The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(63)
I love you, chica. Eres bella. Don’t ever forget that.
The text left Chuito feeling like an uncomfortable intruder in their lives. That was something Katie and Marcos obviously had in common. They were just wide open about these things.
Marcos had found the only woman with a smaller filter than him.
And she was a history teacher.
Who f*cking knew?
“I feel like he’s trying to say good-bye.” Katie choked on a sob and put a hand to her mouth as she looked at Chuito. “What if—”
He saw her responses underneath.
I love you too.
Come back.
Chuito shook his head at that. “He’s not going to come back, Katie. That’ll be like running. Marcos doesn’t know how to run away from anything. He’ll stay in Miami on principle.”
“Then what do we do?” She looked around the diner, because people were starting to stare. If his barking phone call in Spanish didn’t put a red flag over their heads, Katie’s crying certainly did. She lowered her voice and whispered, “How do we help him?”
Chuito grabbed both their phones and then slid out of the booth.
He sat next to Katie, who moved over to give him room. Then he put his arm around her, completely careless of everyone looking at them. He kept his voice down as he said, “Hey, come on. He’s gonna be okay, chica.”
She wiped at her eyes again as she blinked at Chuito. “How can you be sure?”
“Because I am.” He rubbed her arm like a brother would and looked her dead in the eye. “I promise.”
“Promises are important,” Katie reminded him. “Marcos told me they’re everything to an OG. Don’t make it, unless—”
“I promise, he’ll be old and lame when he dies,” Chuito assured her as a strange calm came over him. “He’s not going in the ground a baller. You’ll have time to make things right.”
“How do you know?”
Because Chuito just did.
No one messed with their family and came out unscathed.
Angel had forced Marcos to make the first move, and it wasn’t a half-bad one, but that meant Chuito had to get back in the game and finish it, even if that meant losing Alaine in the process. He couldn’t even mourn it too much. There was a reason he hadn’t touched her. He’d known he’d have to go back eventually, and now was as good a time as any.
Maybe he could give Marcos a happy ending instead.
Chuito might have underestimated Angel, but Angel had also sorely underestimated the level of fury that could be unleashed when Marcos and Chuito worked together to end something.
“This motherf*cker who’s messing with Marcos, he’s threatened the wrong family.” He laughed bitterly when he thought about how true it was. “He’s got no chance. Zero.”
“I love him too.” She picked up her phone and looked at it again. “But I never told him in person. I should have. Maybe he would’ve stayed.”
“You know, Katie, I was wrong about one thing.” He took the phone and pointed to the Spanish section of Marcos’s text to her. “What does that say?”
“It says—” She choked as she looked at it, but she wiped her eyes rather than crumble and whispered, “I-it says, um, ‘You’re beautiful.’”
“He can’t live in this town. I wasn’t lying about that. He would be miserable here.” Chuito smiled in spite of everything. “But you are smart. You could learn Spanish if you wanted to. It’s not impossible.”
Chuito dropped Katie off and promised to return her car to her repaired before the next morning. On his way back from her house, he made a call he was hoping he would never have to make.
The next day, Katie had a new ignition, and Chuito had a meeting scheduled with Nova Moretti for that same evening.
Never let it be said the mafia wasn’t efficient.
Or maybe it was just the Morettis who got shit done.
The apartment above the garage of Romeo and Jules Wellings’s house was about as pimped out as a bachelor pad could be. Everything was state of the art, from the kitchen to the surround-sound television. Chuito was always struck by how neat it was. Chuito wasn’t a slob, but his best friend was neat to the point of a disorder.
Someone could eat off the floor at Tino’s place.
Yet, it was comfortable and inviting. Chuito hung out there a lot. It was almost a second home, which was why it was so hard to fight the string of nervousness tugging at the pit of his stomach as he walked up the stairs. Chuito and Tino lived in the same world, trapped between two homes and two ideals. They understood each other, but Chuito had never known quite what to make of his brother.
Nova wasn’t trapped between anything. He was 100 percent gangster, and when Nova Moretti was ballin’, the rest of them felt like posers for trying it.
He’d seen the Rolls Royce Wraith parked in the driveway.
There was only one guy who would drive a car like that.
He knocked on the screen to the back door instead of just walking in like he would under different circumstances. Tino opened it after a moment, and rather than greet him like he usually did, Tino grabbed his hand and pulled him close, wrapping his other arm around him. He kissed Chuito’s cheek and whispered, “It’ll work out. I promise.”