Page 53 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name

Daniel nodded.

Terry stuck the cigarette in his mouth and fumbled in his pockets for a lighter. “Pushed some stuff for the cartel too back in the day, no?”

Daniel shoved his hands in his pocket and didn’t reply. Since they both knew the answer to that question, there seemed little point.

Terry gave another grunt that might have been a laugh. “Until he didn’t no more.”

He waited to see if Daniel had any kind of response to that. Daniel didn’t. He knew this game. The smiles and easy laughs that always punctuated Terry’s conversations were part of the act, too. In the same way that he was slow until he was fast, the big man was always friendly until he really, really wasn’t. He was your best friend until he was distributing your body parts in so many dumpsters. For all the years Daniel had known him, he’d managed to stay in the gap between his two extremes.

Terry smiled, making the cigarette stick out the side of his mouth at a jaunty angle. “I don’t give a fuck who you fuck, Daniel.”

Daniel’s blood seemed to have stalled in his veins. And he knew now, without a doubt, that Terry knew about Julia. Whether because Milo had told him, or by some other means.

The guy was still patting and poking at his pockets, looking for the lighter that he could never find. He stopped and looked at Daniel, as if expecting him to supply him with his lighter, as he usually did. Daniel kept his hands in his pockets.

He plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and stuck it back behind his ear. “What I do give a fuck about is if you don’t show when you say you’re gonna show up. It’s just basic manners. You know what I’m saying?”

Abruptly, he turned and started ambling toward his car parked on the street.

Daniel glanced behind him again at the trailer, but he had no choice: he had to follow. Maybe it was the reminder of his dad’s choices, and where they had gotten them all. Or maybe it was something he had always known deep down. But it occurred to him now with the clarity it hadn’t before: there was no running away from this life. It always found you.

And it was always really fucking angry when it did.

* * *

Julia heard the ’Cuda’s engine rumble to life, gravel crunching beneath its tires as it reversed down the drive. She waited, listening, until the sound faded completely. Only then did she push open the cupboard door, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

As she stepped out, her foot caught on something, dragging it out with her. A gym bag.

Her phone chirped from the beer crate. She snatched it up, her fingers cold despite the midday heat.

Sorry baby. B back soon to take u home xx.

She sank onto the edge of the bed, her mind circling back to the other man she’d glimpsed before Daniel had slammed the door shut. The one with the spiderweb tattoo stretched over most of his scalp. He was big. Rough-looking. Dangerous.

Sebastián’s voice echoed in her head:Daniel has friends. The sort of friends that, if they ever become enemies, well, your life expectancy goes down a lot.

Was that man one of them?

She exhaled slowly, pressing her fingers against her temples. Her mind reeled back to their earlier conversation—Daniel’s face hardening when she’d asked if he ever wanted to go back to Mexico.I can’t,he’d said.If I leave, I can’t come back.

He hadn’t spelled it out, but she’d understood anyway.

He was undocumented. Sebastián, too.

A tight, aching feeling bloomed in her chest.

God.

She thought of all the things they must go without, the doors that were slammed shut before they could even knock. The risks they carried just by existing in a country that didn’t want them. The ordinary, everyday indignities they had to endure.

And yet, Daniel never talked about it. Never let her see that weight on his shoulders.

Did he think she wouldn’t understand? That she couldn’t understand?

Maybe it was worse than that. Maybe, deep down, he didn’t trust her.

The thought stung more than she wanted to admit.