by JB Salsbury
At least Mercy will be safe. She’ll go back with Laura. She’ll have Miguel and Jules. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and try to rub away the disappointment. I did the right thing. Whether or not that’s enough to save my life is still to be determined.
The door to the room opens, and Detective Roth comes in with a paper cup in one hand and his yellow pad of notes in the other. I’ve been here for hours already, and when Roth hands me the coffee, I get the feeling we’ve only just started.
I accept the cup and sip the bitter brew.
“It’s gonna be a long night.” His pale eyes are apologetic. “Your family went back to the hotel.”
That’s a good sign. If they planned to arrest me, they would’ve sent them back to Los Angeles, right?
The caffeine brings me back to life a little, or maybe it’s the hope that I’ll eventually walk out of here a free man. “Am I under arrest?”
Roth huffs out a breath and takes the seat across from me. “Your lawyer is in there working on a plea agreement. You’ve given us a ton to go on, and if you’re willing to testify—”
“I will. Whatever it takes.”
“Milo . . .” He rubs his upper lip and looks at his notes, but he doesn’t seem to be reading them. “With what you’ve given us, we can get Esteban, but the Latino Saints . . .” He shakes his head. “They’re a different beast. If you can give us information on them, agree to testify—”
“No. I haven’t been involved in the Saints since I was a kid, and Esteban didn’t tell me much.”
Lies. All lies. But I can’t rat on guys just like me, guys who dedicated their lives to Esteban and got stuck, unable to leave in any condition other than dead. Cholos who put their asses on the line to help me free Mercy from that wicked prick Mikkel.
“As long as the Saints are an active group in LA, we can’t protect you.”
“I understand.”
His eyes narrow. “Do you? Because once they find out you gave up Esteban, there’s no knowing how they’ll respond.”
“I just want to keep Mercy and my brothers safe.”
“It’s possible, since the LS has been maintaining without your dad—”
I grimace at his calling Esteban my dad.
“They might not care what happens to him. But if they do?”
“I know.” I fill in the rest of what he’s saying.
Walking out of here a free man could mean that as soon as I get back to Los Angeles, I’m a dead man.
“Okay.” He stands and moves to the door. “Hang tight. We have some follow-up questions and we’re going to need you to sign some paperwork. It’ll be a few more hours.”
I nod, and he excuses himself again, this time taking the sergeant with him. The second the door closes, I exhale the breath I’ve been holding and rest my forehead on the table.
“It’s almost over,” I whisper to no one.
A voice in my head whispers back, “Or has it just begun?”
“Fuck.”
I WISH DRIVING the I-5 North from San Ysidro toward Los Angeles brought me a sense of relief, but each passing mile marker only increases my paranoia.
The chief dropped me off at the hotel around two o’clock in the morning. I managed to get a couple hours’ sleep before I woke up, ready to fulfill my promise to Mercy and get her home.
Laura, Philomena, and the kids had to stay with social services, so Chris is leaving straight from work to go down and pick them up tonight. The kids and Philomena will have to go to the same psychiatric facility Mercy was at in order to prepare them for life outside of Papa’s walls.
The young ones have similar stories to Mercy—little memory of their life before they came to live with Papa. Dom remembers he once had a mom and a dad. He also remembers the night he lost his fingers and spoke of a “man with light eyes” who we’re guessing was Mikkel. I think Mikkel used Papa’s place as an albino boarding house, a place where these children could be used and brainwashed until he would come and claim them for his own purposes. Dom was being used like an old car for parts. Already mutilated, he couldn’t be an Angel, so they kept hacking away at him for an eventual slaughter to go to the highest bidder.
Philomena’s story was different than the rest. She has memories of being in a school where everyone spoke English. She also remembers following a man who claimed to have a puppy in his car. She was six years old the day she was taken, and Laura thinks she’s roughly fifteen years old now.
If given the chance, I’d dig up both Papa and Mikkel’s bodies and kill them all over again.
Mercy is asleep, slumped into a ball in the passenger seat of Laura’s car. Her pale legs are tucked up under her, and her head rests on the door at a weird angle. I keep one hand on the wheel and the other on her bare ankle, needing the contact to keep myself grounded.
The freeway signs for Los Angeles signal we’re close, and my heart fights the war between excitement at seeing my brothers and dread at who may or may not be coming for me.
Now that the chief knows about Sancho’s involvement in the co-ed’s abduction in Tijuana, it’s only a matter of time before Esteban finds out I was behind the info leak. The police better get to him before he gets to me. Even under arrest, he can send the Saints after me. They’ll do what they can to keep Miguel and Julian out of the crossfire though, so they’ll have to get me alone to pull it off. A drive-by is too risky.
“Are you okay?”
I startle at the sound of Mercy’s tired voice. She’s in the same position, but her hair is pushed from her face and her eyes are on me.
“Of course.”
“You’re so quiet.”
I squeeze her ankle and run my hand up her calf. “You were sleeping.”
She pushes to sitting up, and although I lose the connection on her leg, she intertwines our fingers and holds my hand in her lap. “No more lies.”
I do a double-take. In these moments, I wonder if Mercy really does have some kind of extra-sensory gift. She seems to be able to read my mind. “I’m excited to see my brothers.”
She leans forward and tilts her head to catch my expression, her eyes narrow. “This doesn’t look like excitement to me.”
I shrug. “I’m nervous. Miguel isn’t happy we left. I hated walking out on Jules. He’s had everyone he loves leave him, and I’m worried he won’t forgive me.”
She squeezes my hand then brings it to her lips and kisses my knuckles. “Once he hears that his big brother is a superhero, he’ll understand.”
I cough out a laugh. “I’m far from heroic.”
She turns toward me, her expression humorless. “You forget how many people you saved. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to see yourself as the savior you are.”
I’m already shaking my head. “In the few months we were with Esteban, I delivered enough drugs and guns to arm a small country. That ain’t the works of a savior.”
She shrugs one shoulder and stares out the front window. “So you’re a different kind of savior.”
The stop-and-go traffic of the 405 lulls us into a comfortable silence until we finally pull into our old neighborhood. Mercy sits up taller as I navigate the streets of the suburban ‘hood. Nothing has changed—same houses, same rec park, same trees, yet everything feels different. As though we were last here in a different lifetime when really it’s only been months.
We pass the abandoned gas station, the spot where our lives were irrevocably changed. I keep my gaze on Mercy as she cranes her neck to catch the view of the parking lot, almost as if she expects to see Mikkel waiting for her. I’m grateful when we turn the corner. She blows out a relieved breath when our old house comes into view.
I pull into the driveway and grip Mercy’s thigh. “You ready?”
She nods excitedly and leans forward to study the house. I imagine she’s noticing the same thing I am. Laura and Chris’s house seems so much smaller than it used to, and that has very little to do with its size. The scale of our lives was much s
maller back then. How I miss those days, back before things like drug cartels and international human trafficking became a part of our vocabulary.
The back door flies open and Julian comes tearing out, hurdles the steps, and races into the yard. All the building tension from the last few days pales as my brother’s arms are thrown out and my name peels from his throat.
I jump out of the car just in time to catch him as he launches himself at me. Fuck, my chest feels as if it might collapse.
“Julian, I missed you so much, ese.” I kiss the side of his head, and his body shakes with emotion.
“Emilio! I knew you’d come back. I knew it.”
“Of course I would.” My heart and lungs seize at the idea of leaving Jules again, but next time permanently.
I feel the moment he sees Mercy, because he wiggles out of my hold and rushes to the front of the car as she circles the hood.
“Mercy!” He leaps at her, but rather than catching him, she squats low and gathers him into her arms.
“Be gentle, ‘manito,” I say.
The door slams behind me, and I turn around as Miguel comes hopping down the steps. I meet him halfway and expect him to simply shrug and say, “What’s up?”
He doesn’t say a word but grips my shoulder and pulls me into a back-pounding hug. “’Mano, finally.”
“I missed you guys.” My eyes sting, but I push back the tears and focus on the fact that for now, I’m home with the people I love the most in the world.
Julian squeezes between us and wraps his arms around my waist. I release Miguel to drag Mercy into my side.
Miguel greets her with a smile. “So you guys are really a couple, huh?”
Mercy tucks her chin, smiling, and I press a kiss to the top of her head. Miguel grins even wider.
Julian releases me and holds Mercy’s hand up, his fingers pinched around her ring. “You guys get married or somethin’?”
“Not yet.” I say.
I fight the lump that forms in my throat when I consider what my death will do to Jules, Mercy, and Miguel. One day Mercy will find someone who, like me, won’t be good enough for her, but he’ll fall under her spell just as I have. I imagine her body swollen with a life she created with someone who isn’t me. Someone who will know her story and comfort her when she cries about her first boyfriend who was gunned down by the Latino Saints.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
Miguel scowls.
“Sorry.” I shake my head. “It’s been a long few days.”
We head inside, and I scrape up something to eat while Mercy takes a shower. Her room hasn’t changed since we left, as if Laura and Chris were waiting for her to come home, and guilt weighs heavy on my chest.
Mercy joins us in the kitchen for spaghetti, wearing a T-shirt and sleeping shorts. I try to answer as many of Miguel and Julian’s questions as I can, and by the time nine o’clock rolls around, I’m mentally and emotionally exhausted from weaving a dozen half-truths. I grab a quick shower, and when I walk out of the bathroom wrapped in nothing but a towel, Mercy is waiting.
Her gaze slides along my chest to my neck. I reach for her hand.
“This is the exact spot where we met.” The memory of seeing her for the first time, my fear from not understanding what she was, makes my heart pound a little faster.
Her lips part as her gaze moves from my neck to my lips and finally settles on my eyes. “Can we sleep in your room tonight?”
“I think, for the sake of the boys, you should stay inside and I’ll—”
“No.” The heat in her expression dissolves into icy cold fear. “I’m not staying without you. Not tonight, not ever. Never again.”
“Okay, okay . . .” Fuck. I’d hoped to keep her inside just in case the LS came looking for me, but I can’t say no when her fear is so fresh. “Then we’ll sleep in your room.”
Her palms slide up my ribs in a slow tease that has me biting my lip against a groan. “Can we go to bed now?”
Despite the hunger I hear in her voice, it’s not sexy in a playful way but desperate with the desire to reconnect that mirrors my own. I slide my hand into her hair then cup her jaw, brushing my thumb across her healing split lip and bruised cheek. I convinced myself I could protect her from anything. I was wrong.
“I wish I could heal you.”
She curls closer to me. “I think you can. We can heal each other.”
The sound of the Xbox from the living room means my brothers are occupied, so I walk Mercy backward into her room before closing and locking the door. “We’re going to have to be quiet.”
She nods and reaches for the hem of her shirt, but I stop her. “What?”
“Let me.”
She drops her hand, and I cup her face and bring our lips together softly. I keep the pace slow until I’m drinking in her frustrated breath.
I smile against her lips. “You need this?”
Her answering growl is as adorable as it is sexy. “Yes.”
She rips the towel from my waist and tosses it to the floor. Her nails bite into my ass as she pulls our hips together. Her fully clothed body against my bare skin mimics the vulnerability I feel when I’m with her. Her soul is my anchor, and I feed off her touch.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, which only intensifies every moment we have left together.
Mercy
MY HANDS SHAKE as I try to hold back the urgency to get closer to Milo. The room is quiet except for our frenzied breathing as he slides his hands under my shirt.
His fingers skate up my sides, and he lifts the fabric over my head. A rumble of voices come from the other side of the wall.
“It’s all right,” he whispers. “They’re playing Fortnite. They’ll be at it for hours.”
“What if they come looking for us?”
“The door is locked. We just have to make sure we’re quiet.” He takes my hands and places them around his neck, then he dips to kiss me. He tastes like mint toothpaste, and his tongue is warm as it slides against mine. A moan rumbles in his throat.
“Shh . . .” I smile against his kiss. “No sound, remember?”
His long fingers unhook my bra, and it falls from my body. “It’s going to be impossible to keep quiet with you.” He cups my breasts, his thumbs making slow passes over my nipples.
I suck in a breath as warmth radiates through my body with every swipe of his fingers. I lick his chest, his skin still warm from the shower. He walks me back to the bed, and when I sit, the metal bedframe squeaks. In the dark room, his silhouette stands out against the moonlight spilling in through the window, and I watch his beautiful body lower to his knees between my feet.
He runs his big hands up my thighs, under my shorts, and grasps my hipbones. “This bed could be a problem.” The darkest parts of his eyes drop to my chest, and he licks his lips.
I arch my back, offering him what he so clearly wants, and he doesn’t hesitate to take it, sucking my nipple deep into his mouth. I bite my lip to keep from crying out as pleasure shoots down my spine to pool between my legs. My thighs clamp around him in an attempt to keep him there. “Don’t stop.”
“Quiet, mi alma.” His soft breath ghosts against my wet, sensitive breast, making me shiver with anticipation. “So sexy.”
He licks and teases until my restlessness becomes too much. The bedframe squeals again, and Milo pulls me from the mattress to straddle his thighs. He grips my backside to hold me close, his erection cradled between my legs. I flex my hips, and a stuttered breath falls from his lips. He gazes down between us and thrusts slowly. His arms shake with the effort. I watch, amazed that I can make a man as big and strong as Milo weaken against me.
Gently, he lays me on the carpet and slides my shorts from my legs. I’m surprised he didn’t take my panties too. He runs his knuckles up and down the apex of my thighs in deliberate strokes.
“That feels so good.” I dig my heels into the floor and thrust into his touch. “But . . .”
He switche
s up the pressure, robbing me of breath. “But what, Ghostgirl?”
He hasn’t called me that in a long time, and hearing the nickname he gave me, said with so much love and affection, has me melting into a pool before him. “I want more. Please, Milo.” I groan softly and bite my lips to silence myself.
“You’re so beautiful when you beg.” He snags the elastic between my legs and pushes it aside. His fingers work between my legs, making me writhe with need.
The effort it takes to remain quiet has beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead as Milo slowly brings me to the edge only to coax me back from it. The pleasure is frustrating as I ride wave after wave of close calls until he finally removes my panties, pushes my thighs wide, and crawls between them.
“I don’t have protection,” he says, and his voice sounds as if his neck is being squeezed in a tight fist. “I’ll pull out.”
My skin hums and my muscles twitch as if I’ve been hooked up to an electrical current. I lock my heels around Milo’s thighs and guide him closer. The soft heat of his arousal brushes my needy flesh, and his lips drop open with labored breath.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” he whispers as he holds his hips back.
“I thought I’d never see you again.” Emotion makes my voice crack, and my eyes heat with tears. “Now that you’re here, I need to feel that you’re real.” My mind cranks back to the horror of being kept in a cell with the men who kidnapped me, and tears gather behind my lashes. I choke on a fresh sob as the fear I thought I’d overcome surges forward. “I was so afraid they’d take . . .”
His muscles are locked as he hovers above me, radiating tension. “Take what?”
I shake my head, furious over what they tried to rob me of, furious with myself for ruining this moment, and furious that I feel indebted to Papa for saving me. Papa, the man I killed so I could be here with Milo. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it. Not now. Not like this.”
