Twisted Tides (Forged Hearts #2)

Chapter Two

EVIE

“Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads

T hey all go to Eduardo’s and Emma’s house while Mateo and I load up the bodies and head to Brownsville. We will have to wait for nightfall to see the plan through, but how splendid it will be. What fireworks to see. I become giddy with anticipation at the thought of their reaction.

But before I get ahead of myself, we first need to get some sleep before we can set this black wave in motion, return to Houston, and explain where we’ve been all this time. Emma deserves to know what happened the night of the fire when our parents died, but somehow I survived. I also need to come clean to Jameson. All the twisted tides pulling us into an oceanic graveyard of the condemned and damned.

Eduardo phones a team to have the area at the warehouse scrubbed, and Jameson is working on security along with Eduardo’s personal security team to ensure that the surveillance won’t show us being at that location. Fortunately for us, the warehouse did not have any cameras, and I suspect that’s why Julian chose that specific location to hold Emma. Now, the fucker and Cherry are corpses in the back of our van.

I smile as I file my nails into little sharp points. Mateo glances over at me, and I feel his stare. My head whips up as I hold the file in one hand. His eyebrow quirks up.

“Are you feeling a little stabby, my twisted sister?”

I laugh and continue filing my nails. Feeling like I have gotten the perfect angled points, I throw it into my bag of mass destruction.

“Always, Mateo.” I look out the window at the petroleum refineries twinkling their pretty lights out in the distance. Who would think that such environmental destruction, with toxic fumes spewing into the midnight sky, could create such a perversely beautiful scene?

The lights go by, and I watch them in the passenger side mirror until they vanish from sight.

The van’s cabin is quiet—too quiet—so I decided to put on some tunes. I always hated the silence. The void needs to be filled, even with someone I love and I can be entirely myself. It’s my mind that never shuts off that I need to block out. The intrusive thoughts that must be kept at bay make me wonder if I will ever feel peace.

I sigh. “What do you feel like listening to, Mateo? Perhaps some Taylor Swift to lighten the mood?” I say this in jest because Mateo is not a ‘Swiffy’ fan, although he thinks she is hot.

He laughs. “Let’s try something else, huh, Evie?”

I pretend to think it over but get my phone out and scroll, searching for the perfect song that popped into my head.

“What did you pick?” he asks impatiently, sparing me a glance. He then looks at my phone as if he can tell in that second before he darts his sight back to the straight Texas highway road.

“So impatient, bro.”

I hit play. Suddenly, the driving basslines of this classic tune float through the air, with the drums flowing shortly after.

Mateo laughs aloud, a full-belly laugh as he hits the steering wheel in beat with the bass riffs. “‘Psycho Killer?’ Perfect. This song is a banger, Evie.”

“Right? Everyone secretly always roots for the bad guys.” I spare a glance at the back of the van where two cold bodies are carefully concealed. “But what about us? Some killers aren’t all bad.”

We repeatedly sing the famous French phrases in the song, belting out the lyrics as we drive into the night.

We pull into a dilapidated motel that is sketchy as fuck. These rooms are definitely rented by the hour, judging by the sign that reads ‘Rooms for a night or a lifetime.’ It’s missing a few letters.

Clothes hang strung over the second-floor balcony, and bicycles on the patio are thrown haphazardly, as if they aren’t worth stealing. Paint peels from every surface.

This place is where dreams go to die.

I shudder thinking about the diseases that line every surface of the rooms and what’s been done in them. I, for one, will be sleeping in all my clothes on top of the bed, thank you very much. I just hope it’s cleaner than the supposedly washed sheets.

I inwardly cringe at the thought of bed bugs because I suspect I will have to burn my clothes after this. Mateo and I check into our room for a couple of hours of much-needed sleep. We just can’t sleep at the same time. We don’t want anyone to try to steal our van and discover some dead bodies.

I let Mateo sleep first, and he verbalizes no complaint. I take my e-book reader and finish my favorite dark romance hitchhiker novel.

I look up to find Mateo staring at me as I read the epilogue’s last part. “Fucking cliffhangers. Ugh. The worst.” I shut my e-reader, but not before downloading the next book in the series. I stretch and get up from the chair to take his place.

He places his hoodie over his head, pulling his arms through the sleeves and tugging it down. “I’m going to grab some coffee in the lobby. I’ll be right back.”

He leaves, but not before I tell him to hurry back. Of course, he knows this, but I can’t help it. As soon as my head hits my arm on the bed, I fall into a deep sleep.

Finally, we arrive at the location Jameson told us to be at. They drove Cherry’s conspicuous bright-red car over earlier and are already returning to Houston.

We transfer the bodies and strap them into the back seats with firmly locked seat belts in place. Their heads are duct-taped to hold them up.

I take a step back and look at my work. I bring my finger up to my chin in a pensive stare.

“What do you think, Mateo? Do they look okay?” I look over at him and find him looking at me with annoyance. “What?” What died up his ass?

“Evie, what does it fucking matter? We are going to set this motherfucking car on fire in a few minutes.” He raises his hand, grabs his hair, tugging it upward, and walks around in a circle.

“Calm down, Mattie. Don’t get your chonies in a bunch.”

He stops me from speaking further with a raise of his hand. “Please do not refer to my underwear as ‘chonies.’ I’m not twelve.”

I laugh at the Mexican slang word we use for men’s underwear.

“I just want it to look good when they burn, okay? Is that too much to ask? Have you no pride in your work?” I place a hand on my hip for emphasis.

“Fine, just stop talking about my underwear. It’s weird.” He huffs.

“Fine. You got it. No chonies,” I retort.

I close the door and drive off, exasperated with Mateo. In the rearview mirror, I see him trailing a short distance away in the van. “He's lucky I love him and that he is my brother,” I say aloud to myself, shaking my head in annoyance.

I pull up outside of the Martinez family estate—the home that Julian forced my sister to stay in with his mother and father. Pretentious fucks don’t bother to live in a gated community. They think they are untouchable with their reputation, but when people think you’re dead, they aren’t suspecting you’ll bring their dead son to their doorstep, so to speak.

I step out of the piece-of-shit sedan Cherry owned and shuffle over to the passenger seat where the window is rolled down halfway. I shut the door quietly so as not to make a racket, light a piece of Julian’s shirt that I cut out and saturated in petrol and flick it through the window.

I run in between the carefully maintained privet hedges. My combat boots slap the pavement as I sprint around the block and down the street where Mateo is waiting in the parked van. I shut the door just as I hear the explosion. We drive off, headed back to Houston having completed what we set out to do.

We drive silently, saying little until Mateo verbalizes precisely what I am contemplating. “How long do you think we have until Mr. Martinez discovers it was us?”

I look over at him and shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine, but now there is no going back. We’ve killed his son.”

Mateo’s fingers on the steering wheel tighten, and his jaw ticks. He is really pissed about something. Right when I am about to ask him what’s wrong, he cuts me off.

“He’s going to go after Emma and Eduardo for sure. It’s just a matter of time before he finds out about us, too.”

It will be all out there. There is no going back.

“I’m not hiding in the shadows anymore, bro. I am all out and ready to end this.”

“Me, too. I’ve been hiding longer than you, and I want a normal life.” He tugs at his hair, and I swear the guy will regret that action when he starts to go bald.

I snort. “Normal? You think that is possible for us?”

He looks over at me, giving me a sad attempt at a half-smile. “I sure hope so, Evie. I sure hope so.”

The rest of the drive is spent taking turns driving back in one go with minimal stops. Around lunchtime, we finally arrive at Emma and Eduardo’s place after having offloaded the van at a location provided by Eduardo’s family. A sick-looking BMW M8 in a green metallic color is waiting for us.

Mateo walks around the car and whistles. “Wow, that is one badass ride, Evie.”

I snort. “Sure, that doesn’t draw any attention to us, Mateo.” I touch the car with my leather gloves. “If I do say so myself, it matches my eyes.” I look up and find him bent over in laughter. Pointing at me, he coughs, having choked on his words.

“What?” I feign annoyance. “Spit it out already, Mattie.”

“Nothing, that was just too much, Evie. Love you, sis, but come on, I’m driving first.”

“Fine. Whatever.” I hop in the passenger seat and grab the handle atop the window as Mateo throws it into drive, taking the corner hard. “Bro, you know I have motion sickness. Can you tone it down a notch?” I fake the vomiting motions, and he slows the car to an average speed. “Plus, we don’t want to get pulled over, right?”

He looks at me and nods. “You know, you are beginning to be such a fun sucker, Evie.”

“Sorry for wanting to avoid the cops after we just killed someone. And I smell…” I hesitate, sniffing my shirt. “Faintly of dead bodies and gasoline.”

“Okay, fine. I get it.”

Upon our arrival, he pulls into the private parking space Eduardo instructed us to occupy, and we step out of the car. I stretch out, elongating my muscles as they ache from lugging around literal dead weight tonight. I intertwine my hand with my brother’s as we head into the elevator on our way up to our sister’s and soon-to-be brother-in-law’s place.

We attempt to knock on the door, and it opens simultaneously. Emma pulls us in, and I push her away before she can hug us again. “Emma, we need to burn these clothes. You don’t want to know what’s on these garments.”

“Girlie pop. I am not afraid of a little blood, babes. I am an emergency room nurse. I see the worst of the worst–”

“Really? How do you feel about bed bugs?” I cut her off before she drolls on and on. “Because I swear, I felt one crawling—” I don’t finish my sentence this time because she jumps backward, face contorted in disgust, shrieking her head off and calling for Eduardo.

Mateo and I start laughing uncontrollably. “Eduardo! Eduardo, come in here quick!” she screams, her arms flailing above her head as she jumps back and forth.

Eduardo quickly enters the room in gray sweatpants with no shirt. His body is sweaty, and I stop laughing, trying not to ogle my future brother-in-law. But dang-gray sweatpants and his chest glistening… my sister is one lucky woman.

“What! What is it?” He looks around, searching for the threat, and Mateo lifts his hand to calm him down.

“It’s nothing, man. It’s just Emma talking about how she can handle anything because she is an ER nurse. When she tries to hug us, Evie tells her it could be bed bugs from the motel room we stayed in that rents rooms hourly. We stayed there before we disposed of the bodies and haven’t changed clothing since.”

This time, it’s Eduardo’s turn to jump back, holding on to Emma.

“Okay, just hand us a bag to dump these clothes, and we’ll shower.” I go to move, and Eduardo halts me.

“Do not come into this house any farther.” He makes us strip down in the hallway, throws our clothes into a sealed garbage bag, and leads us to the showers. Emma proceeds to spray us with Lysol as we walk by.

“Oh, God, babe. My car?” I see her twitch and rub at something on her arm.

Mateo and I chuckle as we walk over to the shower.

“We’ll get you a new one,” he shouts back at her as he leads us away.

Once we are out of earshot, he speaks up. “That was cruel, Evie.” He shakes his head, but I know it could be possible, but more than unlikely.

“I’d rather be safe than sorry. If that were actually true though…” He finishes my thoughts.

“We’d have to burn our house.” I eye him wickedly, letting the irony fall into full effect. He chortles.

“Right?” My eyes sparkle with deviance.

“Let’s kill some bed bugs.” He fist pumps the air. “Death by soap.”