The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(19)

“You gave me something that night, but it wasn’t these scars.” Katie didn’t pull free; instead, she let him touch her, to feel for himself the damage he’d done to something so beautiful. “I’m stronger than I was before the accident. You gave me that. You taught me to be like you.”

He grunted in disbelief as he continued to run his fingers over the injuries, wondering about the pain she went through in recovery and knowing he’d caused it. If only he’d turned the wheel the other way. They would’ve driven right by each other, and neither of them would bear the scars of that night. He wouldn’t have spent the past four months fighting to be something the world didn’t want him to be, and those wounds were likely just as painful as hers.

“I, um—” He brushed the scar on her wrist reverently with his thumb, caressing it instead of just touching it. “The first memories I have are of working on cars with my dad. I’ve always had a passion for cars, all cars, but I’ve spent most of my life hacking them up. Cutting into perfectly good vehicles for the parts until they’re nothing but empty frames.”

“Okay,” Katie said slowly, not sounding nearly as judgmental as she should. “I don’t think I understand what you’re trying to say.”

“It’s like a curse.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles because he couldn’t resist. “Hurting the things that are most beautiful to me. It keeps happening to me over and over again. I don’t know why, but it does. I loved my mother so much, and she died.”

Katie shook her head. “My mother died too. That’s not—”

“She was killed in a drive-by.” Marcos cut her off before she could finish. “The whole front of the house was full of bullets.”

“That couldn’t be your fault,” Katie whispered, her voice strained with pain, and when he looked at her, he could see the agony in her gaze. “I’m so sorry.”

“They killed my cousin too. He was only thirteen.” Marcos flinched over the memory, remembering the screams that night, the way Juan had died in Chuito’s arms. The wide, set gaze of his mother staring at the ceiling in shock. He shook his head. “Those bullets were supposed to be for me. They killed Juan and my mother instead.”

Tears rolled down Katie’s cheeks, as if she felt the pain as deeply as he did. “Marcos—”

“I couldn’t respond to your messages because the tattoo”—he lifted up his arm, showing it to her and musing to himself that he was branded even more horrifically than she was—“it’s a gang tattoo. The heat’s probably watching. We’re a known gang in Miami, and they’ve been coming down hard on us for the past few years. I’m sure they sent a subpoena to craigslist.”

“You’re not still in the gang?” She gasped. “Are you?”

“You don’t get out of a gang,” he corrected her. “Until they bury you.”

She was silent, her eyes wide. He thought she might get up and leave, and really, that would be best. It’d be so much easier that way, and it’d save him from doing what he knew he had to do if he was going to obey his newfound conscience.

Except Katie didn’t say anything. She just sat there, like a deer in the headlights, making him feel like a Mack truck, and he hated it.

“I want to be the guy who shows you the ocean. I do,” he admitted, because why the hell not. He was spilling his guts at this diner anyway, and he really hoped no one could hear him, because he hadn’t said this shit out loud to anyone. Ever. “But I’m not, chica. I’m sorry. For both of us.”

It felt sort of like cutting off his own arm, and he didn’t even know why. He barely knew this chick. She was hot, sure, smoking actually, but he didn’t really have a hard time picking up beautiful women. So why this one, with her wide, deer-in-the-headlight gaze and absolutely zero understanding of his life and his reality?

That seemed about as unfair as everything else.

When she finally broke her silence, her voice was a squeak of misery that he understood all too well. “Then why come all the way up here?”

He jerked, not expecting that. “I told you, the heat’s probably—”

“You could’ve given the message to your cousin.” Her voice grew stronger, more reasonable, making him envision her standing at the front of the class teaching. “How long of a drive is it?”

He shrugged. “I dunno, fourteen hours without stopping, but—”

“Did you stop?”

“No, but—”

“You drove fourteen hours without stopping to sit here and tell me it’s impossible?” Katie arched a dubious eyebrow at him.

“Yes.” Even to Marcos’s ears, it sounded like bullshit.

“Liar.” She called him on it. “What if two negatives—”

“One negative.” He gestured to himself and then looked at her. “Just one, and what happens when you mix a positive and a negative, Katie?” He hoped she knew the answer, because his ass dropped out of high school, and he wasn’t real sure. He was tempted to Google it on his phone. A part of him was hoping for a different answer than the one he suspected was correct. “What does it equal? Tell me.”

“A n-negative,” she whispered miserably. “A negative and positive equal a negative.”