by Jadyn Chase
I crossed the room and sat down by the window. When I looked out it at the beautiful yard, I thought about Francisco. He always thought the world was good. He thought people were good. He thought he was good, even though he was a biker.
Nothing phased him. Not even the most hardcore gang violence could make him think the world was any less of a paradise. Nothing—not the worst that humanity could dish out—could ever make him love people any less or get him to stop trying his utmost to do them good. That was just the person he was.
Thinking about him gave me an exquisite pang of longing in the forgotten corners of my heart. I could never be good enough to deserve a guy like him. I could never be happy or positive enough for someone like that to want to be around me. I would only drag him down.
I was damaged goods. Diego made sure of that. Francisco would want a woman who could bop through life on a cloud. He would want someone to have fun with, someone to laugh with, someone to join him on his mission to spread sunshine and good cheer through the barrios of life.
That wasn’t me. I didn’t know what my life would become, but it wouldn’t be that. Nothing good could ever come from my existence again.
I wanted him. That was the truth I didn’t want to admit. I wanted Francisco to want me. I wanted him to see me as good enough for him, but I wasn’t.
No man ever looked at me with that kind of blank acceptance the way he did. He didn’t ask me to be anything other than what I was. He could see how fucked up I was. He could see it stamped into my face, but he didn’t care. He treated me as though I wasn’t battered or torn up or on the run for my life. He acted like I just strolled in off the street for breakfast.
When he laughed, he held nothing back. His laughter shook his whole big, strong, body. His smile transformed his features into a brilliant ray of love and happiness for the whole world.
That laugh and that smile didn’t make him less of a man. They made him more so. They filled his being with irresistible power. They made him magnetically attractive and impossibly sexy.
I sat closer to him than I’d sat next to any man since I was a little girl. I smelled him. I could have put my arms around him and felt the comforting solidity of his frame under his muscles.
That could never happen, though. He wouldn’t push me away. He could never reject anybody like that. He would just smile down at me with that tolerant acceptance that said he didn’t feel the same way. He would feel like a big brother or a cousin to me. He could never feel anything more. I knew that at the bottom of my heart.
Teresa appeared at my side. Her weight sagged the couch cushions next to me, but I didn’t look at her. She couldn’t understand. No one could.
She broke in on my thoughts. “Dad gave me this. I thought you might be interested.”
Against my will, I dragged my eyes away from the yard to find her holding out an old photo album. The pages yellowed with age and part of the binding peeled off. I frowned at it. “What is it?”
“Look.” She turned the first page.
She laid aside one page after the other and my mind shattered at what I saw. There was my mother as I’d never seen her before. In my early years before she died, she always had blonde hair. She dyed it. She always dyed it. I never saw her with brown hair—ever.
Now here she was standing with crowds of people, all of them Mexican. Their hawkish features and dark complexions told the whole story. Some of them wore gang colors and patched leather jackets.
“She kept it hidden from everyone. Dad thinks she must have been ashamed of her upbringing. She told him her parents died in a car accident when she was a baby and that she grew up in a foster home, but that was obviously a lie. Look at this. It’s her father’s birth certificate. I looked him up and he’s still alive somewhere in East LA. He might even still be a member of the gang for all I know.”
I blinked down at the page. I couldn’t speak above a whisper. “This is impossible.”
“Dad thinks this is why you wound up in that gang in the first place. He thinks some kind of cellular memory drew you to it because it was familiar.”
“If it’s true,” I rasped, “that must mean that we’re…. we’re….”
She nodded. “We’re Mexican—half, at least. She lied about everything. She lied about being Mexican. She lied about growing in a gang. She never wanted anyone to know her hair was naturally brown. Dad never suspected a thing.”
I couldn’t stop staring at the pictures. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that the woman in the photographs really was my mother. She looked so different I could barely recognize her as the same person. In a way, she wasn’t the same person. My whole life was a lie.
She went to all that trouble to leave gang life behind. Then along came me and I undid all her work in a few short months by hooking up with Diego. Now I was a marked member of La Muerta. For all I knew, I might belong to the same gang she worked so hard to leave.
What did it all mean? Did this mean I should be in the club or not? Did it mean I was destined to belong to La Muerta, or did it mean I should repeat what my mother did by getting out of it? Nothing made sense. I didn’t make sense. I didn’t know myself anymore.
Teresa slid the book onto my lap. “I have to go to work in an hour. I’ll leave this here and you can take a look at it. Make yourself at home, and I’ll see you this evening.”
After she left, the house fell blissfully quiet. I sat and stared out the window for hours just thinking about everything. Then I stretched out and relaxed. I had nowhere to be and nothing to do.
I woke up in the late afternoon to the sound of a key grating in the lock. I sat up where I’d been sleeping on the couch. The album lay to one side. I hadn’t looked at it again since Teresa left. I couldn’t bear it.
She entered the house and bolted the door behind her. “Hey!” she called. “I brought a roast chicken for dinner. I didn’t feel like cooking. Did you get some rest? I was thinking you could take the room at the end of the hall if you’re going to stay here for a while.”
“I won’t stay,” I told her. “That’s your home office and workout room. I couldn’t take that. I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”
“Like where?” she demanded. “Somewhere like Diego’s? I don’t think so. You’re staying here.”
I looked down at the floor. “Before that happens, I need to call Mario. Can I use your phone?”
She handed it over. “Mario. Francisco. Diego. You’ve got a man in every port, don’t you?”
My cheeks burned, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to go through another lengthy explanation, and what difference did it make, anyway? I wasn’t going to stick around to poison my sister’s life with my problems.
I stared at the screen trying to remember Mario’s number. I had it saved on my old phone. Now I couldn’t remember it. How could I discuss leaving La Muerta if I couldn’t call him?
I would call Amelia, his twenty-year-old daughter. I knew her number and she worked as La Muerta’s secretary and accountant. She knew every skeleton in La Muerta’s closet. She would give me her dad’s number.
I settled on the couch while Teresa clanged around the kitchen doing something. She passed the service window back and forth between the fridge and the sink.
I switched the device over to the phone and tapped in the area code. I got three numbers entered when a thunderous crash startled me out of my seat. I jumped a foot in the air and Teresa spun around as the front door sailed off its hinges. The bolt held, but the screws pinning the hinges ripped out of the wood. The door pivoted into the room and I gasped in horror when Diego charged into the house.
I scrambled backward to get away from him and wound up crawling up the back of the couch. I got to the top and hit the wall. I couldn’t go any further.
Diego barged into the living room and swung his arm up. A gun went off in his hand and Teresa hurtled off her feet. She smashed into the fridge with both arms hurtling out in front of her. Her dark hair pitched over her fac
e.
I screamed, but I didn’t have time to do anything before Diego swiveled around to point his weapon at me. The whole thing happened so fast I never had time to think. The gun went off. At the last possible second before my head exploded, I toppled over the back of the couch and hit the floor between it and the wall.
The bullet shattered the sheetrock inches away from where my head was. The boom deafened me, but panic and desperation erased every conscious thought. Diego bellowed in bullish rage and charged across the room. He grabbed the couch and lifted it off the ground.
It must have been a lot heavier than he expected because he only got it a few inches above the carpet before it slammed down again. It pinned me against the wall. I screamed my head off, but I couldn’t get away.
The next instant, he appeared at the other end of the couch. He clamped both brutal fists on the upholstery and flung the thing away with no effort at all. The couch skidded at an angle and now nothing blocked him from coming after me.
He still clutched the gun in his hand. He took a wide stance and leveled it at me. I had to get out of there to save my own life, but I had nowhere to go. His knuckles whitened on the trigger grip and a surge of adrenaline hit me like a rocket.
I lunged for his legs and scurried between his knees. He wheeled around roaring like an ox. The gun cracked and I screamed again, but nothing happened. I launched to my feet and plunged for the open doorway.
His footsteps pounded on the floor behind me. He came up on me a lot faster than I expected. His fingertips brushed my hair to grab me, but I dodged to one side. His elbow hit the doorjamb and stopped him from getting a grip. I bolted across the porch and vaulted into the flowerbeds.
Terror and confusion narrowed my focus to a pinpoint. Where could I go to get away from him? I raced around the house. I didn’t see or hear Diego anywhere, but that didn’t mean anything.
Through the deafening beat of my pulse in my brain, I realized I still had Teresa’s phone in my hand. My fingers crushed the device in a death grip. I couldn’t loosen my fingers if I tried.
On a wing and a prayer, I dove into the shrubs behind the garden shed. I curled into the tightest ball I could and brought the phone up to my face. I fumbled in my shorts pocket and pulled out Cisco’s number. My hands shook entering the number.
I pressed the phone to my ear and concentrated all my attention on the sound of ringing. Please pick up, Cisco, I prayed. Please, please, please pick up.
6
Francisco
The Boss propped his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at me. “You should have told me about this sooner, Ese.”
“This is the first chance I got to tell you,” I replied. “I couldn’t exactly leave him lying there in the gutter, could I?”
“You should have called me the minute he showed up,” he boomed. “Christ, you should have called me the minute you saw her brand.”
“Whatever, man,” I countered. “Anyway, she’s calling her Jefe to get herself released. It doesn’t mean shit.”
“You better hope it don’t,” he retorted. “If it turns into something more than shit, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”
“I hope I am.” I tried to sound more nonchalant than I was, but it was never a fun experience getting chewed out by The Boss. That dude could cut a grown man to shreds with a glance.
He waved his hand. “All right, Ese. Get out of here. If it turns out to be nothing, you have nothing to worry about.”
I turned on my heel and marched toward my bike. I couldn’t escape the creeping sensation of a dozen eyes boring into my back, but I kept it cool until I put on my shades and mounted up.
I fired up the motor and roared out of the warehouse. I didn’t want to hang around to be pitied like a whipped dog. All the other vatos in the club knew exactly what I was going through. They’d all been there themselves, but I couldn’t stand that look of pained sympathy in their faces.
I rode three blocks before I steered to the curb. I shut down the bike before I slammed my fist into the gas tank. “Son of a bitch! Fucking shit! Stupid son of a fucking bitch!”
How could I be so stupid? I never should have tried to handle some runaway La Muerta broad and her drunken old man on my own. El Jefe was right. I should have called for backup the instant I realized who and what she was.
Instead, I decided to play nursemaid to a bundle of primed explosives. What kind of chump makes a mistake like inviting her into his house and making her eggs and bacon and coffee?
The Boss was always telling me my soft heart would get me into trouble one of these days. I guess now was the time. It could have gone a lot worse. I could have gotten killed last night instead of getting off with being chewed out from one of my closest brothers.
I vented my frustrations on the poor bike before I started to cool down. Damaging my most precious possession wouldn’t accomplish anything. Like he said, if it came to nothing, I had nothing to worry about.
Hell, Isabel might be back with La Muerta getting thumped by her old man at this very moment. If she was, La Muerta wouldn’t come around asking us to get her back, would they?
My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and read the screen. Unknown caller. That was weird. No one I didn’t know had this number. I made sure of that. I punched the button. “Francisco Alvarez speaking.”
A garbled belch of static crackled down the line. I held the phone away from my ear until it stopped. I listened again. Nothing.
“Who is this?” I demanded. “You’ve got five seconds before I hang up.”
“Cisco! I need….”
The screaming voice fired down my spine before it cut out. Then an ear-splitting screech stabbed into my brain and the phone went dead.
I listened to the deafening silence, but nothing more came through. I caught a few fleeting words, but I would recognize that voice anywhere. Isabel.
My throat constricted with all the things I would like to bellow down that phone. Where was she? What was the problem? Was she in danger?
I didn’t have to ask. She wouldn’t call me screaming like that but for one reason. That fucker must have followed us. Maybe he knew about that friend of hers from before and he figured Isabel would run to her if she needed a place to stay.
The Boss’s iron visage flashed before my eyes. You should have called me the minute you saw her brand. Maybe I should have. Maybe I should have reported any member of La Muerta dragging their problems into our territory.
One striking difference set this situation apart from last night. It wasn’t happening in Los Diablos territory. It was happening across town, and no screaming, terrified woman ever called Francisco Alvarez for help in vain.
I fired up the bike and hit the gas. I pounded down the freeway burning rubber to her friend’s house. Isabel. He better not have hurt her or someone was going to die. That was all there was to it.
The minute I got near the place, I noticed the front door missing. I kicked down the stand and leaped up the steps four at a time. I stuck my head into the living room but I didn’t see anybody.
A gunshot blast revealed the studs behind the sheetrock across the room. The couch sat at an odd angle. Other than that, I didn’t see anything amiss besides the door tilted against the corner.
The house yawned still and silent as the grave. No one was there. I strained my ears. That was when I heard a popping sound coming from the kitchen. I yanked my sidearm from my shoulder holster and tiptoed around the wall.
There lay the friend—Teresa, her name was. A gaping bloody hole oozed dark and ragged through the remains of her shirt. I rushed over and knelt at her side. “Teresa! Can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered. Blood spattered between her lips when she coughed, but she couldn’t focus. I pried back the tattered remnant of her shirt to take a look at the wound. It went through the upper chest under the collarbone. It might have hit the lung. That would explain her coughing up blood, but the other side of her chest still rose and f
ell with steady breathing. She was hanging on.
I fought down panic. “Keep still, Teresa. I’m calling 911.”
I struggled to control my hands calling the number. “911 emergency,” the operator droned. “Please state the nature of the emergency.”
“We need an ambulance,” I stammered. “There’s a woman with a gunshot wound to the chest.”
“Is she breathing?” the operator asked.
“Yes!” I thundered.
How I got through the rest of that call, I have no idea. My instincts told me to rush around the house looking for Isabel, but I couldn’t leave Teresa in her condition. I snatched a kitchen towel and held pressure against the wound until the paramedics arrived.
I managed to stay calm and collected until they left. I gave the cops a report and they cordoned off the house— “just in case she dies and this becomes a crime scene,” they said. Fan fucking tastic. That was exactly what I needed to hear to make this the single worst day of my natural life.
The cop taking the report made a face at my colors—as if I was the one who shot Teresa and then had the nerve to call the paramedics for her. Christ, I hated cops! Then they taped me outside the cordon and abandoned me there on the sidewalk.
My bike stood at the curb. It whispered its suggestions into my ear that no one but I could hear. I could get on and ride back to Los Diablos territory and forget all about this. I did my good deed for the day. I saved Teresa’s life. The paramedics said so.
I couldn’t leave, though. I stood there for five more minutes just to make sure no official meddlers came back to spy on me. When I satisfied myself that I was truly alone, I rotated around and faced the house.
Whatever happened to Isabel, wherever she was, he didn’t kill her here. I didn’t get a chance to ask Teresa what happened to Isabel, but maybe she didn’t know anyway. I had to find out. I had to know if Isabel was alive or dead. She called me asking for help, and by God, she was going to get it.
I didn’t cross the cordon. That meant nothing to me, but I already knew Isabel wasn’t in the house. She would have heard me and the cops in there and come out if she was.
