The sound of footsteps close on my heels made the small hairs along the back of my neck stand on end and suddenly, I wasn’t alone anymore. A pack of heathens walked at my back, their loyalty somehow surprising and yet not so all at once. There was so much between us. So many hurts and hates and bitter resentments, but there was something else growing there too. A kinship of sorts which revolved around mi sol and the darkness which lay inside each of us. We were a work of art crafted from the messiest of strokes, coloured with brushes dipped in blood and yet somehow, there was beauty in what we were becoming.
The huge man shifted aside to open the rear door of the car and I finally remembered who he was.
“Pepito?” I asked in surprise, trying to marry the memory I had of the scrawny boy I’d fought and tussled with in the streets of our hometown with this mountain of a man before us.
He’d always been a strange boy, seeking out fights with me despite how thoroughly I beat him and seeming to enjoy the humiliation of being left to bleed on the ground beneath me. Then one day he’d just vanished. I hadn’t seen or thought of him since. But here he stood, about a hundred pounds heavier and that dull look in his eyes lighting up as he moved to do the bidding of my cousin.
Pepito glanced up at the sound of his name and bobbed his head in confirmation of it, but said nothing more as he moved to open the car door to allow Carmen to step out. There was a thick puddle of mud awaiting the press of her foot, but before I caught so much as a glimpse of her within the luxurious car, Pepito dropped down to lay on the floor over the puddle, causing Brooklyn to gasp in surprise.
A tanned leg fitted with a designer high heel appeared from within the car, pressing down onto Pepito’s spine before Carmen unfolded herself from within its depths and stepped out.
“Holy tits, Batman, she’s using him as a stepping stone,” Brooklyn hissed from just behind me as if we couldn’t all see that clearly enough.
Carmen ignored the comment, stepping lightly down from Pepito’s back and moving to stand before me, tilting her head to one side so that she could take me in. Her long, dark brown hair was styled into an immaculate knot at the base of her skull and the black dress she wore was perfectly sculpted to her petite frame, making it clear she carried no weapons, though I wasn’t fool enough to let myself believe that meant she wasn’t dangerous.
“Wow, she’s pretty,” Brooklyn said in a hiss that most certainly carried. “Like, eat your heart out Adelaide Delecta because you just lost your crown, pretty.”
“Who’s Adelaide Delecta?” Niall asked curiously, not bothering to lower his voice.
“The most gorgeous woman beneath the bridge,” Brooklyn said bitterly. “She had a crown that a magical toad had given her to prove it and everything.”
“Well fuck the bridge,” Niall growled, hearing the hurt in her voice. “You’re the most gorgeous woman beneath the sun and you don’t need no toad crown to prove it.”
“Oh,” Brooklyn replied, her voice dropping into that sultry, sexy tone which always had the three of us panting over her and I cleared my throat.
Brutus barked loudly, racing past us with a furious snarl and making my heart lurch as I yelled at him to back off, lunging towards him in an attempt to catch him as he threatened to make this entire thing blow up in our faces before it had even begun.
“Down, boy,” Carmen snapped, her dark eyes meeting the dog’s in a challenging glare, and the big bastard skidded to a halt with a whimper before turning tail and fleeing back into the house.
I cleared my throat as silence fell around us in the wake of the dog’s attack, and Brooklyn breathed a wow low enough that I could only just make it out.
“It’s been a while, Carmen,” I said, taking charge of the conversation when it became clear she was going to make me do the bulk of the talking.
“I do believe the boss has a timer tracking precisely how long it has been,” she agreed. “Marking each and every second that you make him wait for retribution, so that he can be sure you suffer for them all.”
I nodded, a hollow kind of acceptance filling me over the horror which I knew would be my reality when this ran its course.
“There’s a bit of a problem with that though,” Niall interrupted, not knowing when to keep his damn mouth shut as always. “This here fella belongs to our Spider now. And her life is bonded to his. So we can’t let you or your fancy boss be chopping him up or baking him in a pie, or putting him in a vat of acid or any of that shit.”
“Stay out of this, bastardo,” I snapped at him as Carmen’s attention shifted over my shoulder with interest which I didn’t want falling on Brooklyn or anyone else here.
“I assume the Alonso brothers are all dead?” Carmen asked casually, not seeming in the least bit upset over that fact. “And that horrendous excuse for a man, Raul Castillo, too?”
“What of it?” I asked, knowing that she could see the bodies as well as I could.
Carmen smiled slowly, a goddess surveying a mortal who amused her. “I assume you know what will happen to you if anyone finds out you are here.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You already found me.”
“Correct. I found you. The Alonsos came here for the man who killed their brother. When they told me about the attack in the club, I assumed it was nothing of interest to me, but then I watched the surveillance footage and I have to admit, I was surprised to see you have found such a fondness for fetish play, primo. Pity you didn’t think to hide that scar on your chest, or I may never have realised it was you beneath the mask.”
I swallowed thickly, my shoulders pushing back as I cursed myself for wearing that fucking outfit. Not many people had seen that scar. In my youth I’d hidden it diligently, hating what it was and what it proved was trapped inside me. I’d grown out of the self-consciousness as my own conscience had slowly died away, but I still hadn’t often revealed the disfigurement to my flesh.
Mi sol had only ever looked at it with interest or perhaps even reverence though and in the time I’d known her, I’d lost any lingering feelings of unease that clung to me while showing it to the world. I hadn’t thought to keep it covered. Meaning that now I was the one who had destroyed all we had here.
“If you’re the only one who knows he’s here, then that sounds like good motivation to put a bullet between your eyes,” Niall said loudly, moving to step around me but I knocked him back with my shoulder, wanting him to stay close to Brooklyn.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” Carmen replied sweetly. “I may be the keeper of your secret as it stands, but I left a note detailing what I had discovered and where I was heading tonight locked up in my office. No one will read it, assuming I return, but if I don’t, then I’m sure someone in my organisation will have to check through my things for clues to my demise.”
“Why would you keep that information to yourself?” I demanded and Carmen clucked her tongue.
“You and I are products of the same hell, primo,” she said to me. “And there was a time that we once used to dream of escaping it together.”
“That was before we embraced our demons,” I reminded her, and that smile widened.