Chapter 35
Alex
As soon as my shift ends, I get in my car and drive to my apartment as fast as I can. Jacob wanted me to sleep with him tonight, but somehow, I persuaded him to wait until tomorrow. He was so drunk that he actually agreed to wait.
“I can wait because you’re mine now,” he had said between slurs. “But just know that you’re not going to see your sweet mother until you’re in my bed.”
Hot tears run down my face, blurring the road ahead. I wipe them away with the back of my hand. This isn’t how I planned to spend the rest of my life. I will not live with a gun pointed at my head—or my mom’s. There is only one thing left for me to do.
I have to kill Jacob.
Suddenly, I’m blinded by a flash of bright light in my rearview mirror. The flash disappears as quickly as it appeared. Next to me, a car speeds past me in the opposite lane.
It’s too dark to see the driver, but I recognize the car, which swerves into my lane and halts in front of me. I slam my brakes to avoid crashing into it.
Alonzo gets out of his car and walks to my window. The bright moon illuminates his face. He looks pissed.
“What the fuck was that back there?” he growls, startling me for a split second. His eyes are burning with anger. I have never seen him this angry before. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
“You almost caused a car accident!” I roll down my window and snap at him. Maybe it’s not a good idea to push back, but he could’ve gotten one or both of us hurt. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you ? Why are you back at The Den?”
“That’s none of your business,” I say, glancing back at the road. Alonzo’s car is blocking both lanes. I’ll have to drive off the road to get around it if I want to drive away. Should I? I don’t want to see him like this.
“It was a fling, I get it,” Alonzo said. “But you have enough money to last you for the rest of the year, maybe even more. So why are you back there?”
So it was a fling after all. Glad that is settled.
During our time together, I often wondered if he saw me differently from his other girls. He was so gentle and thoughtful that I wondered if it was more than a fling. But I was always quick to reassure myself that it was all in my head. I saw what I wanted to see. Alonzo isn’t the type of man to settle down with one woman. Esmeralda was the exception. Now he’s a man of the world.
“Alex? I asked you a question. Why are you back there?”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell him Jacob is threatening my mom to force me to work for him. Alonzo will start asking questions that will eventually lead him to discover the truth. That Jacob and I were planning to rob him.
This is too much.
I just want to go home and crawl into a ball and get away from this life, from these men.
“It’s not about the money,” I finally say.
“Then what?” he asks. “Are you fucking him?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you fucking Jacob?”
Is that what this is about? He has no right to be jealous.
“No,” I say.
But I know I’ll have to, eventually. The thought of Jacob touching me again sends nasty prickles down my arms.
“Don’t lie to me, Alex. I know he has a thing for you. Men like him never give up until they get what they want, especially when it comes to women.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say. “You can believe me or not. It makes no difference to me.”
“If it’s not about the money and you’re not fucking Jacob, then why did you go back?”
“I can’t tell you,” I say. Why can’t you just let it go?
His eyes darken. “Fine. Don’t tell me. But you’re not setting foot at that club again.”
“That’s not up to you.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow night. If I see you dancing on that fucking stage, I swear to God I’m going to pull you off it and carry you out of the goddamn club.”
I wish you would .
But that’s unrealistic. Jacob and his men would never allow him to do that. He’s only one man, and Jacob has dozens under his command.
I wish I had been honest with Alonzo from the very beginning, but I couldn’t have known I would grow to care about him like this.
“Anything else?” I ask. A knot twists in my throat, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Soon, tears will erupt, and I want to be out of here before that happens. “It’s late, and I need to get home. I have school tomorrow.”
“I’m not fucking around, Alex. I will be there tomorrow night, and you better not be up on that fucking stage,” he says before stepping away from my car.
My car shakes as I drive off the road around his, leaving plums of dust behind me. I look in the rearview mirror. When the dust settles, I see his car still parked in the middle of the road. His headlights eventually disappear into the night, and I know it’s safe to release the pressure that has built up under my eyes.
???
It’s Monday morning.
I slept in as much as I could because I don’t want to go to school and face the real world. And now my stomach is growling, so I guess it’s time to get out of bed.
I get up and prepare a bowl of cereal. It’s noon by the time I sit down to eat at the kitchen table.
I put my laptop on the table next to my bowl and scroll Craigslist between scoops of cereal. Even though San Marquez is smacked right between San Antonio and Austin, it’s surrounded by many small rural towns. My gut tells me I can probably find someone nearby willing to sell me a cheap used gun.
Last night, I checked the websites for local gun shops, but the guns were outside what I can afford right now. I think I can get one cheaper if I buy it used.
There is only one way this nightmare with Jacob will end, and it’s with a bullet in his head. I know it’s a crazy idea, but I have to do something. I can’t let him hurt my mom. I brought him into our lives, and now I have to pry him out.
A few scrolls later, I find a seller just outside Lockhart, a small town thirty minutes away. The listing is for a Glock 19 and a few small boxes of ammunition for $700. A Google search tells me that a Glock 19 is a beginner-friendly gun. It’s exactly what I need.
I type the seller’s number into my phone, then pause for a split second.
Am I really gonna do this?
I have never shot a gun before, so I don’t even know how to aim one. But I guess that won’t matter if I’m close enough to Jacob. I can’t miss if I’m standing right in front of him.
It’s risky going after Jacob, but if I kill him, he can’t order the reapers to kill my mom.
As far as I know, Ben is unaware that Jacob and the other reapers are threatening my mom. Ben mainly focuses on the money side of The Den, which he treats like a proper business. If he knew Jacob had basically kidnapped my mom, he would put an end to it. But that wouldn’t solve things. Jacob would still find a way to get back at me without Ben finding out.
Once Jacob is out of the picture, Ben will do the right thing and tell the reapers at my mom’s house to let her go. At least that’s what I hope will happen. It’s a gamble I’ll have to take.
With shaky fingers, I dial the number in the listing and wait for a response. After three rings, a man picks up. It’s a brief exchange, but we agree to meet at his place this afternoon.
???
“You weren’t in class this morning. Is everything okay?” Isabella’s text pops up over the navigation app. There is no way I can tell her what’s going on or what I’m doing. With a sigh, I swipe the text notification away and continue down the road.
The seller’s house isn’t in Lockhart but ten minutes east of town. His house is at the end of a dirt road, canopied by large trees above us.
As I park in the driveway, a man with gray hair and a beautiful golden retriever greet me. They escort me to the back of a pickup truck, where a large wooden box sits on the bed.
“I hope you didn’t have a hard time finding my house,” he says.
“I took a few wrong turns, but I made it,” I smile at him.
He nods and opens the wooden box. “The pistol hasn’t been used much. It belongs to my son. He used it a few times for target practice before heading out to college.”
He hands me the gun. I inspect it in my hands, pretending to know what I’m looking for. He must see how clueless I am because he asks if I have shot a gun before.
“Never,” I say.
“Well, I suggest you practice target shooting before you use it. You don’t want to learn how to shoot in the middle of a home break-in,” he says. “This is for protection only, right?”
“Yes, of course,” I lie, switching the gun from one hand to the other. The gun is much heavier than it looks. “I live by myself. It’s for home protection.”
“Good, good,” he says. “Well, like I said, you should practice shooting and reloading it. You can probably learn all that in a shooting range. If they have instructors, they can teach you all that and basic gun safety. Guns aren’t toys.”
“I’ll make sure to find a good shooting range,” I say.
He nods. “I’ll give you a few cases of ammo to get you started, but you’ll find out that ammo runs out faster than you think when you’re at the range.”
“I’ll keep an eye out on the ammo,” I say, resting the gun in my right hand. I have a better grip on it with my right hand. That’s the hand that will free me. “Thank you for all your help. I’ll take it.”