The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(62)

Chuito tried to break away. He really did, but it didn’t work out, and like he told Katie, that wasn’t Marcos’s fault. It was just how it was. If one of them was in trouble, they both were.

Chuito knew his cousin. He could see the signs. Trouble was brewing. Hurricane Marcos was about to sweep ashore and do something that pulled apart the fragile web of lies Chuito had weaved for himself. The ones that told him there was even a remote chance of settling down with someone like Alaine.

But they’d been just that…lies.

Katie was the only gringa in this town who would let him jack her car and sit there eating grilled chicken completely unfazed by it. Alaine knew a lot about him, more than she should, but she firmly believed it was in the past. Chuito had made sure she believed it because a part of him had believed it too.

“How come you left Miami?”

Chuito looked up from his dinner and studied Katie, with her eyes still swollen and puffy from crying over his cousin. He shrugged and gave her the vanilla version of the story. “It was a weird time in my life. Marcos was in prison. My mother was driving me crazy. I thought it’d only be for a year or so. I’d get away, learn a few tricks from Clay, and then come back when Marc got paroled.”

“Then why did you stay?” Katie asked, and there was an accusation there, as if she was seeing too much and was challenging him for abandoning his family.

“I got the UFC contract. Marc and my mother told me they wanted me to stay.” Chuito took a bite of his steak and then said, “I believed them. I think they did want me to do well, and once I started making money, I could help them. Legitimately. I have friends here now. They’re my family too. It’s hard being in two places, especially when the places are so different.”

“I can imagine,” Katie said, and then her phone chimed with a text on the table next to her.

She picked it up and looked at it. Her face physically paled over whatever she was reading.

“Who is it?” he asked in concern, thinking it was her ex-husband.

“It’s Marcos,” she whispered as she slid her finger across the screen. “I didn’t know he was in my phone. He must have programmed his number in.”

She was deathly silently for a long time, and then tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. It was such an intimate moment to witness, the way those golden-brown orbs made her look so broken and vulnerable.

What the hell had his cousin said to her?

Chuito would have asked if his phone hadn’t chimed next. He picked it up, seeing a text from Marcos.

4:25 p.m.

No f*cking suit. In my shades and Miami Heat hat. Like a baller.

Chuito’s heart dropped, because he spoke Marcos well enough to read between the lines. He’d done it. Something rash and irreversible. How stupid had Chuito been to hope some of Katie’s responsibility had rubbed off on his cousin during their time together?

Alaine made Chuito want to be a better person. Even if there was no real hope for them, just being around her made him see a higher potential for himself.

He thought Katie had done the same for Marcos, but obviously not.

He texted back.

WTF did you do????

His phone chimed back almost instantly.

The right thing for once. I got out.

Chuito stared at his phone, realizing that maybe Katie had rubbed off on Marcos, but it was the translation of doing the right thing that had differed between Chuito and his cousin.

His phone rang, and, seeing it was Luis, he barked in Spanish, “What the hell is going on?”

And Luis told him.

Chuito listened to the coded, toned-down version of the events that took place, because even Luis knew telling the full story over the phone was a mistake, but he got the gist of what had happened.

When Chuito decided to get out, he did it by removing himself from the situation.

When Marcos got out, he did it like a hurricane, rash and as crazy as ever.

But no one could accuse Marcos of not having cojones.

Only he would do it like that.

What the hell could Angel do with this shit? He had obviously never understood the broad scope of Marcos’s rebellion like Chuito had. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have tried to push him.

Motherf*cker understood it now.

Marcos had made a move that put Angel in a situation that would force him to either kill Marcos to make a point and cause a war in doing so, or stand down and look weak.

The smart move would be to let Marcos go. It was what Chuito would do in the situation. Marcos didn’t want to be there anymore. He was useless anyway. Let him go and do whatever the f*ck he wanted.

The problem was, Chuito didn’t consider Angel a particularly smart leader. Greedy, yes. Dangerous, most certainly. He’d been the only one from their old crew who wanted the job when Chuito lost interest.

He’d honestly thought Los Corredores would fall apart under Angel’s leadership.

He’d underestimated Angel in that respect.

That was Chuito’s mistake.

Now he was going to pay for it.

“What’s happened?” Katie asked when he hung up. Her voice was quivering; her eyes were still wide and watery. Her cheeks tearstained. “He won’t respond to me. I-I wrote him back, but—”

“What’d he say?”

Katie pushed her phone to him, showing him the text from Marcos.