by Reinke, Sara
“I was given your contact information by a mutual acquaintance…someone I believe you know better of the two of us? Aaron Davenant.”
“I know Aaron, sí,” Tejano murmured with a nod, his eyes taking on that glittering, hardened cast once more. “And his brother, Julien. Quite well.” Turning his head slightly, he spat onto the floor. “They’re both biche panochas—fucking pussies.”
That’s not what your girlfriend says, Lina thought, remembering what Peaches had told her about how Julien “scared the shit” out of Tejano.
“I’ve only recently had the pleasure of introductions to the former,” Augustus remarked. “But not the latter, I’m afraid. Aaron sought me out in California before I left. It would seem that he, too, has an interest in seeing his father deposed.”
Tejano laughed. “Yeah. Let me guess. The mammon finally got sick of being the goose that lays the golden eggs—without getting any cut of the profits—so he’s decided to pimp his blood out to the highest bidder.”
“He did express an interest in receiving a greater percentage of any profits a future partnership might earn, yes,” Augustus said, speaking slowly and tactfully, but with an arch to his brow and a hook to the corner of his mouth meant to convey to Tejano that he, too, considered it a crock of bullshit.
“He also suggested eventually cutting you out altogether,” he added pointedly. “By having you set up the distribution network on our behalf and then…dissolving our partnership with you.” He gazed with pointed solemnity at Tejano. “By that, I do not believe he meant a simple contract breach.”
“I know what he meant.” His brows furrowed and he leapt to his feet. “¡Que culo, se la come doblada! Voy a matarse, el punetero.”
Peaches giggled. “I love it when he goes off in Spanish,” she said, leaning forward and speaking to Lina as if the men weren’t even there, and couldn’t possibly be privy to their conversation. “I don’t know what he’s saying, but damn, it always sounds so hot!”
“I believe he referred to the younger Mister Davenant as a cocksucker,” Augustus told her with a wan sort of smile. “That he sucks a crooked cock and that he’d kill him if given the opportunity.”
Peaches blinked in wide-eyed amazement. “Wow.”
“Augustus speaks thirty-five languages fluently,” Lina supplied. “He’s been around awhile.”
“I say we cut this deal with him,” Tejano said to Augustus, pacing now. “Yeah. We agree to whatever that little panocha wants. Then when everything’s underway, we take his ass down. We put a hacksaw to his motherfucking feet so he can’t run. We string him up by a motherfucking meat hook like in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and we take that maricón’s blood whenever we want! Cut me out of a motherfucking deal!” His pace quickened as he ranted and raved, and the cleft between his brows grew deeper and deeper, any pretense of gentlemanly civility gone from his manner and his mouth. “¡Que puede chupa mi verga! ¡Voy a meter por la garganta y ver que se atragante en él, ese puto!”
Lina glanced up at Augustus. You do realize you just got Aaron Davenant killed, don’t you?
Augustus only smiled. Trust me, ma chéri, he said with a nod to indicate Tejano. That pendejo couldn’t land a punch against Davenant, never mind kill him. I’ve sicced a Chihuahua after a Great Dane. I’ll let you lay the odds from there as you will.
With a crazed light in his eyes, Tejano whirled to face Augustus. “Here.”
He tossed something to them, throwing it from across the room where he’d retrieved it from the mantel, with enough force to make her cringe in anticipation of it connecting solidly with her head. But she needn’t have bothered; Augustus raised his hand from her leg and caught the object deftly, moving with a grace and speed that startled Lina as much as the throw itself had.
“What is this?” he asked, his brow raised with curiosity—but as he opened his hand and looked down, he knew the answer. As did Lina.
The wayob, she thought, her eyes widening.
“That, amigo, is how we’re going to stick it to Lamar Davenant and his huele bicho sons,” Tejano said, beaming. “That way, you and me—we fuck all the Davenants who’ve tried to fuck us over.”
“I don’t understand,” Augustus said. It wasn’t obliviousness, Lina decided. He had a hell of a poker face.
“Old Man Davenant—he’s been after that for over a year,” Tejano said. “My brother Pepe’s dead now because of that son of a bitch. He made me set him up here to try and find that thing. The gang who had it—Valien Cadana and his fucking corillo—they killed Pepe to keep it.”
“What is it?” Augustus asked.
Tejano spread his arms wide and laughed. “You got me. Maybe some kind of antique. It’s got to be worth something big. Like I said, the old man’s been after it awhile. Been bugging the motherfucking shit out of me to get it.” To Augustus, he added, “That’s why I’m here. He sent me. Then Julien comes crawling up my ass—you know what that motherfucker tells me? They’re ‘losing confidence’ in me and my crew. They’re thinking I ‘can’t handle’ this small-town Mayberry bullshit job, maybe I need some help remembering what my priorities are, where my loyalties lie. You believe that shit? My motherfucking priorities!” Balling his fist, he slammed it against the nearest wall. “I’ve got at least thirty million dollars’ worth of coke shipping into Miami every goddamn week. He pulls me away from my motherfucking business so I could get a goddamn rock for him, and I don’t fucking understand priorities?”
His face flushed with rage, he marched over to the table and picked up the tequila bottle. Realizing it was empty, he snarled, then threw it across the room. It smashed into the wall by the guard Mercedes was still blowing, and she jerked away from him in start as shards of glass scattered.
“You want to fuck with Lamar, you send an Instagram of you smashing that motherfucking thing with a sledgehammer, amigo,” Tejano said to Augustus, pointing to the wayob as another henchman, as if on unspoken command, came scurrying over with a fresh bottle of Jose Cuervo in his hands. Unscrewing the lid, he drew the bottle to his lips and canted his head back, guzzling it like it was Gatorade and he was the star quarterback fresh off a winning homecoming game. “He’ll shit his motherfucking Depends. I goddamn guarantee it!”
“Sounds like fun,” Augustus murmured, reaching up to accept the bottle as Tejano offered it to him. From her vantage, Lina could see that he only pretended to drink this time; like her, he’d obviously realized losing control of his faculties was ill-advised in their present circumstances, and he covered the open mouth of the bottle with his tongue to block it as he tipped his head back.
“And you, pinche puta—put your goddamn mouth on his motherfucking cock and keep it there until you choke on his motherfucking jizz!” Tejano roared at Mercedes, who scrambled on her hands and knees back to the waiting guard. Given her ashen face and petrified expression, Lina nearly felt sorry for her.
Tejano glanced beyond Augustus and Lina toward the main entrance to the room. “Here we go now,” he said, his mouth stretching in a maniacally wide grin again. “Here’s the panocha who’s caused me so much goddamn grief. Here’s el hombre de la hora—the man of the motherfucking hour! Bring him here, Camilo. Bring that motherfucker where we can see him!”
Lina raised her head enough to glance over Augustus’s shoulder, watching as the big, burly guard who’d greeted them earlier in the foyer now dragged Valien Cadana, his hands bound in front of him, his face visibly bruised and battered from a recent—and violent—beating, toward the sofas. As they drew near, Camilo gave Valien a shove, sending him stumbling forward. He crumpled to his knees with a soft cry, landing almost directly in front of Tejano.
“He’s like us,” Augustus said, feigning surprise in his voice.
“Es un maricón,” Tejano snapped, seizing Valien by the crown of his hair and wrenching his head back. He’s a faggot! “He’s nothing like you or me. He probably feeds from the blood of pigs because he’s too big a pussy to taste a human!”
Valien had gritted his teeth, but when Tejano twisted his fist in his hair, he uttered another pained cry. Opening his eyes, he blinked dazedly at Augustus. Lina couldn’t tell if he recognized them or not; he’d been badly beaten, and was clearly dazed and in pain, only semi-lucid at best. “Ayudarme,” he gasped, twisting his hands against the steel handcuffs that bound him. “Por favor…!” Help me, please!
“Callate!” Shut up! Tejano drove his fist down in a sharp, brutal blow, plowing his knuckles into the side of Valien’s face and snapping his head toward his opposite shoulder. Blood flew from his nose at the impact, and he crashed onto his side.
Disgusted, pained, Lina grimaced and looked away. Had Tejano ordered Jackie beaten like this? She couldn’t bear to think about it; her entire body seized with furious, frightened tension.
“You don’t speak unless I speak to you…” Tejano reached down, grabbing Valien by the hair again and forcing him back up to his knees. Valien cried out, hoarse and hurting, and Lina felt her stomach twist. “You don’t think unless I put it in your head. You don’t do a motherfucking thing without my goddamn say-so anymore—you comprende me, puto? You’re my motherfucking bitch now, Cadana. You belong to me…” Looking up at Augustus, he grinned. “Me and my new partner.”
Lina heard a new scuffle behind them and looked past Augustus’s shoulder again. This time she drew in a sharp breath as Jackson staggered into the room, forced in tow by two guards who made Camilo the Gorilla Guy look more like a squirrel monkey. Like Valien, his hands had been cuffed. Like Valien, he’d apparently been beaten. Badly. One of his eyes had swollen nearly shut with bruising; his nose looked misshapen and swollen, the nostrils crusted with blood, his bottom lip split in multiple places.
“Jackie…!” she whispered, unable to stop herself, even though she’d promised Augustus—promised herself—that she’d keep her shit together. She hadn’t expected it to go like this—for Tejano to drag Valien and Jackie right out in front of them. She’d expected a fight to find them—and to find them on her terms, the terms she and Augustus had anticipated. Not like this.
Change my face, she hissed, hunching down low against the shelter of Augustus’s chest. Change my face like you did with yours at the police station. Change it now!
But it was too late. Jackie looked toward the couches and caught sight of her there. His uninjured eye widened with visible confusion and shock, and as his escorts shoved him forward, improving his view, he realized what she was wearing—or in this case, not wearing—and who she was with. He saw Augustus’s arm around her, his hand stroking her thigh. He saw the dried blood on her throat and shoulder and the wounds in her neck—Augustus’s bite marks. Jackson’s brows narrowed, his face twisting with a sudden surge of murderous fury because he thought he understood what had happened.
Only he didn’t.
“Jackie—no!” she cried, as with the enraged bellow of a Kodiak bear, Jackson wrenched himself free of his captors and charged forward.
Lina scrambled to her feet, losing Augustus’s jacket and standing there, naked as the day she’d been born as she clasped him by the hand, trying to yank him up. He stood, but it was too late. Jackson leapt over the back of the sofa and smashed into him like a runaway bull in the proverbial china shop. The impact knocked Augustus off his feet, and he flew into the coffee table with Jackson landing heavily atop him, the glass top shattering beneath them in an explosion of glass fragments and shards.
“You son of a bitch!” Jackson began swinging his bound fists, beating the shit out of Augustus. He roared, garbled, furious, inarticulate words, and Lina rushed forward, heedless of the broken glass under her bare feet.
“Jackie, stop!” she screamed, grabbing him by one massive arm and struggling to restrain him. “Leave him alone!”
Tejano’s guards seized him from behind and dragged him, swinging, kicking and yelling, away from Augustus.
“Qué chingados, mayate?” Tejano took the Jose Cuervo bottle and, brows furrowed, smashed it into the side of Jackson’s head. More splintered glass went flying, and the nearly full liter of tequila doused Jackson, mixing with his blood, drenching his skin and shirt.
Lina felt a swell of outrage at this. She’d grabbed Augustus’s coat from the floor and shrugged it on, but when she started to charge forward in her brother’s defense, she stepped down on broken glass hard enough to cut open her heel. The bright, sudden pain snapped her to her senses. She winced, sucking in a sharp breath, and hobbled sideways, just as Peaches rushed forward and caught her.
“What the fuck, man?” Tejano roared, clasping Jackson by the chin and shoving his head back while his guards held his arms. The blow from the liquor bottle had nearly knocked Jackie out; his knees had buckled, and he dangled, slack-jawed and dazed, between them. He grimaced as Tejano’s fingers crushed his jawline, but only struggled weakly.
“You think you got balls, coming into my house, wailing on my hombre, mayate?” Tejano punched him in the face, and Jackson floundered sideways, nearly crashing to the floor.
“Hold him up,” Tejano snapped to his men. “Hold that motherfucker’s sorry ass up.” To Jackson, he snarled, “You gonna bust my motherfucking table?” Another punch, this time to the gut, and Jackie doubled over, whoofing for agonized breath. “Then make me waste my motherfucking Cuervo Gold?” Another blow, and this time Jackie collapsed heavily to the floor, crumpling in a shuddering, gasping heap at Tejano’s feet.
“Leave…him alone,” Valien cried out hoarsely. His fangs had dropped somewhat, his eyes rolling over to glossy black, but even the bloodlust couldn’t imbue him with enough strength to do more than stumble clumsily to his feet. “This…this is between you…and me, Cervantes. Leave him out of it.”
Tejano blinked at him, as if momentarily surprised by the younger man’s boldness. Then his pupils likewise engorged, his eyes yielding to obsidian with terrifying speed, the vicious lengths of his canines forcing his jaw open, viper-like and swift.
He reached for his nearest guard, his hand darting beneath the larger man’s jacket lapel. When he drew back, he pulled a gleaming, chrome-plated pistol from the man’s hidden shoulder holster. Without hesitation—without as much as a full breath—Tejano swung his arm out, his index finger folding inward on the trigger.
The report of gunfire was deafening, the cloud of sudden smoke acrid and hot. Peaches uttered a frightened, birdlike screech and hunkered down, clapping her hands over her ears. The shot struck Valien in the chest, knocking him backwards and off his feet. He whirled in a clumsy pirouette, a thin trail of blood trailing him in the open air before splattering to the pale tiles of the floor beneath him as he crumpled.
“No!” Jackson howled, his face twisted with stunned grief.
Oh, Jesus! Lina fell to her knees amid the ruins of the coffee table—the glass, spilled slices of oranges and pineapple, the scattered cubes of fallen cheese. “Augustus!”
His eyes were closed, his hair and clothing sparkling again, this time from the glass, not any illusions or light-sensitivity. His forehead and cheeks had been riddled with thin, deep lacerations, his pale skin smeared with blood.
Augustus, she pleaded, shaking his shoulders, trying to rouse him. Oh, God, Augustus, please wake up! You have to wake up!
“You think this is a game, mayate? You think I’m playing with you?” Tejano demanded, swinging the gun now toward Jackson and shoving the muzzle against the sweat-glossed crest of his pate. “Let’s play a game, then. I said let’s play a motherfucking game—you and me. Tag, motherfucker. You’re it.”
“No!” Lina cried, leaping to her feet, hands outstretched. “Don’t!”
Tejano whipped his head around to face her, his brow arched in momentary surprise. All too late, Lina remembered something Augustus had told her earlier when he’d been drunk. Something important. He’d said it with a smile, meaning it in good fun, but oh, God, the shit had just gotten real, and it had gotten deep—they were in over their heads now, all of them.
The shields in her mind. The ones concealing the truth. Which, she realized in panic-stricken alarm, was no longer a secret.
Tejano’s eyes flew wide as he blinked between Lina and Jackson. “You pinche puta,” he gasped. “You…motherfucking bitch!” Glaring at his guards, his brows twisting with sudden, renewed fury, he screamed, “She’s a goddamn cop!”
She heard the distinctive, overlapping clatter as the men lining the perimeter of the room suddenly ratcheted the safeties off on their assault rifles, locking and loading.
Oh, shit! Lina backpedaled, her feet slipping out from underneath her in her haste. She crashed onto her side, landing in the glass shards and slicing open her hip and thigh, then tore open the soles of both feet as she scrambled upright again, leaping for the cover of the couch. As loud as Tejano’s single pistol shot had seemed, the sudden roar of automatic gunfire sounded like ground zero at the base of Mount Vesuvius—on the Pompeii side.
She screamed, hands clasped over her head, and ducked in a fetal position as bullets tore into the sofas, sending downy fragments of upholstery and insulation flying everywhere in a sudden, dizzying blizzard. More rounds sprayed the walls above her head; she heard more glass shattering as framed, oversized photos of vaginas exploded on impact.
“Kill that bitch!” Tejano bellowed above the ungodly din. “I said shoot that motherfucking chota!”
He apparently didn’t give a shit that Peaches happened to be in the line of fire as well. The poor girl wailed, eyes clamped tightly with terror, her fingers tangled in her long blonde hair as she cowered nearby. Lina crawled closer to her and grabbed her by the wrist, drawing her wide-eyed, frightened gaze.
“Tell me you have a gun on you!” Lina yelled.
Peaches shook her head. “You’re a cop?” she cried, and Lina nodded grimly. “Shouldn’t you have a gun? Can’t you arrest him or something? He’s gone crazy!”
They both shrank, yelping, as another round of gunfire tore through the sofa above them, shredding the upholstery and peppering them with more downy fuzz.