The Slayer (Untamed Hearts #2) (40 page)

“Okay.” Chuito shrugged. “I don’t know how to help you with that.”

“Man, the building I grew up in when I was a kid. We had rats. It was always a friggin’ issue. It was like a war against the rats. Romeo and Nova were constantly fighting them. Sometimes, at night, you could hear the traps snap—”

Alaine jumped when he said it, giving Tino a look of horror. “Did you have to throw them away after? Like dead little rat bodies that you had to dispose of? Did they die a quick death?”

“
Maldito sea
. You are freaking her out,” Chuito snapped at him. “Stop with the rats. There are no rats. You two came here. You followed me. Now we have to fucking deal with it.  I’ll figure something out in the morning.  We’ll put Alaine on a plane and—”

Alaine forgot about the rats for a moment and stepped closer to Chuito, who was digging through the drawers in the kitchen. “You can’t send me away. You can’t just—”

“Are you joking?” Chuito turned around and shone his phone at her. “There’s about to be world war three between the Italians, the Russians, and the Puerto Ricans. You can’t stay here, mami. You can’t even handle rats. He should’ve never brought you!”

“I didn’t know about the Russians,” Tino interjected. “And I had to bring her. How could I know she wasn’t going to sell you out to Wyatt? If I didn’t kidnap her—”

“You kidnapped her!” Chuito shouted at him, and then he turned to Alaine with a wild gaze. “Did he kidnap you?”

“She was sort of willing,” Tino argued and turned to Alaine too. “Almost completely willing, right?”

“Almost completely willing,” Chuito repeated in disbelief. He jumped at Tino so fast Tino couldn’t defend himself when Chuito threw him against a wall. “I really am gonna kill you.
Ahora si que te voy a matar, cabrón
.”

“Not like that!” Tino shouted at him. “I didn’t touch her! Tell him, Alaine! He has an issue with this. A big fucking issue.”

“I didn’t sleep with him.” Alaine rolled her eyes at the two of them, because this alpha-male, macho crap was so old. “And he didn’t kidnap me. I went willingly, and I’m going to stay in this rat house until we can figure out what to do about the Russians or the T-shirt fella or whatever. I still don’t know where we’re gonna pee. What happens when one of us has to pee?”

“Do you have to pee right now, Alaine?” Chuito asked as he let Tino go. “Is this an immediate issue?”

“Inevitably, it’s going to be,” Alaine couldn’t help but point out. “We have no food. No water.”

“Look, there’s water. It’s cold, but it works.” Chuito walked over to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet, which worked. “I’ll go out tomorrow and get food. There’s lots of things we can eat that don’t require refrigeration.”

“I get the impression this isn’t the first house you’ve squatted in,” Tino observed.

“I’ve been in a gang war before.” Chuito sighed. “I used to squat in houses with my cousin. I know what I’m doing. We can survive here for a day or two, but we got to stop yelling ’cause—”

Chuito stopped talking when a knock echoed through the dark house.

An icy-cold rush of fear washed through Alaine, and for a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Both Tino and Chuito pulled their guns out from the backs of their jeans at the same time.

“What do we do?” Alaine asked in a voice that was barely a whisper as she looked toward the direction of the knock.

Then someone knocked again, this time louder.

“Stay here,” Tino said as he put the phone into his pocket.

Chuito turned his off too, plunging them into darkness. Chuito stepped up to her, pulling her into his arms. She could feel his heart beating hard, but the two of them just stood deadly still, with only the sound of Tino’s quiet footsteps echoing through the house.

She jumped when there was another knock on the door.

“Are we going to jail?” she whispered.

Chuito leaned down and pressed a kiss against her ear. “I won’t let you go to jail, mami.”

“Is it the police?” she choked, never having this heart-stopping fear of law enforcement before and hating it more than anything.

Chuito just tightened his arm around her waist rather than answer. His gun was still out, and Alaine’s mind was bombarded with images of a violent police shoot-out over this rat house.

What a horrible reason to die.

“Open the door,” a voice called from the outside. “Now.”

“Cazzo,” Tino groaned from somewhere in the front of the house. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“
Apri questa porta del cazzo, Valentino
.”

Alaine turned to Chuito. “Is that Italian?”

“Yeah.” Chuito sighed, sounding concerned. “I think he was hoping for the heat.”

Chuito pulled his phone out of his pocket and walked to the front of the house. When he opened the door, the light from outside illuminated Tino leaning against the wall near the front door, his gun still in his hand as he looked at the ceiling.

“Hey,” Chuito said as he pushed the door open farther and looked out to the driveway. “Where’s your car?”

“I took a cab from the airport.” Nova Moretti stepped in, wearing a three-piece black suit as if he had just walked out of a high-powered business meeting.

“You caught a flight this late?” Chuito asked as he closed the door and locked it.

“I had to charter a plane.” Nova’s face lit up in the darkness when he turned on his phone. “Are there rats in this house?”

“Probably.” Tino huffed. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

“This is really special, Valentino.” Nova let out a broken laugh. “I cannot
wait
to hear this. I’m just dying for it.”

“Told you we should’ve called him,” Chuito said in annoyance.

“How’d you find us?” Tino asked his brother. “My phone was off.”

“But Alaine’s wasn’t.”

“How did you figure out her password?” Tino growled, now sounding completely furious. “How do you do that?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to never find out.” Nova walked into the kitchen and shone his phone on her. “Hi, Alaine. I like the picture you sent Jules.
Cute
.”

“Tino took it.” Alaine shrugged. “At least she knows we’re okay.”

“I think that’s questionable,” Nova argued, shining the light on the stuffed animal and frowning at it. “Nothing about this seems okay.”

“It’s not a rat,” Alaine offered. “I found that out the hard way.”

Nova winced and then looked back to Chuito and Tino, who followed him into the kitchen. “Why are we here?”

Tino, Chuito, and Alaine exchanged shadowed looks under the lights of three cell phones.

“Okay.” Nova shone his phone on Tino, lighting up his face. “Should I go first? I’ll tell you what I know, and at any point one of you can jump in and correct me.”

The three of them just exchanged muted looks of misery.

“No one minds if I smoke?” Nova asked as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his suit jacket. “’Cause I have a feeling I’m gonna need a fucking cigarette for this shit.” He leaned down, lighting a cigarette with something shiny and silver. Then he pulled back and blew out the smoke. “So, according to my sources, yesterday Tino and Chuito got arrested for fighting with each other. Then, after they were released without being charged, they apparently decided the best way to make up was sharing, because we all know sharing is caring. So you two”—he gestured to Alaine and Chuito with his cigarette—“showed up at Tino’s place last night, for what, I can only assume, was a very interesting evening of debauchery.”

“What?” Chuito growled as he looked at Nova like he was insane. “Who told you that?”

“Wow, that happened much faster than I anticipated.” Nova laughed as he took another drag off his cigarette. “You haven’t heard this yet, Chuito?”

“Heard what?” Chuito looked completely horrified.

“Apparently, Alaine is going through a thing.” Nova looked to Alaine for confirmation.

“A complicated thing,” Alaine supplied. “Very complicated.”

“Obviously,” Nova agreed as he glanced around the kitchen again, staring at the dirty floor with a look of distaste. “So you’re into threesomes. Which, okay, whatever. I certainly can’t throw any fucking stones. I know my brother’s done some fucked-up shit in his time,” he said as he gestured to Tino. “The first problem I had with the story was you.” Nova shone his phone on Chuito. “You don’t strike me as a threesome kinda guy, Chuito.”

Chuito laughed in disbelief. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah,” Nova agreed and took another drag of his cigarette. “But let’s say, for argument’s sake, you let my brother fuck your woman.”

“Did you touch her?” Chuito growled at Tino. “You said you didn’t—”

“No one touched anyone.” Alaine huffed.

“But someone did touch you,” Nova argued. “’Cause according to Jules, it looked like you’d been attacked by a bear.” Nova shone his phone on her, studying her critically. “I don’t see anything.”

“Makeup,” Alaine explained with a smile.

“Okay.” Nova nodded, still looking at her. “Nice dress.”

“Thank you. We stopped at an Armani outlet.”

“So after your night of debauchery, Chuito borrowed Tino’s car and went to get Patrón.” Nova arched an eyebrow thoughtfully. “
In Miami
.”

No one had a response for that.

“Right.” Nova nodded and went on, “Then my brother and Alaine stole the Ferrari to come get Chuito, and this is where you three landed. Romantic.”

“Did Jules believe the threesome story?” Chuito asked, his voice tight as if he was having a hard time saying it. “She believed I let that happen to Alaine?”

“No, she started to question the validity of it about the time Tino did fifty out of the driveway with Romeo chasing after him.” Nova let out another broken laugh. “At which point she called me freaking the fuck out and has continually called me since then. Well, not continually. Sometimes it was Romeo, who, I might add, is going to bury you, Valentino. You stole the Ferrari.”

Tino held up his hand. “You trace my credit cards. I needed the cash.”

“Yeah, that’ll help your case.”

“Wait until he hears it got jacked,” Chuito offered with a glare at Tino. “You told Jules we both fucked Alaine.”

Tino shrugged. “It was half-true.”

“The Ferrari got jacked.” Nova laughed again. “Madonn’, this had better be good.” Except no one was offering an explanation, and Nova looked at them again. “It’s three o’clock in the fucking morning. I’m tired. I’ve been working all day. I had to catch a plane to Miami and take a cab into the friggin’ hood. I’m gonna ask one more time, and then I’m gonna be genuinely pissed off.
Why are we here
?”

“Chuito and I slept with each other,” Alaine started when Chuito and Tino just exchanged silent glances.

“Congratulations.” Nova took another drag of his cigarette. “No Tino?”

“No Tino.” Alaine shook her head. “Afterward, Chuito had a—” She held up her hand as she looked at Chuito. “An issue with his conscience.”

“Because of fucking you?”

Alaine shrugged. “I’m assuming that’s why.”

“Okay, that’s sweet. Go on.” Nova gestured to her. “Then what happened?”

“He left and went to Tino’s. He spent the night there. I think whiskey may be involved. I saw it on the table.”

“I’m
sure
it was.” Nova looked to Tino. “I heard about the Vicodin, Valentino. Jules found it.”

“It’s my prescription. My name is on the bottle,” Tino argued. “My arm got dislocated yesterday. Did Jules tell you that?”

“You’re not supposed to take it with whiskey. That fucks up your liver.”

“Anyway,” Alaine cut them off. “I went after Chuito, ’cause he’s my love story.”

“Aw, this really
is
sweet,” Nova said with another laugh.

“This is gonna be bad,” Tino interjected. “Let me just tell you my version.”

“I sorta like her version,” Nova argued. “Go on, Alaine. He’s your love story—”

“And, um.” Alaine swallowed hard, because Tino was looking at her with wide eyes and shaking his head. She realized they probably should’ve worked harder on their alibi for Nova on the way down here. “Maybe Tino should tell it.”

“Why don’t I just fucking tell it?” Chuito said as he stepped forward and looked at Nova. “My cousin Marcos has been telling me that Angel’s been recruiting hard. He’s been getting these kids young and younger. It was his gut instinct that something was about to go down, and I trust my cousin’s gut instinct.”

Nova nodded. “I understand.”

“So, I knew I had to come back to Miami, but I got sidetracked—”

“By Alaine,” Nova supplied.

“Right, but then after it happened, I knew it was a mistake—”

“You thought it was a mistake,” Alaine snapped at him, feeling her cheeks heat in fury. “How—”

“Let me tell my story, mami,” Chuito cut her off and then turned back to Nova. “So I went to Tino’s. I told him shit was about to get real in Miami, and this motherfucker”—he gestured to Tino—“comes up with the brilliant idea that he should come with me.”

“I don’t love that idea.” Nova’s voice was suddenly icy. “Why didn’t you call me? I’ve invested a lotta time and energy into making the business with Angel profitable. That has nothing to do with Tino.
He is retired
.”

“I didn’t love it either,” Chuito agreed. “I waited a few hours after he went to sleep. Jacked his car and drove to Miami without him. I was gonna scope out the situation, and then I was gonna call you after I had a clearer picture of everything. Except—”

“Tino followed you,” Nova finished.

“I can fucking feel the bus tires on my back,” Tino growled at Chuito. “Let me tell my version now.”

Nova gave his brother an annoyed look. “Oh, please do.”

“He was gonna come down here and whack this motherfucker Angel, like a vigilante suicide mission. I can’t let him do that. He saved my life—”

“I paid him for that,” Nova cut him off and pointed to Chuito with his cigarette. “I paid you!”

“I didn’t ask him to follow me!” Chuito countered. “That was
his
idea.”

“So we get down here,” Tino went on. “I find him scoping out a club and shopping for candy!”

“I wasn’t shopping for candy,” Chuito growled at him. “I was paying attention to my surroundings.”