Chapter 8
EIGHT
Daniel watched the claw of the grappler pick up his old Camry and crush it between its huge steel talons. Then it swung the car’s carcass onto a pile of other scrap with a metallic crunch that vibrated the dirt beneath his work boots.
He stared at the twisted body, with its concave roof and popped windshield. Two years ago, that car had taken him and Sebastián from L.A. to Chicago. To what should have been a new life, but what had soon felt a fuck of a lot like his old one. Doing the same thing. Hoping for a different result.
Now, looking at the car, he only remembered that night a week ago in his trailer.
He’d never got the stink of that guy’s blood out of the upholstery.
So, it had to go. Soon it would be buried under a shimmering mountain of scrap metal, being warped and bent and broken down by the elements. Rust to rust.
He wouldn’t miss it.
Tequila was sitting at his feet. He bent down to scratch her ears. She grinned up at him, tongue lolling out.
A familiar voice came from behind him. “Daniel! Been looking everywhere for you, man.”
He suppressed a sign, then turned to see Terry making his way up the dirt track towards him. His gait was slow and rolling, like his hips ached.
Everything Terry did was slow. Right until it wasn’t.
The waddling gait, the huffing and puffing, the constant fumbling and fidgeting—it was all an act.
Daniel had seen Terry switch from ambling buffoon to prize fighter at the drop of a hat.
Seen him pound a man with his ham hock fists until the man didn’t have a face no more.
Terry stopped a yard away, put his hands on his hips and sucked in air like he’d just sprinted here. “Where you been at? Paq said you didn’t show up at work today.”
Daniel looked up at the crumpled wreck that had been his Camry.
Terry followed his gaze. He grunted, then plucked a cigarette out from behind his ear. “Car trouble?”
Daniel said nothing.
Terry grunted again, then lit his smoke and took a long pull. He squinted at Daniel with one eye. “You been distracted lately, Danny. And I’ve been wondering if maybe it might be girl trouble instead.”
Daniel felt a chill from his tone. Terry had only one rule for the guys that worked for him.
Relationships were off the cards. In his mind, girlfriends and wives made you weak and unfocused.
They fucked up your priorities and skewed your sense of loyalty, which was to him and the gang, and only him and the gang.
Apparently, it was something he’d seen in the military.
Men getting married and having kids and losing their edge on the battlefield.
“It happened all the time,” he’d once told Daniel.
“These guys would go from ruthless killers to total pussies overnight. One minute they’re attaching battery probes to some poor Iraqi’s nutsack, the next all they can talk about is strollers and school zones and fucking minivans. It was a goddamn tragedy, man.”
But Daniel knew Terry’s problem with females didn’t just stem from his time in the army.
The big man had some grade A trust issues with people in general.
His paranoia was legendary. And he insisted an internal threat posed the greatest danger to their operation.
He believed it would come from someone they trusted, someone they let into their inner circle.
Someone like a girlfriend.
Terry was still observing Daniel, waiting for a response.
Daniel swallowed something sharp in his throat. Then he said, with as much nonchalance as he could muster, “Nah. Nothing like that.”
Terry chuckled, like he’d said something funny. “I’m glad to hear it.” He took another drag from his cigarette. “‘Cause you know it don’t pay to let anyone get too close, right? Life we lead, they just end up getting hurt.” He blew out a stream of smoke. “Sometimes real bad.”
Under his soft tone, the threat was loud and clear.
He took another deep pull, the ember flaring close to his knuckles. “If you got needs, there’s plenty of girls at SINoritas. And you know the best thing about hookers, right?”
You get to fuck them. They don’t get to fuck you. Daniel intoned the words in his head in perfect sync with the ones that came out of Terry’s mouth.
Terry dropped his cigarette butt, grinding it into the dirt with his heel. “Take your little brother along. Introduce him to Gabriela. She’ll put some hairs on his chest.”
Daniel managed a smile but mentally deleted everything he’d just heard.
Terry clapped an enormous hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Oh, nearly forgot to tell ya. Whole point of this little meet and greet. You’re doing a run to Philly tonight.”
Daniel stared at him blankly. “Philly.”
“Big shipment coming in tonight. I’m gonna go round up Milo. You head back to base and start unloading. Make sure it’s ready to go by eleven.”
Shit. The Philly run was a two-day round trip. Stuck in a van. With fucking Milo.
Terry turned and ambled away. Then he halted and looked back. “By the way,” he called. “I gotta ask. Did you deal with that little loose end we had?”
Daniel’s gut clenched. He was talking about Julia.
He opened his mouth to ask, but no words came out. Lying to Terry was a bad idea. Telling him the truth was worse.
No, Terry, I didn’t “deal” with her. I watched her dance, which was easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I kissed her by my car, and now I can’t get her out of my mind for longer than two seconds.
And no, I’m not dealing with any of it.
Since remaining silent would be worse than lying, he cleared his throat and mumbled, “Yeah, she ain’t a problem no more.”
Terry nodded. Then he gave Daniel a wide grin. The man had surprisingly white teeth for someone who smoked as much as he did. His eyes, however, held a coldness. It made Daniel think the man didn’t quite believe him.
He turned and kept walking, with that rolling gait of his, like he was wading through deep water.
Daniel watched him go. A spider of fear crawled up his neck. He didn’t like that Terry was still thinking about the girl in his trailer. And he really didn’t like him referring to her as a loose end.
What he hated, though, was knowing that for the next two days, he was going to be eight hundred miles away from her.
And Terry, less than forty.
* * *
El Paisano Restaurante Mexicano was wedged between a laundromat and a tienda de licores on the West Side.
The taquería had no piped-in mariachi music, no waiters pushing oversized margaritas or novelty sombreros.
Just good food, the kind that didn’t need gimmicks.
The kind that made the place packed wall-to-wall despite the scuffed floor and plastic chairs.
Daniel stepped inside, setting off a small bell above the door.
Conversations faltered as heads turned. He felt their gazes slide over his arms, down the inked skin of his hands.
A few of the regulars—men who’d seen his kind before—went back to their food.
Others took a little longer, eyes lingering in wary recognition.
Martín Tostá didn’t bother with pleasantries when Daniel approached the counter. He just stood there, wiping his hands on his canvas apron, his sharp black eyes taking him in with something between indifference and contempt.
Daniel leaned his elbows on the counter. “?Dónde está mi hermanito?”
Martín jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Arriba.”
His brother was upstairs.
Daniel straightened, feeling the older man’s gaze on him as he moved past the counter and into the back. The kitchen was a humid mess of sizzling oil and rapid-fire Spanish. Nobody looked up. They’d all learned that much.
Upstairs, he tapped on the door before pushing it open.
Sebastián was sitting cross-legged on his bed, a textbook propped against his knees. His dark curls hung over his face as he read, but Daniel caught the title: Applied Anatomy for Students in a Clinical Setting, Fifth Edition. He tilted his head, smirking. “Sounds riveting.”
Sebastián didn’t look up. “Caleb left it behind this morning.”
Daniel sat with that for a beat. His eyes flicked around the room. The same sparse furniture as always, just a bed, a chest of drawers, and a whole lot of empty space.
“So,” he said, clearing his throat, “this guy is spending nights here now?”
Sebastián’s gaze lifted, blank as a closed door. His little brother had always been like that, good at keeping his emotions locked down.
“I thought you said it didn’t bother you.”
Daniel exhaled through his nose, gave a quick shake of his head. Seb was seventeen. It’s not like Daniel had been celibate at that age. Far fucking from it. “It doesn’t, hermanito,” he said softly. “You know that.”
Sebastián studied him for a moment, then looked away. “We broke up this morning. So, I guess it doesn’t matter anyway.”
Daniel frowned. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that, so he sat down on the edge of the bed. “You wanna give me his address?” he offered. “I’ll go round and return his book. Maybe shove it somewhere… anatomical.”
That earned him a tiny smile. “Thanks, Dani but I’m good.”
“You sure? I can send Terry round. Dude’s a fucking ninja with a bone saw.”
Sebastián’s smile faded. Daniel knew he hated it when he talked like that, when he let the darkness of his life slip into their conversations like it was normal. Bone saws. Bloodstains and bleach. The things he didn’t want his little brother to think about.
But the truth was, that was his life. And most of the time, it wasn’t the blood or the violence that got to him. It was the loneliness.
Sebastián sighed. “You know that guy creeps me out.”
Daniel smiled. “Terry creeps everybody out. That’s the whole point of him.”
Sebastián made a face but let it drop.
After a beat, Daniel swiveled toward him. “Escucha, hermanito. I gotta leave town for a couple of days.”
Sebastián looked up, closing his book. “Where?”
“Philly.”
He didn’t ask why. Sebastián never asked why.
Daniel rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You know that girl that was with me at the mercado?”
Sebastián frowned. “?La chica rubia?”
“Sí. The blonde.”
“Julia, ?claro?”
Daniel nodded.
Sebastián’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you need?”
Daniel exhaled. “A favor.”