Cadillac Payback: Rising Tide by AJ Elmore (the false prince .TXT) 📕

Maria. She's the same, and she's not. The moment will still come when she breaks under the pressure, but she won't do it when anyone can see. I've distanced myself so much that I know I won't be there when she does, and Abuela has nailed the last spike in that coffin by removing me from Maria's side. What is it that really rubs the wound? If she can't turn to me, she'll turn to Josh.

I think of those conspicuous bruises on her arm earlier. Maybe she already did.

Now the fury tries to rise. I pass the joint and avoid his eyes. I rummage in the ice with a vague faith that Spanky remembered through the pot haze that I asked for some water, too. My fingers find a plastic bottle, finally, and I excavate it. I down half of it in one go.

I can't be mad, at Josh or Maria, if that's what she chose. Maybe she would have chosen me if I hadn't run from the thought, terrified of feeling. I always thought I was tough, real hard and mean, but beneath the cruelty of my old mentor, I crumbled. I screamed when he hit me, tears streaming down my face, wishing for death to descend. Once you go somewhere that dark, it's hard to find your way back.

I can't talk to her now. I can't open to her like I used to. I realize Josh is watching me, so I put those thoughts on lockdown.

He says, “We can do this some other time if you're not feeling it.”

It still catches me a little sideways when Josh shows some concern my way. I guess I should be used to it by now. I shake my head and shrug.

I say, “I'd be sitting at home, imagining ways I'd like to break Mateo's pretty face.”

He makes a sniff of dry laughter, and shakes his head, too. He says, “I didn't have any basis for it, but somehow I knew you'd hate him.”

“He's a fucking prick,” I answer, letting the coiling aggravation tint the words.

“True that,” he answers, and kills his beer.

He tosses the bottle into a nearby trashcan. Whatever it hits inside makes it shatter. He immediately pops the top off another.

He lets a few beats pass, then adds, “What do you think she's getting at by pulling this shit?”

For a moment, my thoughts criss-cross, and his question doesn't make sense.

When I don't answer, he says, “Is it a shot at Maria?”

Oh. That. Right.

He tries to pass the joint back, but I wave it away. I do a visual scan of the area to find the dolly. When I find it, I turn away from him to get it, and I say, “I thought that, too.”

I hear Josh hit the joint again, hard, and hold it in. The finale. He exhales, and coughs. I don't plan on offering more, and he can't expect me to.

He says to my back, “But you don't think that now.”

He's good. Dammit. Sometimes I wish he were the idiot from ages ago, so I could still get a shot or two past him. I sit on the dolly, and before I lie back, I meet his narrowed eyes.

I say, “She's figured out a way to get one of her people into the ranks of security.”

He takes a thoughtful drink, holds my attention as he does. One thing I can say for Josh these days is that he's as quick on the uptake as I am. When he cuts the dumb frat boy act, he's smart. And now that he's been around the block, he's a natural criminal mind.

“It's too simple,” he says.

It's an odd feeling, but I'm almost proud of him for questioning everything, for searching just a little farther than what's obvious. After Charlie died, and Izzy left, Josh and I fell into rank behind Maria. The animosity that was between us died with Derrik on a distant garage floor. He saved my life, a fact I didn't – and still don't – take lightly. It was the least I could do to teach him a few things. Who else was around to do it?

I don't crack my flat expression when I answer, “It's not if there's tension between the families up top.”

In this life, you either go up, or out. If you're on the way out, chances are it's not going to be pretty. Isaiah got a special pass, a once-in-a-lifetime pardon because of his role in Gram's takedown – the details of which he never did give up to Abuela. He didn't out us. He could have.

That pass won't be given to blood members of the family, and it feels like Abuela's moving pieces around for a big play. It feels like what she did to Gram when she slowly suffocated his business, except this time, it's internal.

I flatten myself on the dolly, and roll under the front end of the car. I hear Josh mutter, “Shit.”

I study the car's underbelly for a moment, prioritizing my actions and what tools I'll need. The radio has changed to some other shitty '90s soft rock song. It's almost annoying enough to taint the moment. This is my therapy. Tear apart the machine, fix it, reassemble. It's methodical, and practical, and it's always the same. Math and science, none of this feeling shit that mucks up a good situation.

When I roll back from under the car and say, “I'm going to need the oil pan and the filter remover,” it takes Josh a moment to move.

He hands me down the filter remover and says, “And where does Isaiah play in all of this?”

There it is, the fucking elephant. I feel like it waited for me to roll from under the hood to sit directly on my chest. Or maybe that's an old haunt.

What can I say here? I could be a dick, but it's unwarranted, and for once that stops me. I guess I'll be honest.

I say, “I don't know. Yet.”

He doesn't say anything else