by Aly Martinez
Wannabe-supermodel Heidi Klum followed me up, whispering pleas with every step.
“Who?” I asked Manuel, stopping on the second floor to snap my finger and point to the parking lot. Then I mouthed a stern, “Get out.”
She lifted her hands in prayer. “Please. Just hear me out.”
Manuel kept ranting in my ear. “I don’t fucking know. Whatever the hell bitch you took to the doctor this morning.”
Shit. Lucy.
“Turn her out, Cora.”
“No, wait,” I breathed.
The woman’s face lit.
“Not you!” I hissed at her.
Manuel continued. “I fucking warned you. She’s gone. Tonight. And if I have to come over there and do it myself, I swear to God, I’m taking River home with me.”
My head spun as all the blood drained from my face. I reached out, grabbing the railing to balance myself. “No. No. I’ll take care of it. I swear. Lucy’s gone. Right now.”
“Good. Now, thanks to your stupidity, I’m down a girl. So I don’t give a fuck if you have to hit the street yourself to make it happen, but I want double the haul tonight. You fucking owe me that.”
I didn’t know how he could possibly blame me for a prostitute getting pregnant, especially not when I went to such great lengths to make sure they all stayed on birth control and had regular access to condoms. But Manuel never needed a reason to blame me for anything.
“I… It’s a Tuesday night. The girls can’t possibly double the haul. Give me to the end of the week. I promise I’ll make it happen.”
“How old is River now? Remind me again?”
It wasn’t a question. And I heard his threat loud and clear.
My eyes flared wide, bile climbing up the back of my throat. “I’ll make it happen. Double the haul.”
“Tonight,” he seethed.
“Tonight. I swear.”
I held the phone to my ear long after he’d hung up. I had no idea where I was going to get that money. Tuesdays only brought in around three grand, which—less the thirty percent the girls got to keep—left me in the hole for over two thousand dollars. If it was a Friday or Saturday, no problem. The girls took down ten times that on a weekend. But there was no fluffing the books on a Tuesday. Not to mention, I was already down four girls, Lucy—poor fucking Lucy—making it five.
“Shit,” I muttered. This was going to be a big hit to my Freedom Account, but what other choice did I—
“I can get you that money.”
My head popped up.
A perfect smile split her perfect face. “I wasn’t lying. I got a rich guy on the hook.”
“This hook big enough to dangle two grand off the tip?”
Her head snapped back with genuine surprise. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” I mocked, closing my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why are you still here?”
“Because I’m thinking right now you need me. You give me four hours, I’ll have that two grand for ya. Six and I can make it a cool three.”
I pushed off the railing. “Generous offer, but what the hell would you get out of it?”
She turned her head away and whispered, “Protection.”
My mouth gaped as I stared at her for several seconds. Then I let out a loud laugh. “Protection? Is that a joke?”
She pursed her lips. “Guerrero girls get respect, do they not?”
“Maybe on the street, but respect is a big word with a lot of meanings.” I waved my arms around again, this time less like a The Price is Right model and more like an irate mother. “Within these walls, respect doesn’t exist. And don’t for one second think you will be different. Dante isn’t interested in you modeling for him. The man doesn’t even own a camera. He wants to whore you out, take seventy percent of your money, and then keep you captive in this building for the rest of your godforsaken life. So, if you have any concept of the word respect, you’ll get gone. Take your two thousand dollars, get a fucking job that doesn’t require you to lay on your back, and respect yourself. Now, if you will excuse me, I have shit to do.” I stomped up the stairs, all of my patience exhausted.
“I still need Dante’s number!” she called after me.
“Fuck. Off.”
“I’m dead without it.”
I froze, dropping my chin to my chest. She was dead if I gave it to her too.
I shouldn’t have asked.
I shouldn’t have cared.
I didn’t even know her name.
And yet….
“Who are you running from?”
Her voice got closer as she spoke. “I swiped a couple bills off a guy. You know, just to get something to eat and…and, well, I need help. If I say I’m working for a Guerrero, he’ll back off. I need that real bad.”
I turned around. “So go to the cops.”
“That shit doesn’t work. You know that.”
Unfortunately, I did. All too well.
“You have no idea what you are saying right now. Women don’t come here to escape—they leave here to escape. Do you hear me? This isn’t the place for safety.”
She defiantly held my gaze. “Maybe not. But like your little word respect, safety is a big word with a lot of meanings. Let me decide for myself. Okay?”
I reached up, caught the star on my necklace, and dragged it back and forth across the chain. “Please don’t make me do this.”
She took a step up. “You’d be helping me out a lot. And I’ll help you out too. I’ll cut you in on whatever I take home each night. Fifty-fifty?”
“Your cut would be thirty percent. Guerreros get seventy. And then out of that thirty percent, you have to pay fifty percent to cover rent and utilities. So, out of that two thousand you’re making tonight, you’ll end the night with three-hundred bucks in your pocket.”
“Okay, so you’d end up with seventy-five, then.”
My chest ached. “I don’t want your money.”
She took another step up. “Okay. Then I can help in other ways. Whatever you need. I can do it.”
“Jesus. Why are you so damn determined to do this? I’m giving you an out. Take it.”
“There is no such thing as an out anymore. You got an out? What about the other girls here? They got an out? No. And whether you let me in here or not, I don’t have an out, either.”
I huffed a humorless laugh and planted a hand on my hip. “You do realize you’re asking the devil for help, right?”
“At rock bottom, the devil’s the only one left to help.”
Wasn’t that the damn truth.
I shook my head. “I’d have to clear this with Dante first.”
“Okay.”
Jesus, was I really going to do this? Girls were usually dropped off to me. And here I was, letting a new one in when I finally had the ability to tell her no.
“If I call him, there’s no telling what he’s going to say.” I slid my gaze up her long, tan legs and over the swell of her large breasts.
She was gorgeous. If I called Dante, I knew exactly what he’d do to her. And it wasn’t going to feel anything like safety.
“I know,” she replied, hope sparkling in her eyes.
I held her stare, giving her every opportunity to stop me as I lifted my phone.
She said nothing.
Finally, I dialed a number, but it wasn’t Dante’s.
“Why the fuck are you calling me right now?” Marcos greeted.
Short of Catalina, I had no friends in the Guerrero family. But when I needed something, Marcos was always my first call. He might hit me, but he didn’t get his rocks off by fucking the girls. Marcos had a very specific type of woman he liked: the kind with a dick. Even if he’d never tell his family.
“Last chance,” I mouthed at her.
She smiled, folding her hands in front of her. “Please.”
I sucked in a deep breath and then ruined her too. “Dante sent me over a girl.”
“Andddd,” he drawled impatiently.
“He didn’t mention it. I’m just double-checking it’s all good if I get her set up here.”
Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.
“Woman, who made me your goddamn babysitter? Is she fuckable?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Yeah.”
“Then let her fucking fuck!” He hung up.
I tucked the phone into my back pocket and tossed her a tight smile. “Welcome to the building…”
“Lexy,” she filled in. “Lexy Palmer.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Cora Guerrero.”
She gasped.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m only a Guerrero by marriage.”
She gasped again, adding an eye bulge that made me laugh.
“And he passed away years ago.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just remember: I’m not one of them. Okay?”
“Okay.” She smiled big, wide, breathtakingly, and…cluelessly.
Though, a few years later, it turned out I was the clueless one.
Cora
In the two days since the fire, it felt like I was living in a state of suspended animation.
Time passed.
The world around me kept moving.
But I was equally lost and at the center of it all.
I remembered Drew ordering us delivery food a few times. I even vaguely remembered eating, though I couldn’t have said what it was. It could have been Chinese just as easily as it could have been a burger.
It all tasted like misery.
“Cora, give it a rest for the night,” Drew begged, sprawled out beside me on the bed. He’d been staying in the room with us since we got back.
“No,” I clipped, clicking the restart button again. It stripped me bare every single time, but I couldn’t stop watching.
I wasn’t able to make out his face, but there was no doubting that it was him.
Penn in a black hoodie, going up the stairs.
Penn going into my apartment.
Penn coming out with his toolbox and heading down to his truck.
Dante and Marcos showing up.
Penn running up the stairs as Dante fired his gun, hitting him in the back of the leg.
Penn scrambling into my apartment.
More shots fired at the door until it swung open.
The Guerrero brothers filing inside.
No one ever coming back out.
I fast-forwarded six minutes until flames erupted from my apartment, the camera shaking violently before going black.
I moved the curser back to hover over the restart button, prepared to click again, but River’s voice pulled me up short.
“Stop. You’ve seen it enough. You’re just torturing yourself now.”
I tore my gaze from the screen and gave her my attention. She’d been in the shower for the last hour. Her eyes were red rimmed, and the long, brown hair cascading over her shoulders caused wet circles to form on the front of her gray T-shirt.
We’d hit up Walmart on the way home from the building that first morning. I’d peeled off a grand of my Freedom Account and rushed inside to buy the necessities. The first being a laptop so I could watch the footage from Penn’s secret security camera on something other than the cracked screen of my cell phone. I’d grabbed River a few things I thought she might need, but I’d been too frazzled to look at sizes. We’d only ended up with some baggy T-shirts and panties that were a size too small. I’d promised her I would take her back, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to leave the room yet.
The outside world felt too heavy without him.
“He’s gone, River. It’s torture either way.”
She pursed her lips, a chin quiver escaping before she could hide it. “I know, but it doesn’t matter how much you watch that video. It’s not going to change.”
Yeah. I wasn’t the only one struggling with Penn’s death.
“Come here, baby,” I whispered, extending an arm in her direction.
“No! I don’t want a hug. I want you to stop watching that damn video and figure out where we’re going to live or when I can go back to school, or…or…or…what happens now if Manuel comes after us for this. You know he’s going to find a way to blame you.” She turned her fury on Drew. “And you… Jesus, it was your brother. He’ll be coming after you too.”
Drew sat up, placing both of his feet on the carpet and anchoring his elbows to his knees. “And it was Marcos and Dante who killed him. I’m not feeling particularly sympathetic toward Manuel tonight. Let him send someone after us. I dare him to try.”
River stared at him, incredulous. “You get a two-for-one deal on Penn’s coffin? Because that’s where you’re headed.”
Drew opened his mouth, but I got there first.
“Okay, okay. Let’s take it down a notch. We’re all a little raw right now.”
“Just put the damn computer down!” she yelled at me.
My back shot straight as I stared at her, tears filling our eyes. But before I could even contemplate the appropriate response, she raced back to the bathroom and slammed the door.
“Shit,” I hissed. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” My shoulders shook as I buried my face in my hands.
Drew was at my side in the next heartbeat. “Hey, shhhh.” He rubbed a hand up and down my back. “She’ll be okay.”
“I don’t think the word ‘okay’ is going to be in any of our vocabularies for a very long time.”
He guided my head down to his shoulder. “But we gotta try.”
My breathing stammered. “Why did he leave me and go to the building that night?”
“I don’t know,” he replied.
I sniffled and righted myself, glancing at the bathroom door when the sound of the shower made an encore. River was no doubt crying her eyes out in there. Damn kid was so stubborn that she wouldn’t even let me comfort her.
Speaking of stubborn kids…
I cleared my throat and nabbed my phone off the bed. “I need to try the hospital again.”
“Savannah’s a minor. They’re not going to tell you anything over the phone.”
“Maybe not. But if I could get the right person on the phone, you never know. They might have a heart.”
He moved back to his bed, muttering, “Yeah. Maybe.”
I was searching for the hospital number again when my phone started ringing, my pulse skyrocketing when the word unknown flashed on the screen.
“Hello,” I all but yelled.
“Holy shit, are you okay?” Catalina greeted.
My body crumbled as relief, agony, and adrenaline formed an earth-shattering combination inside me.
“No,” I choked out, slapping a hand over my mouth.
“What the hell is going on? I just saw on the news. Are Marcos and Dante really dead?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
I had no idea how that was going to go over. She hated them, but they were still her brothers.
“What the hell happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Honestly, I have no fucking idea.” I glanced at Drew, who was swirling a paper cup of coffee and studiously pretending not to listen. After opening the drawer, I grabbed a few dollars off the top. “I’m gonna grab a pop,” I told him and then pointed to the bathroom. “Keep an ear out for her.”
He gave me curt nod, and I hurried out.
“Hey, you still there?” I asked, shutting the door, double-checking to make sure the lock had engaged.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Cat replied. “I think I’m in shock though. I can’t believe they’re gone.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I—”
“Sorry?” she snapped. “I’m about to plan a party. Cora, this is huge for us.”
It did feel huge. But it didn’t feel good. It burned like the hottest, sharpest knife slicing through me with methodical timing. Even in their death, they’d managed to punish me one last time.
“They killed Penn.�
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She cursed softly.
I swept my gaze through the hall, thankfully finding it empty. “Listen, something’s not right here. It doesn’t add up. Before the fire, Penn got into my safe, left his truck keys and a note that said, One in. One out. And he took down all the stars off my ceiling, Cat.”
“Oh, wow.”
“It gets weirder too. He left the stars in his truck, inside his toolbox, along with all of my pictures and important papers…and the money from the wall.”
“What!” she gasped. “You got the money?”
I laughed, but it broke into a cry. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. I have all the money. Penn left me over a million dollars in cash.”
“Wh… I’m sorry. What did you say?”
I ducked into the vending area when I heard a room door open nearby. I watched a happy couple, holding hands, meander to the elevator too lost in each other to notice I was there.
“You heard me. It was the exact amount, right down to the cent, that I told him I needed to get free of this life.”
“You said he was the maintenance guy. Where did he get cash like that?”
“I have no idea. His brother, Drew, the one that was tight with your father in prison—he’s just as clueless as I am.”
“Don’t you dare let that man try to get his hands on that money.”
“He’s not trying to take it!” I whisper-yelled. “He’s sleeping on a bed next to me like a bodyguard. I have no idea what is going on right now. But something is seriously not right.”
“Shit. Okay, let’s breathe for a second and think this through. There’s got to be an explanation. Maybe he was one of those secret millionaires.”
“This is not a fucking movie!” I snapped. “Jesus, Cat. He had motion sensor cameras in all the hallways. Drew said he installed them almost a month earlier, but Penn never mentioned it to me. I watched the video, and he very obviously carried my money out of the building in his toolbox. But where did the other money come from? It wasn’t in his apartment. He didn’t carry it down. It just magically appeared in the back seat of his truck.
“And it gets worse: The cops said it was an electrical fire in my apartment that started the blaze. But what the fuck? The amount of coincidence involved here is impossible. I’m supposed to believe that Penn just so happened to sneak out of my bed at the hotel and go back to the building where he just so happened to pack up my money? And this was money that he wasn’t even supposed to know existed. And then my stars? I never told him they were Nic’s. But he thought they were important enough to peel them off the ceiling?
