Page 10 of The Right Garza

From Tina:I miss your cock. Accompanied by a topless selfie.

From Camille:Hey Zaddy. I’m in LA for a few days. Can we meet? Really want you in my mouth again.

From Kylie:Kitty misses you. Accompanied by a short video clip of her touching herself.

It’s enough for me to back out of his inbox and toss his phone back to him. “You’re a slut.”

“Quit trying to deflect, Lexi,” he says. “I’m not letting this go.”

He wouldn’t be a Garza if he did, would he?“I’m just…in a bit of a debt.”

“What kind of debt?”

“The life-or-death kind.”

“With who? Slim?”

“Pfft. I stopped working with that asshole a while ago.”

“Whoare you in trouble with?”

“I don’t really know, to be honest. Someone named Stefano. Stefano Castello…I think.”

To that he says nothing. He focuses on pulling out of traffic and off to the side of the road, hazard lights on. Only then does he look at me, and his now grim expression makes me squirm. “Lexi,” he says slowly, “tell me exactly what you did to get in the Castellos crosshairs, how it happened, and what he wants.Do notlie or leave anything out.”

“You know him?”

“What. Did. You.Do, Lexi?”

His tone and expression are scaring me, so I quit dawdling and just tell him. “My friend Ellie was nabbed atBlack Goldfor cheating cards. She told them I’m the one who sent her there, and now they’re holding her hostage in return for double what she tried to cheat.”

“How much?”

“Um…” I scratch a nonexistent itch on my neck. “92k.”

He stares at me for beat, then nods. Flicks on his indicator, and eases back into traffic. “You said you’re staying at Richmond’s Guest Apartments downtown?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna take you there, and you’re gonna stay put. Got it?”

“I can’t,” I protest. “They gave me forty-eight hours—well, thirty-five now—to get them the money or they’ll ‘put her in a crate on a boat’. Whatever that means.”

“Christ,” he mutters. “Just do what I say, all right? Even if you paid them the money, they wouldn’t let your friend go. They’d make an example out of her.”

A fist-sized lump forms in my throat and I gulp past it. “I don’t understand. I got caught counting inBlack Goldyears ago and nothing like this happened. They just tossed me out and banned me.”

“That’s when the Castellos were still half-civilized. Now, they’re savages. They run Vegas and answer to no one. Started making an example out of counters a while ago. Thought you knew that, Lexi. You don’t steal from the Castellos.”

I pick nervously at my nails. “I-I didn’t. I’ve only been back here a couple of weeks now.”

He sighs. “I’ll go see Stefano. See if we can work something out.”

“Oh my God, you’ll do that?” I let out a whoosh of breath. “Are you friends, or…?”

His chuckle is sardonic. “No, we’re not friends. And there are no guarantees. He’s a volatile motherfucker.”

“He gave me a card, but there’s no number or address,” I say as I pull the card from my pocket. “His name’s on the front and ‘Just ask’ on the back.”