“I hate not knowing where you are and wondering if you’re okay.”
He let out an exaggerated sigh, muttering a curse word under his breath as he wiped his hands down his face.
“Shiloh, I don’t have time for this right now. You should worry aboutyourself. Especially after that shit defense you just performed.”
I rolled my eyes, suppressing the urge to groan aloud. I didn’t usually argue with Javier, but today my defiance was too strong to hold back my feelings, probably egged on by my embarrassment for fucking up his test. There was nothing more embarrassing and shameful than failing one of his tests and proving just how much of a burden I was to him.
“I don’t understand why we’re still in this shithole with Dad when you’re making enough to pay all the bills. Why won’t you stop supporting him? He’s an addict, and you don’t owe him anything. You shouldn’t even be working for Carlos in the first place. Why can’t you find another job—anormaljob?”
“I’m not just a socio. I can’t just leave, Shiloh. You know this. You know the shit I am buried under working for Los Siete. Even if I could get a normal job, do you really want me to risk getting caught by ICE? Dad installs drywall for a living, and the pay is fucking shit,” he said, his patience thinning. “You think I can find something being undocumented in this country that will pay me enough to support the both of us?”
“I know you’re not a socio, fuckwit.Iwas the one taking care of you when you couldn’t even walk to the bathroom to take a piss because they fucked you up so badly.”
I cracked my knuckles, my anger starting to boil.
“But it’s called ‘moving away’, Javier. You really think Los Siete is going to bother coming after you when they’ve got plenty of dealers? Carlos is a psycho, but he’s not stupid. What makes you so special that he would hunt you down if we moved across the country? He’s got plenty of other Ghosts under his thumb thatactuallywant to be in Los Siete,” I said, my hands moving wildly with emphasis as my rant continued. “And you should have fucking applied for DACA like I told you to do ages ago, or the fucking SIJ Visa and now you’re over twenty-one and your options are limited here, Javier. Weneedto get out of Texas and to a state that will give you the best chance at getting a lawful immigration status.”
I held up a finger when he tried to interrupt. “Also, don’t try to bullshit me. You know Dad had no problem holding down construction jobs that paid well before his addiction got bad. It’s not because he’s undocumented. It may be bad now, but it wasnotlike this when you joined Los Siete.”
He shook his head in frustration before answering, “You think I didn’t want to get some sort of legal immigration status? You think I don’t know how fucked I am here in Texas? Who is the adult here, Shiloh?Huh?”
He took a breath, his emotions beginning to make his lip curl, a trait we both inherited from Dad.
“I’m in deep—fiveyears deep, Shiloh. Even if I had been able to obtain a visa or green card or fucking DACA status, I couldn’t just fucking leave! I couldn’t leave you and I couldn’t leave Los Siete. So, what the fuck else am I supposed to do, huh? We need money, and working with Carlos is getting us money without the risk of me or Dad getting deported. This isn’tsome local street gang, Shiloh. This is much bigger than Granby. Carlos runs a fucking empire.”
My eyes widened for a split second before I schooled my expression. As far as I was concerned, it was just Granby, Austin and some other small cities in the metropolitan area.What the fuck is an ‘empire’? And why the hell is he dropping all these bombs now?
“Shiloh, please, just drop it, okay? Ireallydon’t have time to baby you right now.”
“Fuck you, Javier. I’m not a child you have to hold hands with to cross the damn street.”
“Could’ve fooled me. You wouldn’t be fucking breathing right now if it weren’t for me. So knock it the fuck off!”
I sighed, shaking my head at his stubbornness.If he just listened to me and stopped treating me like a damn incompetent toddler, we could get out.
“Look, I already started searching for jobs. I can help pay the bills so we can save up. We can move out together when I turn eighteen, get an apartment, and get as far away from here as possible. Go somewhere Carlos will never find us. It’s like…like you don’t even want to get out. Do you enjoy this life? It doesn’t make any fucking sense, Javi. You’re just another Ghost to them, and they’ll replace you in a heartbeat. Why can’t you go with me? Do you not want to?”
I saw a look of hurt flash across his face, and I regretted what I said. I knew he didn’t have a choice when he joined. But I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him behind like he wanted me to.
“Shiloh, do you seriously think Carlos would let me just walk away?” Javier paused to raise his brow in emphasis, and I remained silent, already knowing the answer. “He’s had me under his thumb since I was ten. He’s spent eleven years grooming me, training me to be a member of his empire. Youdon’t know the kind of shit I do for him. Why the hell do you think I’ve sheltered you so much from them? Why have I told you tonevergo to the police?”
I quirked a brow and droned, “So that you guys don’t get deported and then CPS would separate us.”
Javier growled, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Let me paint you a picture, Shiloh. Let’s pretend that last night I came home beat up and this morning you decided to go to the police for help. And for argument’s sake, let’s say you were like other teenagers. You had friends, a phone, social media…a boyfriend.”
I clinched my jaw with a scowl.
“Now, if you were lucky to speak to a police officer that wasn’t in Los Siete’s pocket, they’d send someone to the house. Where, yes, Dad and I could be discovered as undocumented and sent back to Mexico. But none of that would matter, because Carlos would find out and smooth everything over.” He smiled humorlessly. I shifted my weight, uncomfortable with where this hypothetical was going. “The report you made would disappear and you might think, ‘okay, well at least we’re still breathing’.Wrong. Carlos would take you, torture you until you told him every single person that you ever spoke to about me, about Los Siete or about our family. Then, he’d make me kill you.”
Javier raised his fingers like a gun and pressed them against my forehead, making me adjust my stance to not fall over.
“Then he’d cover up your death, go through every single person that follows you on socials, all your friends, all your classmates, your boyfriend, ex-boyfriends…He’d find out which ones you spoke to about me or Los Siete and they’d all be bought or killed.”
I swallowed, not sure if I believed his story, and slapped his finger gun away from my forehead.
“And after everyone was silenced by whatever means he deemed necessary, then he’d give me the chance to continue working for him, or to die. Now ask me how I know all of that would happen?”
