I drag it to my lips and light it, pulling the smoke deep, like it might drown out the noise in my head. For some time, I tried to hold smoke inside, in the hope it would kill me, but it never did.
“At one, you go here,” the president says, stabbing a finger at the entrance on the map. “One of my guys said no one will be inside. You’ll have time. I wanted to burn it, but that old buffoon doesn’t live there, so we will trash it instead. Take anything worth something.”
Heads nod around the table.
“Next week, we will burn his place. But what I need some of you to find for me is a file on Maria and Sofia De La Cruz.”
My throat tightens.
Carmen’s mom and her little sister.
“Got it,” someone says. More nods follow.
As he gathers the photos and folds the maps, I grab Nico by the arm and sign.
How does he know about the De La Cruz family?
Nico only shrugs.
Harper tilts her head toward the bar, and we move that way. Nico leans in and asks her, “Who is Maria De La Cruz?”
She presses her lips together and flicks her hand like she wants to brush the question away. “No clue. And I don’t want to know.”
His hate for my dad is not just about Harper. It feels like there is something else behind it.
Everyone lies so clean in this place that asking questions is a good way to get a knife in your back. They will smile while they do it, and no one will ever ask why. They will just follow along.
Fallen Saints are supposed to be the brotherhood I never got to have. Instead, they became a gang that wants to crush anything in its path, and I stand in the middle of it, caught between loyalty and blood. And my loyalty was never here.
It’s finally time. Time to trash my family home. The place that’s full of ghosts and demons, I can’t face.
We park in front of the garage and walk through the grass toward the entrance. One of the men pulls his cock out and pisses on the fence I used to slam a ball against when I played soccer right here.
My jaw tightens. I look away and keep moving.
Another one doesn’t even bother with the door. He grabs the chair from the patio and hurls it through the glass wall that shields the pool. The crash explodes through the house, with shards scattering across the tiles and triggering the alarm.
Fucking idiots.
I rush inside, yanking my black bandana over my face. My boots pound up the stairs as I rush to check her room. The bed is made, but she’s not here.
I turn toward the table by the mirror. My eyes move down to a yellow flyer. As I lift it up, in big red letters it says,“Halloween Party,”and the main host is Ella.
I swallow hard.
If she and Carmen party together, I will burn myself down to the ground.
I snatch the flyer, fold it, and shove it into my pocket. Then I head to the hallway to my old room. The mask is still on the table.
Just what I need.
I grab it and walk out.
I tilt my head as one of them rushes past, eyes wild. “We have to go. Three minutes.”
I nod.
Of course, we had three minutes when he smashed a window and tripped the alarm.
