Chapter 24
Efren
Iknow this plan is impulsive, but when she explained the triggers, I ran with my first thought—bring her back to California. Back to the place we’ve both been running from. If she can remember what happened, then there’s a chance she can accept the past and move forward.
With me, of course.
“I knew the Consuelos were rich, but not own-a-private-plane rich,” Alma says. She’s standing in front of the open master bedroom door.
“Nah. Fuck the Consuelos,” I spit out.
“You don’t like the Consuelos?” Her brow arches.
Thirty minutes ago, she’d been clutching my hand for dear life. Small, moon shaped indentions are still visible on my hand from where her nails dug in.
What would those tiny marks look like on other parts of my body?
She unlocked a sadistic kink of mine last night—one I never knew I had. I’ll do whatever she says if it means hearing her call me a ‘good boy’ again.
“It’s Silas’s plane,” Ricky answers from behind us. He and Lurch are playing poker at the table.
“I don’t get it! Adrian’s your best friend, Thalia is all in on team Efren, Olivia brags about you to all the staff members, and apparently, Ariella has an affinity for you, too. But you hate them all?” She arches a brow at me from the shelf where she’s going through the books.
She sighs, and I’m positive I hear an “Ew” slip out as she slides a book on Osteology and crafting old bones. Silas is into some weird shit. I grab a book and pretend to skim through it instead of answering her question.
“Um, hello? I asked you a question.” She huffs, hand glued to her hip and eyes pinned to me, waiting for an explanation.
While I could write a book about my deeply rooted disdain for the Consuelo family, I settle for answering her direct questions instead.
“Adrian’s my best friend. He wasn’t raised around them. Thalia’s a Macias. Silas will murder anyone who says otherwise. Olivia is good people, and Ariella is a Reyes, so she doesn’t count.”
“She doesn’t count because she’s a Reyes or because you like her?” Alma’s voice is laced with jealousy.
I love it.
“Do you think this will protect you?” I avoid her question and brush my thumb over the evil eye necklace resting against her chest.
“Answer the question, Efren.” She huffs again.
“How about a question for a question?” I counter.
She thinks about it, then shrugs. “Fine. But I get to go first.”
“What do you want to know, Kitten?”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she bites out.
“Because you would always watch La Bamba, and I remember that’s what Ritchie called Donna.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.” Her eyes soften.
“I remember everything about you.” I wink, and her cheeks flush pink.
“Okay. Stop trying to distract me, Bruno. Is there something—”
I cut her off with a low tsk. “You asked why I called you Kitten and I answered. I believe it’s my turn for a question.”
“That wasn’t the question I wanted to use for the game, Efren!”
“Still a question,” I say, smirking. “Anyways… do you think this will protect you?” My fingers hook into her necklace again.
“I thought it got rid of bad energy, but you’re still here—so clearly, it’s not working. I need a whole field of sage to get rid of you.”
“And I’d still come back the next day, mija.”
A loud laugh bursts from the main cabin. We both turn to see Lurch slamming down a full flush of cards.
“Why is he so weird?” Alma mutters.
“Beats me.” I grin. “My turn.”
She slaps my hand away from where I hold her necklace.
“You’re fucking cheating, Efren!” she exclaims. Her eyes burn through me.
“You’re so sexy when you get mad.” I laugh. She’s seemingly unamused, but I take my turn anyway. “What’s your favorite book?”
“That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child. I don’t have one. Now it’s my turn, Bruno!” She paces the room, her lips pursing as she formulates the right question.
“What were you and Ariella whispering about at Vicente’s party?”
“She wanted the chipotle hollandaise recipe.”
“The one you made me? No pos wao. And here I was thinking I was special. What, is that like your morning-after-go-to recipe?” She crosses her arms, glaring at me.
“The game is a question for a question, not ten questions to one, Almita.” I boop her nose, and her eyes burn with fury.
“Oh my god, you’re so annoying.” She turns and walks back into the main cabin.
A smile spreads across my face when I watch her dramatically drop into her seat. Following behind her, I lift her and set her back in my lap. She fights me before rolling her eyes and settling in with that icy glare that always makes me grin wider.
“No, it’s not my morning-after recipe,” I say, leaning close. “It was a special I ran at the restaurant when she came in to eat with her bodyguard—who I’m a thousand percent sure wouldn’t let me get within a foot of her, and not because it’s his job.”
“Oh.” Alma relaxes into my chest, her voice softening. “Do you think the rumors are true?”
I shrug, but my eyes are focused on her sunken expression. The worry in her voice lingers between us.
“What’s wrong?” I hook a finger under her chin and force her to look at me.
“I got angry the other day and let one of the other maids get in my head about you and Ari. We were in the bathroom, and I didn’t realize she was in there and could hear the whole conversation. I said some fucked up shit, and I think. No, I’m positive, I hurt her feelings.”
“You were jealous,” I remark.
“No. I was just—”
“Jealous,” Ricky says. He turns to us but retreats when he sees Alma’s eyes growing cold. “What? Anyone from a mile away can tell she was jealous.”
“It’s okay if you were jealous, Kitten. There were many times I was jealous of you and Esteban.”
At the mention of Esteban, I feel her body tense. She turns back to face the window, but I don’t try to pry anything out of her. I let her watch the clouds because hell is on the horizon, and it’s only a matter of time before she’ll remember why her body tenses at the sound of my brother’s name.
_______
The three hour flight feels like a full day by the time we land in Los Angeles. Ricky and Lurch continue on to Mexico to check the durability of the tunnels we built for Vidal.
“It’s so weird being back here.” Alma looks around the neighborhood where we grew up.
Los Angeles is big, but once you get into the smaller neighborhoods, everyone knows one another.
The taqueria we’re inside has been here my whole life.
Over the years, new generations take over the family business.
The kid I remember getting yelled at for playing in the abandoned parking lot across the street is now yelling at his own kids.
“You really like Horchata.” I observe the half empty glass in front of Alma.
“I am a self-proclaimed Whorechata,” she laughs. “But also I think it’s a phase. I like experimenting and making different drinks. A few months ago I was obsessed with Mazapán lattes.”
She pulls out her phone and shows me a picture of a latte she made and photographed around the Mexican candy. I make a mental note to stalk her social media later. She’s so close to me I can take in that sweet smell of her again. I push back a curl that falls loose between us and she looks up.
“Anyways,” she says nervously, “I have this life dream about opening up my own coffee shop one day.”
“I like that dream. What would you call it?”
“I was thinking something like ‘Chisme’.” Her face lights up when she talks, and I’m consumed by it. “I’d make all the baristas wear an apron, and instead of calling them baristas, I’d call them chismosas.”
“Oh, you could call it a Gringo instead of an Americano,” I add.
“Picasso—I like it.” She shoots me with a finger gun.
“Manifest that shit, mija.” I whisper in her ear.
She pulls back and smiles. My heart feels all fuzzy and shit when she looks at me the way she is right now.
“You think you’d need a cook for your café?” I ask.
She smiles. “Why? You wanna run away with me, Bruno?”
“Always.”
I hold her gaze long enough to watch the way her eyes soften. The moment she realizes her mask is coming down, she looks away, pretending to watch the kids outside playing.
“Okay,” she agrees after a beat, her voice lighter, teasing again. “You can be my chef. Only cause you and I know damn well Texas ain’t got shit on Cali food.”
“Nah, we ain’t fucking with no Tex-Mex bullshit at Chisme.”
“For real. Thalia swears Whataburger has In-N-Out beat, but I told her it’s cause she’s not ordering right.”
“I tell Adrian the same thing. Putting an onion ring on a burger is diabolical if you ask me. You know that fool be eating Whataburger like four times a week?”
“Really? That’s hilarious. I’m surprised Mireya doesn’t get on his ass about clogged arteries like she does when she tells me to drink less caffeine.”
“I don’t think she knows. He makes us hide the bags.”
Alma laughs, and I’m glad we can have an easy going conversation for the first time. We have a lot of obstacles to face in the next few days, but it will be worth it. This is a preview of how easy life can be once we get the demons she is facing out of the way.