Page 22 of The Slayer
“She says it’s an investment. Maybe one day she’ll help Jules with the law office. You know she’s the only lawyer for two towns. She’s swamped with work.”
“You guys make a lot of shady investments,” Chuito observed, because he’d been a businessman of sorts before he left. “I’m not sure if that chica has what it takes to be a lawyer.”
“She did tell her daddy to fuck off and moved out on her own the day after she graduated from high school,” Clay said with a laugh. “That ain’t nothing to dismiss. Her daddy scares the fuck out of me with all that hell-and-brimstone shit.”
“Switch to Catholicism,” Chuito suggested. “We’ve got a patron saint for everything. Sinners are welcome as long as you’re willing to confess it.”
“I don’t think there’s a Catholic church near here. Not even in Mercy,” Clay said with a wince. “Sorry, buddy.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been putting off confession for this long; what’s a little longer.” Chuito forced himself to stand up rather than lie down on the mat and fall asleep like he really wanted to. “Let’s do this, Powers.”
* * * *
Chuito lay on the floor in the living room, staring at the ceiling.
Every muscle in his body hurt, but he didn’t know if it was from crashing or from Clay Powers, who was hard-core about working out. Chuito hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours because he was fucking terrified of what was going to happen when he closed his eyes.
He wanted to go back and fight some more because he was just so angry at life. He wanted to drink, but that was a downer, and he suspected that would just make the crash worse.
He wanted sugar and caffeine and some of his mother’s cooking.
Chuito wasn’t incompetent. He knew how to cook.
He just lay there instead.
Staring at the ceiling, trying to breathe past the misery.
Over twenty-four hours and no blow.
He wanted to fucking die.
Like really die.
Instead he was counting the popcorns on the ceiling because he needed something to focus his mind on. His skin felt like it was crawling. A cold, uncomfortable sweat covered his body, but the back of his neck was hot with the longing for an escape from the misery. All he could think about was the blow. Everything in him told him to get into his car and drive back to Miami as fast as he could. He wanted to get high so bad he could taste it, bitter and sweet in the back of his throat.
He closed his eyes against his will, imagining that first wild rush when it hazed the pain and heightened the anger, making it easy to take out all the fuckers who had killed Juan and Tiá Camila. God, he wanted it back. Desperately. He wanted ten more gangbangers to hunt down and kill to give him some sort of satisfaction.
But there was no one left to take out.
And there was no more blow to hide in.
No cars to steal.
No business to manage.
Just Chuito, alone, in his own private prison that was too cold because the heat in this place sucked, and it was fucking snowing outside.
He should have turned himself in to Miami PD.
At least then he’d be with his cousin and uncle.
He had more people on the inside than out.
It was late, and these Garnet pendejos all went to bed at nine o’clock. Clay wanted Chuito to meet him at his gym at five a.m. tomorrow.
Fuck him.
Chuito would work hard. He wanted to work hard. It was the only thing that distracted from the crash, but he drew the line at waking up early, and he told all of them that.
