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"People like you and me?" I felt Gonzalez's beefy hand clamp down on my shoulder. "We don’t do so good in the real world. That's why we gotta make a world of our own." He squeezed my shoulder. "Join us."

Shrugging, I tossed my cigarette into the fire and turned to face him. "You want me?"

Gonzalez nodded once and I could see the respect burning bright in his black eyes, the excitement at the prospect of fresh meat.

"I'm not interested in joining your brethren," I stated, calm and pokerfaced. "But I have a proposition that may interest you – mutually beneficial, of course."

Gonzalez raised a brow. "I'm listening."

Accepting the cigarette Gonzalez offered me, I sparked up, reveling in the burning sensation that spread through my chest. "The way I see it, you're a man down and seriously lacking in the heavy department."

"You stand here after I show you respect and insult me?" he responded, brows raised. "Bold move, Bolillo."

"You hear an insult. I hear an accurate observation, " I countered calmly.

Gonzalez rubbed his bearded jaw, mulling over my words, before finally nodding. "Go ahead."

Composed and pokerfaced, I kept my eyes trained on the fire as I spoke, careful to conceal the truth that I needed him a helluva lot more than he needed me. I had no problem getting my hands bloodied. It wasn’t an issue for me. Hadn't been for a long fucking time now.

The problem I had was that there was one of me, and fuck knows how many of David. I couldn’t protectherand hunt him down without help.Without a gang.

When I was finished unveiling the plan I had been mapping out since walking into the house on Thirteenth Street tonight, I turned to look at him. "Do we have a deal?"

"You know what, Bolillo, I think we do," Gonzalez chuckled as he reached his hand out to me. "This is a huge motherfucking risk," he added. "For you."

"What's life without a little risk?" was all I replied.

"Aye," he laughed. "You can expect my call."

As I shook his hand, making a deal with the devil himself, I couldn't fight off the disturbing feeling that I was signing my own death certificate.

"Maybe when this is all done, you'll reconsider joining us," Gonzalez mused, releasing my hand. "When you're balls deep in dead presidents and high off the power."

"Money and power," I mused, taking another drag of my smoke. "It doesn’t interest me."

"Money and power are theonlythings that interest men like us," he replied knowingly.

I shrugged. "Not when the man is dead inside."

Gonzalez let out a low chuckle. "Something tells me there is pussy involved."

"How'd you figure that?"

"Pussy," Gonzalez mused. "It's the only thing that can breathe life into a dead man."

How fucking right he was…

****

"Jesus fucking Christ, Lucky!" Noah muttered along with half a dozen or so unintelligible cuss words when I joined him back at the truck.

"It's done," I stated calmly as I shoved my key into the ignition and cranked the engine. "End of."

"End of what?" Noah demanded, turning in his seat to face me. "End ofyou? Because that's what happens to the men that fall into bed withthem!" Glaring at me, he hissed, "Tell me you didn’t make a deal with Gonzalez?"

Pulling a pack of Marlboros out of my jeans pocket, I dragged a smoke out with my teeth and sparked up. Tossing the pack on the dashboard, I wiped my bloody hands on my jeans before retrieving the smoke from between my lips. "It's done."

"You made a deal with the devil right there, asshole." Shaking his head, Noah reached for the pack of smokes on my dashboard and quickly sparked up a smoke. "The fuck were you thinking, man?"

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