“I’ve got a few jobs for you this time,” he said as the waitress placed the breadsticks in front of us. I reached for one, it was still warm, and the buttery flavor rolled over my tongue as I took a bite of the delicious garlicky bread.
I arched my eyebrow at him as I waited for him to give me all of the information I would need to get this weekend over with as fast as possible. This was the first time that being back in Ocean Valley didn’t feel like being home, and a part of me had to wonder if it had to do with the Morena that was waiting for me in Cove city.
“Take care of this first one for me, do it clean and fast. Get a drink, get your cock sucked, relax a little, and then go eat at my Mamá’s house…if you can do the job fast enough, dinner might even still be warm by the time you get there.” He slid a facedown polaroid towards me and sneered at the plate of pasta the waitress put down in front of him. “I’ll have one or two more for you tomorrow before you go back to Cove City,” he said, stabbing at his food without looking up.
“If I’m finishing up early, I probably won’t stay an extra night then,” I warned him, and his eyes shifted down from his plate of pasta to me. “I have a situation I’m in the middle of dealing with,” I explained to him, hoping it wouldn’t become an issue.
“I always crave the idea of pasta, but then when I get the real thing upfront and personal, it just doesn’t hit the same. You know what I mean ’Cuz?” he said, ignoring me and taking a bite out of his Italian food almost begrudgingly. But I didn’t understand, because if I had my pasta, I would devour it entirely. I would eat it like a starving animal who had nothing else on this earth to consume. The pasta was a terrible fucking metaphor of course, for the one thing I couldn’t have.
No woman had ever made me feel something. No woman could make me laugh or share ideas and thoughts with me. There had never been anyone I could let my walls down and open up to, no one I could just be myself with. Except for her. But she was never mine, and she never would be, and just the idea of speaking these heavy feelings out loud could risk burning down everything my brothers and I had worked to build.
It only took an hour to find the asshole Guillermo wanted dead. Just a ten-minute call back to the Black Crow’s tech team and they had the guy’s entire family tree and his last three known addresses for me. It took exactly fourteen minutes to kill him, so to say I was making good time would be an understatement. Triple points for not even having to use a weapon. The guy was passed out drunk in a recliner watching daytime Friends reruns and I snapped his neck clean before he could wake up. I don’t know why Memo wanted him dead, and honestly, I didn’t want to know.
I wrote my own stories in my head about the people he sent me after, it was the only way I could sleep at night. When I slept. This guy particularly was a child molester, scum of the earth. That’s what I’d tell myself so I could get through it. That, and maybe if I did it, my little brothers and sisters wouldn’t have to.
Maybe someday the Black Crows would have enough manpower and firepower behind us that Guillermo would just agree to let me go without bloodshed. That dream was a far cry from reality and I couldn’t live on the hope of that alone.
I didn’t know what the worst was anymore…the killing, or the melting-their-bodies-in-their-own-bathtubs-with-acid part. Either way I was starting to get pretty desensitized to it all, and I didn’t even remember finishing but before I knew it. I was outside and climbing into a town car with a partition. Guillermo sat across from me. Legs spread wide against the seat.
He signaled the driver to roll up the partition with a motion of his hand and it was done in a matter of seconds. I crossed my right ankle over my left knee.
“You get faster every time, primo!” he said laughing. “I know you think badly of me for keeping you around ’Cuz, but you’re wasting your talents out there! You’re a cold-blooded killer. Look how you shine when someone puts a target in front of you.” His words forced me to shift uncomfortably with the weight of my sins pressing up against me. I looked out of the window instead of responding, so he continued.
“You belong here with me, with your family. You’ll see that soon and I’ll be here to welcome you back with open arms.” he winked at me. “You’re a soldier, not a leader.” He said condescendingly and I just smiled at him and nodded. It was pointless to argue unless I was ready to start a war.
“What’s for dinner?” I changed the subject.
“Ahh, you know my mom, everything.” We both laughed and the switch that turned us into family flipped again, and just like that we were telling old stories and joking about the family like we were kids again. I could handle being Guillermo’s cousin, I liked my family, for the most part. What I couldn’t handle was being his soldier, his weapon, the familybusiness.
After I showered and spent an hour convincing my cousin that I didn’t need him to send up one of his many willing whores to come fuck me, we headed out of his Hollywood home.
I didn’t want some bitch who was being paid to give me attention, I wanted the Morena who looked at me like I was a big gulp of air under the sea. I didn’t want fake, cold, uncaring eyes. I preferred my hand to the charade any whore could fake. Fuck! I needed to get home, now. It was driving me insane that I couldn’t pull my phone out to text her or call her and hear that my brothers were treating her okay.
I pulled my phone and debated checking the feeds. Who the fuck knew where she would be right now?
Would she still be in Ronan’s room?
Would she be in Kane’s?
Was she in the kennels again?
There was a part of me that wanted to believe she’d be in my room, waiting for me when I came home. I practically laughed out loud at my own insane thoughts. Why the hell would she be in my room?
There was a better chance she’d be locked in that box again when I got back.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket and we pulled into my Aunt Rosalinda’s house. She refused to let Guillermo buy her a nicer, bigger house no matter how rich he got. She didn’t want blood, or drug money and there was no way he would ever convince her otherwise.
Walking in and I was greeted by a rush of the next generation of niños running by, screaming at each other and I smiled remembering the days when that was me. How something could feel so close yet so far away.
Time ruined us.
“Ay Santito pequeñín! You are all man now my boy!” my aunt said, which was insane because she had seen me in the last six months, and I was a thirty-three-year-old man who hadn’t grown in years. I didn’t argue though, I just let her fawn over me and returned her affectionate manhandling with pleasant smiles. I was relieved to hear that my dad had been running a fever and my mom stayed home to take care of him, but I had a pretty good hunch it was just an excuse to avoid coming face to face with me again. It had been at least fifteen years since I’d last spoken to my mom. And to be completely honest that was more than okay with me. They’d written me off just as long ago for not falling in under Guillermo and giving them the cushy life they thought I owed them.
Dinner was tolerable, to say the least, and Guillermo tried his best to force his mom to let me stay at his house, but she was having none of it as we had all expected. I was grateful because I was too tired to listen to Guillermo and his backhanded compliments while he tried to convince me to abandon my brothers. She made up the guest room for me and I thanked her for her hospitality as I made my way to the bed kicking off my shoes and pants, ready to crash for the night.
When I dropped my head to the pillow, I realized my phone was still in my pants, but I was too tired to care. Murder was a tiring business. Playing nice with family was twice as exhausting. Just one more day and I would be back home, where I needed to be.