Chapter 25
Sonny
As usual, the first thing Sonny did the moment his plane touched down in Los Angeles was check his phone for any possible messages or calls he might’ve gotten from Lila during his landing. She still hadn’t responded to his emails, but he figured she must still be in training.
As unrelenting as the paparazzi still were, Sonny was sure they’d picked up on the fact that he was less likely to snap when he was alone as opposed to when Lila was with him. Lila had pointed out more than once now that maybe they should be grateful for their nonstop coverage. The publicity did help gain them fans and at the same time made it clear to any naysayers looking to cause problems that they were in fact crazy for each other.
“Sabian, what’s the rush?” one photographer yelled out as Sonny dashed through the airport, anxious to get to his awaiting car. “You in a hurry to get back to Lila?”
For the first time in months, Sonny cracked a smile at one of them. “Yeah,” he said, chuckling under his breath. “Actually, I am. Two days has been too long.”
Too damn long. This was insanity. He’d been beyond annoyed with Banks when he’d told him he had two back-to-back promos out of town. With him living in Tinseltown, Sonny didn’t understand why his agent couldn’t just book all his promos in town.
Surprised that he’d responded to the photographers’ inquiry and taking advantage of his obvious good mood, the paparazzi started more questions flying. Sonny didn’t want to regret encouraging them the next time he was mobbed with Lila by his side, so he only answered one more of their questions, the one that had him smiling from ear to ear again.
“Are you in love?”
“Absolutely.”
Since he had no new calls or messages from Lila when he landed, he didn’t bother with his phone again until he was in the car. He scrolled through a couple from the numbers he recognized and then clicked on the text from a number he didn’t. It’d been sent over an hour ago, but like most of the calls and messages from unknown numbers, he hadn’t bothered with it when he saw it on the plane. The moment he clicked on it, he went numb.
Sonny, this is Jen, Ali’s friend. Something’s happened. Call me ASAP please!
He’d barely finished reading it when his finger hit the call button. “What happened?” he asked the second Jen picked up then caught himself before she could answer. “Wait. Are Lila and Ali okay?”
“Yes,” she said quickly then added, “Lila is. Ali’s in the hospital, but she’s going to be okay.”
After getting the name of the hospital, Sonny instructed his driver to head there instead of home then got back to Jenny, his heart already pumping hard. “Okay, so what happened?”
“Ali was attacked in the school parking lot.”
Sonny listened with bated breath to the whole story. When she finally got to the part about Lila asking Jen for her keys so she could sneak past the photographers outside and then storming out of there in a rage, Sonny nearly lost it. “What? Where’d she go?”
“I guess Marcelo told her the general area where Eva could be found. He’s meeting Lila, and they’re gonna try to find her.”
Normally the thought of Lila meeting up with Marcelo would irritate the fuck out of him. Now he prayed Marcelo would have the sense to calm her. At least she wouldn’t be out there by herself running around like the mad woman he was sure she was feeling like.
“And you’re sure Ali wasn’t really seeing this girl’s boyfriend?”
Sonny wasn’t sure about their theory. Just because last Marcelo heard this girl was married with kids didn’t mean anything. The guy had been gone for years. She could be divorced and now had a new boyfriend. Sonny had a bad feeling there was more to this.
From the injuries Jenny described, this girl must’ve been pissed. Jenny assured him that, as far as she knew, Ali wasn’t seeing the guy. “Maybe she had a crush on him, but that’s as much as she’s ever let on to me.”
“And she didn’t know he had a girlfriend?”
“We didn’t get a chance to talk for too long. Since we knew Marcelo knew the guys we’d been investigating from way back, we were busy on the phone with Marcelo for a while. Then Lila got here and then Ali was taken away for tests and X-rays. She’s still not back; they’re taking forever.”
She explained how the nurse did warn them it might be a while. As soon as he was off the phone with Jenny, he tried Lila. No surprise she didn’t answer, so he sent her a text.
Take a deep breath and think this through before you do anything rash. You’re better than this now, Lila. We both know this. Call me ASAP.
He sent it, praying she’d come to her senses and just call him. He knew, if he could just talk to her, he might be able to talk her down.
They reached the hospital, and he rushed to the ER. Even with his generic ball cap and dark sunglasses on, heads turned, and an instant buzz filled the waiting room. Luckily, he was let into see Ali. “She was just brought back to her bed,” the starry-eyed attendant said as she let him in.
Sonny rushed over to where he’d been directed, immediately spotting a very worried-looking Ali. “You have to go find her, Sonny,” Ali said as soon as he was close enough.
“I will, but first I need to know more.”
Seeing all the gawking faces as he made it through the crowded ER had Sonny closing the curtain around Ali’s bed. The last thing he needed was to be interrupted right then. As soon as he had it all the way around her bed, he turned to Ali again. “Who’s this guy the girl was talking about?”
The uneasy exchanged glance between the two girls only confirmed Sonny’s initial gut feeling. There was more to this. “I’m not even sure if it’s the same guy she’s talking about,” Ali said anxiously. “The only Leo I know is someone I interviewed for a story a while back and still keep in touch with occasionally, but there’s never been anything remotely romantic between us. And unless he lied because it did come up once—as part of the interview . . .” she added, lifting her chin. “He said he didn’t have time for a social life.” She paused again to roll her eyes, almost annoyed. “He called women poison.”
“Well, if this is someone he’s been involved with,” Sonny said as he pulled out his phone to see if Lila had responded at all but frowned when there was nothing, “then I can see why he’d think that.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Ali said, reaching for her purse with her good hand. “I did text Leo to ask him about Eva earlier, but I hadn’t heard back from him.”
She fumbled with her purse, looking for what Sonny assumed was her phone. He turned to Jenny, who stood on the other side of the bed. “Jenny, call your brother. Find out what Lila’s up to and if they found Eva yet.”
“I can’t call in here, but I’ve been sneaking texts,” she said, pulling out her phone.
“Leo says he doesn’t know an Eva,” Ali said, staring at her phone screen. “That he’s never done the girlfriend thing.” She frowned as she finished reading his text. “Again, with the women are poison crap.”
“Then who the hell is this Eva chick? You think maybe she mistook you for—”
“She’s Scar’s girl,” Jenny said, looking down at her own phone. “Marcelo just confirmed it with one of his friends.”
“Scar’s girl?” Sonny asked.
“So, this was retaliation?” Ali asked, her mouth dropping open. “He must really think I had something to do with him getting busted.”
Sonny shook his head as a mixture of confusion and alarm overwhelmed him. If Lila knew this now, she was sure to be thinking the same thing and probably ready to do some violent retaliating herself. He turned to Jenny again. “Does Lila know?”
“Yeah, and she’s livid.”
“Damn it,” Sonny muttered. Did this guy not have a brain? Why would he tell her? “Tell him not to give Lila any more info. Tell him to lie if he has to—say he doesn’t know anything else.”
“My car was low on gas, so he’s stalling by stopping at the gas s
tation,” Jen said, still reading her text. “He said he’s gonna put air in my tires too.”
“Good, ’cause something’s not right here. This doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Ali said. “Scar sent his girlfriend or maybe he didn’t even have to. Maybe she was just waiting to get her hands on me.”
“If that’s the case, why the lie?” Sonny peered at her. “Why not just say that’s what this was? Retaliation? It’d make more sense. If they really thought you’d ratted him out or something, this would at least be a warning to keep your nose out of his business from here on. What exactly did she say to you?”
Ali seemed to ponder it for a moment as if trying to remember. “Gosh, it happened so fast. I was rushing to my car, because of Scar and his friend. I had this strange feeling they were gonna come after me. Then out of nowhere, I hear ‘Hey, bitch, you need to stay away from my man.’ I didn’t even realize she was talking to me until she got in my face.”
Ali explained she said she didn’t know what the girl was talking about then tried to get in her car when the girl pulled her hair.
Sonny winced at the visual. “That’s when she started beating on you?”
“Hell no,” Ali said with a smug smile. “I’m sure that’s what she thought she was gonna do.”
Ali explained exactly how everything went down. That’s when something dawned on Sonny that had every muscle in his body going taut. “Why would they just come after you? Why not go after Jenny too? She’s the one they saw taking the pictures, right?”
Before Ali could respond, he turned back to Jenny, who was busy tapping away at her phone screen. Sonny chose his words cautiously. “Who’s your brother getting all this info from?”
Jenny glanced up from her phone and shrugged. “He has lots of friends on the street.” She frowned before looking back down at her phone again. “Lots of connections for all the illegal stuff he’s still into.” She stopped talking and read something on her phone screen again then looked up at Sonny, eyes wide. “He says he knows exactly where Eva is at right now, where they can find her hanging out, but he hasn’t told Lila.”
“Tell him not to,” Sonny said, hitting speed dial and ignoring the “no cell phones” sign on the wall.
The call to Lila went straight to voicemail. Fuck! Sonny was now convinced his gut had been right. Something about this smelled bad, only he couldn’t be sure how much, if at all, Marcelo was involved in this.
“Marcelo’s friends know you’re his sister, right?” Jenny nodded, staring at Sonny quizzically. “And they know you and Ali are good friends?” Again, she nodded but said nothing else. “It’s probably how Scar knew your full names and exactly who Ali was. Who her sister is.” He didn’t wait for her to respond this time. Instead, he started to walk out, stopping just outside the curtain. “Text me Marcelo’s number and tell him to do whatever he has to keep Lila put.”
Sonny rushed out to his waiting car in the parking lot. The moment the text with Marcelo’s number came through Sonny called it.
“Hello?”
“This is Sonny—Sly Sabian—Lila’s boyfriend. Listen to me. If you care at all about Lila, you won’t tell her you know where Eva is.”
“Dude!”
When Sonny heard Lila’s angry voice demanding Marcelo tell her where Eva was, he knew he’d just blown it. Marcelo’s phone was connected to the car’s blue tooth and she’d heard him.
“Lila!” Sonny pleaded. “Don’t do this. Just tell me where you’re at and stay there. I’m coming to get you. This isn’t what you think.”
“Bullshit! Did you see what that bitch did to my sister?”
“But she didn’t,” Sonny started to say when the line clicked. “Fuck!” he roared, banging his fist on the seat.
Chapter 26
Lila
It was only a handful of the fabric around Marcelo’s crotch area, but it’d been grabbed with enough fury to send the message. Lila wasn’t bluffing. If he didn’t tell her where that cunt was, she’d be reaching deeper and squeezing until he was screaming for mercy like a little bitch.
“She’s at the park.”
“What park?” Lila asked, squeezing the fabric a little tighter.
“Hollenbeck,” he said, trying to pull her hand off his crotch. “Fuck, Lila! There, I told you. Get off me!”
She did only because she needed to start the car. “I will for now,” she said through her teeth. “But if you’re lying, my hand and your crotch will meet again. And this time, I’ll grab a lot more.”
Marcelo chuckled, tapping something into his phone. “I remember liking your hand there.”
If Lila didn’t still need him, she would’ve thrown his ass out of the car the moment he told her where this bitch was. But she did. She had no idea what this Eva girl looked like. She was trying to save herself from having to walk up to every group of people hanging at the park and asking if one of them was Eva. Ignoring the comment, Lila skidded out of the gas station. “And you’re sure she’s there, right?”
“It’s what my contact told me. Said her whole little crowd is down there right now, which is another reason why this is a bad idea. I know you’ve always been able to defend yourself and you’re trained to fight now to boot, but this is a crowd you’re taking on, Lila. A crowd of thugs. Street-fighting thugs. They might even have guns on them. Think about it.”
“I have,” Lila said, motioning to his phone. “Call the police. Not the emergency line, just the police department.”
“What for?”
“Just do it.”
Marcelo stared at her for a moment, not saying anything. “Call them!”
With a huff, he started tapping at his phone screen again. “What do I say?”
“Nothing. It’ll be on the speakers, right? I’ll do the talking.”
The ringing started through the speakers. When the woman answered on the other end, Lila calmly explained who she was and where she was headed: to Hollenbeck Park to talk to the girl who’d put her sister in the hospital after attacking her earlier that day. She told the lady there’d been a report made of the attack on the college campus parking lot, but the girl had gotten away, and this was their chance to nab her.
“Her boyfriend is a known felon, and clearly, she’s no law-abiding citizen either. I suggest you get someone out there ASAP because I don’t want to, but if I have to, I will take justice into my own hands.”
The lady took a little more info from Lila, but couldn’t give her an ETA on when she could get a patrol car out there. In no mood to argue, Lila hung up. They’d been warned.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Marcelo asked the moment she hung up. “You just called the cops on yourself, Lila. We both know you won’t be doing much talking.”
“You don’t know that.”
Marcelo scoffed, sitting back in his seat. “Bullshit. You’re gonna tear that girl up, and the cops are gonna get there right when you’re doing it. God, you’re stupid.”
“Fuck you, Marcelo! You don’t know shit about my life anymore. Just ’cause you never will doesn’t mean people can’t change and I’ve grown.”
She shook her head, deciding he wasn’t worth her breath. Instead, she took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but instinctively she was already fisting and relaxing her hand. Lila had thought this through as Sonny’s text asked her to. And she had grown, damn it. But this was Ali they’d fucked with. The visual of her sister’s injuries, her holding her side in such pain, was too much to endure.
Lila had every intention of at least trying to stay in control. Only just as she had in high school when she beat the last girl who’d messed with her sister on school grounds, Marcelo hadn’t been completely off in saying she’d called the cops on herself. She’d had ulterior reasons for it, aside from telling them where they could find their suspect at large. If she’d been afraid of killing that girl back in high school, had she done it somewhere where she would’ve had more time to beat her,
she had even more reason to fear she might murder someone today. As calm as she was trying to remain, one smartass remark from the girl who attacked her sister so viciously, and crowd or not, she was certain today’s beating might turn deadly—if the cops didn’t arrive in time to save her.
Even before they turned onto the street alongside of Hollenbeck, Lila’s adrenaline was already pumping. “This is so stupid,” Marcelo said as they drove slowly looking for the girl.
“You sure you’ll recognize her?”
“If I don’t, I’ll recognize her crowd,” Marcelo said, taking in one of the groups they passed. “I know several of the guys Scar hangs with. This isn’t them.”
He shook his head again, exhaling loudly, driving home his point of this being stupid without having to say more.
“I’m doing this for Jen, too, you know. If they did this to Ali, then Jen must be next. Doesn’t that worry you, asshole?”
“Jen’s not the one flirting with this girl’s man.”
Lila turned to him, feeling completely exasperated, not to mention disgusted. “Are you fucking retarded? You still think this has anything to do with Ali flirting with this girl’s man? Her man is who Ali and Jen were investigating. His ass got busted, thrown in jail, and they’re blaming Ali and Jen for it.”
“So, why did she say this was about Ali hitting on her man?”
“Because, you idiot, she probably meant to blindside Ali. She did come up to her from behind.”
It amazed Lila how infinitely different her relationship with Sonny was compared to how it had ever been with Marcelo. She’d never dream of disrespecting Sonny like she so easily did this dumb ass. And Sonny would never dare speak to or treat her the way Marcelo did. But Marcelo just brought out the worst in her—always had. That she’d stayed with Marcelo for as long as she had was beyond belief now. One thing was for sure. Sonny had forever spoiled her for other guys. She’d never again allow any guy to treat her or make her feel any less special than Sonny did. But then again, she didn’t think anyone would ever come close to making her feel what Sonny did.
Lila (Boyle Heights #1) Page 29
