by AJ Adams
Then Quique sighed. “Ay bruja! I thought you’d have some respect for Jorge, at least!”
Then super smooth James was grinning, and the violence in Jorge’s eyes vanished.
“I was just giving him a hint.”
At that, they all howled with laughter.
I got another hug from Jorge. “Bruja, I will take your hint.”
Bobby was safe for the moment, and I knew my very practical father-in-law would see the light quickly enough.
“We’re going to party,” Quique announced. “Don’t call unless you want to hear me sing, okay?”
“Sounds good!”
“Enjoy!”
Seeing that was settled, I gave up worrying and devoted myself to the bender. It was magnificent. We spent our days walking around London, casually taking in the sights as we wound our way through every pub and club that took our fancy.
The binge was punctuated by gourmet meals and junk food, and we managed to fit in a couple of roller coasters at Thorpe Park and a bungee jump at O2 Arena, as well as a Ripper Walk in Whitechapel.
The only sour note was another layer of paint on my door, ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ featuring large, and a dead rat on the doormat.
“I don’t like this,” Quique frowned. “This looks personal, Natalia.”
“Kids,” I said firmly.
He pretended to believe me, but it was unsettling. “I’m putting in CCTV,” Quique growled. “Just in case.”
“You’re a fusspot.”
The CCTV appeared two hours later, Zeta efficiency at work, and it did the trick, because the vandalism stopped. Quique and I went on partying happily. We slept at my place and then at his, a nice flat in the same building as his office. I avoided the Black Horse, but I knew what was going on because half of the family was on the phone, and the other half were texting.
Roger has fallen out with Bobby, Suzie reported, and so have I!
Bobby’s lost his marbles, Aunt Sadie texted. Pride goeth before a fall.
Frank is incandescent. Suzie again. He says you’ve gone off your head.
Daisy, a second cousin: Are you insane? Call Bobby and apologise for walking out!
On the fifth night, just as we’d staggered back to my place, deciding we needed a night in to recover from our delicious bender, Donald called. “We’re split, Nats. There’s the ones who say you saved the pub and those who think you’ve sold Bobby out.”
I thought that hurt, but then I got a text, Nats, I can’t call you, but I love you. Delicia used Johnathan’s phone. Please make it all better again!
The little love. She really thought I could work miracles. I was still trying to figure out what to say to her when Millie called from Suzie’s phone.
“Please don’t be hurt. Bobby’s just jack-booting about because he’s jealous you did so well. You know how he is.”
“Don’t I just.” I admit I was bitter.
“Maybe if you could talk it out.”
“Millie, I’m out with Quique. I don’t want Bobby’s shit messing up my holiday.”
“But that’s the problem!” Millie wailed. “Bobby says you’ve sold us out!”
“Tell him from me that he can shove it up his arse.”
I was hopping, I really was. The thing about Millie’s call was that it came just as Quique came out of the shower.
“Natalia, there’s nothing you can do. He’s an ungrateful hijo puta. Forget about him. There’s plenty of family on your side.”
“I know. I should have known. Ever since I left Frank, Bobby’s been poison. I can’t do anything right.”
Quique tossed his towel into the bath and lay down next to me. The scent of soap over warm, clean body cheered me up instantly. So did the hug and the kiss. Being with Quique was a constant lift. All that intense fiery rage had disappeared, leaving a laughing, fun-loving man. A bloody good-looking one, too.
I was tracing the muscles on his stomach, watching them flex and shift. I’d discovered that Quique was ticklish and far too macho to admit to it, so I gave in to my evil streak, quietly teasing him until he wriggled—and then I kissed him better. Seeing there was plenty to smile about, I decided to change the topic from my ungrateful family.
“What’s this scar on your side?”
“I fell out of a tree.”
“And this one? On your hip?”
“Fell out of a chopper.”
“And the one on your back?”
“Fell out of a window.”
“Good grief! Should I put safety rails around the bed?”
“No need. I’ll hold onto you.”
Those dark eyes were drawing me in, my body warming and tingling with shivery anticipation of pleasures to come. I was loving being with him. Actually, I was loving it too much. Quique was here for only a short time, I reminded myself. This was just a fling. Very soon he’d be leaving again.
Quique talked about his family and friends all the time, so I had impressions of “the boss” and “the jefe” whom he worshipped, and of their girlfriends, Chloe and Solitaire, whom he liked and respected. There were his brothers, Eduardo and Pablo, and his sister, Carmen, who lived in Guatemala. He had cousins called Carlos and Juanita who were in Nuevo Laredo, married to fellow Zetas.
He had lots of friends, too, mentioning Pedro Rojo, who loved to cook, Gordo, who’d been in the Special Forces with him, and so many others that I soon lost track.
But there were significant gaps, little silences that told me Quique had recently split from someone he’d cared about. I was dead curious, but I could see it hurt him, so I didn’t push it. With both of us drowning our sorrows, it was only fair not to.
As I leaned against him, I considered that I liked him and trusted him, but from the little he told me, his true life was totally alien to mine. Life in the cartel sounded brutal and deadly. Quique’s quiet surprise about things like the local celebs walking about without bodyguards hadn’t passed me by. Nor had the fact that his gun went everywhere he went, and that he had a knife up his sleeve and another strapped to his leg.
For Quique, violence was part of his everyday life. Being in London was like a day at the kiddies’ park for him. I knew why he’d not worried about the Peckham Knaves; it was because Quique played for Man U and they for the Boy Scouts team.
No, we liked each other, but in the long run we wouldn’t suit. We were too different. This was a temporary affair, no more.
“I’m off to Paris soon,” Quique said on cue. “My ticket’s for tomorrow lunchtime. It’s just a week’s break. Want to come along?”
Paris with Quique. We’d see the Eiffel Tower, bungee off it if he had his way, and drink delicious red wine with good creamy Brie. It sounded heavenly, but my instinct for self-preservation kicked in. Loving Frank had almost destroyed me. There was no future in loving Quique. He had his life, and I had mine.
Also, it really was time to confront Bobby and settle this nonsense. Five days’ absence was a good gap to allow him to cool down, but disappearing for another week or more and jaunting to Paris would convince the waverers in the family to believe his slur that I’d somehow handed his pub to the Zetas. No, I couldn’t go.
“I want to, but I have to start looking for my own shop. And in the meantime, I need a job.”
His hand was running through my hair. “Okay, brujita.” He kissed me. “And you want to fix your family?”
There was no fooling Quique. It was another thing I liked about him. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, Natalia. Family’s important.” He was winding himself around me, the truncheon hot and hard against me once more. “Okay if I stay another night?”
“I insist you do.”
I’d been right to refuse the temptation of Paris. Saying goodbye the next morning was difficult enough. I found myself blinking a lot so he wouldn’t see me tearing up. No, going away together would be foolish. I already liked him too much.
“Natalia,” the rough voice had become dear to me,
“anytime you need anything, call me.”
“Of course.”
“If you change your mind about Paris, text me.”
That would be a serious temptation. “I really can’t.”
“Okay. bruja, look after yourself. Promise!”
“Of course. Don’t worry about me.”
Quique was taking my phone, punching in contacts “This is Jorge’s number, and here’s James, Matu, Lencho and Paco.”
Now I had a raft of Zetas on call. It made me feel safe. “Thanks, love.”
Quique was looking at my door, professionally cleaned and restored now. “Be careful, Natalia. Someone doesn’t like you.”
“I will. Promise.”
Then, finally, he was gone. I stood on the street, waving as the taxi went its way. Rather than go back to the empty flat, I went to the estate agent and started a new search for my own takeaway. Then I hit the job centre. By the time I finished, it was six o’clock. Bobby would be at the Black Horse. I’d visit Millie and get the lay of the land.
It was pouring when I walked over to her flat. Typical miserable London weather. Just the day before, I hadn’t minded, because it meant huddling under a brolly with Quique. That made me feel dreadful, so I pushed the thought away.
I walked around the block in order to get my cool back and then walked up and knocked on Millie’s door. Delicia opened it almost instantly and flung herself into my arms.
“Nats! Oh, Nats! It’s been so awful!”
The poor girl was in floods.
“All right, love. Come on, let’s go inside.”
I thought Delicia was crying over the feud, but the second I walked in, I spotted Millie’s favourite blue vase in smithereens on the floor. The little side table it had stood on was smashed, too.
Millie was on the sofa. She had a black eye, and her left arm was bruised from the wrist to her elbow. Bloody Bobby! Less than a week out of jail and already beating the crap out of his wife. Rage flooded through me, white hot, searing me to the bone. I’d bloody well thump him for this.
But first I had to settle poor Millie.
“Oh, Nats! It was awful!”
Millie was hanging around my neck, totally in floods, and with Delicia in tears, too, it was a while before I got the whole story. As usual Bobby had beaten her because she’d disagreed with him.
“He’s saying such things about you, Nats!” Millie wept, “so I told him off and then he—”
Unlike all the other times, Millie wasn’t making excuses for him. I was expecting a “he didn’t mean it” or a “he loves me, really,” but there was none of that.
“I kicked him out,” Millie sniffed. “I don’t want Delicia thinking it’s all right to be knocked about.”
I made reassuring noises, but frankly I was taken aback.
“The thing is, Nats, that he won’t accept it,” Millie confessed nervously. “I threw him out last night, and he just came back. He says it’s his house, and if I try to leave, he’ll find me and—” She broke down again.
“He said he’d kill her,” Delicia piped up shakily. “He meant it, Nats! It was so scary. Just like the Twittertons. He was red and screaming, and he said such awful things.”
That got Millie wailing with the guilts, which had Delicia going again. In other words, I had my hands full with both of them.
Finally, after a good pot of strong tea, a supper of scrambled eggs and a hot shower, I had Delicia calmed down and tucked up in bed.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” I told her firmly. “I’ll go and settle this. You have to get some rest and focus on school. You leave the grownup stuff till you’re older.”
“You’ll fix it?” Delicia was cuddled deep into her duvet. “Promise?”
I mentally crossed my fingers. “Promise.”
Millie was more realistic. “He won’t listen to you, Nats. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. It’s like he’s going totally round the twist!”
“I’ll do my best. If it doesn’t work, you and Delicia go on a trip to Scotland.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“I can.” Bless Quique and his ten per cent cash backhander. “I’ve got enough for you both to disappear for a few months and to hire a lawyer.”
That had Millie going again. “We take so much from you!”
I hugged her till she shut up. By that time it was almost eleven o’clock, closing time at the Black Horse. “I’ll go and see him now. Pack a bag in case it doesn’t work. If he has a hissy-fit, I’ll come back, and you can stay at my place till the morning.”
It was still raining, but I didn’t notice. I was totally focused on what I’d say to Bobby. By the time I got to the pub, the windows were shuttered but the door open.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Bobby was drunk and beyond talking. “It’s all your fault! You never gave Frank a chance!”
“We’re not talking about Frank and me. It’s Millie—”
“Everything that happened was down to you! You had the money! It was nothing to do with me!”
He was still on about those bloody cigarettes. “Millie is frightened—”
“You think you’re better than me, setting everyone against me! Even my own sons are at me, saying I should be grateful to you. They think the sun shines out of your arse!”
“Listen, Bobby. I don’t care about the pub, but family matters. You’re scaring Delicia, too—”
He picked up a glass and threw it at me. I ducked, and it shattered against the wall. “You bitch! Get out!” Another glass shattered. This was getting too hairy. I got out fast, my feet taking me home instinctively.
“Natalia!” Scott was standing in front of our block of flats, clearly on his way home after a night at the pub, looking disapproving as usual. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want to talk. And I didn’t want a lecture either. “Got to go. Bye, Scott!”
I turned tail and ran up the stairs, leaving him standing, staring after me. I was still shaking with reaction. I knew Bobby disliked me, but that murderous hatred was a shock. It numbed me so much that I was unlocking my front door when I realised I’d forgotten all about Millie and Delicia.
I took out my phone, my hands still shaking, when I heard a noise behind me. I was reaching for my baton when someone grabbed me.
“You’re home late.” The voice was unfamiliar. He was fucking strong, too, squeezing my ribs so hard that I couldn’t breathe. Two figures appeared in front of me. Spots were dancing before my eyes. It was too dark to see faces anyway. All I could see were hoodies.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” one of them said. “Call that dago prick and tell him you’re in the mood for a shag.”
Christ, they were after Quique!
“Do it and you walk away,” the hoodie said persuasively.
“Fuck you!” That just ripped out of me. It earned me a punch in the gut that paralysed my lungs.
The arms tightened around me. I was half aware of another figure coming up. Three against one. Terrific.
Grabber was talking again. “Come on, give her a going-over. It’ll make her eager to talk.”
This wasn’t looking good. I should’ve gone to Paris.
Chapter Nineteen: Quique
Leaving Natalia was a wrench. I wanted to stay, to ask if we could make it work, to adopt kids instead of having our own, but then my brain overruled my heart. I thought of those ripe curves, that loving nature, and once again, I knew she was born to be a matriarch. It would be selfish to try and keep her in my life.
So I hugged her for the last time and ran before she could see I was about to lose it. I was miserable all the way to Paris, not even noticing the champagne or the filet mignon they fed me. The drive through the city was a blur, too.
I came back to earth when standing in the lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel.
“Is monsieur alone?” the sleek bugger at the desk asked.
That hurt, so I went back to my roots. “Yeah, send me some
company, okay?”
“Mais certainment, monsieur!”
Which is why I was about to dive into a ho when my phone rang. Normally I’d ignore it, but then the messages came flooding in. Five in ten seconds. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. This was an emergency. As I picked up the phone, it rang again.
“Quique!” It was Jorge. “Where are you?”
“Paris. About a mile from the Eiffel Tower.” I could see it from the bed, rearing into the night sky like a massive verga. “What’s happened?”
“Your bruja says you’re on no account to answer any calls or texts from her.”
“What?” It made no sense. I looked through my messages and saw a text from her. “Hang on, Jorge.”
Her text simply said. “Want 2 hook up? Miss you.”
I’d never had a text from her before, so it looked okay, but with Jorge on high alert, it clearly wasn’t.
“What’s going on?”
“Someone stole her phone. She got a message to me to say she was attacked.”
My stomach was churning. “Is she badly hurt?” I was praying my bruja had creamed him, but with Jorge calling, it seemed unlikely.
“I don’t know. She’s in hospital, so it can’t be good.”
“Coño!”
I was out of bed, chucking the French ho her clothes, stuffing money into her hand and kicking her out. She was swearing at me, the ungrateful loba, pissed because she ended up butt-naked in the corridor. From the curses, she didn’t like the idea of giving the security boys on CCTV a free show.
“The bruja sent one of the nurses to the office,” Jorge was saying. “She got my apartment number from the doorman.”
I saw it was four in the morning. “That’s a helluva persistent nurse!”
“The bruja told her I’d give her two hundred bucks.”
“I’ll pay you back.” It reassured me, hearing that. If Natalia had her wits about her, the damage couldn’t be too bad. “I’m on my way back.”
“Quique, be very careful. She says they were after you. They beat her because they wanted her to lure you in.”
“Oh fuck!” Poor Natalia. It was all my fault.
“I’m on my way to see her,” Jorge said.
“Thanks.”
