Page 3 of Bad Men

But I knew when to drop it. I could see the strain she was under, the pain just from sitting. I saw the way she caught herself trying to get to her feet, the way she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. I rushed to help her, but she waved me back.

“I’m fine. Just got up too quickly.”

Neither of us said a word when gathering the money into a crisp, white envelope. I watched my mom struggle out of the kitchen and climb the stairs. I stood at the bottom, close enough to catch her if she stumbled but careful not to show it.

I considered just getting another job. I was a grown woman. I didn’t need my mom’s permission to do anything. But I couldn’t bear to see the disappointment in her eyes, the sadness. I couldn’t stand it if I hurt her more when she was already in so much pain.

The truth was, Nestor would happily give me more hours. I’d been there for almost eight years. I was his only full timer and the only one who came in early and stayed late. I worked every holiday, every long weekend, and the customers loved me. I ran his books, kept his files in order, and basically ran the diner while he took his newest girlfriend on lavish vacations. It was already a full-time job, and if we didn’t have to pay Eduardo every month, it would have been fine. Granted, if we didn’t pay Eduardo, I would never get to see Nero and Davien.

They were my sin, the reason I would sell my soul. It would devastate my family if they ever found out. It would kill my mother and break my father’s heart. It would destroy my family’s trust in me. The very thought paralyzed me with fear, yet the idea of being with them blazed like wildfire through every corner of my being. I loved them and knew I could never have them for more than those few seconds when they came to the door and took the envelope of money my father gave them. That would be it for me. That was all I could ask for.

Maybe it made me someone very stupid, especially knowing everything I knew about them, but there was no going back now.

Not for me.

Not after that night.

It had awakened something in me I didn’t know how to put back to sleep, something primal and overwhelming. I didn’t know how to explain it, not even to Liana, but that night, the things I’d let them do to me, the things I did in return had felt so perfectly wrong and forbidden in every way and, yet I had never wanted it to end.

But it had.

It had all come to an abrupt and crashing halt the moment the door had opened and light spiked into our dark, carnal cocoon. I had never pulled away so fast from anything in my life. I had torn out of there as if the very devil himself were after me and I hadn’t looked back, not the whole way down the stairs, shoving bodies aside and stumbling on discarded debris across the sticky floor. I hadn’t stopped until there was an entire block between me and them, a vacuum of twilight and space. I’d doubled over, gasping, my body a carnival ride of more emotions than I knew how to cope with at eighteen.

Five years later, I still had no idea. If anything, I was more confused than ever, especially when I knew they were the wrong kind of wrong. The unredeemable kind. The kind you stayed away from. These were not men you invited into your home, into your life, definitely never into your bed. They were criminals. Cold, dangerous men loyal to a monster. Men with no moral compass, no decency.

Bad Men.

But I loved them.

I loved all the things about them no one else bothered to see. I loved that they stayed late after every block party, BBQ, and picnic to help clean up and drive people home. I loved that they always dropped a thick envelope into the church’s donation basket every Sunday. I loved that they patrolled the schools and parks, warning away the street soldiers from recruiting the children. I loved that, no matter how dangerous and evil everyone labeled them, they’d been there when old Mrs. McLanery moved in with her son’s family across town and needed help getting her things into storage. They’d arrived at the first splinter of light and didn’t stop until the last item was in the truck.

No one ever mentioned those things.

“Mia?” my dad called from the top of the stairs, my name slightly breathless as if he’d ran out of his room in a panic.

“Here!” I called back up, moving to stand at the foot of the steps and peer up at him.

Luis Martinez had always been a handsome man. Tall and thin, he’d let his dark hair streak through with silver. It ran in the mustache he stubbornly kept over his upper lip, despite my mother’s objections. He had the stoop of a man beaten in life, but too determined to go down. It was painfully obvious in times of stress. It was there now, bowing him forward like an old man leaning on his cane. The sight never failed to spear me through with guilt.

“You shouldn’t be down there,” he said, warm, brown eyes jumping to the door over my shoulder. “Come upstairs. Stay in your room until I call you.”

“I’m fine, papa,” I began.

He shook his head. “No, do what I say. Come up. I’m almost done counting.”

Without waiting to make sure I did as he said, he turned and hurried out of sight. I heard the shuffle of his feet until they vanished into the room above my head and the door closed with a resounding crack.

Knowing it was an argument I would lose if I tried to stay, I started to make my way up. I was on the third step when I heard the creak of boards outside the door, when twin shadows obscured the afternoon light coming through the frosted glass on either side of the front door, when a quiet knock kicked me in the ribs.

I sucked in a sharp breath. My gaze jumped to the top of the stairs, half expecting my father to come barreling down, yelling for me to get upstairs.

Nothing happened.

The door to my parent’s bedroom remained firmly shut.

I bit my lip, my heart galloping in my chest. I could hear every beat reverberating along the walls of my skull, the thundering booms of war drums. It should have brought my father running. It was a wonder the whole house wasn’t vibrating with the force.

Accepting that he hadn’t heard the knock, I turned and hurried back. I tried not to notice the tremor in my fingers when I reached for the knob and twisted.

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