Ink: A Los Diablos MC Novella (Los Diablos Motorcycle Club)

Chapter Three

Xiomara

M y boss was a huge hijo de puta. I found myself repeating the phrase every time he appeared in my line of vision throughout the week. He was always barking at me for one thing or another, and always over trivial fucking things.

I worked my fucking ass off to get shit right. I didn’t want to fuck up another job, least of all before payday. My mamá needed the money, and I didn’t want to let her down again. So I gritted my teeth and forced the anger down every time it threatened to rise.

A part of me wanted to snap back at him, but a bigger part of me wanted to fold into myself and disappear.

I didn’t do well with criticism. It was stupid, since I’d been criticized my entire life by people who mattered more than him, and yet that didn’t stop me from working hard to impress the asshole.

But nothing seemed good enough.

It never was.

Especially today.

Because… I’d fucked up.

“Get your shit and get the fuck out,” he growled.

I’d never seen Ink look so pissed. Granted, I didn’t know him well enough aside from scowls and barked orders, but he’d never been this angry.

“I don’t know what happened–”

“You fucked up is what happened.”

“I didn’t! I swear, I logged their names and times separately into the calendar–”

“You double-booked.” His thick brows were drawn together in a line of disapproval. Of anger.

All week I’d been tripping to keep up with his commands. I’d been careful. I was sure of it. I was positive I hadn’t double-booked. But the evidence was staring us in the face in the form of two clients waiting for tattoos from him.

At the same fucking time.

“Ink, I promise–”

“Your promises mean nothing. Get your shit and leave. I told you if you fucked up, you were gone.”

I stood stunned before him for a moment. I had no idea what to do, how to react. What to even do. I was sure I’d logged the correct info in. I was positive.

“Ink, I know I did it right.”

He sighed, leaning back on the balls of his feet. I hated that there were people around us to witness this. I hated that he didn’t seem to give a single fuck that there was an audience bearing witness to my humiliation.

His hand swept over his face, but he didn’t look at me with a single ounce of empathy. “You’re fired,” he said slowly.

Tears pricked behind my eyelids, but I refused to let them fall. “I need this job.”

Fer appeared from behind the wall, but I could barely look at her. She’d told me not to fuck up, and I did exactly what she’d advised against. I didn’t want to look at her and see the evidence of another person disappointed in me.

“Ink–”

“Not now, Fer.”

“Ink–”

“Not now!” he screamed. Then he looked back at me. “If you needed this job so badly, you wouldn’t have fucked it up. Now get out of my sight.”

He turned from me, leaving me standing there, feeling smaller than I’d ever felt before. That familiar sadness crept through me, embarrassment staining my cheeks. But most of all, there was anger. The anger that had gotten me fired from my last job. The anger that changed me completely and turned me into someone else entirely.

But…

This man was part of an MC, and it was only because of that I was able to tamp those feelings down. I had no idea what they were involved in. What he was involved in. What he was capable of.

And I had more pride than throwing a fit in front of so many strangers.

Fuck this place.

Fuck Ink.

With a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and turned. The clients I’d allegedly double-booked stared at me, one with sympathy, the other with a malicious grin.

Asshole.

I ignored them both and grabbed my bag from under the desk, slung it over my shoulder, and walked out of Devil’s Ink. The harsh sun was like a slap to the face. It burned the makeup onto my cheeks, marking my face red. This would be nothing compared to the verbal lashing my mamá would give me, though.

Just the thought of seeing disappointment bleed through her dark eyes made me fear going home. The first few times I’d lost jobs and was unable to help the family, she’d lashed out in the only way she knew how. But violence never scared me, and a part of me wondered if the darkness I fostered inside was a gift she’d passed to me when I was in the womb.

After she learned to temper her knee-jerk reactions, she began showing her displeasure in other ways. In ways that hurt more than a slap or a hair pull ever could.

There was just something about her sadness that cut deeper.

Seeing it twice within the span of two weeks was going to ruin me.

I wouldn’t tell her.

I decided on that course of action as I walked to the bus stop and hailed a combi in the opposite direction of my house. With my brother using the family car, I was stuck on public transport for the foreseeable future. Maybe I could walk around Tlaxcala City and see if anywhere was hiring. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to land a job before the day was out and I wouldn’t have to lie to my mamá.

I stopped in the bustling city’s center and used what little extra change I had to buy a BonIce from a man passing by with his cooler and blue penguin uniform. Sucking on the cherry flavored ice through the tube of plastic, I wandered, slipping into several locales to ask if they were hiring.

The problem with looking the way that I did was that people were reluctant to be honest. They were even more reluctant to hire me. So even as I filled out the forms and left, I wondered if they slipped my applications into the trash the moment my back was turned.

It was why working at a tattoo shop had been ideal. I didn’t have to worry about anyone judging me for the clothes I wore or the single tattoo on my arm. All I had to worry about was not fucking up.

Unfortunately, I was destined for stupidity. And by the time the day ended, I’d had no luck in snagging a single fucking offer. I got on a combi and then walked three blocks to my house. It was dark, and I was starving.

“Hola, ma,” I called out. I took my shoes off at the entrance of the house, slipping into my sandals.

Our house was a dilapidated structure of chipped and molding stone. The once-orange walls bore the evidence of years of summer storms leaking through rock and damaging the paint. Only the richer people could afford to buy the special varnish to get rid of the mold.

We weren’t rich.

Our ceiling was nothing but laminated sheets, held down on the top with heavy bricks. Water leaked through when it rained. When it was cold, we huddled beneath our tiger blankets, but even the heavy material wasn’t enough to keep it away, and when it was hot, it scorched.

I’d learned to not envy the rich, though, and I didn’t hate my house. I knew my mamá had worked hard to give us all she could after my piece of shit papá went to the U.S.A. to send money back, only to never come back at all.

At least I had a roof over my head and my own room.

“Mija, are you hungry?”

My mamá was already in the kitchen heating up tortillas on a comal. Nobody else was around–likely retired to their bedrooms given the late hour–so the food was obviously for me. She didn’t even need to wait for me to answer before she pulled out a plate.

“What’d you make?” I slid into the seat at the table.

“Frijoles,” she answered. “And eggs with green beans.”

My stomach gave a growl. A simple meal, but there was something comforting about it. Funny how I thought that now that I was older. How food I’d gagged over when I was a kid was something I’d learned to appreciate later on, if only because now I knew the struggles and what it took to put food on the table. But also, it tasted like nostalgia.

My mamá sat across from me as I started digging into my meal.

“How was work?” she asked.

I swallowed down the green bean that threatened to turn to lead in my throat. “It was good.”

“Is your boss still giving you a hard time?” The scowl was evident in her voice.

“He’s starting to act a bit nicer,” I lied with ease, scooping beans up with my tortilla. It was easier to stare down at my plate and avoid her gaze than to face her.

“That’s good, mija. I’m tired.”

I looked up then, noting the dark circles under her eyes. My mamá ran a small kitchen a few blocks away, selling comida corrida to people passing by. It did okay, but it meant she was constantly on her feet cooking. Working hard to earn money to help put food on the table.

Food I was consuming but not contributing to, because I’d gotten fired and probably wouldn’t be paid for the days I had worked, considering how angry Ink was when I’d left.

My heart began hurting and I put my tortilla down. “Go to sleep, ma,” I said. “I’ll clean the kitchen up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s okay. I won’t be long.”

She smiled and stood up, her knees creaking with the action. She groaned as she turned away and made a slow walk towards her room.

All the while I could only stare at her back and gnaw hard on my bottom lip until I tasted blood.