I fucking hated the bitch with every nerve in my body.
Chapter9
Lazarus
"He's bad news, isn't he?"
I helped Rodrigo move one of the cages toward the back. The wolf inside it paced and watched us as if he wanted to rip our insides out.
“I mean, she keeps him locked up in here. I’d want to kill anyone who got near me too.”
We both stepped back away from the cage, and I raised a brow. “I mean, Dean.”
"Oh, I heard bad things about him. Nothing good."
Rodrigo's accent was thick, yet his English was perfect.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Why do you stay here?"
"She is my everything. Mi amor. I could never leave her "
"What about your family. Your home."
He smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder. "She is my family and my home. When I first came here, I was lost. I was looking for danger in the wrong places."
"How did you find this place?"
"By accident. My friends, at least that’s what they made me think, went out for a drive that night and things happened. Nevada is a very dangerous place."
"Yeah, I'm sure."
"I was into partying, drinking, living the American dream." He laughed and I smirked because he wasn't completely wrong.
"My family came from money, but I was disowned by my father and kicked out of the house at sixteen. With nowhere to go, and no jobs, I got on a plane to Spain and into New York. I had only the little I'd saved and what I managed to take out of the bank before my father blocked me.
I wound up in Las Vegas at some point in my journey, and that's where I stayed."
We walked over by the neatly stacked hay, and he reached into an old cooler. He took out a beer and handed me one, then he sat back on the haystack and propped his feet up. I sat down across from him, taking a swig of the cold beer.
"That night…I'll never forget it. It was storming and Carlos, a good friend, he'd gotten into some bad shit. Drug shit."
"You didn't do drugs?"
He shook his head. "Never touched the stuff. Makes you fucking stupid."
I nodded, taking another swig of the beer. Couldn't argue with the man there.
"Anyway, we were only going to get gas. Instead, my friend got into some fight with some Chinese gang members at the station and the next thing I know, he's running toward the car and one of those guys raises his gun and shoots him in the head."
"Fuck," I murmured.
He nodded. "Exactly. I just sat there. Watching as the other guy came over and put two bullets in his head and another bullet in his girlfriend’s head, she’d been crying over him."
His eyes shifted, and he looked down at his hands, seeming distant for a second before he took another gulp of his beer.