Page 73 of Treacherous

"What do you want, Gonzalez?" I asked in a flat tone as I mentally scoped the area. It was the middle of the day, a week before Christmas and he'd shown up at my house with my perfectly polished car in tow.

Either I'd earned the gang leader's respect the other week or I was about to be taken up the mountains and kneecapped. Neither boded well with me. Mortico Gonzalez wasn’t the type of person I intended doing business with again.

"What's with the face, Messina?" he chuckled, shoving his meaty hands into his jean pockets as he leaned against my car that was currently parked in my driveway. "You still tripping over the girl?"

A vein ticked in my neck. "My girl," I said in a cold tone, hoping like hell Teagan went to school this morning because if she heard me calling hermy girlshe'd more than likely has a conniption fit. "And yeah, G, you can bet your ass I'm still tripping."And he was tripping my fucking fuse box by making little of what he'd done...

"I get it," Gonzalez coaxed as he raised his hands in the air. "She's yours. You don’t share. I went too far."

"Looking in her direction was going too far," I snapped, filling with rage as the image ofhimwith his filthy hands on Teagan tortured me. "Putting your hands on her took it to a whole new level."

He ran a hand through his greased back hair and sighed heavily. "Well, tripping or not, a deal's a deal, kid. You upheld your end of the deal," Gonzalez rasped. Raising his hand, he smirked and tossed my keys towards me. "And unlike your step-daddyI'ma man of my word."

I caught them mid-air but remained exactly where I was – on my porch – stoically silent and not trusting his word.

A man's word meant nothing to me…

"You'll find your bread in the glove compartment," he added before taking his phone out of his pocket and pressing a few buttons. "Such a shame," he mused as he studied my face. "Such talent wasted… if you ever get tired of being your step-daddy's bitch, you phone me up."

"Am I missing something here?" I asked him, not having a fucking clue of what was going on. Yeah, I'd upheld my side of the deal and put Cortez out of commission but hell…I'd lost my shit with him. None of this was making any sense to me. "I hit you, Gonzalez. I threatened to kill you."

He stared up at me with dark intense eyes. "And would you do it again?" he asked.

"For her?" I nodded my head and folded my arms across my chest. "Absolutely."

"Then you're missing absolutely nothing," he chuckled. "Loyalty, Messina," he mused as a black Harley pulled up at the curb beside my house. He climbed on behind the driver. "Is a rare attribute – something your daddy didn’t have enough of."

Gonzalez shook his head and patted the driver's shoulder. "You're not Antonio Messina," he called out. "So why do you still pay for his mistakes?"

****

Teagan

"Forget it happened?" Hope asked in an indignant tone as we walked towards the student parking lot Friday afternoon after school.

Courtesy of the school principal, Mr. Lafferty, my uncle had gotten wind of my absenteeism and had personally driven me to school this morning and had even gone as far aswalkingme into the building. I thought this was pretty pointless considering we were getting our Christmas holidays from school today, but what the hell did I know… According to my uncle, attendance was essential.

I had hoped to avoid everyone I knew, but that plan had gone bust the moment Hope caught me in the bathroom and demanded answers. I'd spilled my guts, telling her everything about the ring of fire and Noah.

An entire school day had passed and the girl was still like a freaking detective trying to suck information out of me. But to be fair to Hope, she was the bearer of good news this morning when she informed me that Jason and Ellie were both absent – apparently Ellie was out of state with her dad for Christmas and Jason had contracted chickenpox. Reese was in school, but she hadn’t said a word about the events of that fateful night. Instead she just glared evilly at me whenever we'd passed one another in the hallway.

"You can't be serious, Teagan?"

"It really wasn’t a big deal, Hope," I muttered as I popped an earplug in my ear and stared down at the screen of my phone, flicking through songs. "Forget about it – I have."

Ironically, Maroon 5'sOne More Nightblasted through my earplug and I immersed myself in the lyrics.

"…You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war…"

"…But baby there you go again, there you go again, making me love you…"

Hope reached over and grabbed my phone out of my hand, preventing me from dutifully ignoring her. "You and Noah have been tormenting each other for months," she hissed.

Hope looked even more beautiful than usual clad in a red coat, black skinnies and white high heeled pumps. Her black curly hair was pinned in an elaborate half up half down style. I looked like something old and moldy next to her in my workout clothes I'd changed into after last class and a huge padded coat. I had plans to hit the treadmill after school and work off some of the tension burning inside of me…

"You finally get down to business andscrewit out – pun intended – and now you're saying you want to forget it ever happened?" Her blue eyes were narrowed in disbelief, proving she knew I hadn’t forgotten a damn thing.

"We didn’tscrewit out, Hope. We kissed," I hissed, upping my pace as I stalked towards her car. It still hadn’t snowed and I was feeling seriously let down…

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