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LILIANA

I ’m pissed off, and the fucker in the street didn’t help my mood either. He reminded me of Elijah, which may have made my foot a little heavier on the accelerator.

Oops?

It’s impossible to forget those boys. It must be nice to live rent free in the person’s mind whose life you ruined.

“Fucking assholes,” I grumble under my breath as I drive to see Maurice.

So far, I haven’t heard any whispers about anyone selling GHB. I have a feeling I may need to dress like someone else and hit a club in an attempt to have someone try to drug me. Maurice is the only one I deal with, which means that no one knows who I am.

I’ve already been hit on a few times by people that I know work for him yet are going to UCSB. Both men and women, but it would be laughable to say that I’m interested in dating or fucking.

I just want to figure out how far the GHB drug selling goes so I can stop it. I may need to make myself bait to be able to find out.

“Lili,” Maurice says as I walk in the back entrance of his warehouse. There’s no one around, and I have a feeling that he cleared the areas that he knows I’ll be walking through.

“Tell me how business is,” I reply. “Did the shipment of weapons go well to Abel’s crew?”

“Yes,” he says. “The truck left yesterday, and is traveling to Texas now. So far, no issues.”

The silly thing about all of this is that there’s no real issue with Maurice’s ability to sell weapons or run the strip clubs that he manages. The problem Mr. Emil has is the drug selling of such a dangerous substance.

This is a meaningless meeting that is a waste of both of our time. However, I can see that Maurice is sweating a little as I sit in his office.

“Am I keeping you from something?” I ask him. I haven’t killed anyone in two fucking weeks, and it’s making me twitchy. I’m an addict who needs her next fix now.

“No, ah yes?” he says. “You make me nervous, Liliana.”

“This is a scheduled meeting, I’m where I’m supposed to be,” I tease him, pulling out the knife from my boot to play with it.

He hates when I do this. I’ve learned quite a bit about Maurice recently.

“Yes, I know. We just had a small issue with my son,” he explains.

Brow raised, I incline my head. “He’s going to UCSB, isn’t he?” I ask.

He doesn’t know much about me or my movements, and I regularly check the SUV my father bought me for trackers.

“Yes, he is,” Maurice says.

“May I ask what the trouble is?” I ask innocently.

The poor man looks as if he wants to shit himself. Rumors of my prowess with a knife have been circulating, even if few people know what I look like. The smell of fear is sour, but it’s also gratifying to know that he knows what I’m capable of.

“My son says that he had a run-in with a crew in Goleta,” he explains. “It may or may not have been related to me.”

I stare hard at him, wondering if he knows what his son is doing. I haven’t given up the idea that Santiago, his son, may not be selling drugs and that he’s being set up as a fall guy.

I’m exploring all of the options. Just because I have a heavy trigger finger and a sharp temper, doesn’t mean that I’m incapable of deeper thinking. I’m responsible for finding out the facts.

Maybe it’s time for me to be seen a little more. I need to feel this out.

Fuck it.

“Is your son here?” I ask, raising a brow. At his nod, I shrug. “Why don’t I ask him some questions?”

“No!” Maurice yells, swallowing hard as he begins to breathe hard. He’s not really helping his cause here.

“ Si, o me lo vas a pagar,” I growl, shoving my knife back into my boot as I stand. I told him that I would take it from his very hide if he didn’t bring me his son, and I mean it.

His hands are shaking as he nods, standing to walk me out. I’m fully armed, though many of my weapons are hidden. My tank top and jeans have a jacket thrown over top, and there’s every possibility someone may think I’m weak for it.

I’ll never be weak again.

I walk through the warehouse as if I own it, my hair in my face as I watch where everyone is. It’ll be difficult for someone to identify me this way, but I’m putting faces to names in my portfolio as I move through the warehouse.

“Santiago!” Maurice calls out sharply. A guy with bad skin and hair glances over, appearing surprised. He hisses at the man in front of him, and Maurice’s son turns to face me.

Santiago has deep green eyes, wild curly brown hair, and is just a little taller than me. He attempts to give me a flirtatious smile, but I’m pretty sure my pussy is drier than it has ever been.

I’m not at all interested. It’s not his fault, I’m simply broken. He’s also someone I may have to torture and kill to set an example. I won’t shit where I eat, thanks.

“Yes, Dad?” he says, walking over to us. “Who is this?”

“That’s up to her if she tells you,” Maurice grunts. “Please explain what happened today after your classes.”

“Ah, I went to get some food with some friends,” he says. “They started talking a lot of shit and things got heated.”

Tilting my head back a little, I notice that there’s an impressive cut under his eye.

“What does the other guy look like?” I ask, almost teasing. At least that’s what it would sound like if my tone wasn’t so dead and toneless.

Santiago flinches as if I had hit him, but forces himself to breathe through it.

“If I’m honest, I chose to leave because the guns were coming out and I was alone,” he says. “I got into my car and left while they shot at me.”

“Why did things get heated?” I ask.

‘“You know, they thought I was encroaching on their territory when all I wanted was to eat,” he sighs. “They said some shit about my father I couldn’t ignore, even though I should have.”

His eyes have a difficult time meeting mine as I continue to stare at him, and I decide there’s a fifty-fifty chance that the bastard is lying to me. I’ll just have to continue my plan to bar hop at the college bars this weekend.

I should go tonight, but I think I’m going to dress like a slut and see if anyone makes the mistake of trying to force themselves on me. I need a reason to kill someone so that I don’t stab anyone I shouldn’t.

“You should make better decisions so you don’t give your father a heart attack,” I say mildly. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what they said about him?”

Santiago swallows hard before telling me, but I can tell that it’s a fabricated story. He trips on his words, repeats himself, and I quickly find myself losing patience.

“Alright,” I interrupt. “I want you to stay out of Goleta. Find another place to eat. It’s clear that you’re on their radar, and I don’t want to deal with your funeral if you wind up dead.”

“What?” Santiago asks, confused.

“She stated things plainly,” Maurice snarls. “She’s not someone you make repeat herself.”

“I don’t know who she is,” his son complains. “Who doesn’t introduce themselves?”

“Who I am doesn’t matter in this conversation,” I say. “You’re going to get killed if you don’t get your shit together.”

My words are a warning of many different facets. If he’s actually is supplying and selling the date rape drug, there will be hell to pay.

IGNACIO

I’ve been in prison for two years today. There’s nothing like feeling sorry for yourself on a day like this one.

My father came to visit me this morning, but his sad eyes just made it all worse. I asked him about Liliana, and he told me to write her my damn self.

Fuck, I hate when he’s right. I have a stack of letters that I’ve read and put aside in my bunk, too sad to respond back. The letters have dried water on them, and sometimes the letters are smeared. I want to wrap my arms around her and mourn with her.

Instead, I’m in here, trapped like a fucking animal. I feel like a coward that I’ve never responded back, but I know my letters would be monitored. I won’t be able to tell her everything that I want to, and so I will stay silent.

“Reyes, let’s go. It’s time to head to the exercise yard. Get your ass moving. Let’s go, cell block B!”

The prison guard has a variety of different weapons on his belt to get me to move, and it’s frankly not worth the trouble to fight it. Maybe some sunlight will help perk me up, though I doubt it.

My prison sentence states that I’ll be here until I’m an old man. I don’t want to hear about how Liliana moved on with someone else, but I also don’t want her to be alone forever. She has so much love to give, I fucking hate that Rachelle and I both left her.

My footsteps are heavy as I walk to the exercise yard. We get twenty minutes out here until we have to return, but I do what I can in my cell at night when I can’t sleep to keep up my strength.

My body is built differently than when I was in school.

There’s a brutal power to it that I never had before.

I keep my head down whenever possible, but there are moments when inmates think that they can fuck with me.

My punches are now their own death sentence, and I killed a man who jumped me within my first four months of prison.

I went to solitary confinement for several weeks, and it gave me a peace I doubt was meant for me. I went to a place where Rachelle was alive in my mind and we were with Lili. I walked out smiling like a mad man, and there were murmurs that I was a crazy motherfucker.

I am one, just not for the reasons that I’m in prison. I keep to myself while in here, but glance up as I walk into the sunshine of the yard. Men mill around in groups as they talk, yet my gaze is pulled to a man with poofy hair and beady eyes that remind me of a ferret.

Theo’s newspaper stunt stayed with me, and I clipped a photo of the man who hurt Rachelle when she was too young to be able to protect herself. Then I memorized his face, his cruel smirk as he walked free in one of the photos my ex-lover and best friend found, and his high cheekbones.