Adrian took a deep breath, fingers drumming against the steering wheel, a dead giveaway to his anxiety.
“To take you to your new place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s not new. It was your brother’s before. But Carlos said you can stay there so you don’t need to stay with your dad anymore.”
“What place? What are you talking about?”
He looked over completely confused. “His apartment.”
“What?! He had an apartment?” My heart pounded with anger.He had a fucking apartment yet made me live at dad’s shithole? Maybe Carlos wasn’t lying after all. Maybe Javier really was just selfish prick.
“Well, it’s technically owned by a member of Los Siete, but several members have an apartment in the building. Now that you’re…sworn, Carlos agreed to let you have it. He doesn’t trust your dad to keep you safe, and since you won’t stay with him, he’s allowing you to live on your own. This building is secure, so you don’t need to worry about anything either.”
I shook my head, too fucking pissed with Javier to appreciate the fact that I would no longer be forced to stay with my dad.
“How long had he been living there?”
Adrian blew out a breath, tipping his head to the side. “Like three years, since the apartment building opened.”
The fuck?The last argument we had was about getting an apartment, yet he fucking had one.Why the fuck did we sleep on lumpy-ass mattresses on the floor when he had a whole fucking apartment? Did he enjoy watching me suffer? Was it just a fucking game to him? All a part of his fucking tests to see how much I could handle without crying?
Maybe the selfish fuckface deserved the bullet he got to the head.
I mentally slapped myself for thinking so poorly of my own brother. But I wanted to believe that Adrian was right. That Javi’s death wasn’t because he was trying to get money to help me leave, that he wasn’t snitching because he had a moral compass. Every new piece of information I gained pointed towards my brother only caring about himself.
I was livid, and more than ready to see this secret apartment I was apparently unworthy of knowing about while he was alive.
???
Laughter was the only way I was preventing myself from sobbing.
An apartment. Not just any apartment. It was a fucking two bedroom, fully furnished, fully kitted out kitchen, apartment. With a damn balcony that overlooked the lake and the new outdoor shopping center that the building was located in.
Although it was clear that Carlos and a Ghost ended up here at some point because the place was already trashed much like our bedroom was the night Javi—Stop.
“This is hilarious,” I wheezed, my ribs aching slightly with the effort. “I fucking…I fucking can’t. This is just so damn hilarious. I begged my brother to get us a place and stop supporting our sperm-donor and he had a fucking apartment this whole damn time…Jesus Christ what a selfish fucker. And that second bedroom…why the fuck is it decorated for a girl if I never once came here in the three years that my brother had this place?”
Adrian eyed me like he thought I might need an intervention. He wasn’t wrong.
“Well, I assumed it was because you were staying here part of the time, but…I honestly don’t know now. Maybe Carlos set it up that way, thinking you’d be living with your brother.”
God, it even smelled like him. Cologne, the same one he’d been wearing since he was fourteen, and laundry detergent.
There was no denying this. No pretending that this was all an elaborate stunt from Carlos trying to get me to turn against my brother. This was real. This place…this was Javier’s, and it proved just how little I knew my own brother. How willing I was to believe everything my brother ever told me. How naïve, how pathetic and weak I was.
Javier controlled every aspect of my life, and I let him. I let him control me for years and I never questioned his motives, never questioned why we would go months living on pantry staples like rice and beans if Carlos was still paying him, never questioned why Javier wouldn’t allow me to work at all to bring in more income, never questioned where he was when he wouldn’t come home for days at a time.
It was control. I slid down onto the faux-wood floors of the kitchen, finally catching my breath and let my skull thud against the kitchen cabinet behind me. He controlled me. Was he ever going to let me leave for college? Was he even selling secrets for my benefit? Or was he just a selfish prick who had used my name on a bank account because he didn’t have his own legal documents? My eyes scanned the fully stocked pantry.
“What a fucking liar. What a fucking piece of shit, liar. Jesus, fuck.” I scoffed again.
“Do you want help straightening this place up?”
I eyed the absolute disaster and then studied Adrian. He shoved his hands into his back pockets, looking around the space. He probably needed the distraction more than I did. He wasn’t the only one who’d been tested today.
“Sure. God knows what we’ll find in this mess.”
