“Who the hell are you calling?”
Mina ignored Celeste and continued walking. “Come on. Come on,” she muttered under her breath.
“What the hell game are you playing?” The click clack of Celeste’s heels matched hers.
“Damn it.” Mina brought the useless phone away from her ear, selected the number, and dialed again. “Come on.”
“What are you trying to do? Mina, come on. My car’s over here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Mina felt like punching a wall when the voicemail picked up again. “Come on!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Go to hell.” Mina dialed again. “You and your shady girlfriend can go to hell.”
Celeste yanked the phone away from her, dodging when Mina grabbed at it. “Give me that.” Mina lunged again.
Celeste gave the phone up without a struggle, a sneer spreading across her face. “That’s cute. You really think he’s going to come for you this time, huh? You think you can depend on that prick now?” She scoffed. “I’m here in front of you, Mina. I’m the one here to help you.”
“Yeah, you helped me right into this in the first place.”
“Stop. You’re no little kid. You knew damn well what was going on here. I never hid that from you, and I ain’t your mama. You’re a big girl, so don’t go blaming your bullshit on me. No one forced you to do anything. And since when have you ever had a problem finding trouble all by yourself? You going to blame me for all those other times, or are you going to wake up and remember who came and got you, no questions asked, every time you did something stupid?”
Mina gritted her teeth. “Celeste—”
Her friend held a hand up in her face. “Forget it. You go ahead and depend on Prince Charming. See if he’s got his white horse this time or just another excuse.”
With that, Celeste power-walked away, heels clacking. Mina let out a shaky breath and closed her stinging eyes, ducking off the main sidewalk to lean against the wall. Her finger had been hovering over the send button as Celeste railed at her. She pressed and brought the phone to her ear, tears threatening with every unanswered ring.
Her rational mind knew Val was at work, and his wasn’t the kind of work that let him get to his phone easily, if he had it on him at all. But she knew he did have it on him. Once, she’d sent him a dirty text while he was at work, thinking he’d read it when his shift was over. He’d seen it when he went for a short break and had sent her a message that had made the last few hours of her own shift harder than necessary because she was so worked up.
Right. He could take a short break for a sexy text, but a thousand missed calls? He should be able to figure out something was wrong, which meant he was ignoring her on purpose.
She felt frantic, still shaking. And if it weren’t enough that she was glancing over her shoulder, expecting cops in riot gear to come storming around the corner any second, memories of the worst night of her life—that night, years ago, that had gotten her good friend killed—flashed through her mind.
“He’s dead! Someone’s dead!” She remembered the way the news had spread through the house. There was one scream, then shouts. Mina had made her way past the rush of bodies—a lot of people’s reaction was to run—fighting the flow of traffic to get up the stairs.
She’d just known. It had to be him. Sweet, naive Mateo. She thought she heard someone say his name as she shoved the looky-loos out of the doorway.
Then, there he was, his normally brown skin bleached a sickly shade. His eyes were closed, his hair and clothes drenched in sweat. He was still. Grinning, bubbly Mateo lay there on the floor of a stranger’s bedroom, unnaturally still.
“I brought him here,” she’d muttered nonsensically, watching as if through a wall of water, as someone—some guy she didn’t know—tried to revive Mateo while someone else had a phone to their ear, talking to 9-1-1.
Celeste had found her then. She’d said Mina had to get out of there. It didn’t make sense to her when she thought about it later. Celeste had sent her into a panic. The police were en route, and Mina had brought this dead boy to the party. Underage drinking aside, it wasn’t a crime to bring someone who had no business being there to a party, but she let Celeste drag her away.
When they were outside, she’d called Val over and over again. She hadn’t wanted to listen to Celeste. She’d wanted Val. He would know what to do. He would fix it. He always knew how.
He never answered that night. Or the next. Or the next. She’d needed him so much then.
And now. Mina wrapped her arms around herself, biting the inside of her cheek hard. She had a terrible feeling that if she started crying now, she wasn’t going to be able to stop. For the second time in her life, she felt desolate, so alone and out of her depth.
There’d been guns. She’d been surrounded by them in that room, and when someone said the police were coming, she knew. That she’d been doing something illegal—because being around illegal activity and not reporting it was illegal—was almost beside the point. There’d been a lot of guns, and if someone had started shooting, she wasn’t high on anyone’s list of people to keep alive.
Her ringtone going off made Mina yelp and jump. She dropped the damn thing and cursed as she bent to retrieve it. Her hands were still shaking so badly that she dropped it again before she finally got her act together and answered.
When she heard Val’s voice, she could’ve cried in relief. This time, there were no excuses. She needed him, and his answer was immediate. “I’m coming.”
~0~
He’d hugged her first.
Well, he’d looked her over first, searching for who only knew what, but when she told him she wasn’t hurt, he’d hugged her. Hard. It was the kind of hug she could disappear into, tucked as she was under his chin, against his chest. He consumed her, and it was exactly what she needed to calm down.
But once they were in the car and finally, finally speeding far away, defensiveness crept under Mina’s skin. She could see the hard set of Val’s jaw. He stared straight forward, not looking at her, and the silence got heavy. She felt like a child who knew she was in for trouble when her parents got her home, and she resented it. She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes pinched at the corners.
“Where’s your car?” Val asked, his voice tight.
“Celeste picked me up.”
“Right.” The word came out with a bite, and Val signaled that he was pulling off the freeway.
“What are you doing?” Mina wasn’t scared of Val—of course she wasn’t—but she was still jumpy. Her heartbeat started to race again.
“We need to talk,” he said gruffly.
Did those four words ever end well for anyone? Mina shifted in her seat. “We can’t talk at home?”
“I don’t think you want Mom and Dante to hear.”
Mina was silent at that. She hunkered down in her seat, watching as Val pulled into The Block, an outlet shopping mall in the city of Orange. It was well lit, which she appreciated given her current level of paranoia.
They pulled into the first parking space they saw, well away from the mall. Val stared forward. Mina kept glancing at him, waiting for the yelling to start. Instead, he spoke quietly. “Tell me what happened.”
She hesitated and let out a long, slow breath. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Mina—”
“I got it under control, Valentin. I don’t need you telling me I shouldn’t have been where I was. I get it, and I’m done with them. Let’s drop it.”
She could practically feel the force of his scowl without having to look. “Let’s recap.” His tone was still even, but there was an edge to it she didn’t like. “I’ve seen your friend hand you something I kind of thought was a wad of cash, which you always seem to have plenty of. Just out of college, and you can’t find a steady job, but you have lots of cash on hand? Little weird. You came home that one night in a spendy car dri
ven by a big monster of a guy who’d done a number on your face.”
“It wasn’t that guy. He didn’t do anything to me.”
Val’s eyes met hers, and she had to look away. “You called me at work, in the middle of an insanely busy shift, and I left them in the lurch, okay, because you sounded so scared, I couldn’t think of anything except getting to you. You really want to stick with ‘It’s no big deal’?”
Mina pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She wanted to snap at him, and she knew that was the wrong answer. “I didn’t think about your job. I shouldn’t have called.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He turned in his seat and grabbed one hand in both of his. “You should’ve called. You know I’m here for that. I’m here for you. I’ll drop anything and everything if you need me, but you have to talk to me, Mina, mi vida.”
Her voice shook when she spoke. “I told you. I have it under control. This is my life. I don’t need you telling me how to live it.”
The silence that fell between them was rife with bad energy. She knew he was staring at her, could feel his gaze on the side of her head, but she had dropped her eyes to her lap and their joined hands.
“Mina.”
Incredibly, his voice was soft. She looked up at him, her eyes stinging with tears she didn’t want to cry. She was angry and ashamed and chagrined at her own naivety, but she saw no judgment in his eyes. He looked at her like he loved her.
And he looked more than a little hurt.
He reached up, and she almost flinched, though she didn’t know why. His touch, his fingertips along her temple as he cupped her face, was feather light. Her heart ached with the tenderness of it.
“You know I’m not one to tell anybody how to live their life. That’s not what this is about. You don’t think you can trust me about whatever you’re into—”
“It’s not that. It’s not trust.” She pulled her hand from his and wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s stupid. I already know that. I just don’t want you to know how stupid.” She hated how small her voice sounded.
“This is me. You think anything you’ve gotten into is stupider than the shit I’ve pulled in my life?” He brushed her hair back and sighed. “I don’t know much about anything, but I think you and me trying to do this thing? Be together? I think that’s supposed to come with some honesty. That’s the whole point, right? Of doing more than just messing around, I mean.” He took her hand again, peeling it away from her shoulder and playing with her fingers. “You want to be together, then your wins are my wins and your problems are my problems.”
Mina pressed her lips together, quickly losing the battle not to cry. She adored him so much right now. It was just that she also, for the first time, felt the age difference between them. What he was saying sounded so grown up.
That, and she was pretty sure he was wrong. What she’d been up to had to be stupider than any of the shit he’d pulled. “So it’s an ultimatum, then?” she bit out.
“No, Mina.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not trying to start that kind of bullshit drama. Ultimatum.” He scoffed. “You’re going to have to try a lot harder to shake me off.”
That broke the tension a little. She laughed. It was a shaky sound, but it was easier to breathe then. He reached out and took her hand again. “Let me be here for you. Not just to pick you up when you need to make a quick escape, but for whatever.”
“I don’t need some asshole acting all macho to protect me. I don’t need you going crazy on these guys.” The idea sent a thrill of fear through her. She didn’t want him anywhere near the men she’d just run from.
“Give me a little credit.” He tilted his head toward her, his jaw taut. “You came home with your face all messed up. What do you think I wanted to do? But what good would it do me to go after whatever bastard did that? You said you gave him worse, and I’d just end up in jail.”
“Or dead,” she muttered with a shiver.
He was silent for a beat. “Fuck, Mina. What the hell are you into?”
She closed her eyes.
And then she told him.
She told him about how she’d had a panic attack the day she graduated, because what the fuck was she supposed to do now? Unlike her four years in college, the rest of her life didn’t come with an instruction book. She had an incredible amount of debt, and she knew damn well the job market was a joke.
Celeste had a solution. Her girlfriend had a side job. Easy money. Good money for what it was. Wear a tight dress. Deliver drinks. Make bank for doing it. Steady work. More dependable than her temp jobs. Just don’t ask questions.
She didn’t ask questions, but she wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t exactly a shock that night when the Feds had come busting in, guns out and ready.
It was kind of a surprise that Celeste had grabbed her, hauling her back into the kitchen and to an escape route. Because, yeah, they were in a house that had escape routes.
Because the people they worked for were the type of people who needed escape routes.
When she was done, Val stared at her in wide-eyed horror. He wiped a hand over his face. “Mina—”
“You don’t have to tell me I need to get out. I know that. I’m done.”
His expression was pinched. “Can you get out? I thought you couldn’t with those type of people.”
She grinned. “I’m a waitress. I didn’t join the mob.” She squeezed his fingers. “They’re not going to put out a hit on me.”
“Jesus. I can’t even joke about something like that.”
“I didn’t do anything, not to them.” She shivered, taking her hand from his and chafing her arms. “I was just serving drinks.”
“But the Feds might have a different point of view.”
“Yeah.” She swallowed. “Also, there was that whole thing where the shooting started right as we were running away.”
Val’s eyes all but bugged out of his head. He blinked, he huffed, and then he got out of the car. Mina watched him as he made his way around the front to her side. He opened her door, pulled her out, and brought her into his arms. He kissed the side of her head, murmuring nonsensical words against her hair.
And it hit her—the fear, the terror as she ran away from that house into the night. Seeing his reaction, the way his hands shook as he took her face between them, she knew her paranoid thoughts weren’t so far-fetched.
She could be in jail right now, every plan for her future destroyed in one heartbeat.
Or she could be dead. Bullets flying, and she was no one’s priority? She could’ve been very, very dead.
Mina looped her arms around Val, making a fist at his back, clutching at his shirt. Her breath hitched. He cupped the back of her head. “I’m right here,” he murmured when she started to cry. “We’re going to be okay.”
Chapter 21
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Val banged his head against the steering wheel several times, mumbling under his breath and cursing his entire life.
He was going to regret this. He could feel it in his bones.
For the millionth time, he went over his options. For the millionth time, the same answer returned. He had very few choices. Of the choices he had, this was the most acceptable.
He sighed and straightened up. This wasn’t going to be the best day of his life, but it wouldn’t kill him. He fixed a vision of Mina and how proud she’d be in his mind before he got out of the car, striding toward the building with his head held high.
Ten minutes later, he was regretting everything when his little brother appeared at the front desk. He crossed his arms as he looked at Val with an expression that got right under his skin. “Good morning, Valentin.” He turned to the receptionist. “Franco, this is my big brother, Valentin.”
The man quirked his eyebrows, his glance darting between Val and Carlito in a way that made it clear he’d heard at least one interesting story about him. “Oh. Hello.”
Val tried not to grimace as he nodded at the man. He looked to his brother. “Do you have some time to talk? In private?”
“Of course. Do you want to see my office?” His brother, as always, was eager to make it clear to Val exactly how much he had.
For the first and millionth time, Val reconsidered what the hell he was doing here, and yet again, he couldn’t get around the fact he needed help—help Carlito was in the position to give.
So, he put on a smile and threw his arm over his brother’s shoulders. He could tell by the way Carlito stiffened it was the last thing he’d expected. “Sure. I’m proud of you, baby bro.” He ruffled his brother’s hair. “Lead the way.”
Carlito led them down the hallway to a modest office. As expected, his every accomplishment from major to minor was on display. He’d hung pictures of his family—his wedding to Ava, Junior at various stages. The ultrasound picture was tacked to a pinboard. His degree was framed, and there were a smattering of employee-of-the-month awards up, as well.
“Sit,” Carlito demanded, gesturing to the chair across from him. “You had something you wanted to say?”
“To ask, actually.”
The grin that slid across Carlito’s face screamed of triumph. “I figured you wanted something from me. The idea you could actually interact with someone in your family without needing something is beyond you.”
Val glared across the desk, his jaw clenched. “This was a mistake,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Hey.” Carlito caught his arm. “Wait. I’m sorry. For reals. Bad joke.” He held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I know we never quite got the hang of it, but we’re family. If you’re ready to take me up on finding you a job—”
“Christ. I have a job, and you know that.”
“Working in a kitchen.” His brother arched an unimpressed eyebrow.
“As a chef.” Val rolled his eyes. “Can you spare me the pretentious bullshit? I’m never going to have such a big, fancy office—” He let sarcasm taint his words as he gestured around them. “—but it’s a good job with room to grow. Wasn’t that part of your whole speech? I’m even building a network of people who can help me out.” He scoffed. “And you can take credit for that, since you’re going to anyway. God only knows you’re the only one in the world to come up with that plan, right?”
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