Chapter 3 #2
I tried to act normally and not let my feelings get the best of me.
I didn’t want to argue. We’d only just started talking again after our fight two days ago.
I think he felt at least a little bad, because he’d come home with all the ingredients to cook my favorite meal—carne asada tacos.
Even got me what I needed to make this special salsa I had learned to make from a family friend years ago.
Or maybe he was tired of eating the same three things we could afford to keep stalked in the house, rice, beans, or eggs, and just wanted something more.
“Yeah, sure,” he nodded, closing the freezer.
I served the salsa in two separate bowls, one for Javi and me, and one for Dad and his poker friends.
After grabbing the bag of chips from the counter, I brought them with the salsa to the living room.
I ignored the comments from Kush about me bending over as I placed them on the coffee table and quickly returned to the kitchen.
I would’ve withheld my coveted salsa if I knew my dad or Kush wouldn’t harass me for it.
Javi was back inside and was opening a beer.
He held it out to me, and I shook my head, remembering how I nearly puked my guts that morning.
I wasn’t about to fuck up my body again.
Especially not on poker night when the house was filled with a bunch of creepy fucks.
There was only so much the deadbolt on our bedroom door could withstand.
I’d gotten drunk last night waiting for Javi to return from God-knows-where.
I couldn’t take another day of silence between us, even though I was the one giving the cold shoulder.
I was feeling guilty, hurt, scared, and I missed my brother.
One beer turned into six when Javi got home, and we finally hashed it out.
There was nothing that I could say or do. Javier had made a decision that was going to change the course of his life forever. I had two choices: stay mad at him or forgive him and pray that by some miracle he didn’t wind up dead anytime soon. I chose the latter.
And although I was angry, I was mostly scared. Scared for him and what would happen to him once he became Carlos’s successor, a real leader with a very real target on his back. I felt overwhelmingly guilty because he was choosing my life over his, something that I didn’t think was worth saving.
How many more times was he going to sacrifice himself in the name of protecting his little sister?
And how many more times before I started protecting myself?
He might have raised me more than our own father ever had, but that still didn’t make me his responsibility.
Not now that he was an adult and could start his own life away from this cesspit of tragedy.
Did he want to become a leader of a criminal organization?
Who the fuck strived for that kind of thing?
Was he actually happy? Was I just making his life more miserable by shitting on him for making the most of the fucked-up situation he was thrown into as a kid?
He was just shy of his fifteenth birthday when Carlos initiated him formally into the gang—or empire.
Jesus. I felt like I didn’t know anything anymore about Los Siete or what exactly they did.
I had thought it was just drugs and prostitution.
And whatever corruption occurred in our city with Carlos as the mayor.
But Javier had explained last night that there were seven jefes—seven different leaders working as one criminal organization across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
I had no idea what they actually did other than knowing my brother was a drug dealer, Carlos was one of the seven leaders, and they also owned gentlemen’s clubs in the Austin metro area.
And, apparently, there was such a rank as a sucesor, something my brother had been working towards for a while.
I couldn’t help but ask my brother what other shit they were making him do.
I thought getting him tipsy with beer would loosen his lips, but he didn’t divulge anything.
If he could withstand getting his fingernails ripped out during his loyalty test, it must have been easy keeping secrets from his little sister when she drunkenly whined for answers.
And, of course, drunk me last night had to remember the idiot I had tutored the day before.
In true brotherly fashion, Javier had to ruin my piss party.
Javi was really excited for me because he thought I was making a friend.
I obviously told him to go fuck himself.
And he disgustingly replied he would, if we didn’t share a fucking bedroom.
The doorbell rang and I heard someone answering it. I sighed in annoyance and decided to hurry up and finish preparing everything so I could get to my room.
“So, what’s your friend’s name?” Javi asked as he grabbed the tortillas from the fridge. “You never mentioned. Although you did call the kid a fucknugget.”
I rolled my eyes and traded him the tortillas for an onion.
He nodded in understanding knowing that if I cut it my eyes would tear up.
I couldn’t help but eye his bandaged fingertips as he wrapped them around the handle of the knife.
He had shown me his bloody nailbeds last night and the mental image made me shudder.
At least Javi had never used that technique during one of my pain-tolerance tests, I definitely would’ve thrown up.
“Well?”
“He was an idiot,” I stated plainly as I placed a row of tortillas on the stove. “And his name is Nox.”
“You know, not everyone can be as smart as you,” he chuckled.
“No, I mean he acted like a fucking idiot. I know we’re not exactly the poster children for politeness, but isn’t it common sense that you don’t fucking stare at someone with a deformity?”
He rolled his eyes at me, “Well, like I said, not everyone can be as smart as you.”
“He was a fucking dick. I’m gonna have to wear, like, fucking sunglasses or something if he won’t stop staring at me.”
“Shy,” he called, making me look over at him. He pointed with the knife in his hand to the stove and I cursed under my breath, quickly flipping the tortillas that had bubbled up. “So, you must not have scared him off if you’re expecting to see him again this week.”
“Anyways,” I sighed trying to change the subject, “how was your day?”
“Eh,” he shrugged, pausing his hand that was holding the knife to look in the direction of the doorway.
My stomach flipped and I froze in place for half a second before squashing the fear. What the fuck is he doing here? He’s never come to our house.
Standing in a sleek black suit with a navy tie was Carlos Solis, one of the seven leaders of the Los Siete ‘empire’ and current lead in the polls for the Spring election for mayor. Apparently, people liked him and wanted him reelected.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he chuckled, winking in my direction. “Looks like you’re celebrating, no? Grab me a beer, sweetheart.”
Were we celebrating Javier’s new rank? I thought it was because he was trying to apologize without actually apologizing.
Fuck, what kind of sister was I that I hadn’t realized he might actually have been proud of himself?
Javi clearly really wanted to be Carlos’ sucesor if his stitches and fingernail less hands were anything to go by. Should I have been congratulating him?
“Why haven’t you answered my calls?” Carlos asked my brother.
Javier cursed under his breath, grabbing his phone from his back pocket to check his notifications.
Carlos suddenly gripped my brother by the back of the neck, pulling him in close to whisper into his ear. I couldn’t make out what he was telling my brother, but whatever it was made Javi tense and nod his head.
When Carlos pulled away, I took the opening to respond to his command. “You have two hands. The fridge is literally right fucking next to you.”
I reeled, stumbling back a step as my head went swiveling to the left.
Fuck!
He slapped me. He fucking slapped me. I ground my teeth together with rage as I slowly turned to eye my brother.
“Watch your mouth,” Javi said with a cold stare.
I swallowed, shocked that Javier had punished me in front of Carlos. I turned my gaze to Carlos, who was studying Javier with a cocked head. He suddenly cleared his throat and straightened, looking at me.
“It’s alright, Javier.” Carlos smiled, his teeth unnaturally straight and white, as stark contrast to his brown skin and dark hair. “I see that your smart mouth wasn’t affected by Peter, Shiloh.”
I watched Javier’s jaw tick with tension, his hand gripping his phone so tightly his inked knuckles were turning pale.
“Cálmate, hijo.” Carlos shook his head at Javi, brushing his hand across his shoulder. “You know I wouldn’t condone any violence against a child. There’s a reason I put him to work on that ranch.” He turned to me with a raised brow. “Shiloh, I think your tortillas are burning.”
I didn’t get a chance to say anything else before Carlos turned and walked out of the house.
“God, he gives me the creeps,” I mumbled with a shiver once he was gone. “What the fuck is he even doing here? This isn’t exactly the social scene for the mayor.”
“What the fuck was he talking about, Shiloh?” Javier asked with a raised brow, not buying my attempt at brushing Carlos’s comments aside.
“Nothing,” I shrugged nonchalantly, quickly spinning to turn the stove off before the house caught fire.
“Bullshit. You were running your mouth again, weren’t you? What did Peter do?”
“Don’t worry about it. I handled it,” I said as I took the charred tortillas off and threw them onto the counter to cool before I carried them to the trash.
“Shiloh, just fucking tell me what he did to you.”
I turned to face him and crossed my arms over my chest, looking up at him with a scowl.
“I handled it,” I repeated, wanting him to drop it. He didn’t need to know what happened.
“When was this?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed, “I dunno. A few weeks ago.”
“And?”
“And nothing. For fuck’s sake it’s not like he hit me or—”
“Did he touch you?” There was a level of scary calm in his stance that I didn’t like.
“I said something snarky to Carlos at the Labor Day BBQ at Town Hall you forced me to go to with you, and he sent Peter to make sure I didn’t speak to him like that in public again.”
“What did he do, Shy?” I could tell he was getting frustrated with me as he gritted out the words between his clenched jaw, but if he knew what Peter did, I would look like a weak-ass puta.
I ignored him and turned back to the stove.
“I’m gonna go grab the meat,” Javier grumbled, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
Isn’t he fucking tired of all this bullshit?
The sliding door slammed shut and I watched Javier toss the tray of meat onto the counter.
“You almost done?” He snapped.
“I dunno. Are you done acting like an asshole? I didn’t do anything wrong here,” I hissed back.
He let out a deep breath, all the anger and rigidity leaking from his body as he sulked over to me with a pout. Javi leaned his hip beside mine against the counter.
“Porfa, güerita, dime,” he whispered. “His nickname is Pedrofilo for a reason. Tell me he didn’t touch you like that.”
I swallowed, guilt swirling in my chest.
“Javi, it was nothing, so quit asking.”
“I just don’t understand why you won’t tell me. You’ve never not told me when stuff happens…Right?” He raised a brow skeptically and I pulled my lip between my teeth.
Lies, lies, lies. I shrugged, tossing the warm tortillas into a kitchen towel and adding fresh ones to the stove. Javi grabbed my arm and turned my body to face him.
“Shiloh,” he said in warning, his grip on my arm tight, dropping all pretense of playing the whiney brother card on me.
I sighed and focused on flipping the tortillas with my free arm.
“Look, what difference does it make now? I’m not a kid anymore, Javier. You’ve shown me how to deal with dumbfucks, and I do.”
“Fuck,” he growled, shaking his head. “How am I supposed to trust you when you say that nothing happened in the future?”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, averting my attention back to the stove. “I just didn’t think you needed to hear how Pedrofilo shoved his tongue down my throat—”
“What?” He shouted, cutting me off. If he wasn’t my brother, I’d be scared of the man. “I’m going to cut out his motherfucking tongue and staple it to his dick!”
“Just let me finish,” I said with a glare to match his own, as I gestured for him to lower his voice.
“Fuck, what else did he do?”
“Nothing. ‘Cause I kneed him in the balls. Then I cussed him out and ran back to Carlos. I warned him that if he ever sicced his pervy attack dog on me again I’d chop off Pedro’s balls and gift wrap them as a Christmas present. Then I returned to the crowds before anything else could happen.”
Javier closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before opening them and speaking again.
“Good,” he said with a half-smile. “I hope he has permanent damage. That fucker doesn’t need any more spawns running around on this planet.”
I laughed and he dropped his hand from my arm, stepping back to grab his beer from the counter.
“Güerita, it’ll be over soon. This will all be a distant memory. You just need to keep fighting. And for the love of God, please stop running your mouth. You’re gonna give me a fucking heart attack one of these days.”
I blew out a deep breath and nodded before I joked to break the uncomfortable tension, “I didn’t realize you’d gone soft. You gonna start crying?”
“I might even hug you too” he chuckled, the atmosphere in the room suddenly shifting to something lighter.
“Ew,” I laughed. “Please don’t.”
“Yeah, yeah. Watch the damn tortillas. You’re gonna burn them again.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled.
The selfish part of me wanted to believe that Javier was going to help me get out of here and pay for college, but then reality kicked in.
I’d have to leave him here alone. He probably wouldn’t stay in contact as much while training to become a jefe, we’d drift apart, and one day he’d end up dead and I wouldn’t even know it.