Chapter 2 Maya
TWO
MAYA
I threw all of my focus into this project—a beautiful mural, perfectly shaded and outlined on the back of a man who was one of my many regular customers.
I wanted to do it justice. I wanted to make sure this mural, in dedication to his dead daughter, turned out exactly how he wanted.
I peeked back over at the painting I had tacked up on the wall.
The smell of disinfectant and the buzzing of the needles overwhelmed my senses.
I drew in a deep breath, finishing the last of the pink and red splotches dotted all over her name, written in cursive for everyone to see across the man’s scarred and pimpled back.
I ran over one and had to stop.
“Shit,” the man hissed.
“Another one, give me a sec,” I said.
I reached for some wipes and cleaned up the mess.
The man’s back was riddled with them. I knew every time I ran over one, it stung like hell.
Especially on the man’s shoulder blade. But he never flinched.
He never moved or cursed me. He simply gave into the reality of his world and pushed through it for a greater good.
I admired the man’s devotion to his lost loved one.
He’d been my client for the entire day. First, the outline.
Then, the bolder colors. Then, the finer shadings.
It was done in three steps that took up three entire days of my schedule.
But I didn’t care. He shelled out the money and I enjoyed watching this human canvas come alive.
The man was covered in head to toe with my drawings.
My artistic designs. The colors I felt akin to and the style of tattoo work I’d trademarked as my own.
A walking billboard that essentially helped get my business off the ground three years ago when I immigrated from China to San Diego to make a life for myself.
“There,” I said.
I smoothed a wipe over his skin before I turned off the needles.
“Done?” the man asked.
My eyes danced over his back before I grinned.
“Completely,” I said.
The man drew in a few deep breaths before he heaved himself off my chair.
He walked over to the mirror in my corner of the shop and looked at his back.
He turned around, studying it from every angle.
The redness of his skin and the sweat on his forehead boasted of the pain he’d gone through.
The pain he had suffered, not just with this tattoo, but with the loss of his daughter.
However, the tears that bubbled up into his stare weren’t tears of pain. Or sorrow.
They were tears of gratitude.
“You’re a fuckin’ miracle worker, Maya,” he said.
“Let me get some cover on that. I’ll have to body wrap you for now. But you know the drill with taking care of this thing. Just make sure you’re extra careful until it heals. You’re gonna itch like hell until it’s done healing over.”
I ran a thick, smooth layer of Vaseline over the man’s skin.
Then, I wrapped him up in cling wrap. He held his arms out, tears running down his face as he stared at the wall.
His entire back—the core of the strength of his arms that held his daughter once—was a dedication to the short life she’d lived.
It damn near brought tears to my eyes, and it was easily the proudest I’d ever been of any tattoo I’d ever given a customer.
“How much do I owe you?” the man asked.
“We’ll get to that in a moment. Just enjoy this,” I said.
I gave him a second to collect himself. I helped him get his shirt on and led him out into the front room.
I cashed him out, watching thousands of dollars pour into my daily bottom line.
I was a one-woman show with both tattoos and piercings coming out of my shop at all hours of the day.
I opened at eight, closed at seven, and worked Tuesday through Saturday.
I’d made a small name for myself in the area.
I made enough to live in the expensive city of San Diego as well as put money back for an early retirement.
I lived frugally, shopped at second-hand stores, and kept my head down.
I invested my money heavily. Mostly because I wanted to retire early, and partially because I wanted to step out of the public eye as quickly as I could.
Before my past caught up with me.
I helped the man out to his car before bidding him farewell.
I waved him off, watching my most faithful customer leave with the last of his skin underneath his clothing covered in the one thing that meant more to him than this entire planet.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand that type of love.
Devotion. Dedication. Hell, I never got it from my own family, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to attach myself to someone long enough for my past to take them down too.
So, with a heavy sigh, I walked back inside to start closing down.
I walked back into my tattoo cubby and cleaned everything down.
I tossed used needles away in the sanitary receptacle and sprayed down the chair the man had sweated all over.
I cleaned it down twice, making sure I got down on the floor and wiped it up too.
I cleaned down everything I had used that day.
Every footprint on the floor and every wall someone had touched with their hands.
I was able to charge top dollar for my work not only because of my meticulous designs, but because of how sanitary things were in my business.
People paid not just for the artistic venture but for the safety and security I provided in the matter. Plus, the one free touch-up helped cushion the exorbitant prices I tossed out to those wanting quotes.
But there was always one straggler. One person that came into my shop five or ten minutes before closing time, hoping I’d stay open for them and hoping I’d give them the time of day. However, when that bell over my door rang, I said the same thing every time.
“Sorry, I’m about to close up.”
Only this time, the voice that answered me was different.
“Are you closed for your brother?”
I paused. I slowly looked up from my register where I was counting receipts and cashing out tips.
I locked my eyes with my brother, my eyes scanning him.
He looked pieced together enough with his tailored suits and his slicked-back hair.
I was nervous to see him, especially when I found out he’d made his home in San Diego a little over a year back.
I hadn’t seen him since he’d come into the city.
So, I held out hope that maybe he didn’t know I was here.
So much for hiding.
“Harry,” I said plainly.
“Maya,” he said curtly.
I looked back down at my register. “What do you need?”
“Why do you think I need something?”
“Because we haven’t spoken since I was fifteen, and I know the only reason you come around at all is whenever you’re in trouble and need help.”
“And here I thought I still had a good reputation with my sister.”
I snickered. “We’ve never had good reputations with one another. You know that.”
“Not my fault you didn’t want to go into the family business.”
“Not my fault you didn’t want to abandon it after they killed Mom and Dad.”
I shoved the register closed and stuck my cashed-out tips in my back pocket.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Can’t a brother come visit his sister?” Harry asked.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
“Well, that usually means something’s going on. So, either you’re lying or you’re covering up. Which is it?”
He chuckled. “You always were a tough cookie.”
“Which is why I can handle my own and I don’t need the protection of my brother to make that happen. I’ve been on my own since I was a teenager. I can take care of myself.”
I stared at him blankly as he looked around the shop.
My gosh, he looked just like Mom with those stern eyes that always judged and that slim figure that never stopped.
He even had Mom’s long legs, despite his shorter stature.
It hurt to look at him. To be reminded of the beautiful, vibrant woman who was ripped from this world way too soon.
The beautiful woman that couldn’t stand her daughter wanting to make her own way in this world.
“This shop would have put Mom in the grave,” Harry said, chuckling.
“Yeah, well. The gang got to her first,” I said flatly.
“It’s dangerous to speak ill of the dead,” he said.
“Not speaking ill of her.”
“Or those that are living, for that matter.”
“Why? Are you going to bring the gang down onto my head for admitting the truth? That they slaughtered Mom and Dad when I was only eighteen years old?”
“As recompense for their sins,” he said.
“They wanted to get away, Harry. That isn’t a sin. That’s wanting a better life for themselves. For us. They’d roll over in their graves if they knew—”
“Language,” he warned.
I clenched my jaw. “Get out of my shop.”
“Not until you hear me out.”
“I said, get the fuck out.”
The smile that crossed his face ripped me back into my memories.
Images that haunted me throughout the course of my days.
Mom screamed in my head, telling me a woman’s place was at a man’s side, not in some shop trying to make her own way.
That women were designed differently than men for a reason, and scoffing at a good man meant a hard life for me in the end.
My father’s voice echoed off the corners of my mind, telling me how much he loved me and whispering of plans to immigrate to the U.S.
so we could all have a safe, wonderful life together.
I closed my eyes as I saw myself stepping off the plane into San Diego for the first time.
Fifteen years old, at my father’s behest. I had no clue if my mother knew what my father did for me.
He had me secretly learning English for months before sending me off with money stacked in a suitcase.
He told me to cut ties with our family and plant my roots in whatever city in the United States that I wanted.
He knew it was too late for my brother. Harry had already gotten wrapped up in the gang, and my father was furiously trying to rip me, himself, and Mom out of it.
A phone ringing in my distant memory sent tears rushing to my eyes. The phone call two days after I turned eighteen, alerting me that both my mother and father had been slaughtered in cold blood by the same gang he was trying so hard to get away from.
The same gang my brother now helped with his life’s efforts.
“You really should come get some dinner with me. You look like you could use a good meal. I’ve never seen you so thin before,” Harry said.
My eyes ripped open at the sound of his voice, and a bloodthirsty need to strangle him tingled my fingertips.
“Get out,” I murmured.
“Maya, you really should—”
“I’m fine on my own. Now, get the fuck out.”
“You’re in danger because of me right now. I need to make sure you’re—”
“No, Harry. Let’s make this very clear. You’re in danger because of you. Because you chose a life Dad was furiously trying to get us away from. And if anything happens to me, it’s on you. Just like Mom and Dad’s deaths are probably on you too.”
“Don’t you dare blame me for their slaughter. I had nothing to do with that!”
“Yeah, just like how everything is fine now, right? That’s what you said when you walked through my doors? Nothing’s wrong?” I asked.
His nostrils flared with anger as he took a step toward me. And when he did, I drew out the pistol I had strapped to the underside of my cash register. I leveled it at him and watched a devilish smile cross his cheeks.
“Looks like Father’s blood still does run through your veins,” he snarled.
“Get out or I’ll be dragging your body out back,” I snarled.
“And ruin your pristine floors?”
My eye twitched as my brother laughed.
“I’m just watching out for you, Maya. But if I leave, the offer of my protection goes with me,” he said.
“Well, you can fuck right on off then. Because I don’t need you or anyone else,” I hissed.