Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Holy shit. She’s thinkin’ about the dead ones.
I let out a breath, suddenly reliving the day I got my fight name. Dead Eyes. I don’t even remember the name of the bastard who started calling me that. Joaquin? Juan? Walt? I can’t remember. My first camp was run by a fighter called X-Eyes. He’s the one who tattooed me first. The evil smiley face with x’s for eyes. I only won two fights with him, but that insane asshole tattooed me seven times with his stupid fuckin’ faces.
Everyone after that first camp assumed Dead Eyes came from X-Eyes. Like I was his prodigy, or something. But that’s not where the name comes from.
Dead Eyes. That was the look I wore after I came out alive. Dead. Eyes.
Because I don’t think about the dead ones. Ever.
But also because I didn’t stop fighting, never assumed it was over, until I could see the deadness in their eyes. The blank blackness in there.
The x’s where their souls used to be.
“Irina—”
“No.” Tears are still running down her face, and her nose is running, and her eyes are fuckin’ bloodshot red. But she’s calm now. “No. I can’t live with it, Eason. I’ve tried. I have. I’ve tried. I don’t think about them. Ever. Ever! But they are there. Inside my head. Following me around, haunting me. I killed eight boys and a little girl to be here today and I need to make this right.”
“There’s no way to make it right, Irina.”
“Yes, there is.” Her crying has stopped and she’s growling now. “Yes, there is. You have names. I want the names. I want them dead.”
“That’s not what you want. You don’t want them dead. You want to kill them yourself.”
She sniffs, but doesn’t deny it. Just lets out a long breath.
Someone is pounding on my bedroom door, and I’m so tired I just want to crawl into bed and never get back up. Why am I even here? Why?
“I’m gonna go explain it to them,” Irina says. “I’m gonna ask them for help.”
I shake my head. “No, Irina. You’re not.”
“If you won’t help me kill them, then I’ll get someone else to do it. Nandy’s family—”
“Nandy’s family is no one.” I say this much sharper than I should, then take a breath and try again. “No one, Irina. Not in the world we come from. They are nothing but a bunch of scrappy fuckin’ immigrants. They worked a little harder than most, they got a little farther than most. But they are in no way anything like the people who ruined our lives. So you will not tell them anything.”
They are persistent though. I’ll give ’em that. Because they are still pounding on my door.
Irina sniffles and squirms, trying to get up. “I need to talk to Nandy. I need to tell her—”
“No.”
She keeps wriggling, but I hold her tight. Then she’s trying to fight me, but I’ve got her arms pinned. And let’s face it, I’ve got sixty pounds on this girl. She’s not getting away.
She tries, though. She spits insults at me. She digs her fingernails into my skin. She screams.
But I don’t let go.
I don’t know how long this goes on for. But finally, her ugly sobbing and sniffling stops and she goes limp in my arms. Exhausted.
I wait. Just to see if this is a trick. But it’s not. She’s passed out from all the effort of this day.
I hold onto her as I stand up, get out of the tub, and carry her over to the bed. I place her on the top cover and smooth her sweaty hair away from her eyes.
The living room has gone quiet. Everyone gone, I guess. So I unlock the door, open it up so I can get a drink of water, and come face to face with one of the Jardinez men sitting in chair, facing my bedroom door, holding the yellow envelope in his lap.
I stare at him for a moment, then look over my shoulder to make sure Irina is still asleep. I leave her there, closing the door behind me.
“What do you want?” My question is not friendly. Obviously, Romero looked through the envelope. It’s been sittin’ there on my fuckin’ coffee table for days. Like a dull knife in my back, waiting to be twisted.
Heh. So much for keeping the secret.
“People are trafficked out of Cuba all the time,” he says in his perfect American English. “Coming to America for a brand-new life. Every now and then, some go missing. Die, maybe?” He stares at me for a moment. “Or maybe not.”
“What’s your point?”
“The Jardinez family, my family, we are part of things. Some good, some not so good. People around Miami think we’re some kind of mafia. But we’re not. Not really. Not in the traditional sense. We traffic people out of Cuba three or four times a year. We bring them here with the help of other kind and courageous people in the area. And we help them erase the old life and start a new one.”