“Ay, Papi!” Two of the women tugged at my clothes.
“Cuánto cuesta?” I forced myself to smile, asking for the price, as I wrapped my arms around two of them.
They looked at my watch, then my shoes, and I took off my watch.
“Solamente efectivo! Cash, white boy!” one of the men sitting on the roof of his old black Cadillac in the parking lot demanded.
God, I hated pimps.
I looked at the dark haired women to my side.
“Three hundred.” She popped her gum. “For one of us.”
Three hundred? What was I getting, the deluxe service?
I nodded and let go of the other girl before I followed her up to room number five. The moment door closed, she already dropped her skirt.
“You can pay—”
Clasping my hand over her mouth, I held the gun to her skull.
“Don’t yell and your brain stays in your head,” I said in Spanish. When she struggled, I pushed her up against the door.
“Sweetheart.” I held the gun right between her eyebrows as she turned to face me. “I’m giving you a chance here. Don’t push it or you will die. If you scream, you will die.”
“You got no idea who you’re fucking with. I work for Slasher. He ain’t gonna let any of his girls get treated like this with—”
“You sure?” I questioned. “You think he would feel that way if I drop a kilo in front him? Or maybe a mil? You aren’t a person, you’re a machine. You take it up the ass and he gets the bills right out of you. Now you can shut your mouth and wait two more minutes.”
“Fuck yo—”
I smacked her over the head with the butt of my gun and she fell to the ground. With a sigh, I picked her up and dumped her on the bed. Dropping three hundred beside her, I glanced at my watch.
Three.
Two.
One.
I heard the sirens followed by the start of engines as the sounds of people running outside the door reached my ears. I opened the door to see a squad coming up the stairs dressed in full riot gear. They rushed past me, as I leaned in the doorframe and saluted them.
Miguel came up last, still as short, round, and tan as ever. He glanced into the room then back at me.
“She’s alive. We had a little disagreement about her lifestyle choice. Go on,” I said to him.
He shook his head at me and followed his men.
“Room eight!” he yelled back to me. I hated the police, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t useful.
I moved past them as they pulled thug after and thug out of the rooms, along with their half-dressed hookers. I stepped in front of room number eight and peered inside. One Emilio Guerra, aka Slasher, sat zip-tied to a chair with duct tape over his mouth.
“Emilio!” I called to him as I stepped inside. The two officers who were in the room nodded to me as they left. “You and I need to talk. I got a Seven Blood problem in my city.”
He shook his head and glared at me.
I pulled out a knife and held it in my left hand while I weighed my gun in my right.
“Emilio, we can do this clean, or I can be dirty. Believe me when I say that I’d rather not be here right now. But business is business and I will do whatever I need to for however long it takes for me to get what I came for.”
He lifted his neck, signaling for me to kill him.
Dirty it was then.
CORALINE
“Oh my gosh!” I stopped when I saw the white, satin Christian Louboutin crystal-embellished peep-toe slingback sandals that had been brought out on a pair of pillows, as they clearly deserved.
Following them, I stopped when I saw a woman dressed in a blood red dress. Her long wavy back hair shifted to the side, as a white coat hung on her olive skinned shoulders. She wore her gold Cartier Paris sunglasses as she scrolled through her cell phone. She didn’t even touch her own feet, as a woman beside her, who could use a nice makeover, kneeled and took off her white Jimmy Choos to grab the Louboutins.
“Stare any longer and you might lose your eyes,” the woman said to me, without even looking up from her phone.
“Sorry. I just really like your shoes.”
She nodded without speaking.
One of the three guards around her stepped up to me.
“Excuse us, miss,” one of them said with a thick Italian accent.
Nodding I backed up.
“They look amazing, good choice. Sorry for bothering you again,” I said to her before I walked away.
Was Cancun really that dangerous? I had asked Eric and Patrick to wait outside, but maybe I shouldn’t have.
EIGHT
“Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.”
?Donna Tartt
CORALINE
It was our last night here and I hated the thought of leaving. We had spent the day as complete tourists; going through the city, eating from street vendors, and having our portraits drawn by street artists. And for his closing act, Declan was making dinner—chef hat, apron, and all.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re making.” I leaned over the counter, but he closed the lid before I could see.
“I said it was a surprise.”
“Aren’t you tired of surprising me?”
“Not even a little bit.” He blew on the wooden spoon and lifted it to my lips for me to try.
I moaned. God, it was good.
“And here I thought I was the only one who could make you moan like that,” he pouted, as he licked the spoon.
“Apparently, it’s not just you, but everything involved with you. So far you’ve proven that you’re fearless, bilingual, a master chief, a devil in bed—”
“A devil? Really?” He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m honored to have pleased you so well. What put me over the top? The second night I took you from behind? Or was it the fifth day when you rode my tongue—”
“And you are gentleman, for the most part, with a good family,” I cut him off without answering.
He snickered to himself, as he turned his attention back to his pots.
“Come on, you’ve gotten to know some of my flaws. You know I snore, I run away from commitment, I don’t drink, I don’t party unless I’m dragged out of my house and I don’t really have an adventurous bone in my body despite having enough funds and resources to do pretty much whatever I wanted… you’re almost too perfect, you must have a flaw of some sort. So tell me, what is it? Are you secretly a serial killer? Do you not want kids? Do you have dirty thoughts about family members or perhaps some weird fetish?”
“The only person in the world who thinks those are flaws is you, Coraline, and that doesn’t count. And regarding all of the questions you asked afterward, the answer is no.”
“Hey, my flaws are crimes against my twenties, okay?” I replied, and he laughed at me while stirring the vegetables.
“Fine.” He sighed as he put the burner on low, and wiped his hands on the dishcloth that was draped over his shoulder.
“Fine?”
He nodded and walked over to me with the same virgin drink we’d had on our first night. Handing it to me, he leaned in.
“I have a fear of clowns.”
I stopped and looked him over, his face was serious, but I saw his the corner of his lip twitch.