Mad Dog (Second Skin Book 1)

by Ophelia Bell

  It takes me several minutes before my confusion subsides enough to come up with a plan. Owing Gustavo a favor is the last thing I want because I wouldn’t put it past him to ask for more than I’m willing to give. However, keeping my father from finding out about my meeting with Maddox is more important, especially after being reminded of what Papá ordered Gustavo to do to Maddox all those years ago.

  It’s crucial that I find out why a man my father has been at odds with for decades would have any interest in talking to me. I can’t go into a meeting this dangerous blind. Instead of the work I intended to do, I switch gears. The old business accounts from Papá’s partnership with Amador have been archived, but I still have access. Papá would only evade the question if I ask him directly. But numbers don’t lie, not to me.

  I type in the name Amador and wait as the results scroll up the screen. When I click on one of the transactions, I’m presented with a scanned image of a canceled check, and my heart stops. My mother’s signature is just how I remember it, and I resist touching the screen to trace the lines that spell out Lola Flores in wide, graceful loops. The payee on the check is Amador Propiedad, Ltda. Then the date on the check catches my eye, and I blink.

  Back when my father first introduced me to accounting, I had just started my degree program at UCLA. He showed me his ledgers, which covered the accounts for a multitude of different corporations going all the way back to Amador e Flores, Ltda., the Brazilian holding company he started with Amador before he and my mother moved to the United States in the late eighties. I was curious about the various name changes, but corporate entities come and go rapidly when the income sources are as sketchy as ours. I didn’t think much of the fact that the Flores name wasn’t connected with that account at the time, particularly with my course load demanding most of my attention. I forgot about it and failed to make the connection when Papá’s rivalry with the Amador cartel and its leader flared up in more recent years.

  Now that I see the name again in connection with my mother’s signature, recognition sends an icy chill through me even colder than when Gustavo threatened me moments ago.

  Papá hasn’t done business with Amador in more than twenty years. I know because I went over the accounts with a fine-toothed comb when I started in my official capacity as Flores Antiquities, Inc.’s CFO. But before their falling out, my father’s business dealings weren’t about real estate or black-market antiques and artwork. He sold guns and drugs like most of his counterparts and had close ties with Mexico. Papá was instrumental in helping Amador’s rise as the head of the richest and most dangerous cartel in Mexico. That was when they did business as Amador e Flores, Ltda., not Amador Propiedad, Ltda., a name which only exists in our records linked to these few transactions.

  If my father cut ties with Amador in the early nineties, what was my mother’s name doing on checks written to him the same week she died, more than five years later?

  10

  Maddox

  The sick feeling in my stomach persists for the rest of the week. Long enough that I can’t attribute it to the tequila. At least the ache in my balls has dissipated, thanks to several epic beat-off sessions that leave me feeling bruised emotionally because I can’t help but picture Leo and Celeste together. I can’t even insinuate myself into the fantasies because deep down I don’t believe I deserve it. I was dumb to think either of them would accept me. Celeste’s father is too deep inside her head now, and Leo . . . Well, it’s always a crapshoot, coming out to friends. There was probably a better way to handle that, but I blew it.

  It’s a secret I’ve let eat at me for too long. It’s not hard to keep after returning to a city where very few people exist who know me anymore, but the people who do know me deserve the truth. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even relevant though. I’m not with anyone. It’s not like I have to explain the porn I watch, and the erotic images hanging on my wall could support the lie that I’m as straight as they come.

  Hell, even my currently grease-covered hands and the two-wheeled hunk of metal in my garage are sufficient camouflage.

  I crouch by my bike and stare at my distorted reflection in the chrome tailpipe. I see another face in my mind’s eye. One I miss, one who wouldn’t have let me fucking wallow in misery like this.

  My CO, Sean Zagorski—Zag—took me down a few pegs before building me back up when I joined his squad with an oversized ego and an epic chip on my shoulder. Everything was so much easier with him. None of this fucking handwringing over coming out, mostly because it just wasn’t something you did in the military. My interest in him went from plain old admiration to something more after an assignment that had the pair of us trapped together in a half-collapsed mosque in Kabul.

  Extraction took several days, and the area around us was too hot to risk making a run for it, so we hunkered down and resigned ourselves to a long, boring wait. It didn’t take long before we started sharing our deepest, darkest secrets. When he confessed his sexual orientation, I was sure he only shared because he was certain we were both going to die.

  I’m not sure what went through my head next. Maybe it was awareness of my own mortality. Maybe it was my need to spit in the face of authority, because even after four years, I was still angry about what Celeste’s father had done. I thought I was making a point the first time I kissed him—saying I didn’t give a fuck what any higher powers thought, whether it was God or the fucking Marines. But that kiss lit a fuse neither of us was equipped to extinguish.

  We returned from that mission changed in ways neither of us could have predicted. Fearing for our lives was one thing, but discovering that sexual contact could feel just as good coming from another man as from a woman was the biggest revelation of my life. That I could even connect with another man on that level blew my mind.

  Zag wasn’t surprised, the fucker. But he did drill into my head that under no circumstances could we let on in public that we had anything beyond a professional, above-board friendship between a ranking sergeant and his subordinate. In private, we had a no-holds-barred, desperate affair that would put Brokeback Mountain to shame. Ours didn’t have any happier an ending either, though it lasted for the better part of five years.

  I can hear his good-natured ribbing in my head, reminding me that I’ve still got a life to live, which he made me promise I would do with his last breath. A few weeks ago, I was exactly where I wanted to be, even doing a fine job of honoring that last wish. But like the idiot I am, I let myself want things I have no business wanting.

  “Stare any harder at it, you’ll burn a hole right through the thing, hermano.”

  I snap my head around and find my brother J.J. leaning against the opening of the garage bay, arms crossed and a smirk on his face.

  “Welcome home, shitbird,” I say with a grin. I get to my feet and haul the big idiot into a tight hug.

  When I release him, he stares around the interior of the garage, then looks back at me. “So, you actually did it. You opened a shop like you always said you would.”

  “This? I’m not working on cars, man. Just my own shit here. The garage was your dream, not mine.”

  “I know what my fucking dream was. I’m talking about your tattoo shop in front, numbnuts. Are you gonna show me?”

  “Hell yeah. Come take a look.”

  I lock up the garage to give him a tour, falling into our old camaraderie even though we haven’t seen each other in more than a year. Our paths rarely crossed over the years even though we were both in the Navy, our deployments never quite aligning to put us in the same place at the same time.

  Seeing what I’ve built through his eyes, I see for the first time how fantastic it is despite the daily struggle, and it allows me to forget the shit week I’ve had since Leo walked out my door.

  We grab a couple beers from the shop’s fridge, and I open the garage again to let in the afternoon sunlight. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in ages, yet his laser-focused gaze keeps sweeping around the garage, and I can’t
shake the sense that he’s sizing it up for something specific. He’s always dreamed of starting a business rebuilding classic cars, so maybe that’s all this is, but the devious glint tells me it’s more than that.

  I look over my shoulder at the big, mostly empty space. There’s an old catwalk along the back wall that spans the entire length of the cavernous garage. Above it stretches a row of windows and a pair of doors at either end that lead out from my loft apartment. I rarely use the set of stairs that lead down from my back door into the shop, since the lift is so much more convenient. I’ve got my weights and punching bag in one corner under the catwalk. Next to those are my tools in a series of toolboxes on a workbench, and other than my bike and my truck, the only other thing in here is a stack of old tires I haven’t bothered getting rid of piled in another corner.

  “You want to help me haul those out of here and start working on restoring cars like you always talked about?” I ask.

  J.J. sticks a toothpick between his teeth and eyes the tires, shaking his head. “Nah, not yet. I still need some seed money. You’re still all about the side hustle, right?” His gaze slides back to me, eyes narrowed and calculating. “Want to get in on some easy money? Make use of all this space?”

  I’m on guard instantly. My brother’s version of a worthwhile side hustle is usually opportunistic, verging on criminal. When we were kids, he was the Tom Sawyer motherfucker who’d get other kids to do the heavy lifting while he reaped the rewards. One summer, his scheme was to start his own yardwork crew. That lasted all of a month until the younger boys he recruited got wise to him and mutinied. He still came out ahead, though, so I couldn’t fault him for that. And despite my ability to see through his schemes, he always shared the spoils with me and our younger brother Marco, and they never quite strayed into the realm of shit a gang would have had him doing.

  When I don’t answer, he sits forward in his folding chair, and I brace myself for his pitch. “You don’t have to lift a finger, brother. Just give me access to this garage once in a while and pretend I’m not even here. Of course, if you want to be involved, you can be. That’s entirely up to you.”

  “How much?” I know better than to ask, but I can’t help but think of the dark circles under Elle’s eyes when she talked about saving for college. If I can help my little sister sleep at night, maybe it’s worth the risk.

  “Ten large a pop, just to sit on your ass and pretend you don’t see anything. If you’re game for heavy lifting, I’ll give you a bigger cut.”

  “A bigger cut of what, exactly?” J.J.’s always skirted the edge of the law and managed to avoid getting caught. But the more lucrative the scheme, the more likely it is to be illegal as fuck—and if I wanted illegal, I’d have accepted La Valla’s invite a year ago.

  Yet I’m in the mood to be a little reckless if it’ll help me get out of my head. Tattoos have been my outlet for a long time, but my close brush with Celeste, followed by Leo’s unceremonious departure from my life have left me with an itch for a little of the danger I used to flirt with covering a bomb squad in Afghanistan.

  He tilts back, takes a swig of beer, and regards me with a serious expression that has my interest piqued. “Are you in or out? Ten grand can go a long way to renovating this place. Those old locker rooms in Mom’s studio could use new plumbing, maybe a whole makeover. Or you could finish your apartment upstairs. Or not.”

  “I’d give every penny to Bean for school. Tell me what you’re planning and I’ll decide.”

  He grins as if he’s already won, and he probably has. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my sister. It’s just a matter of living with myself afterward if it’s bad, but I’ve lived through worse than one of my brother’s schemes. J.J. probably wouldn’t drag me into anything that dangerous, but part of me hopes there’s at least some risk to what he’s about to suggest.

  I’m not disappointed. He spins a story that I have every reason to believe, about his connections in naval munitions and how he’s hooked up with a local criminal who’s willing to move guns for the right price.

  My brother’s the kind of guy who knows people. While I was dancing with Celeste as a teen, he was out making friends with the men in Arturo Flores’ employ, from the bodyguards all the way down to the lowest lowlife slinging drugs on the corner for Papá Flores. J.J. swears he never did the dirty work himself. He was close enough to the fringes to stay clean, yet still earn extra cash for whatever questionable tasks he carried out for them.

  I never asked, but I have my suspicions that he became the man who could get things, who made it his business to know who had what, and for what price.

  I’d lay down my life for my brother, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t maintain plausible deniability. It wasn’t just about us, after all. If something happened to Dad, someone would have to step up and take care of Mom and the babies, and I knew it would be me.

  He’s giving me the option not to know now, but I’m too stunned by his plan to speak for a few moments.

  “There’s no one else I trust to help me with this, hermano. This garage is perfect.”

  “Who’s the buyer? How do you know they won’t come kill you and just fucking take them?”

  “Because it’s a shitty way to do business if you kill the man who can make you money. There is a Chinese wall between both sides, and I’m on top of it. Neither side is anyone you need to worry about.”

  “You’re talking about bringing fucking guns into LA and handing them out to criminals. Why the fuck shouldn’t I be worried? Have you seen the news lately?”

  He shakes his head, ready with the answer. “They aren’t staying here more than a week. Just long enough for me to do each deal and send them on their way to Mexico, where the fucking cartel bastards can kill each other if they want. Listen, I don’t want guns in the hands of those bangers any more than you do, but we’re talking about a huge stack of cash just to deliver the goods when I get the go-ahead. I’m good at this. Trust me.”

  “Man, one of these days your confidence is going to bite you on the ass. If you’re sure, I’m in, but I want your word it’s not going to impact my business, and I want you to consider contributing to Elle’s college fund too.”

  He raises his beer in a toast. “Hell yeah, brother. I’ll give her whatever she asks for. God knows one of us needs a chance to rise above this place.”

  I don’t smile when I clink my bottle against his. Elle deserves every opportunity we can give her, but I can’t help thinking she wouldn’t want us to dig ourselves into such a dark hole to do it.

  11

  Leo

  “I don’t trust him.” Manny’s at the wheel of the car, jaw clenched, eyes laser focused on the high beams illuminating the freeway in front of us. “Nothing about this job Gustavo dragged us into feels legit. He fucking stonewalled me from talking to Papá.”

  “You didn’t have to agree to it. I’m the one who owes him for what I did to his face. I’ll own that.”

  Manny snorts. “Knowing that asshole, he had it coming.”

  “Nah, man, you weren’t there,” Benny pipes up from the back seat. “Leo straight up went off on Gustavo’s ass. He went for the fucking jugular.” The twins both laugh.

  My brother shoots a sideways look my way. “Was it over her?”

  The knot in my belly twists tighter. “It was an idiotic mistake we’re paying for now. I just hope he’s not going to make you guys witness my execution.”

  I take a deep breath, dread seeping into me. It’s the first time in more than a week I’ve managed to shake off the itch left from my last visit with Mad Dog and the bomb he dropped on me after the photo shoot.

  For the first few days, I grappled with a combination of straight-up betrayal and confusion, but once I came through it, I was left with nothing but disappointment that the asshole hadn’t told me the truth earlier. We were friends. I’ve managed to stay friends with Celeste despite my feelings for her. I could’ve been a better friend to Maddox after
hearing his confession, and I’ve been beating myself up over it ever since.

  “Any idea what the job is?” I ask. Gustavo doesn’t always tell us all the details. Our job is to show up packing and back him up; everything else is on a need-to-know basis.

  “Nada.” Manny glances in the rearview at the twins, whose identical solemn expressions look back from the shadows. “Shouldn’t have brought them without knowing more either. Toni’s going to fucking kick my ass if shit goes down and she finds out her brothers were part of it.”

  “Fuck that, hermano,” Baz says, leaning forward and smacking Manny’s shoulder. “We go where you go. She’d kick our asses if anything happened to you on our watch.”

  Knowing Toni, Baz is right. She adores her younger brothers, but they can hold their own despite how young they are.

  The pair nod in unison.

  “Sending us to Compton isn’t improving the trust factor,” I say. “We’re dangerously close to stepping outside the bounds of Papá’s influence.”

  Manny shakes his head. “This is where he said to meet.” He takes the freeway exit and turns down a narrow, darkened service road that borders the LA River. About a quarter mile down, he cuts into another lane that leads into the riverbed itself. Pale concrete rises up around us, and we pass abandoned shopping carts and other detritus as we drive along the shallow trickle that passes for a river in this drought-afflicted city.

  An overpass looms ahead, and a pair of headlights flash beneath it. Manny cuts his high beams. It’s a clear night, and there’s enough light to see without them, but I still get a chill as we speed toward the meeting spot in the dark, as if we’re about to meet our doom.

  Manny pulls to a stop alongside a black Mercedes. The doors open and Gustavo climbs out, along with Eddie Trujillo, one of the gang members Gustavo brought in for muscle. Gustavo waits as Manny lowers his window.