Page 136 of The Slayer
Tino was fucking crazy.
He literally set himself up to get carjacked.
The asshole was even taking the time to get everything out of the car. Alaine had a travel bag over her shoulder that Chuito knew wasn’t something she owned.
Chuito pulled his gun out when the two thugs got to Tino and Alaine, but Tino, to his credit, already had Alaine behind him. Tino reached into his pocket and grabbed his keys when they pulled a gun on him.
Tino didn’t say anything; he just handed the keys over.
Then he stood there, looking bored when Angel’s guys jumped into Romeo’s Ferrari. They gunned it out of the parking lot, and Tino turned his head and called out to Chuito. “It’s like a sickness. I got a million dollars in this suitcase, and all they could see was the Ferrari.” He shook his head. “Car thieves.”
Chuito watched until the Ferrari disappeared around the corner, and called back, “Romeo is gonna kill you.”
Tino threw up his hands and looked generally ambivalent, before he turned back to Alaine. “Give me your phone, baby.”
“Call her baby one more time,” Chuito dared him as he slipped the gun into the back of his jeans. “Tino, I—”
Tino held up his hand to stop him and looked at Alaine’s phone when she handed it to him.
“What is he doing?” Chuito asked her.
“He’s tracking the Ferrari,” she said as she stepped from behind Tino, looking to Chuito. “He hid the cell phone he took from you under the seat. That’s how he found you. It just led to right where you were at the cigar bar.”
Chuito closed his eyes. “The fucking cell phone.Que estúpido.”
“No one ever thinks about cell phones,” Tino agreed.
“What about your cell phone, motherfucker?” Chuito pointed out as Tino stood there looking at Alaine’s. “Does Nova know you’re here?”
“I’m sure he does,” Tino said dismissively. “But I turned off my phone. We’ve been using Alaine’s. He doesn’t know her passwords.”
“You give Nova your passwords?” Chuito asked Tino in surprise.
“He always figures them out,” Tino said in annoyance. “Always. I could come up with the most random shit ever, and he’ll hack my account.” He looked up from the phone. “Where’s my Benz?”
“I parked it.” Chuito waved his hand in the other direction. “It’s a walk.”
Tino put Alaine’s cell phone into his back pocket and said, “Let’s go find the warehouse.”
“Tino—” Chuito let out a manic laugh as the fury of the moment caught up to him. “You brought Alaine with you. Now there are Russians and—” He took a deep breath, not even able to sort out the different things he was pissed off about. He gestured to Alaine, who was sparkling in her blue dress under the Miami lights, and said, “Did you go shopping? Did you stop and shop on the way down here?”
“We didn’t bring anything,” Tino said as if that made sense. “We were sorta in a hurry when we left.”
“So you stopped at a mall?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t stop to shop at a gas station.”
Tino stepped up and pulled the sunglasses off the brim of Chuito’s Miami Heat hat, looking at them for a moment before he rolled his eyes. He put Chuito’s sunglasses on and walked off, suitcase in hand, like he expected them to follow.
Chuito turned to Alaine. Then he reached out to her and pulled her into his arms. “Are you okay, mami?”
Alaine nodded and curled into him. She rested her hand over his heart as she took a long, shuddering breath. “I was worried we wouldn’t find you. You scared me.”
“You shouldn’t have come.” He sighed, even if she felt amazing against him and his heart was beating hard and fast now that he had her in his arms again. “Why didn’t you just let me go? You’re smarter than this.”
Alaine pulled back and stared at him, her light eyes swimming pools of blue accentuated by dark eyeliner. “I’d rather be in hell with you than anywhere else without you.”
“Hey, lovebirds,” Tino called out across the parking lot. He snapped his fingers and pointed to the direction Chuito had said the Benz was parked. “Let’s go.”
