Page 92 of Hard to Love
They both laughed because Ruben was in excellent shape, no extra layer around his middle.
But the laughter quickly petered out. Alex wasn’t here to chat and joke. He was here to buy back his brother. Ruben hitched his chin toward the bag in Alex’s hand. “You got what you promised when you called me?”
This was where it all met the road. One about to be black with tire marks and stink of burned rubber. “Most of it.”
Ruben’s face closed down in a blink, and he crossed his arms. “You know that shit don’t fly. Get out.”
“We used to be friends.”
“Friends don’t run away from the Tejanos.”
“Friends don’t kill a friend’s brother.”
“You know I didn’t have a goddamn thing to do with what happened to Javi.”
“Your brother did.”
“It’s a new world. One where it’s a fuckload harder to attract new talent when the big boys can promise more money and more drugs.”
“You could fold and get sucked into one of them.”
“And become no more than a foot soldier. One with a target on his back at that.” Ruben shook his head and paced around his kitchen. “Not happening.”
Alex swallowed and pitched his voice low so the guysin the living room wouldn’t hear. “What about walking away altogether?”
“Like you did, Tatuaje?” Ruben whirled around. “How’d that work out for you? You’re right back here standing in front of me. I’m the one with the power. You’re the one on your knees. A guy like me don’t never get out. I walk away from my boys and they’d just as soon pop a cap in my ass as look at me.”
Ruben was right. His future was sealed into gang life one way or another, but Nicolás’s wasn’t. “I want to make a deal.”
Ruben’s laugh wasn’t filled with good humor this time—it was tight and flat. “You’ve already screwed the deal.”
“You ever find another guy who can tat you up the way I could?”
One glance at the bag in Alex’s other hand, and Ruben’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“That I can set you up right now.”
“Even your work ain’t worth the kindalanayou owe me.”
“How about we call this a deposit? I ink you, you let go of Nicolás, and I’ll send you another grand a month for the next year.”
“How about I take this—” Ruben grabbed the money bag from Alex’s grip, then shoved him in the chest with it, “—and you get the fuck outta my house.”
Greer’s phonerang at five in the morning, which would’ve been jarring had she actually been asleep. As many times as she’d closed her eyes, all she’d been able to see was that last conversation with Alex. Hear him asking what happened when one person didn’t get his prophecy boots.
When herejectedthem.
Rejected her.
Still, her heart shifted into overdrive at the thought it could be him on the other end of the phone. She rolled to the edge of her bed and slapped her bedside table for her cell. It slipped from her grasp to crash between the mattress and the table.
“Don’t hang up. Don’t hang up,” she chanted, dropping to her knees to pat around under the bed. “Got you.” One jab of her thumb on the talk button. “Hello?”
“Hello, is this Greer Maddox?” a feminine, slightly accented voice said.
Disappointment so thick swamped Greer that she actually felt sick with it. She clutched a fist to her stomach trying to push it down.
“I am sorry to disturb you. I am calling for Alejandro’s friend.”
