The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(61)

Marcos studied him for a long moment. His eyes were narrowed in challenge, and there was a tic in his jaw that told him this wasn’t over. Rather than back down, Marcos just glared and said, “Fine, but you better know I might not be this f*cking spiritual the next time you pull a gun on me. I got a lot more ink on my arm than you. Remember that.”

“Get the f*ck out!” Angel pointed to the door. “Now!”

Luis and Miguel physically grabbed Marcos and pulled him away before he could say anything else. “Just shut up!” Miguel growled in his ear. “Before you kill all of us.”

Once they were outside and out of earshot, Luis cursed, “?Me cago en ná! What have you done?”

Neto kicked Marcos. “You scared the shit out of us.”

Marcos shoved him back, forcing him into the dirt. “Don’t f*cking touch me!”

“He’s gonna try to smoke you! Now he has to!” Neto shouted as he looked up at Marcos from his spot on the ground. “Mierda.” He buried his face in his hands and whispered, “I got kids, Marc. What the f*ck? You almost got us all killed.”

“I never asked you to do that!” Marcos yelled at him. “I never asked any of you to do that!”

“You think we can just stand there and watch Angel kill you?” Miguel asked. “Would you stand there? We know you’d be the first one in his face if he tried that with one of us.”

“I don’t have kids! What the hell can that motherf*cker take from me?” Marcos gestured to himself. “Get out of this warehouse. The loyalty isn’t worth it anymore! There’s a whole world out there that never has to deal with any of this shit! Why do you think Chuito stays gone? You think he’s so f*cking smart, then follow his example. He helped the others. He’ll help you too. Go home. Stay home. Take care of your kids. Angel’s coming after me. Not you. This is all some stupid game he’s playing with my cousin. He’s trying to own me to get back at him, but I’m not playing anymore!”

“Are you going to Sofia’s?” Neto asked, his voice shaking as if the nerves finally caught up with him. “We can all hang out there and—”

“No, this is my issue.” Marcos shook his head. “I’m not bringing the war to that street. He wants to take me out, let him come find me.”

“You’re laying low?” Luis asked, sounding relieved.

“Sure, if that’s what you want to believe,” Marcos said as he walked back to his truck and left his friends standing there shaking. “Don’t go back in. Leave now.”

“Angel is right, you know,” Miguel shouted after him. “You’re f*cking crazy!”

“We’re telling Chu!” Luis added.

Marcos slammed the door to his truck rather than respond.

He peeled out of the parking lot and drove about three miles before his hands started shaking. He pulled into a grocery store parking lot and sat there for a long time, trying to catch his breath.

Then he grabbed his phone and looked at it, knowing he had to text his cousin before his friends did, but there was someone else he wanted to text first, because he didn’t doubt Angel would try to take him out.





Chapter Seventeen


Garnet County


Chuito sat in the corner booth at Hal’s, trying to figure out this woman who had managed to get Marcos to love her when the others hadn’t. Marcos had always been wild. Like Chuito’s mother, there was something in the eyes, so like the ocean, soft and beautiful on good days, dangerous and unpredictable on the bad ones.

It was a recessive gene in their family. It would pop up from time to time. His Aunt Camila told him once that when his grandmother saw Marcos’s light eyes the day after he was born, she had warned his aunt that she was in for it.

His grandmother would know. She’d had the misfortune of raising Hurricane Sofia. Hell, Chuito could barely deal with his mother, and she had mellowed with age. There was a reason why Marcos had always gotten along with Chuito’s mother better than he did.

The two of them understood each other.

They didn’t like things that pinned them down.

For a lot of years, Chuito thought Marcos was completely untamable. Like his mother, his cousin would simply spend his days jumping from one bed to the other, one adventure to the next, living in the moment, never worrying about the end and leaving a path of broken hearts in his wake.

But somehow, this one had gotten to him. Maybe it would’ve lasted if he stayed. Maybe it wouldn’t. Katie had still gotten to him, and that made her very unique.

Chuito had to admit, he knew a lot of people in this town, pretty much all of them after five years of living here, and he hadn’t met one like Katie. There was this strange, open curiosity to her. A boldness that likely appealed to Marcos. She also had a natural acceptance of things most people didn’t understand.

It was easy to let the walls down in front of her. Chuito found himself doing it too, which wasn’t like him. He had admitted things to Katie that he had told very few people in this town.

Maybe he just trusted her because Marcos did.

It was built into his genetics. If Marcos said she was okay, Chuito believed it. He and Marcos had been a team since birth; only four months apart they’d come into this world to have each other’s backs, and one arm didn’t question the other when they were both part of the same body.