Page 91 of Hard to Love
Still half crouched, Greer spotted something else under the table. She reached for it, and although it was a crumpled mess, she recognized the weight and feel immediately. Her already shaking hands trembled harder. The heavy cream linen was marked with tiny brown splotches. Blood.
“Delaney…”
“Shiiit.” Delaney sighed the word and closed her eyes.
All Greer’s earlier concern and panic congealed into a single ball of certainty, one that weighed so much, she had a hard time holding herself upright.
Greer knew she shouldn’t, that nothing good could come of it, but she sank to the floor, smoothed out the envelope, and pulled out the piece of card stock inside. Then she checked the other side of the envelope. Addressed to Alex Villanueva.
“They’re ready then?” Greer couldn’t even bear to look up at Delaney and forced the words into a monotone.
“God, Greer, I’m sorry—”
“You make the boots when it’s time. And this envelope gets delivered when it’s time.”
Delaney pulled out the folding chair and collapsed into it as though she were ten months pregnant instead of a few weeks. “What are you going to do now?”
Greer’s laugh was as bitter as a bushel full of red blackberries. “He knew exactly what this was. What it meant. And he cared so damn little that he didn’t even bother to toss it in the trash. He just left it here on the floor like a dead roach.”
“Maybe if I talked with him again—”
“We all still have free will. No one has to accept the future the boots hold.”
Which meant, in absolute terms, that Alex no longer wanted her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Alex rolled into San Antonio with ten grand less than what he’d promised Ruben, along with ink and a second-hand coil tattoo machine stashed in the back of his car. It was time to do the best negotiating job he’d ever attempted.
Most men would be drenched in flop sweat at the thought of walking up to the head of gang’s house with too little cash and no weapons except his hands and his brain. But Alex was ice cold. So fucking frozen that it would take a pickax to chip away at him.
Ruben’s place was actually well kept, with a small patch of trimmed grass in the front. No flowers or girlie shit, but there were no couches or ass-flattened recliners on the front porch either.
Classy.
Alex gave the triple-tap knock that indicated he was one of them.
The door swung open to reveal a kid somewhere between thirteen and twenty wearing a red wifebeater, a flat-brimmed LA Kings cap, and saggy ass jeans. His punk-ass look was accessorized by a Lorcin .380 in his right hand. Kid’s chin jerked up aggressively. “You Tatuaje?”
Tatuaje.He sure as hell hadn’t missed being called Tattoo. Someone he’d been a lifetime ago. “Yeah.”
The kid, who had the crappily inked initials TP on hisneck, glanced down at the bag in Alex’s hand as if silently calculating how many twenties could be stuffed inside. The size must’ve met his approval because he made a c’mon motion with the gun and opened the door wider. “He’s in the back.”
Unlike his brother before him, Ruben apparently didn’t keep a house full of cocky homeboys to ensure his personal safety. Just the door opener and another guy kicked back on the new-looking recliner, watching reruns ofSeinfeld. The second guy looked carelessly over his shoulder at Alex’s escort and said, “You gotta watch this man. I’m laughing my ass off.”
“In a minute,” Wifebeater Boy said. “Ruben’s got company.”
Reyes Negros, a rival gang in town, must not realize the Tejanos Pintados were getting soft. Alex sure as hell wouldn’t be the one to tell them.
The kid pointed his gun toward a hallway, indicating Alex should walk in front of him. Well, at least they hadn’t lost all sense of self-preservation. Which, strangely enough, relieved Alex. If they’d gotten lazy, that could also put Nicolás’s life in danger from those rival gangs.
Just as it had been from the outside, Ruben’s house was neat and clean. Not like some of the shithouses they’d crashed in years ago. But Ruben didn’t exactly live the high life since Tejanos Pintados wasn’t big enough to rival the gangs that were in bed with the south-of-the-border drug cartels.
They emerged from the dim hallway into a surprisingly bright kitchen. And there, at a rectangular wooden table in the center, sat Ruben. He’d grown a soul patch and had put some bulk on over the years. Then again, so had Alex.
Ruben stood and looked Alex over, sizing him up aswell. “Looking good,ese.” A broad grin cracked his initially stoic expression, and he held out his hand for the complicated gang greeting.
Alex responded out of pure muscle memory, going through the hand grips and shoulder bumps as perfectly as if he’d been doing it every day for the past eight years. They pulled back from the pseudo-embrace and Alex said, “Looks like you’ve been packing away the tamales.”
