the snowy roads weren’t as well kept, and it left his shoes soaked and freezing. The fifth time someone flashed a shotgun at him, he finally just flashed his gun back, daring them to try and shoot him, ’cause he had decent aim and a shotgun was the tortoise of weapons.

Really, the shotguns were bothering him.