The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(58)

He messed with the tool sticking out of her ignition, and it turned off. She was still amazed, because not only did it take incredible speed and efficacy to steal a car…it also took incredible wit.

“Did you graduate from high school?” she asked curiously.

“Are you kidding?” Chuito snorted and turned to her. “I got expelled when I was sixteen.”

“I feel like the system is failing in Miami.”

“Chica, the system is failing everywhere. Miami is not unique. Why do you think I volunteer at the Cellar as much as I do? Kids drop out in Garnet too.”

“Not the same,” she argued, because she was a high school teacher. She knew their drop-out rate was very low. All the teachers worked hard to help out their troubled youth, and, as Chuito observed, the Cellar helped too. She shrugged, trying not to dwell on things she couldn’t fix. “Are you going to put the top part of the ignition back?”

“No, it’s broken. I’ll have to replace the ignition. I’ll stop on the way home and get you a new one. I’ll install it.”

“Why would you break my car if it’s going to cost time and money to repair?” Katie asked in disbelief. “That makes no sense.”

Chuito held up his key chain and looked at it for a long moment. “It’s been a long time since I carried a key chain like this. It’s been in the drawer for years. I just wanted to see if I could still use it.”

“Is that a skill you forget?” Katie asked, because he didn’t seem to be struggling from lack of practice.

“No, it’s the mentality. Here, it’s easy to forget that part. I’ve been away from home for a long time.” Chuito looked haunted as he stared ahead, as if taking in his surroundings just to remind himself where he was. “I should’ve thrown it away years ago, but I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

He turned to her, his gaze calculating before he finally admitted, “I think I knew I might have to go back to it eventually.”

“Stealing cars?” She laughed. “You can’t be hurting that bad for cash. I don’t care how much you give away to your friends.”

“No, the rest of it. Stealing cars was always the easy part.” He stood and put his keys in his pocket. “I needed to see if I could do the easy stuff to make sure I wouldn’t f*ck up the big stuff.”

“What’s the big stuff?” Katie sat there staring at him. Chuito might not have been her favorite person before now, but he was her closest connection to Marcos, and she found she didn’t mind his company for that reason if nothing else. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not.” He sighed as he leaned against the door frame to her car, resting his head on his arm. “Co?o. I wish you could’ve made him stay here.”

“I tried.” She couldn’t help the tears that stung her eyes. “I didn’t want him to go either.”

“I know.” He lifted his head and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not your fault. It’s not even his fault. It’s my fault. Marcos is a lover. I’m the fighter. I just dragged him down with me, and then I left him there to deal with the shit I got us into.”

Katie wanted to say something, but the words were trapped in her throat. Their realities were so much more complex and dangerous than anything she could have imagined before Marcos had crashed into her life.

A lot of it was very unfair, but they didn’t seem to look at it like that.

“Dinner.” Chuito closed the door and walked toward the diner.

Chuito was one of those men who expected people to follow when he spoke, and she got the impression that, like Marcos, he had earned that attitude the hard way.

Marcos said he got to be the original OG by being a nice guy, and maybe that was half-true. He helped out all of his friends. She imagined those other gangsters weren’t any different than Marcos, made hard by life, with thick shells that kept them from expressing even the most basic of vulnerabilities.

Men like that didn’t give their loyalty to just anyone. They certainly wouldn’t accept help from someone easily.

They respected Chuito for a reason.





Chapter Sixteen


Miami


It was one of those great days in Miami, not too hot, not too cold. There was a breeze, but the sun was shining. Spring in Florida was always the nicest time of the year in Marcos’s opinion, after the cold, before the violent storms and unbearable heat of summer.

It was a good season to die.

Nothing worse than burying someone in the rain. His aunt had a thing about funerals and rain. She thought it was bad luck, as if there was a good day to bury someone. Still, it upset her terribly. They had all been to too many rainy funerals for their sanity, but his mother and Juan had died in the spring, and the sun had been shining when they buried them. The wind had been in their hair. It was nice. Peaceful.

Marcos lay on the grass next to his mother’s grave, staring up at the tree branches. It was a good spot. Chuito had bought out all the plots in this section a few years ago when he started to make real money fighting. Four to the left of Marcos’s mother. Five to the right of Juan. All that were left in the row.

His Uncle Ramon was three rows over. Everyone else was buried in Puerto Rico. This was the closest they could get his mother and Juan to family. Burying them had been a huge expense. The other Los Corredores had helped, because they stuck together for things like that.