by Ranae Rose
“Yeah, you are. You can’t just walk in there. You see that house – it’s the casa de ladrillos Casa de Ladrillos was named for. And you don’t go in there if you’re not Casa de Ladrillos.”
“I’m helping Casa de Ladrillos get what Casa de Ladrillos wants, so why the hell shouldn’t I come inside?”
“You don’t give a shit about Casa de Ladrillos.”
“That’s not the point. I’m not gonna wait in the car like a dog while you make plans without me.”
“You don’t even speak Spanish. The plans will go right over your head.”
“Speak English, then.”
“It’s our house – we’ll speak whatever language we want.”
Resisting the urge to punch Manny square in his frowning face was one of the hardest things Ryan had ever done.
“You know what? You’re just as fucking stubborn as Ally,” Manny said with no trace of amusement in his voice. “You can come in, but don’t start any shit. I promise you’ll regret it if you do. Just keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking.”
Ryan stepped out of the car without a word, and they approached the house the same way.
The greeting issued to them through the front door was definitely English. “What the fuck?” a man asked, glaring through a door he’d cracked open about three inches. All that was visible was one dark eye and the unmistakable glint of streetlight on gunmetal.
Manny replied in Spanish, and that was when Ryan stopped understanding a word anyone said. Still, he could tell a lot from the tone of their voices, and as he stood on the doorstep, it was obvious he wasn’t welcome.
They were eventually admitted anyway, after Manny ripped the guy at the door a new one, which presumably worked because he was second in command, Carlos’ right hand man.
Manny led Ryan into the center of the house, where a man sat at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. He was obviously Carlos – the air of authority surrounding him was just as thick as the putrid fog, and the Rivera family traits were visible. He had Manny’s thick, dark brows, and disconcertingly familiar brown eyes gleamed from behind a screen of smoke. They settled on Ryan as Carlos snuffed his cigarette out in an ash tray that rested in the center of the table.
The conversation that followed between Carlos and Manny was markedly calmer than the one Manny had had with the man at the door. Still, there were steely notes in Carlos’ voice that gave his words a much more dangerous edge than any amount of profanity or yelling possibly could have. As he discussed something – Ryan, presumably – with Manny, the three men standing behind him glared at Ryan like they wanted to end him.
Maybe they did, but it didn’t matter. Manny wanted Ryan’s help and Carlos was mad – they were all mad over what had happened. And whatever else Manny and Carlos were, they seemed smart enough to let Ryan risk his life for something they wanted instead of killing him then and there – an act that would help no one.
Ryan listened for words he could understand, but caught little besides Ally’s name, which was spoken a couple times. Each time he heard it, his heart skipped a beat as he pictured her lying in a hospital bed, her face as white as her bandages. She had to be sick with worry, but what he was putting her through would be worth it, in the end.
She’d be able to rest knowing that the men who’d tried to murder her weren’t still lurking in her neighborhood. As for the dangers that would remain thanks to her family’s gang involvement … he’d think of a way to protect her in the long-term after he worried about the immediate danger threatening her and Maria. First and foremost, he had to make sure her would-be killers wouldn’t be waiting for her when she was released from the hospital.
Though he hardly understood any Spanish, even Ryan was able to detect the change in atmosphere that occurred when Carlos said something of apparent significance to Manny.
For the first time Ryan had ever witnessed, Manny let his shoulders slump out of their usual rigid posture. The change in the way he held himself made him look deflated. His brows rose high and then plunged deep as he asked Carlos a question.
Whatever Carlos said in reply seemed to take the edge off Manny’s agitation, but he still looked preoccupied by the time he finished his conversation with Carlos and motioned to Ryan. “Vámanos,” he said, his shoulders thrown back in their usual position again.
Manny’s discontent surrounded him like a fog, evident in the way he walked and even breathed as he and Ryan returned to the car.
“You going to fill me in on what was said in there?” Ryan asked as he pulled his door shut.
Manny shoved his key into the ignition and turned it. “Two of the three guys who were in that car when Ally was shot are already dead. Carlos killed them – a few hours after the first shooting, a car full of guys targeted his house. Sprayed it with bullets, but no one was hit. Carlos and some others went after them. Found several guys still in the same car, driving down one of our streets like they owned it. Two of them had been in the car when Ally was shot, too. Carlos took them all out.”
“Good.”
“Carlos killed them,” Manny repeated, meeting Ryan’s eyes. “I was supposed to do that.”
“Does it really matter who’s responsible as long as they can’t hurt Ally or Maria again?”
“Fuck yeah, it matters. They shot my sister – they tried to kill her and my mother. I’m family. I should’ve been the one to make them pay.”
“Carlos is related to them, too.” Why would the fact that Carlos’ relation to Ally and Maria was an unfortunate technicality as far as they were concerned bother Manny, who apparently held Carlos in high esteem?
Manny shook his head. “It’s not the same. He doesn’t care about them like I do. He’s pissed because someone dared to disrespect him enough to gun down a blood relation. I’m pissed because someone hurt Ally. They could’ve killed her and my mother.”
The sentiment was pretty damn hypocritical considering the fact that it was Manny’s fault the rival start-up gang had been drawn to Ally and Maria in the first place, but Ryan bit his tongue. Now was not the time, but the time would come – later. “What was it Carlos said to you just before we left? You looked like you were about to have an aneurysm, then he said something that cooled you down.”
Manny stared straight ahead as he guided the car away from the curb and down the street. “Those two guys – he said he made them suffer before he let them die.”
* * * * *
The gun Ryan had tucked into the waistband of his jeans wasn’t cold anymore; it had been there so long that the steel was the same temperature as his body. The hard press of the weapon was an uncomfortable reminder that the clock was ticking, each minute another one that he had nothing to show for.
He shifted against the passenger seat, but the Smith & Wesson Manny had lent him only dug harder into his spine. The back waistband of his jeans was a stupid fucking place to carry a gun, but he had no holster – no other place to conceal it, really.
“This might be the one. Be ready.” Manny was already slowing the car as they approached an aged warehouse with several broken windows.
Ryan said nothing. Manny had said the same thing at their past half a dozen stops, all of which had been at places members of the rival gang were known to frequent. They’d all been empty of anyone affiliated with the group responsible for Ally’s injuries – obviously, the guilty parties knew they were being hunted.
They climbed out of the car together. Approaching the building had a steady stream of adrenaline rippling through Ryan’s veins – Manny was right, it might be the one – but it wasn’t a totally unfamiliar task. After all, he wasn’t a stranger to urban warfare. It had been a part of his life in Afghanistan. The bitter taste in his mouth, the heightened senses and the way his muscles ached with readiness – he had to suppress memories in order to focus on the present.
Manny, on the other hand, knew the streets but had no such training. He hadn’t taken it well when Ryan had told him hours ago that swagg
ering up to their target buildings like a rooster was a bad idea. Still, Ryan had persuaded him to listen to some basic pointers. They were nothing like a competent tactical team as they approached the building together, but Manny made an effort to improve and it showed, if only a little.
Nothing came of it. The building was easily accessible through an unlocked back door, but empty.
Manny cursed in Spanish as they abandoned the place after a quick inspection. “Hiding. He’s fucking hiding – they’re all fucking hiding.”
“Did you really expect anything else from a group of men who targeted a couple of innocent women?”
Manny said nothing, just strutted like an angry rooster as they returned to the car.
A cold wind whistled down the street, whipping straight through Ryan’s jacket as it sent several pieces of trash skittering by.
“My place isn’t far from here,” Manny said once he was behind the wheel again. “Let’s stop there for a minute. I’m gonna fucking die of thirst if I don’t get something to drink, and I need to call Carlos for an update. Maybe I can get in touch. Maybe he knows something we don’t.”
Hopefully. What he and Manny knew could be summed up in two words: almost nothing. They knew what the person they were looking for looked like – he was the man who’d ran after watching Manny kill his companion with a knife – and what his name was. And they knew places where he’d been seen before. That was it. They’d spent the entire night looking for him, and the morning had dawned cold and bright on their ongoing search. It was a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack.
A double-pang of guilt and urgency sailed through Ryan as he thought of how long he’d been gone. He’d left the hospital the evening before, and it was already early afternoon. It hurt to think of Ally waiting and worrying for so long, especially when there was no knowing how much longer she’d have to wait before he could return.
What really made him break out into a cold sweat was considering that she might be discharged from the hospital before he found the last of the men who’d tried to murder her. Where was the guy? What if he was biding his time, waiting for someone to return to the Rivera household?
What if Ally and Maria went home and the nightmare happened all over again, possibly with deadly results? The thought filled him with a hot rage. The shooting, her injuries, Manny’s involvement and the long search for her would-be killer … it was all so fucked up. He wanted to find the man who’d put those bullets in her, wanted to make him pay and make sure he never maimed another person or took another life. But there was one desire even deeper than that one – more than anything, he wished none of it had ever happened.
But it had, and the disaster had been years in the making, a horrific by-product of the poor choices made by the people she loved, or had once loved, at least.
“Here.” Manny parked the car at the curb in front of a house not unlike the one Ally and Maria called home. The siding was pale yellow instead of white, but other than that, it was noticeably similar.
“Do you regret it at all?”
Manny turned, eyes dark and assessing as he froze with one hand on the door handle. “What are you talking about?”
“What you put your sister and mother through. Do you regret it now that Ally’s blood has been spilled?”
“Regret is a waste of time.” He pushed open the door and stepped out of the car. “Besides, I’m going to make things right. Or did you forget why we’re out here acting like we don’t want to fucking kill each other?”
They stepped over the sidewalk and approached the house in silence.
The sound of metal-on-metal broke the quiet spell as Manny pulled a set of keys from his pocket and proceeded to use three of them.
“I’ve never been so pissed in my life. She’s my sister. We grew up together. Whenever I saw her wrapped up in all those bandages, I remembered when she was maybe seven and went on this big kick where she wanted to be a nurse. She had a little plastic kit with gauze rolls in it and used to beg me to let her practice on me. She’d wrap anyone who’d hold still up like a mummy in five seconds flat. I remember shit like that every time I see her and I think…”
He turned the last key in the last lock. “When I find the motherfucker who put those bullets in her, I’m going to enjoy putting twice as many in him.”
The lock released with the thud of a heavy-duty deadbolt. “I’ve got some shit in the fridge if you want something to eat before we go back out.”
Manny stepped inside and Ryan followed, one hand brushing the doorframe as Manny flipped on a light that illuminated the entry area.
Oof. There was a rustle, a hard rush of breath – no time for even a single swear word – as Manny keeled forward, frozen just a couple steps inside the door.
“This one’s from Inés, motherfucker.”
Sheer instinct drove Ryan as he moved forward, his mind still piecing things together as he threw himself at the man who was locked in a clench with Manny.
The stranger had a weapon – it wasn’t visible, but there was no question about it. Manny was hunched and frozen, breathing loud, like it was all he could do in the wake of whatever wound he was suffering from. The way he held his gut made it seem like he’d been hurt there. A knife wound?
With a hard jerk and a twist, Ryan used the man’s body weight against him, tearing Manny’s attacker away and sending him toward the floor.
His grip was weaker than it needed to be, thanks to his cast. His right hand slipped from the man’s upper arm as his wrist ached in protest, and the man stood straight again, knife in hand.
The blade dripped red onto the carpet and something inside Ryan clenched up when the acrid tang of fresh blood filled the air. Combined with the adrenaline rush brought on by the knife blade that arced through the air just a few inches from his cheek, it was enough to put the scent of sand and sweat in his nostrils, too.
The air inside Manny’s house suddenly felt stiflingly hot, as if the air particles themselves had been scorched by the sun. The scent of blood was thicker than ever and the sounds of labored breathing blended with the explosions going off inside his head.
Reality clashed with thoughts of the past as the blade neared him again, flying toward his chest, flashing silently. He did the only thing he could – threw up an arm.
The blade hit his cast and rasped against the plaster, jarring the bones inside.
It didn’t hurt – the adrenaline flooding Ryan’s system left little room for pain. Raising the same arm again, he drew it back and let it fly.
The knife glanced off the cast again as Ryan brought it down across the man’s face, using the plaster to his advantage.
Manny’s attacker stumbled backward, one hand flying to his face while the other still gripped the knife. Ryan rushed forward, hitting him in the gut with a hard punch.
He crashed to the floor, the air rushing from his lungs in a loud gasp. As soon as he could breathe, he began a string of obscenities. By that time, Ryan was on top of him, wrestling him onto his belly and driving a knee into his back.
Ryan caught the man’s arm as he attempted to stab Ryan’s thigh. With his cast inhibiting his movements, he fumbled through a hasty joint manipulation. Muscle memory and brutal force carried him through, and the knife fell to the floor.
Deprived of the weapon, the man swore even more furiously. “Motherfucker! Get the fuck off of me! I’ll fucking kill you.” The threats meant nothing. Like most people, the man had no idea how to defend himself on the ground. Ryan had him under control. With a knee in the guy’s spine, he kept him pinned with little difficulty.
“He’s the one.” Manny’s voice vacillated between a guttural scrape and a wheeze. “The guy we’re looking for.”
Ryan stared down at the nondescript face that was half-pressed into the carpet. Short dark hair and dark eyes that were wide with rage – there was nothing special about the man, but he matched the description, and Manny had encountered him before. Every muscle in Ryan’s body
tensed with the urge to pummel the man’s face into the floor.
So pale, so weak – he couldn’t stop thinking of Ally in that hospital bed, lucky to be alive.
“Don’t!” Manny half-shouted, a note of urgency in his voice. “Don’t do it. I need to know what the fuck he was saying about Inés.”
“You’re in bad shape.” Ryan shifted his gaze to Manny as he continued to restrain the other man. A large puddle of blood had already blossomed on the beige carpet. Manny lay in the middle of it, curled with his hands pressed against his belly. Still, the hard black gleam in his eyes was unmistakable, and his face was contorted in rage, not pain.
“I need to know!” Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead and the almost-bald surface of his skull.
“Fuck you,” the man Ryan had wrestled to the ground spat. “All you need to know is that you got what you deserve, and Inés is gonna laugh when I tell her how you died asking about her.”
Ryan pressed his knee harder into the man’s spine, putting all his weight there until he gasped. “Motherfucker! Get off of me!”
Manny shuddered and a wet sound came from his direction as his hands slipped. Half a moment later, he pressed them back where they’d been with a groan.
There was no way Manny would make it out of his house until he was carried out in a body bag.
“Answer his questions or I’ll pick up that knife and cut your fingers off one by one and watch you bleed to death,” Ryan said, eyeing the dirty blade. With his good hand, he took one of the other man’s, twisting the arm behind his back and gripping one finger by the knuckle.
Manny had been right – the man was a coward. “All right! Fucking fine.” He tried to jerk his hand away.
Ryan let go of the finger but kept the limb pinned, where it couldn’t be used to cause any trouble.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Most of the color had drained from Manny’s face, but the rage hadn’t left his eyes.
“Inés gave me her keys.”
Manny’s face went absolutely white, leaving him looking a hell of a lot like Ally had at the hospital, before her transfusion. “Liar! Why the fuck would she give you anything?”