Page 35 of Shameless in Vegas

It’s not under thebed. It’s under themattress. And that’sreallyfriggin’ weird.

I shove my hand between the mattress and box spring, and sure enough. The slim, hard frame of a smartphone is right there, about five inches from the edge, buzzing like a mother fucker.

I have no idea how this phone got here. Natalia and I have been in the city for the past three days, so I’m wondering if a member of the housekeeping staff is having some kind of personal drama and needed to hide their phone in here.

“What the fuck,” I mumble, pulling it out.

Mid-grab, it stops buzzing for a second, but before I can even hit the button to light up the screen, it starts buzzing again. The name flashing in front of my eyes nearly causes my heart to stop.

X Reyes

Who the fuck isX Reyes?

Reyesobviously indicates it’s someone I’m related to, but none of my sisters are here to stick a random phone under my mattress, and I can’t exactly see my parents doing that, soagain.Whose fucking phone is this?

I stare at the screen until it stops blinking, and then I immediately swipe it open. It’s a super basic set-up. Almost no apps beyond the text messages, web browser, and a generic email icon. The phone icon is showing six missed calls. The message icon shows four new messages. I would normally never go through another person’s phone, but I don’t know whose phone this is, so if nothing else, I need to know who to return it to and then chastise them for hiding a damn phone under my mattress, all sketchy-mother-fucker style.

In the message app, there’s only a thread with the aforementioned X Reyes, so I press my thumb to the icon and open it.

I immediately rock back off the balls of my feet to fall flat on my ass on the floor.

“What the fuck…?”

X Reyes: u see Ernesto yet?

You: not yet. We’re back at the house and we’ll to talk to him about everything in a few minutes.

X Reyes: he suspects u?

You: no. He’s just pissed at J over the marriage.

X Reyes: good. U able to find his other laptop?

You: no. If they work it out and we stay I can look around tonight.

You: if they don’t I’ll have to figure out something else.

X Reyes: u better not fuck it up, perra.

You: I won’t

My room feels really fucking freezing all of a sudden. Or maybe that’s just my own fucking blood running cold.

This is Natalia’s phone.

And now I know exactly whoX Reyesis.

Xavier Reyes. My second cousin. The guy who was promoted to second in command of Los Dolorosos’ operations inEl Norteafter I put a bullet in myothersecond cousin, Ignacio’s head earlier this year. One of the mother fuckers who sent Papá a threat after that shoot-out.

No lo verás venir.

You’ll never see it coming.

We’ve known these mother fuckers were going to dosomethingafter all of that, andnow…

If I’m reading this right…

I scroll through the entire text thread. The messages go back for weeks, but I don’t even need to get to the beginning before I know.

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