Page 89 of A Dish Best Served Hot

His smirk grew.

“You have someone waiting to visit with you,” was all she said.

“Yes, and I can’t wait to let them know that Rafa’s little girl has finally returned.”

Lola snorted in derision. “Rafa hasn’t given a shit about his little girl since the day she was born. I highly doubt he’s going to start now.”

“I don’t know about that. Blood is blood after all. Enjoy the rest of your visit.” With those parting words he strolled away as if he were taking a walk in the park and not through the visiting room of a prison.

As soon as he was gone Iván stood up. “This visit is over,” he said.

“We still have twenty minutes left.”

He shook his head. “Don’t come back,” he told her.

“I’m not staying away because ofhim.”

“That’s Guillermo Hernandez. His brother was one of the guys we—”

She cut him off. “Iván, I’m not scared of him.”

“You should be. He may be in here, but he still has connections. Just like Papi.”

“I don’t care about any of that. I care about you.Mybrother, who I’m going to visit no matter who it pisses off.”

“I’m not puttingmysister in the sights of someone who’d love nothing more than to use her to get to us.”

“He’s already seen me, so me staying away doesn’t accomplish anything.”

“I’ll get word to Papi. He has some favors he can call in, but either way you need to keep your distance and be careful.”

“You’ve been here almost twenty years because of him, Iván. When are you going to stop being his fucking puppet?”

“Lola!” Benny scolded.

Her brother reared back as if she’d slapped him. Then his face hardened. “That’s what you’ve never understood, Lola. There is no stopping for me now, there is no new path with a moral high ground that I get to take, there’s only surviving and I’m going to make sure we both do that even if I have to sell my soul to the devil.” He backed away from the table. “I’m taking you off my list. Both of you.” He turned to leave.

Lola shot out of her chair. “Don’t do this, Iván.”

“Hey! Settle down!”

Lola swung toward the guard. “Oh, now you want to say something? Where was all that little dick energy a few moments ago when I was being threatened?”

“That’s it. You’re done.”

Lola caught sight of Iván being escorted away by another guard out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah. I am done.”

Lola silently raged as she and Benny were kicked out and her privileges were suspended. It hardly mattered. Iván had made it clear that there was nothing for her here.

21

Saint watched the bubbling volcano that was Lola whirl around her apartment collecting things and placing them in her backpack. She seemed to be checking necessities off an invisible list in her head. She didn’t look at him once as she continued with her mission.

He felt like she hadn’t really looked at him since the day she’d gone to visit her brother. He knew he’d crossed a line. He shouldn’t have tried to convince her not to go. He would never allow anyone to prevent him from seeing his family for any reason and he should’ve respected Lola’s right to do the same. He understood he was wrong and he’d apologized. Lola said she forgave him, but she was treating him like she hadn’t.

“Hey, you never told me what happened with your brother. Did you have a good time?”

Lola tossed a water bottle onto the counter with a little too much force. “It was good for a while. Then we argued and he removed me from his contact list again.”

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