Gathering Dark by Candice Fox (best life changing books txt) 📕

I had never met the cartel men who owned the Kangaroo Gas Pump’n’Jump, but I had seen them talking to my boss out in the parking lot once. I’d seen the sheer menace in their eyes and the nervous, rigid gait of my boss as he walked toward them, and had stood at the counter with my hand on the receiver of the phone, ready to dial 9–1–1 and stop him from being beaten or mugged. He’d explained who they were when he returned, but I’d still written down the license plate. The men had poured out of the Escalade that day dressed uniformly in black, finely cut clothes with thick gold chains hanging from their wrists and necks, tattoos winding like blue and black vines up their necks and into their hairlines, dappled across knuckles and fingers. They’d looked like a collection of bit actors waiting to audition for the role of violent goons in an upcoming HBO narco drama.

Now as they headed toward the automatic doors, I glanced anxiously out into the darkness beyond the lot, imagining Jasmine the parole officer there in her car, ready to photograph the men and me standing under the fluorescent lights.

They were here about the robbery, I knew. The bullet hole in the Marlboro dispenser, my abject failure to do anything to counteract the shame such an incident would bring upon their gang. I felt my body shrink as I tried to calculate the odds of surviving hostile encounters with two gangs of criminals in one day. The two biggest men ducked their heads instinctively as they came through the door, easily exceeding the limits of the colored height strips inside the entrance. The four men came right for the counter. One of the two human-height guys came and leaned on the surface before me under the light, so I could see down the hollow made by his shirt, which was unbuttoned to the navel. A pierced nipple winked at me in the shadows.

“Blair Harbour,” the man said.

“Yeah,” I managed.

“I’m Santiago Cruz. You’ve probably heard of me.”

“Of course,” I lied.

“I’m here to talk to you about—”

“The robbery,” I blurted, wincing as I interrupted him. “I know. I’m sorry. It was … I didn’t … I wasn’t sure what to do, and I’m sorry about the … the dispenser. I can replace it. It’s my fault. The robber didn’t take any money, so that’s something.”

“That’s the weird thing. She did take some money,” Santiago said. He straightened up. “For some reason, you replaced it with your own.”

I froze. I had always believed there were no cameras inside the Pump’n’Jump or the office behind it. My boss had let slip once that the cartel sometimes held meetings at the gas station on the rare evenings in winter when it wasn’t worth opening the store. I assumed they didn’t want the hassle of proving to their associates that the cameras weren’t on when they came together. Santiago could read my thoughts. He smiled, flashing gold teeth.

“You think I don’t have cameras in my own store? I see everything that goes on here. I see you doing those puzzles all night long.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” He sniffed. “I just want to know why you would give up your money to cover a chick who just stuck a gun in your face.” He made a gun with his thumb and index finger and popped an imaginary bullet at my nose. “I can’t figure it out.”

“Well, I…” I looked around at the men. Santiago’s sideman was watching me closely, leaning on a stand full of cheap phones. He had the relaxed, predatory gaze of a lion in the sun watching cubs play, above the drama. I felt a stirring in my stomach at the sight of him. Big, hard hands. I shook my head to focus myself. “Look, it’s hard to explain. I guess I just saw someone who was in a bad place, and um … I didn’t want you guys to, uh…”

“To hunt her down and kill her?” Santiago raised his eyebrows. “Maybe kill her family, just to send a message?”

I said nothing.

“Because we’re those kind of people, right?” he continued. “Sicarios. Pandilleros. Monsters. We’d find her, bust into her house, tie her family to lawn chairs, and toss them in the swimming pool one by one. That’s what you see when you look at us.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but nothing came out. The air was like fire all around me, flickering with danger. My hands were wet with sweat, white-knuckled, gripping the counter. When a big smile broke over Santiago’s face, my throat tightened almost to closing.

“You’re right!” he laughed. It was a hard, deep hacking. “We are those kinds of people!”

The San Marino 13s gang leader leaned over and thumped my shoulder, grabbed my arm, and shook my whole body with it. The men around him smirked. The sweat on the back of my neck had turned cold.

“That’s exactly what we would have done.” Santiago grinned.

“Okay.” I swallowed, looked at his sideman or lieutenant, the one who wasn’t a towering beast. He seemed frighteningly calm.

“So who was the chica with the gun? Do you know her?” Santiago asked.

“No,” I lied again. “Seemed like some street girl, maybe. A nobody. I’d never seen her before. Haven’t seen her since.”

“You wouldn’t tell me if you had,” Santiago reasoned, shrugging. “If you’re going to cover her ass with your own money, you’re not going to then give us her name. Not unless we tie you to a lawn chair. Put you on the edge of the pool.”

I stared at his grinning teeth.

“Anyway, I can let it slide this time,” Santiago said. “You covering for her was a nice thing to do. You’re a nice person, Blair Harbour. Nobody on the street has been talking about the hit. I try to let one go every now and then. It’s like a tribute to Santa Maria.” He thumped his chest.

“Thank you.” I exhaled. “I really