Chapter 26
twenty-six
Matias
California, Four Years Ago
My feet squelch as I walk into the darkened pool house. I almost feel like I should walk back out and take my shoes off, clean myself off before being inside. Like my filth is going to seep off my rain-soaked body and imprint itself into the floor tiles.
I’m nothing but a product of my childhood.
A time where I was a dirty little nobody that left a trail of filth everywhere I went.
Today, I feel dirty, but not for the same reasons.
Not because I was playing in mud and didn’t have a proper home to shower in.
Today I played with blood. With a man’s life.
Not an innocent man. He definitely had it coming.
But killing a killer doesn’t fully wipe the blood off my hands.
It doesn’t matter how many showers I take, how long I soak in the unseasonal Los Angeles rainfall—I’ll still feel the same in the morning. It’s the same way I’ve felt my whole life.
Dirty, wrong, and out of place.
Just a highlight of my childhood, where I grew up treated like I was the scum of the earth.
No one cared if I had dinner or not, if I was warm at night or went to school.
No one cared if I died. I spent my entire life making sure I was someone.
Maybe not someone good, but still someone that mattered.
And somehow, late in the night…it feels like nothing has changed. I’m just a cog in a machine I have no control over.
Tonight, it was Hernandez. Tomorrow, it’ll probably be Reynaldo. Moving for one and supplying for the other is exhausting. Except I’m not just supplying for Natalia’s dad.
I’m doing everything else, too. Like taking care of a competitor that struck too hard at us today. He killed some of our men and sent a message, and I had to strike back twice as hard.
I got a nice check out of it, but I should just let it go. I should just do what I’m supposed to and nothing more. But doing more is what got me into this property.
And if burning the candle at both ends is what I need to do to have unfiltered access to Natalia, fuck it. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Because something about the way she looks at me makes it all worth it. She looks at me like I’m someone. She blooms under my fingertips, loves all the ways I drag her down to my level of filth. With her, the things we do in the dark don’t feel dirty. They feel right.
And if I have to keep sneaking around behind her father like some goddamn teenager, then that’s what I’ll do. It’s just a matter of time until we make a run for it, anyway.
Natalia still likes me. The way she was taut like a bowstring in the dining room told me everything I need to know. Even though I fucked up our first time by going too fast, she still gives me a sweet little smile when she thinks no one is looking.
God, I wish Sylvia stayed in the fucking loony bin a few more weeks. I can’t get a moment alone with Natalia now that she follows her everywhere.
I’m too busy scheming how to get her alone to notice the body in the corner of the room. Not until I notice a sudden flurry of movement. I reach for my gun, aiming up—and immediately pausing when a moonbeam shines on a halo of glossy black hair.
I’ve summoned her out of sheer will. Natalia moves in the shadows, pausing before stepping into the light. Just how much sneaking did she have to do to get away from her sister and all the eyes in the big house?—
All rational thought goes flying out the window when I notice the cut on her brow. A deep bruise forms on the side of her head, a raised bloody welt next to it.
Natalia’s eyes are red and swollen, her gaze teary-eyed and broken as she takes a step towards me.
Oh, fuck no.
“Matias.” Her voice is so small, so sad and fragile that I cross the room in three steps, taking her in my arms and hiding her in the crook of my neck.
“What happened?” I rest my hands on her shoulders, leaning back to inspect her face. “Who the fuck did this to you?”
She shakes her head and hides in the hollow of my neck again, wrapping her arms around me tight.
Okay. She doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s fine.
I have access to the security cameras.
Was it that fuckface that was having dinner with them? Who is he, anyway? Paco acted skittish when I brought him up today. I know whoever he is, he’s bad news. But if he did this to Natalia…no, he wouldn’t. Hernandez would shoot him on the spot.
Natalia’s dad…he wouldn’t lay a finger on her. He spoils her, and it’s the only thing he does right.
“Natalia. Baby.”
She finally looks up at me, and something in my chest drops when I see the exhaustion in her eyes. “Just hold me, Matias. Please?”
How can I say no to that?
Her soft, warm body molds into mine as I pull her in close. We stand in silence for a long time, the pattering of the rain and occasional thunder drowning out her soft breaths. The sniffles she buries in my shirt.
I sigh, rubbing a hand across her back, fighting hard not to lose my patience when she cries softly. I’ve never been a comforting person. I don’t do well when people start crying. I fucking hate it.
But something about the thought of my Florecita finding solace in my arms, waiting in the rain for an embrace, makes me warm inside. I don’t hate it when she’s the one doing it.
Eventually I calm her down enough to sit down on the couch, her sniffles fading as I inspect the cut above her brow.
“It’s not so bad, baby.” I lie, playing with her hair. A scratch on her is too much. “I’ve gotten worse riding on my bike.”
“You have a bike?”
I shrug. “I don’t ride it much anymore. No time. But we should go out one day, get lost in the road.”
She almost smiles. “Yeah. We should. That sounds like fun. Riding along the coast, eating a bunch of seafood…that sounds like a really nice day. Promise me you’ll bring me. Soon.”
Her eyes shine in the moonlight, the fear and sadness from earlier fading.
“Yeah, I like that. Let’s do it.” I take her hand and give it a soft squeeze. “Your dad’s gonna burn the house down looking for you, so we better have a good excuse.”
She jolts. Blinks.
“Maybe we should do it when he’s out of town.” She mutters.
But she’s not meeting my eye when she speaks, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
I stiffen, the answer to my question immediately becoming clear. No.
He wouldn’t.
“It was your dad? He fucking put his hands on you?” She flinches, and I bite back a curse, softening my voice before speaking again.
“Natalia, I would never hurt you. You know that, right?”
Her shoulders drop. “I know. I just…” Her face breaks, and she leans in all over again. “I can’t believe he would do that.” She says quietly, tears streaming down her face.
You know, I almost liked her dad, once upon a time. He wasn’t all bad. He was direct. Not a total heinous villain. I thought maybe one day, he could be my father-in-law.
And now I’m gonna have to fucking shoot him.
“What are you doing?” Natalia asks when I climb to my feet, pulling my gun out of my waistband and checking the magazine.
“Making sure this never happens again. Wait here.”
“Where…what…” She jumps to her feet. “Don’t hurt him!”
“I’m not going to hurt him.” I say seriously. “I’m going to kill him.”
She throws herself in front of me, hair sliding across my chest as she shouts. “No! Please!”
“Are you seriously defending him after what he did to you?”
She bites her lip, and something about the look on her face curdles in my stomach.
“You keep picking them, Natalia. Look at you! Is this really what you want for yourself?” I come to stand beside her, inspecting our reflections in the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“We could have escaped this hell-hole weeks ago. First you stayed for Sylvia. I went along with it, because I know you love her. And she needed you. But look at you.” Outside of the bruises and cut on her face, something is off about her.
She’s exhausted, the soft shine in her eyes fading each day.
“This shit is sucking the life out of you.” I look at myself, wondering when—if ever, the dark circles under my eyes will fade.
All this waiting is sucking the life out of me, too.
I’m tired.
“I just want to be with you, Natalia. No matter where we are. But I can’t…I’m not going to sit around and watch you get knocked around by anyone. I’ll set the fucking house on fire and everyone in it before this shit happens again. I’m letting you know now. This has gone too far.”
When she turns to face me, I’m surprised by the look in her eyes.
“I know.” She says firmly. “I…I need to leave. I can’t be here anymore, Matias.”
We’ve talked about this so many times I briefly wonder if she’s pranking me. “Are you serious?” Her face softens, and I can’t help but lean into her touch like an idiot when she reaches up and traces my jaw.
“You make me brave, you know that? I stood up to Papa today, and it was your voice in the back of my head.”
“Good. I’m proud of you.” I don’t think I’ve said the words before, but I mean them as I look down at the quiet woman who’s become the axis of my world.
The realization leaves me a little breathless. Natalia has so much power over me.
“You’re probably the only one that feels that way.” She laughs, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “The way Papa looked at me tonight…he was a stranger. He’s not the dad I remember, Matias.”
“What happened up there?” And even though it takes me a remarkable amount of effort not to react when she starts talking, I somehow manage.
“He…he just told me he’s gonna marry me off to some new business partner. Some guy from Arizona. He said because I got to take that class, that now it’s my turn to ‘compromise’ by helping form an alliance. What a load of shit!”
“I won’t let that happen.” I murmur quietly, running a finger along the shell of her ear.
“I don’t want to be here. But…you should see the way Sylvia stood up for me. She’s getting better. Stronger. What if I leave and she just ends up back where she started? I’m worried, Matias. I need more time.”
Well. There’s an easy solution for that. “I can put a bounty on that guy’s head.”
Natalia gives me a startled look. “Matias.”
“What is it that you think I do? I move drugs and kill people for a living. What’s one more?”
“I…I don’t want anyone to die over this.”
It’s my turn to give her a look.
“What? I don’t want our future to start off by killing someone.”
I like the sound of that. “Our future? You think about our future?” And damn if it doesn’t make me a weak motherfucker, I can’t help the smile that takes over my face when she blushes.
“All the time.” Something in me soars at the thought that someone as selfless and beautiful as her wants to share a life with me.
“And…what does this future entail?”
She smiles. “Lots of kisses. A place where we just leave all of this behind. The guns and drugs. The danger.”
I want to agree. I do. I love the content look on her face. But I can’t promise her the lifestyle won’t follow us.
Natalia reads the look in my eyes, and her smile fades. “Why are you making that face, Matias?”
“What if I can’t leave this all behind?”
We’ve had this conversation in bits and pieces, in stolen moments before breathless kisses. But we’ve never had a chance to piece together a real plan.
“You think Reynaldo will come after us?”
“I don’t know.” My mad supplier. Who gets more and more out of control each day.
More unpredictable and erratic. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s getting high off his product.
“It’s hard to read him sometimes.” He needs me to distribute what he smuggles, I know that much.
What I don’t know is the lengths he’s willing to go to in order to keep me around.
“Are you just saying that because you don’t want to stop?”
“What? No, I…” I open my mouth, really thinking about the question.
Thinking about a time where this hasn’t been my life.
I don’t have a degree like Natalia. I have enough money to never have to work again, if I play my cards right.
I already bought the big house in Georgia, and we could coast on my money if needed.
But then what?
“I don’t know.” I answer Natalia honestly. “I don’t know what I’d do.”
She doesn’t like that answer, I can tell. But I don’t believe in lying to her.
“Maybe we should figure that out before we go anywhere.” She says, looking at the big house—no doubt thinking about the shit show that went down earlier today.
“Yeah. Except we’re running out of time.” She stares into the dark room, her eyes calculating before she speaks up.
“I was thinking. There was this agent that tried asking me questions when Sylvia overdosed. He gave me his card. What…what if I call him and tell him about the new deal Papa made with this guy?”
I purse my lips, not liking the idea but too softened by the hopeful look on her face to crush her dreams.
“I’d be careful getting the cops involved, Florecita.”
“Just an anonymous tip.”
I sigh. “Okay. But just know once you put that into motion, you can’t control which way they go. You’ll be threatening your dad’s entire operation.”
“I know, Matias.” And it occurs to me, that maybe I’m not the only person willing to burn this place to the ground.