Punished (Calavera Hotels #1)

Prologue Adrian

Bryan: Hit me up. I’ll send you my location.

Adrian: Okay. I’ll be there in 40 minutes. I’m dropping Diana off.

I drive up to the large estate where Diana lives and park. We’ve been fighting as usual, and in true Diana fashion, I already expect her to get out and slam the door. To my surprise, she turns to me and kisses me. She kisses me long and hard, pulling me closer to her, her hands around my neck. My tongue slides to find hers as she moans in my mouth. Diana has always been a good fuck. Nothing more and nothing less. She probably knows that deep down, which is why we fight so much. She wants obsession and devotion, and at seventeen, I can’t offer her either of those things.

She pulls away, panting, when an outside light comes on. Daddy Dearest, Judge Julian Nunez, stands out on the porch, and judging by the look on his face, he is more than pissed at seeing his sweet, innocent daughter outside with a lowlife like me. She kisses me one last time before she exits the car. I give an award-winning ‘fuck you’ smile to Julian before I make my way to the Second Ward of Houston to pick up my homeboy, Efren.

Efren has always been my most loyal friend. He knows about my life, but never tries to pry or ask questions. He knows my motives and I know his. Do we like the shit we have to do to survive? No. But we didn’t choose this life. It was merely the only path available for us to get ahead. Efren comes out in a striped green and black polo, his hair slicked back and a cigarette behind his ear.

“What’s the pretty boy want?” he says as he slides into the front seat, and I know he’s referring to Bryan. He often warns me about Bryan, but I need to keep our connections to Saint Rita’s. The Private Catholic High School is where most of our profit comes from. A part of me loves to see all those posh kids strung out on drugs. Blowing all their parents’ money to get their fix. The same parents who look down on me, like Diana’s dad. The parents crying as they put their kids in high-end rehabs none of us could ever afford. They are fucked up like me, with my mother’s addiction ruining what remained of her. Her addiction and neglect created a monster in me. Her addiction should have been the one reason to discourage me from making narcotics my full-time job, but instead, it fuels it. There has always been something in me that thought if I climbed to the top of this world that I could find where my mom was getting her fix from and cut it all off. That part of me is delusional because I know once you make it in the streets, the only way out is death.

Efren and I arrive at the location Bryan sent us. It’s some type of playground in the suburbs of Houston. Bryan is wearing all black, hiding under the hood of his sweatshirt when we walk up. He’s always paranoid about getting caught. Like a fucking pussy. I approach him and he hands me the money. I give it to Efren to count before handing Bryan the few grams he asked for.

Faster than I can blink, I hear sirens as Bryan takes off running. I run to get in my car, Efren following behind me.

“What the fuck was that?” he says, and I try to take off, but two cop cars cage me in. Efren and I know this drill too well, so we step out, hands behind our heads and lower to our knees. Efren stares coldly into the cop’s eyes as he spits on the ground. They are immediately on top of us, forcing us to the ground and handcuffing both of us. They start to search the car and ironically find over 500 grams of cocaine in my trunk and a suitcase of money. Neither of which are mine.

Diana would later stare straight at me and testify that she was with me and Efren. She claimed that we kept dropping by random houses and coming out with money. The prosecutor used my phone records to trap Bryan, but his family had money and he had an alibi, so the case was thrown out. Efren and I honored the street code and refused to snitch, but I was buying time until I saw him again.

Our shitty court-appointed lawyer pushed to lower the sentence, but it didn’t help that our judge and the prosecutor were Julian Nunez’s golfing buddies. I was fucked from every side of the judicial system. I had no fucking chance from the get-go. Bryan clearly set it up, and I was going to find out why. As soon as I leave this prison, I will find everyone who plotted against us, and I will punish each and every one of them.