Clothes hang strung over the second-floor balcony, and bicycles on the patio are thrown haphazardly, as if they aren’t worth stealing. Paint peels from every surface.
This place is where dreams go to die.
I shudder thinking about the diseases that line every surface of the rooms and what’s been done in them. I, for one, will be sleeping in all my clothes on top of the bed, thank you very much. I just hope it’s cleaner than the supposedly washed sheets.
I inwardly cringe at the thought of bed bugs because I suspect I will have to burn my clothes after this. Mateo and I check into our room for a couple of hours of much-needed sleep. We just can’t sleep at the same time. We don’t want anyone to try to steal our van and discover some dead bodies.
I let Mateo sleep first, and he verbalizes no complaint. I take my e-book reader and finish my favorite dark romance hitchhiker novel.
I look up to find Mateo staring at me as I read the epilogue’s last part. “Fucking cliffhangers. Ugh. The worst.” I shut my e-reader, but not before downloading the next book in the series. I stretch and get up from the chair to take his place.
He places his hoodie over his head, pulling his arms through the sleeves and tugging it down. “I’m going to grab some coffee in the lobby. I’ll be right back.”
He leaves, but not before I tell him to hurry back. Of course, he knows this, but I can’t help it. As soon as my head hits my arm on the bed, I fall into a deep sleep.
Finally, we arrive at the location Jameson told us to be at. They drove Cherry’s conspicuous bright-red car over earlier and are already returning to Houston.
We transfer the bodies and strap them into the back seats with firmly locked seat belts in place. Their heads are duct-taped to hold them up.
I take a step back and look at my work. I bring my finger up to my chin in a pensive stare.
“What do you think, Mateo? Do they look okay?” I look over at him and find him looking at me with annoyance. “What?” What died up his ass?
“Evie, what does it fucking matter? We are going to set this motherfucking car on fire in a few minutes.” He raises his hand, grabs his hair, tugging it upward, and walks around in a circle.
“Calm down, Mattie. Don’t get your chonies in a bunch.”
He stops me from speaking further with a raise of his hand. “Please do not refer to my underwear as ‘chonies.’ I’m not twelve.”
I laugh at the Mexican slang word we use for men’s underwear.
“I just want it to look good when they burn, okay? Is that too much to ask? Have you no pride in your work?” I place a hand on my hip for emphasis.
“Fine, just stop talking about my underwear. It’s weird.” He huffs.
“Fine. You got it. No chonies,” I retort.
I close the door and drive off, exasperated with Mateo. In the rearview mirror, I see him trailing a short distance away in the van. “He's lucky I love him and that he is my brother,” I say aloud to myself, shaking my head in annoyance.
I pull up outside of the Martinez family estate—the home that Julian forced my sister to stay in with his mother and father. Pretentious fucks don’t bother to live in a gated community. They think they are untouchable with their reputation, but when people think you’re dead, they aren’t suspecting you’ll bring their dead son to their doorstep, so to speak.
I step out of the piece-of-shit sedan Cherry owned and shuffle over to the passenger seat where the window is rolled down halfway. I shut the door quietly so as not to make a racket, light a piece of Julian’s shirt that I cut out and saturated in petrol and flick it through the window.
I run in between the carefully maintained privet hedges. My combat boots slap the pavement as I sprint around the block and down the street where Mateo is waiting in the parked van. I shut the door just as I hear the explosion. We drive off, headed back to Houston having completed what we set out to do.
We drive silently, saying little until Mateo verbalizes precisely what I am contemplating. “How long do you think we have until Mr. Martinez discovers it was us?”
I look over at him and shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine, but now there is no going back. We’ve killed his son.”
Mateo’s fingers on the steering wheel tighten, and his jaw ticks. He is really pissed about something. Right when I am about to ask him what’s wrong, he cuts me off.
“He’s going to go after Emma and Eduardo for sure. It’s just a matter of time before he finds out about us, too.”
It will be all out there. There is no going back.
“I’m not hiding in the shadows anymore, bro. I am all out and ready to end this.”
“Me, too. I’ve been hiding longer than you, and I want a normal life.” He tugs at his hair, and I swear the guy will regret that action when he starts to go bald.
