“Do you have a fucking brain?”
I swallowed, anger overriding any fear that was coursing through my body. “Fuck you.”
“Oh, but you already have,” he sneered. “A fucking cop, Shiloh? Afuckingcop? You spend the weekend with a fuckingcop?! Have you learned fucking anything?!”
Fuck! If Adrian knows Nox’s dad is a cop, that means Carlos probably knows who I’m hanging out with too. Oh fuck! What if Dan isn’t in Carlos’s pocket? Fucking fuck. What if I’m putting a target on their whole fucking family?
“It’s doesn’t fucking matter if Daniil Reznikovsky is a socio or a goddamn Ghost in Los Siete. When Carlos finds out you went to a fucking cop the night of your initiation, you are going to be skinned alive for the soplón he thinks you are. And if you’re lucky, he’ll kill those kids first, before he kills the parents. Unless Carlos finds out that Daniil Reznikovsky was the cop your brother was selling his secrets to.”
My heart raced, guilt flooding my bloodstream like a bump of coke.
“Fuck’s sake. Watching your brother get murdered for being disloyal wasn’t enough?”
“Cinco.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I dug my nails into my palms as a distraction.
“You’re right. I did watch my brother get murdered. And then I was raped by your father, lying in a pool of my brother’s warm blood.”“Fight like hell”“And then I was given a choice. Join Los Siete or die. Guess which one I wanted?”
Adrian’s mouth twitched with unfettered anger. When he didn’t respond, I continued.
“Death. I wanted to choose death. The one fucking choice I was given in all of this, and I couldn’t even make it. Because then I’d be responsible for your brother’s future in the gang. I chose to save him and anyone else Carlos might take to replaceme. I chosethem. So, if I want to spend some time with the only fucking people that make me want to stay alive, then I goddamn will! You want your brother to live? Then you make damn sure that Carlos never finds out who I’m spending my time with. Because the only person who stands to lose something in this scenario, Adrian, isyou. So fuck off back to sucking Carlos’s dick, or whatever the fuck it is you do when you’re not stalking teenage girls.”
Adrian took a deep breath, running his hands over his neat braids before cursing under his breath.
“I know we’re both paying for the sins of our fathers,” Adrian implored. “You’ve got to believe me when I say that I didn’t want you to be involved. And right now, we’re both trying to survive. I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, I know you’ve had no real choices here, but I’mscaredfor Lonnie. Hecannotget involved in this life.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, taking my own deep breath. “I’m not going to risk his life, okay? I did the initiation. I did the loyalty test. You’re going to have to trust me when I say that my friends are not a risk. They won’t get the police involved, because they don’t suspect anything. When I went to my friend’s house, I had no idea his dad was a cop, okay? It was merely a coincidence. Andnothinghappened. They didn’t question me about why I showed up the way I did, and his dad never mentioned anything about it either. Alright?”
There was a long pause before Adrian nodded, his shoulders relaxing.
“Alright. Fine. I’ll keep this little secret to myself. For now. But I swear to God, Shiloh, if I find out that this cop is a threat you’re going to fucking regret it.”
I nodded, trying to get my heart rate back to normal. But fuck if I wasn’t freaking out still. Had I just signed a target ontoEnoch’s family? Could I trust that Adrian would actually keep his mouth shut?
He glanced around my room, before completely ignoring my command to leave and taking a seat on the floor, his back leaning against my mattress. I sighed, realizing it was probably as good a time as any to ask about money.
“So, when do I get paid? How does it work?”
“Uh, I’ve got some cash on me now. How much do you need?” he asked, leaning over to pull his wallet from his back pocket.
“No, I mean, Carlos made it sound like I would be getting a salary or something. I know my brother had enough cash to pay most of the bills around here. I just wanna know how I can get the money to not become homeless or starve to death.”
He nodded, placing a wad of twenties on my quilt beside my hand. “Well, Carlos deals in cash only. If you want to put it into a bank account that’s up to you, but it’s gonna always come as cash whatever money you need.”
“Okay, so what do I do? Just hand over my bills and let him pay them? What about money for food and other shit?”
He glanced around the room. His gaze lingering on Javier’s clothes that were still hanging in our shared closet.
“Do you want to keep living here?”
I was surprised by the question and had to take a moment to contemplate.
“No. I plan to move out as soon as I’m eighteen. The only reason I’m stuck here as it is, is—was—because Javier couldn’t move me out of the house without having any of my legal documents. Being undocumented didn’t help his case either.”
Although, apparently Carlos had given Javier the means to get us out of this house years ago. I buried that idea in the deepest part of my mind. I couldn’t think about Javier or thewhat-ifs anymore, it was only making it harder to find the will to stay alive.
He hummed in thought. “I’ll take care of it. And see what I can do about getting you out ofthis.” He waved his hand around the room with a look of mild disgust. “You shared a room?”
