Both men turned at the sound of our car doors slamming closed. The bigger man blinked the sweat out of his eyes and squinted across the road at us. Luis didn’t need to. He took one look at us and frowned in annoyance.
“Everything okay here?” Dav crossed the empty road and ambled over to join the other two.
The man wasn’t from this part of the neighborhood. True he didn’t belong on the north end with all the rich people either, but he definitely belonged somewhere in the middle. I pegged him middle class with shady dealing to pay for the gold Rolex on his wrist and the genuine leather loafers bulging around his feet. If that wasn’t enough, he had a waterfall of gold chains hooped in layers around his thick neck. A few looked to be caught in the oily curls poking out between the V of his top where the three buttons hadn’t been fastened. When he raised an arm to swipe at the beads of sweat collecting across his brow, the sun glinted off the chunky rings on his even chunkier fingers and the gold band braided around his wrist.
“You guys cops or something?” he barked in a deep drawl.
“Or something,” I muttered.
His small, hazel eyes took us in, first Dav, then me. It seemed to be enough to assure him we weren’t law enforcement because he turned back to Luis as if we weren’t a threat to him.
“I want my money, Luis,” he said. “Tomorrow, or I’m coming back and talking to Marie.”
Luis’s nostrils flared at the mention of his wife’s name. “Leave her out of this.”
The man shook his head. “Tomorrow.”
He started to turn in the direction of a sleek, blue Cadillac parked a few spaces ahead of us, ready to amble off only to be brought up short by a slick sidestep from Dav.
“What’s your name?” Dav asked.
Over his surprise, the man scowled at him. “What’s it to you?”
Dav drew in a breath. “Well,” he blew it out slowly, “Luis and Marie are under our protection, which means you lay a hand on either of them and you will be dealing with us.”
The man scoffed. “You don’t scare me. Do you know who I am?”
“Do you know who I am?” I countered, lacing each word carefully with venom.
He squinted at me. The fact that he remained oblivious solidified my theory that he wasn’t from our part of the woods.
“Nero Diaz and this is my city,” I told him. “You’re on my turf. Whatever business you have here, concludes today.”
One beefy shoulder hoisted up in a shrug. “Sure. Just pay me my twenty large and I’ll be on my way.”
I didn’t have to look at Luis to feel him stiffen.
“Or you leave now, and I won’t send you back to your family in trash bags,” Dav countered smoothly.
“Enough.” Luis stepped forward. “I will get you the money.”
“Plus interest for this … inconvenience. Or,” he sniffed loudly and rubbed a fat finger under his nose, “you can always introduce me to that daughter of yours. I hear she’s a real piece of—”
Davien punched him before I could. The crack of knuckles and bones erupted in the silence with the weight of a gunshot. The man staggered four whole feet, clutching his face and howling like a demon monkey.
“Touch her and I’ll skin you alive,” Davien snarled over the noise.
“Fuck you!” the man garbled around his busted nose.
“Fuck me?” the gun was in Davien’s hand before I could intervene. It leveled at the guy’s face. “No, pal, fuck you. Now, get out of here before I turn you into Swiss cheese.”
Cold, brown eyes bore into Davien, unmoved by the weapon in his face. The attention swung to Luis. “You got till morning to get me my money, Luis. All of it and, thanks to your friends here, you better make it worth my while.”
Luis’s eyes widened. “But I can’t—”
“Not my problem. Bright and early tomorrow.”
The man sniffed blood and snot before shouldering past Dav to march to his car. No one moved until he’d started the engine and rolled down the street. We watched his taillights round left at the stop sign and disappear from view.
Dav and I both turned to Luis.
“Who was that guy?” Dav demanded.
Pale, but visibly furious, Luis glowered at us in turn. “None of your business!”
“He threatened Mia,” I shot back. “It officially just became our business.”
“I’m handling it,” the man grumbled. “But thanks to you, I have to come up with all the money I borrowed.”
“You borrowed from a loan shark?” Dav interrupted. “Why are you messing with those assholes?”
It was either embarrassment or rage that colored Luis’s cheeks when he glowered at us. “I don’t need to explain anything to you.”
“You do when you’re bringing thugs like that into my city,” I stepped in. “And when you risk Mia’s life. So, you’re going to explain what the hell you did.”
“Your city?” he scoffed, fanning my rising temper. “You are just as bad as—”
“That’s enough.” I closed the space separating me from the shorter man. “I am done playing your games. I have tried to be respectful to you because Mia would want that but you have put my people, my neighborhood at risk after I just finished cleaning scums like him out. You broke the rules. If you had been anyone else, I would make you an example. But I love your daughter and it would break her heart if anything happened to you. So, you’re going to tell me why you’re dealing with that asshole. Then you’re going to tell me where I can find him.”
Maybe it was in my words or on my face but Luis caved. His chin dropped to his chest in defeat. A sprinkling of his anger diminished into what I could only surmise as guilt. But I felt no sympathy.
“I lied to Mia and Marie that I got a raise at work,” the handle of his lunch bag squeaked in his grasp. “Marie wouldn’t do the surgery and the doctors kept telling her she needed it. She was in so much pain all the time. I took money out of what we owed Eduardo but … you know what happened. I needed extra to pay you and still get Marie the operation. I thought between me and Mia working, we’d be okay, but then you happened and I needed to make up three pays to keep our heads above water. I fell a little behind because Marie is home more now until the operation and bills and paying Eduardo.”
I tensed. “What do you mean, paying Eduardo?”
“Is someone coming around to collect?” Dav countered, sounding as outraged as I felt; Mia’s house was on the no fly zone. No one should be taking anything from them, especially since Davien was still the one collecting on the block every first of the month.
The fury returned in the other man’s brown eyes. “No one is collecting, but I’m not going to be in debt to you two.”
I felt my head physically jerk back as if he’d struck me. “So, you would rather be indebted to a loan shark who could burn your house down while you sleep rather than two men who love your daughter?”
Heat brightened Luis’s cheeks, but he kept my gaze unflinching. “It seemed like the more reasonable solution.”
My own temper flared and I found myself looming over him, barely containing the urge to punch him in the mouth. “So, you let your pride put you and Marie, and Mia in danger just to … what? Spite us? You put Mia in danger just to prove you’re a man?”