by Aly Martinez
Blood thundering in my ears, I spun to face Chrissy. “You took her out to the street?”
She waved me off and stabbed out the joint in an ashtray. “She said she wanted firsthand experience from a professional.”
Fury radiated through me at lightning speed. “Firsthand? Are you kidding me? Firsthand would have been letting her watch you sit on your ass while you wait on Marcos to text you with a job. You haven’t worked a corner in over decade.”
She glared. “No. But that’s where we all started. She won’t be any different.”
Stepping up into her face, I roared, “She’s sixteen! She’s supposed to be in school, not working a corner!”
She cocked her head to the side and bulged her eyes, her lips twitching with humor. “Well, good news: She only stood on a corner, Princess Cora. She didn’t fucking work it.”
My body started to hum. The beating I had taken when Marcos found out I’d snuck Savannah out of Dante’s house was unrivaled. However, in the six weeks she’d been giving me hell, I’d never regretted it. I had two years to do the impossible and save the unsavable. And I’d be damned if I was going to let Chrissy guide her into the flames of hell for no other reason than misery loved company.
“How many times do I have to tell you that she’s off-limits?”
“And who decided she was off-limits? Sure as shit not her. She sneaks her ass down here every damn night, begging to go to work. She belongs on the first floor, Cora, not up in that ivory tower of yours on the third.”
That was what all the girls thought. They assumed I didn’t have the same struggles they did. No. I wasn’t out fucking to pay my rent, but I was a slave to the Guerreros just as much as they were.
Though she wasn’t completely wrong. In a lot of ways, I was a princess. But only because I had a direct line to the king. It would cost me. Dearly. But for Savannah…
Holding Chrissy’s challenging stare, I called out the open door, “Hey, Angela!”
“Yeah, Cor,” she answered immediately, proving that our altercation would be today’s first stop for the gossip train.
“Do me a favor and help Savannah back up to my place?”
“Yeah, no problem,” she chirped, eager for the opportunity to help.
Flashing Chrissy one last smile—and I do mean one last smile—I exited her apartment, lighter than I’d felt in weeks.
I hadn’t made it more than two steps before someone was calling my name.
“Cora, there’s water leaking through my ceiling.”
And someone else. “Cora, Hugo isn’t answering his cell.”
Annnnd someone else. “Cora, I want that lying bitch Ava out of my apartment!”
“Cora…”
“Cora…”
“Cora…”
It was never ending.
Closing my eyes, I made my way up the stairs, mentally prioritizing the morning’s list of dramas. It was always the same order of importance: Safety. Structural. Sanity. With no one’s life in immediate danger, first up was the flooding.
On a sigh, I asked the group, “Where’s Hugo?”
Three different voices replied in unison, “Kerri’s.”
Someone else added, “Though I don’t think I’d go in there unless you want an up-close-and-personal of Hugo’s hairy ass.”
I froze midstep, a vise in my chest cranking down as I turned around. “Come again?”
It was New Girl—Christ, I really had to learn her name—who pushed to the front of the pack and answered, “Cora, seriously? I know I haven’t been here long, but none of our air conditioners work. And you think Hugo got off his lazy ass at seven in the morning to fix Kerri’s? I’m sorry. I know my apartment is flooding and all, but I will grow a set of fins and a pair of gills before I get on my knees for that fat, sweaty pig.”
I was twenty-nine years old and I’d been in the sex industry for fourteen years. Nothing should have shocked me anymore. Especially not a man manipulating a woman to get his rocks off. That was a given. Yet I still asked, “Why the hell would you have to get on your knees?”
She glanced around at the other girls. “Uh…because it’s the only way you can get him to fix anything.”
I blinked at them, completely and utterly shocked.
They all blinked back, completely and utterly shocked that I was shocked.
Shit. They thought I knew. And worse: that I’d actually allowed it to happen.
The air in my lungs turned toxic, and my head began to pound.
Every day.
Every night.
That was my life.
The stress, the responsibility, the failure.
The weight of being everything for everyone was suffocating. The desperate desire to give up taunted me with every sunrise. But this wasn’t a life I could just walk away from. Trust me. I’d tried.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I stared up at the concrete breezeway, pleading for help that was never going to come.
At least not for me.
“Cora?”
My eyes snapped open and I found River standing on the stairs, a mug of coffee stretched out in my direction.
“Water’s coming through the wall in our kitchen,” she said nonchalantly. “I threw some towels down. But you might want to get Hugo up there soon.”
I searched her eyes for any clue that she knew that Hugo’s preferred currency was a blow job. Thankfully, I found none.
I’d done what I could to keep her in school and away from the rest of the bullshit, but she was far from innocent. Her brown hair was tied up in messy bun, and she was wearing a backpack over a pair of stylishly tattered jeans and a loose T-shirt that read I really don’t care. That young, sweet girl was being raised by what most of America would call the dregs of society. Whores. Hookers. Prostitutes. Whatever the new term of the week was. But we were all just people stuck in a shitty situation with no one else to lean on.
Except they all leaned on me.
Suddenly, I remembered why I sacrificed my soul on a daily basis.
Because I hoped like hell they wouldn’t have to.
After drawing in a deep breath that rejuvenated not only my burning lungs, but also my resolve, I took the coffee from her hand and announced, “Savannah’s fine.”
“I heard.” Her gaze drifted over my shoulder to the women who were starting to disperse. Their problems were still mostly unresolved, but more often than not, that was their constant state of being.
I jerked my chin to the stairs. “Come on. I’ll walk you down.”
She quirked a dark eyebrow. “The kitchen?”
“Oh, please. It will take at least five minutes for Hugo to haul his ass up the stairs. I’ve got time.”
She aimed pursed lips down at her black Chucks and started toward the stairs. “Why are you bleeding?”
I touched my nose with my free hand, thankfully finding it dry. “You want the truth or a lie?”
“Truth.”
“I ran into the door. But if you’d asked me for a lie, I would have said I got elbowed in the nose while wrestling Chrissy to the ground, just before hog-tying her and then using her hair as a mop to clean that disgusting apartment.”
She laughed quietly as we walked side by side to the front of the brick building. We stopped at the end of the concrete that divided our hell from the rest of the world. When she tipped her head back to catch my gaze, her smile faltered. I could almost see the anxiety crawling across the smooth curves of her olive complexion.
“Hey,” I soothed, giving her shoulder a squeeze. “What’s wrong?”
“You know Chrissy isn’t going to stop,” she whispered. “The others, they don’t put up with Savannah. But Chrissy—”
The vise in my chest threatened to crack my ribs. She shouldn’t have to worry about people like Chrissy. But that was her reality, regardless of how much I hated it.
“I’m going to take care of it.”
Her face paled. “Please don’t call Marcos.”
&nb
sp; I rolled my eyes. “Relax. I didn’t say anything about Marcos.”
Her big doe eyes searched my face for the lie. She wouldn’t find it, but it was definitely there, skillfully hidden beneath the surface right beside a mountain of my fears and regrets.
Looping my arm around her shoulders, I gave her a side hug that wasn’t nearly long enough—for either of us. It was all I could give her though. “Go. Get out of here before you miss the bus. I’ll take care of Chrissy. You take care of geometry.”
“Corrrra,” she drawled in warning.
“Riiiiver,” I mocked, giving her a gentle shove toward the dirt parking lot.
She walked backward, keeping her brown eyes locked on my blues. “You’ll be here when I get home, right?”
I scoffed. “Aren’t I always?”
“So far, anyway,” she mumbled.
Guilt burned like an inferno in my chest, but I smiled through the pain. “I’ll see ya at three.”
She stared at me.
I stared back.
A million words were spoken during that moment of silence: promises, pleas, apologies, explanations, and everything in between.
All of it was the absolute truth.
Which was exactly why two tears rolled down her cheeks as she lifted her hand in the air, spun on a toe, and jogged toward the bus stop.
Cora
“I want Chrissy gone!” I demanded before the back of Marcos’s hand landed across my cheek.
Savannah screamed from the couch as my head snapped to the side. Pain exploded in my neck when my chin hit my shoulder.
His lanky body folded at the hip, and his face contorted like the monster he was. “I don’t give a fuck what you want!”
Once upon a time, I’d been in awe of how beautiful Marcos was. All of that straight, black hair and thick lashes lining eyes so dark that I couldn’t see the pupil. But then again, all the Guerrero brothers were gorgeous.
Dante, Marcos, and Nicolás were the personification of every poor girl’s dream. Tall and lean with chiseled jaws and strong shoulders that were not only sexy but oozing with power. Add to that the flashy cars, expensive clothes, and never-ending string of promises and it made them the golden ticket. But that gold had tarnished all too quickly when I’d discovered the intrinsic evil that was born and bred inside them.
All except Nic.
After catching my balance, I rolled my aching shoulders back and stood my ground. “I can’t deal with her anymore. I’ve warned her, Marcos. Repeatedly. Either she’s gone tonight or—”
I didn’t get to finish. He snaked a hand out and fisted the top of my hair. My scalp turned to fire, feeling like it was going to tear free. I swallowed my cry as he forcefully tipped my head to the side.
“Or what? What the fuck are you going to do about it, Cora?”
Nothing. That was all I could ever do.
But just like his hand in my hair, I had the power to twist Marcos in knots. “What do you think Dante’s going to say if he finds Savannah on the street with Chrissy and starts asking questions about how she got here?”
His jaw became stone, and his black eyes narrowed.
Dante Guerrero. He was everyone’s trump card. The girls used his name to keep johns in check, Marcos used his name to keep me trapped in that prison, and I used his name to keep Marcos on his toes.
We all feared Dante in one way or another. Including Savannah, who was sitting on the couch, her legs hugged to her chest, makeup running down her cheeks. Her body locked up at the mere mention of his name.
Dante was especially her problem since she’d landed on his radar. He did love a beautiful redhead, apparently regardless of her age.
Luckily, he had enough women and drugs to keep him distracted for the rest of his natural life. And, as long as I could keep Savannah out of his sight, chances were he’d forget about her.
Or he’d show up drunk or high in the middle of the night and find her when I was alone and helpless to do anything but watch him take her.
I had two years to keep her out of his reach. Two years until she was an adult in the eyes of the law. Two years in which I could mold and shape her into believing she could do better than this life. Two years until she could avoid being sent back to her even more disturbing parents. One year until she could finally free herself—the way I never could.
Marcos glared at me. And, with pain radiating through my body, I fearlessly glared back.
He knew I wasn’t bold enough to call Dante. But he also knew just how desperate I’d had to be in order to make the threat.
“Fuck!” he boomed, giving me a hard shove that sent me stumbling across the room.
Savannah shot to her feet and caught me before I hit the wall. “Cora,” she whispered through a sob.
Using her to regain my balance, I cracked a smile that caused my busted lip to scream with pain. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Relax.”
She nodded, her messy auburn hair brushing her shoulders. At five-six, she towered over me by at least four inches, but as we both turned to face Marcos, she intertwined her fingers with mine like a little girl, breaking my heart that much more.
Unwavering, I stayed the course. “I need her gone, Marcos. Not for me. Not for Savannah. But for the safety of every girl in this building.”
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “For fuck’s sake, Cora. I don’t have time to deal with your petty bullshit.”
“Believe me, if this was something I could handle, I never would have dialed your number. But she’s been walking this line for a long time and you know it. It’s time we cut her loose.”
His malevolent eyes slid to mine and the air took on an icy chill as he whispered, “We?”
I sucked in a deep breath. The words burned like a wildfire and they hadn’t even met my lips yet. I didn’t want them to be true anymore. I’d wanted to change them every day for over a decade.
But, without a shadow of a doubt, they were the only reason I was still alive.
I swallowed down the acid and then allowed my breath to carry the filthy truth into existence. “My name is Cora Guerrero, is it not?”
My tear ducts stung, but they knew better than to release any moisture. Crying was only allowed in my bedroom, with a pillow over my face, my ass to the floor, my back to the wall, a chair propped against the door, and three locks securely in place. No one—especially not a Guerrero—got to see that.
My throat was thick as I continued, “If Nic were still alive, you know what he would do.”
Marcos’s flinch was subtle, but it was there.
I didn’t just see it—I felt it.
And I reveled in it.
He could beat me.
He could control me.
He could keep me trapped in his world for the rest of his life.
But, with one syllable, I could slash him to the bone without ever lifting a finger. It had been thirteen years since Nic died, and he was still my only protection.
Marcos let out a loud growl. “Don’t fucking bring Nic into this.”
“He’s already here,” I shot back.
His jaw ticked, and his nostrils flared. “You know it was my little brother who recruited Chrissy?”
“Yes. And I know it would be my husband who threw her to the curb for disobeying a direct order from a member of the family.”
Cocking his head to the side, he prowled toward me.
I guided Savannah behind me. My heart raced, and adrenaline sprinted through my veins. But I showed him nothing.
Stopping in front of me, he dipped low and brought his face down to mine. “You were his whore, Cora. One of many. Just because he put a ring on your finger does not make you part of my family.”
“You have no idea how much I wish that were true.”
Suddenly, he reared back, his palm once again aimed at my face.
On the inside, I cowered.
On the inside, I screamed.
On the inside, I begged him to finally let me go.
I didn’t dare flinch. I didn’t even blink. Any weakness I possessed would only be used against me. He could hit me until I was shattered into a million pieces, and when it was all over, I’d rise again, find a way to put myself back together, and carry the fuck on because no one else was ever going to do it for me.
I was on my own and had been for the majority of my life. Too many times, I’d been emotionally twisted into an unrecognizable heap. But no man would ever break me.
So I stood there, Savannah trembling at my back, my head held high, staring into the pits of his demonic, black eyes, prepared to accept his wrath for no other reason than it was the only way to survive.
Just before impact, his hand froze, inches from my cheek. A sinister smile lifted one side of his mouth as he tipped his chin to Savannah. “You sure she’s worth all this?”
Her front became flush with my back, and her hand gripped my hip impossibly hard. She’d probably never had anyone in her life say she was worth anything.
But then again, she’d lived sixteen years without me.
“I’m positive.”
Her shoulders shook with an unshed sob, and I reached back, patting her thigh while keeping my gaze locked on Marcos.
For several beats, he held my stare. His every blink was a challenge—and a command.
But through it all, I didn’t beg.
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t bargain.
I did, however, give him what he wanted.
Cutting my gaze to the floor, I allowed my shoulders to sag as I used my hand to cup my bruised cheek.
It wasn’t much, and it cost me nothing, but that single submissive gesture was enough to give him back the control he so desperately needed.
Though, make no mistake about it, I was the victor.
His black dress shoes, which cost more than my entire wardrobe, disappeared from my line of sight as he strolled toward the door.