As soon as I get a second bar on my phone, I hit Connor’s number. It goes straight to voicemail, which simultaneously worries me but maybe is a tiny bit of a relief. It means his phone is off, which also means I’m not disturbing him by calling. I just hope his phone is off because he decided to keep it off, not because someone took it from him.
Connor can take care of himself. You know this.
I take a breath as I hear the beep.
“Hey, Connor. I know you said not to call. But we’re all okay and Neil has been great. Maya too.” I hesitate. “I had an incredible time with you this morning, and I wanted to tell you that I…can’t wait to see you. Hurry back to me.”
I end the call, my hand shaking for some stupid reason. Okay, I don’t know why that made me feel better, but it did. I start to walk back to the car when I hear a slow clap coming from behind me.
My heart is in my throat as I spin around. Cruz is standing at the end of the tunnel, and his greasy-ass hair is even greasier than when I saw him out in front of Connor’s house. He has a glass of liquor of some sort in his hand, and his eyes are rimmed with red.
He raises his glass in a toast and sneers. “Congratu-fucking-lations to the happy couple.”
I gape at him, my anger overriding my fear. “Seriously, do you have nothing better to do than to follow me around?”
“I wasn’t,” he snaps. “I’ve been having a guy keep an eye on Connor, which means he winds up following you half the time. But my guy lost him sometime yesterday, and here you are in his fucking car. Any idea where he is?”
He moves toward me, and it’s almost a stagger because he’s stinking drunk. God, he’s so...nasty. I wrinkle my nose against the smell of smoke and sweaty body odor. But I stay where I am, don’t move away from him this time. I know I should run like hell, but I’m also so sick of Cruz’s intimidation bullshit.
I lift my chin and meet his glare with one of my own. “I don’t know where he is,” I say truthfully.
“Well, I do. Want me to tell you?”
I hesitate, just enough, and he pounces on the opportunity.
“Your boy Connor ran back home to his ex-girlfriend.”
He flips back his hair from his face while I force down the bile that rises in my throat, trying desperately to keep my game face on. No way. He’s deliberately trying to mess with my head, and I’m not going to fall for his little mind tricks.
But Cruz looks agitated, almost like there’s panic underlying his pissy drunkenness. Something is going down, and I find it hard to believe that it has to do with a fight over an ex-girlfriend.
I keep my voice steady. “I don’t believe you.”
“No?” He advances and shoves his hand at me, and I take a step back and wince, but then I see that he’s just holding out his phone to me.
It’s an e-mail from a Laura Rivera. Laura. The Laura? I can smell the whiskey on Cruz’s breath, and I swallow down the nausea and make myself read it. It’s dated today. From an hour ago.
Dear Cruz,
I know I haven’t been the best about staying in touch with you, and I’m so very sorry for that. I can blame life and how busy I’ve been, and that’s been part of it. But honestly, I need to confess to you that I’ve always felt so guilty and terrible for how you and I snuck around on Connor all of those years ago. I think that I thought by avoiding you after he left for the military that I would be able to deal with it, but now I know that the only way to move on is to face it head on.
This probably isn’t making sense to you, is it, me writing to you out of the blue? I have no idea if this is even still your e-mail address or if you are reading this, but the reason I’m writing after all of these years is because Connor found me. He tracked me down after seven years and came to my house tonight to see if I was happy...
Game face, officially dead. I feel the blood drain from my face, and my lungs don’t seem to be working anymore. Cruz yanks his phone back from me before I can finish, and I’m torn between demanding to see the rest of it and wanting to scrub my eyeballs clean of all that. But that wouldn’t erase it from my memory.
“So you know what this says to me, bitch? That you didn’t give him my message.”
“I didn’t have a chance to before he left,” I snap. “Connor evidently had other plans in the works.”
I don’t intend for there to be resentment in my tone, but that’s how Cruz can take it if he wants. Yes, let him think he won this round. I’m admittedly confused by what I’d read in that flowery e-mail of Laura’s. I don’t like it, not one bit. Don’t like the fact that Connor tracked her down and visited her, and a brief flare of jealousy rips through me as I imagine what that reunion must have been like. I want to tell Cruz exactly what he can do with his e-mail and phone in general, but I clamp down on my emotions in time.
I catch myself before I blurt out that his threat is meaningless now, that my dad is no longer tied up to Cruz’s “associates” – if they are truly his or not. But I don’t know whether or not Maya actually took care of all of that yet or if it’s still something that needs to happen. Either way, I know that it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to say anything, especially not with that crazy look in Cruz’s eye. The ice in his drink clinks together as he brings the glass to his lips with a shaky hand and downs the entire thing. He tosses the glass into the road, shattering it into a million pieces. Classy.
“Yeah, well maybe you can hang with me until we know what those plans are, huh, baby?”
Cruz lunges for and grabs my arm, and I have a sick feeling in my stomach that’s part déjà vu and part panic because there’s no one around to help me. I’m wearing my high-heeled sandals, and I stomp down on one of his damned cowboy boots as hard as I can but teeter as my heel breaks off of my shoe. I doubt he even felt that, but it distracts him enough for him to let me go. I scramble away from him, yelling at the top of my lungs as I race toward the end of the tunnel. I’d have to pass him to get to the service entrance, and I’m pretty sure this street curves around in a second to the shopping arcade entrance.
“Come back here, bitch!”
I throw a glance behind me and see Cruz groping for his gun. Holy crap, he’s going for his gun. My thoughts crash together all at once as I run without looking back. If Cruz wants to use me as a hostage or as collateral or whatever he’s thinking, he needs to keep me alive. But the look in his eyes was so murderous. I can’t count on that. I hope Connor gets my message.
I hope you’re safe please be safe please be okay…
A gunshot explodes in the tunnel, and I scream and drop to the ground. My arms fly over my head. Eyes squeeze shut. Pulse pounds in my ears.
I’m okay I’m okay I’m okay
“Drop it, you piece of shit!” a voice booms.
I dare to open my eyes and see. Cruz is standing still, his hands slowly lifting in the air, gun still in one hand. I can’t see behind him, but I know that booming voice belongs to Neil.
“I said, drop it. Slowly and in front of you. Or your brains are going all over the place, cuz that’s what I have in my sights right now.”
Cruz nods and very slowly crouches down. He places the gun down on the asphalt in front of him, his eyes burning with hate at me the entire time. I can finally see around him to a sight even scarier than Cruz – Neil in all of his controlled fury, stalking toward us from the open trunk of the car with a scowl on his face and a semiautomatic rifle in his hands. Cruz straightens, and the barrel of the gun follows his ascent. I scramble to my feet and step back.
“Smart job, cowboy. That was a warning shot. Now kick your Smith and Wesson to the side.”
Neil had fired off the shot, not Cruz. Not that it makes what happened any less freakier. Cruz does as he says, and I stare dumbly at Neil as he tips his chin up at me like he wants me to pick up Cruz’s gun. I have no desire to take it, but I can see an angry tic in Neil’s jaw, and I rush over, scoop it up, and make a mad dash to stand next to him. Neil’s standing in close-range to Cruz
now, the barrel of his gun still pointed at Cruz.
“Tell this lovely woman right here that you’re sorry for the trouble,” Neil commands.
“I’m fucking sorry, bitch,” Cruz spits at me.
Neil’s posture becomes even more rigid, and I hear him mutter a curse under his breath. I brace myself for it, convinced that Cruz is going to die right here and now for all of the crap that he pulled today.
“I’m gonna let you go, Cruz,” Neil growls. “But only because I’m following orders, otherwise you would have been a stain on the sidewalk by now. Show your face anywhere near my man Connor and his woman again, and I will hunt you down. And don’t think I’ll be generous and shoot you. I’ll feed you piece by piece to the sharks at the aquarium while you watch.”
Neil hasn’t moved or lowered his weapon since he came outside, but Cruz takes a step forward and spits again, this time on the concrete a few feet in front of Neil’s feet. He turns and walks away without so much as another glance, disappearing around the corner and leaving Neil and me all alone in the tunnel.
Neil lowers the rifle by his side, his big hand closing over mine to take Cruz’s gun.
“That won’t keep him away, you know,” he mutters as he walks to the car. “He’ll try to seek retribution, but he has no idea what kind of trouble he’ll be in if he does.”
This whole thing is happening because Cruz is dangerous. That’s what Connor warned me about in the first place, but I didn’t really believe how dangerous until now. I kick off my shoes and follow him, my brain closing off because I can’t process any of this right now.
“Speaking of trouble… I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” I say in a shaky voice.
He hits me with a dark look that gives me a chill. “Why did you get out of the car? Were you trying to call Connor?”
I nod, and he puts the guns in the trunk and slams it shut. “Jesus, Alex. Don’t call Connor right now, okay? He’s meeting with Cruz’s people, and they’re not as nice about shit as I am. What if they took his phone off of him during discussions when you called? Might as well have Connor hand them your phone number on a piece of paper.”
I wobble on my feet, which may be the effect of his words or because my heel broke off. More likely because of the gunshot.
I hold out my phone to him, and he shakes his head at me, his lips drawn in a thin line.
“That’s yours. Despite what you think, I’m not here to police you. Just to protect you.” He peers at me. “You okay?”
“Yes,” I say, and I’m surprised to realize that I am. I’m rattled, but okay.
“Good,” he says curtly. “Now let’s go get Elle.”
I get into the car, already resigning myself to being under house arrest for the rest of the night.
31
Connor
Last stop, gangster central. Now that I’ve made an official appearance in my old neighborhood, I know that I have no choice but to go and do this. I may not have been back there for seven years, but that place still felt like Cruz’s stomping grounds. I’m banking on his people already knowing I’m here, on them waiting for me at my next stop. If they aren’t there, this will have to wait for tomorrow. But I’m hoping for the opposite.
I ride to 4th Street, pass the small side street where Cruz and I used to live. According to Neil’s sources, Cruz still lives there. Not alone but with a new member of the group, a kid no older than fifteen or sixteen whose face still shows evidence of the beating he took for his “jumping in” initiation. I don’t bother going past our old place, heading straight for the greasy 24-hour diner around the corner instead.
I’ve been here before with Cruz, after I moved in with him when I was seventeen. Once when he specifically introduced me to Martin, and that was when I finally figured out what was going on with my brother. But by then, it was too late. I never knew his last name – still don’t – but I do know that once you commit to a guy like Martin, you don’t ever get to back out.
Martin is sitting in a booth today, the same one that’s against the back wall that he was sitting in when I first met him. He sees me as soon as I step through the door, stares at me as he casually sips a cup of coffee. His hair is jet black and pulled back in a ponytail, his eyes an unusual shade of amber. His nose is crooked from being broken, his mouth set in a hard slash of a line in a pock-marked face. He’s as ugly as hell, but there’s some intangible quality about him that somehow commands loyalty and respect from his people. When I left, he’d been in his late thirties. When you’re the head of a local gang and haven’t gotten your throat slit or shot in the head by then, forty-some-odd years old is practically geriatric. Martin is sharp, has a good sense for business, and he’s careful. I wouldn’t have come here if he was as much of a wild card as my brother.
Last time I saw him, he’d been with a girl who looked twenty years younger than him. A beautiful girl from the neighborhood who he probably handpicked to be his bitch for the next few months, like a stray cat that was starving for attention. Same thing this time, same type of girl, but now she’s about thirty years younger. Standing on the end of the booth is his personal bodyguard. I think I recognize him from when I lived here, or maybe not. They’re a dime a dozen, these guys from the neighborhood.
I don’t know if he gives them a signal or what, but two guys get out of a booth near the front. I quickly size them up – one is about my age, wiry and with a long scar slicing across his cheek, the other is taller and bulkier than me, obviously the muscle of the two but looks like he might be in his late teens. Muscle looks to Scar almost in deference, and I focus my attention on the smaller guy as they both approach me.
They don’t look surprised to see me.
“Arms out, gringo,” Scar commands. I’m the same as Cruz, half-Latino, my mother’s side of the family mostly Irish, but I know they’re using the term to label me as the outsider.
I do as he says because I want to talk to Martin. Muscle moves as if he’s going to pat me down but shoves me hard in the shoulder instead. “Jacket off. You know the drill.”
I glower at him, but I shrug off the jacket and subject myself to the inspection. Scar is definitely the more dominant one of the two, and he keeps his face blank as he watches Muscle pat me down roughly but efficiently. The Sig comes out of my holster right away, and I put up with the rest of it because I have to.
“You don’t have a phone on you?” Muscle demands.
“No.” I refrain from pointing out that he was the one who searched me, and no, I obviously don’t have a fucking phone on me.
“Well, we’ll keep your piece nice and safe until Martin is done with you,” Scar says coolly.
I nod curtly, not liking it but knowing I don’t have a fucking choice. It’s their territory, their rules. My nerves are tightly wound – can’t exactly help that – but I have a lid on my emotions. I have to stay in my head and show no fear. I’m here on a mission, and I’m not leaving until I see it through and can walk away with the results that I need.
Martin’s been watching the show the entire time, and there’s a gleam in his eyes when I meet his gaze. Curiosity? Interest? Approval? I don’t care. I don’t care what he sees in me because I’m not going to waste more breath on him than absolutely necessary. But first, I have to wait for the invitation.
Martin sets his cup down and leans back, beckoning to me with a deceptively lazy wave of his hand.
“Sit, sit,” he says. He whispers something into the ear of the woman next to him, and she slides out of the booth after giving me a shy but interested glance. The thug standing to the side of him stays.
Martin smiles at me, and something about it reminds me of Cruz. Wolfish, like he’s feeling things out before the kill.
“I would say ‘welcome home,’ but judging from your activities tonight, I have a feeling you’re not here to stay,” he says.
I incline my head. “You’ve always had a good handle on your territory, Martin.”
He waves away the platitud
e. “You came here alone, Connor. I must admit that this surprises me. I would have heard if Cruz was dead, which is one of the possible explanations of why you have returned here without him.” He leans forward. “So where is he?”
I don’t know if he’s insinuating or asking if I killed Cruz. I don’t suppose it matters. Martin is shrewd and a strategist at heart, and I know he’s choosing his words carefully so he can feel me out. I thought about this potential meeting for much of the drive, had talked this part through with Neil and Maya before leaving home. We decided that it would be best to keep my answers as simple and truthful as possible. Martin’s bullshit meter has been honed with years of experience, and the way his amber eyes are probing me right now, I know he could pluck out a lie in no time flat.
“He’s in Vegas, and he’s alive,” I say just as carefully. “But he won’t be for very long if he doesn’t stop what he’s doing. He’s messing around in big dog territory, and they’ll piss on him. Or kill him.”
A flash of impatience crosses Martin’s expression. “That’s interesting you would say this, because this is all news to me, Connor.” His lip curls in disgust, and it’s obvious he doesn’t like it, not being in the know. “Care to fill me in? Because all he told me he was going to do was to convince you to come home.”
My eyebrows lift in genuine surprise, and Martin sees it. I know he sees it, and his face darkens in response. Never once did Cruz tell me that his mission was to bring me back here. Thinking back, yeah, he started off by telling me our father was dying. Maybe that was his half-assed attempt to get me to say I’d come back, but if it was, that plan royally backfired. Either way, he didn’t make that particular intention clear at all.
Losing Enough Page 30
