“Chinga tu madre pinche hijo de puta,” I gritted out between my locked jaw as I tried kneeing him in the balls.
He pulled our bodies too close for me to have any distance to leverage. Adrian sighed like he was dealing with a toddler throwing a tantrum. I used his lapse in judgment for underestimating me and threw my head towards his arm, unclenching my jaw long enough to lock onto the flesh of his bicep.
The fucker hissed in pain and tried to shrug me off of him, causing us to stumble back into the living room. But I wasn’t a quitter and only bit down harder.
“Puta madre, Shiloh. Let go before you break the skin!”
I glared into his eyes before finally relenting and pulling away. He groaned in disgust at the lingering trail of saliva dripping down his arm. Using his shirt to dry off, he shot his eyes up to mine.
“Jesus. What are you, a fucking dog?”
“Call me a fucking coward again and I’ll force feed you that whole tray of lasagna,” I threatened, pointing to the stovetop.
Adrian sighed with a wince, closing his eyes for a moment.
He looked up, his face stone serious. “I will do whatever I need to for you to comply.”
I scoffed with a shake of my head. “Like what? You don’t have anything to threaten me with. Emotional manipulation only works if I give a fuck about you. I have all the fucking powerhere. I can murder you myself. Tell Carlos you were a soplón just like my rat brother.”
He licked his lips, a cruel smile curling his lips upward.
“Oh, you have all the power do you?”
My shoulders tensed at his question.
“Does your boyfriend know that you shot a man in the head to get revenge?”
“No.” The sound barely pushed past my lips as the scene replayed in my mind for the first time in weeks.
“Does his dad know that his son is sleeping with a murderer?”
I’d been so good about blocking it out. Tucked away in a vault in the back of my mind. But the fact that I hadmurdereda man to join Los Siete sent me to my knees.
The gun was heavy. Heavier than I thought it would be.
Its weight felt impossible to hold in my shaking hands. I couldn’t stop the trembling racking through my whole body. It forced me to lean my weight against the solid warm chest of the man forcing me to do this—Carlos.
“I can’t,” I whimpered, my arms going slack beside me.
“You can and you will. You don’t have to look if you don’t want to. Just pull the trigger. It’ll be over soon, güerita.”
He placed his hands on my arms to raise the gun and aim it at the man hogtied on the ground. He was crying and by the wet stain on his jeans and the puddle beside him, he’d pissed himself. The stench of it lingered in the damp air of the concrete box of a room we were in. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling casting yellow shadows around the room. I ignored the other body on the ground. The one Adrian had already been told to shoot and kill and had done so without hesitation.
I shivered again.
Carlos’s hands pressed against my own, his body curled around mine and hot breath tickled my ear.
“I’m doing you a favor, Shiloh. Would you rather I make you watch him get tortured until you get the balls to put him out of his misery? He’s got plenty of blood left to bleed.”
I froze. Unable to move even though the logical response would be to not test Carlos.
“José.”
I swallowed. My brother’s replacement as arreglador stepped into the room a moment later.
“Yes?”
“Play with him.”
