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Medina grins like the fucking cheshire cat when we let him out of Zeth’s quiet little corner downstairs. Surprising, really, since he has a gunshot wound to his leg and he looks like he’s on the verge of passing out. We have to practically carry him to the car. He speaks in Spanish to Rebel the whole way across the city, as though he thinks somehow I’m uneducated and don’t have the first clue what they’re talking about. Rebel drives his Humvee—we ditched Zeth’s stolen Chevy like he asked, and a bike would have been impractical for this trip—and I sit in the passenger seat. Rebel’s snitch sits in the back, spitting out hard vowels and cracking his knuckles like he’s preparing for a fight.
Medina: Voy a matar a ese cabrón. (I’m going to kill that bastard.)
Rebel: Lo necesitamos vivo, ¿Te acuerdas? (We need him alive, remember?)
Medina snorts: Necesita vivo. Lo necesito para sufrir. Él me dejó por dos dias sin darme algo de comer. No podia ni siquiera ir al baño. (You need him alive. I need him to suffer. He left me for two days without feeding me. I couldn’t even use the bathroom.)
Rebel: Lo sé. Tu apesta de orines. (I know. You stink of piss.)
Medina glowers at the back of my cousin’s head, eyes narrowed into angry slits. “You may need that motherfucker for a while longer, but let me tell you, when you’re done with this little game you’re playing, I’m going to fuck him up real good.”
Rebel arches an eyebrow, glancing briefly in the rearview at our grumpy car companion. “You think you can take Zeth, be my guest, buddy. If I were placing bets, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be putting my money on you, though.”
Medina growls under his breath, his knee bouncing up and down. We stop at a low rate drive-thru and get him some food to shut him the hell up, and then we drive for half an hour in silence. I keep my mouth shut, though I am interested in Rebel’s aforementioned ‘little game’, and why he apparently needs Zeth. I’ll be sure to ask him later. My cousin and I used to be close, but the last couple of years have been a silent void between us. We used to be tighter than brothers. Now I’m the family member who finds out the other guy’s married two years after the fact.
People have always had trouble believing Rebel and I are blood relatives given the fact that he’s white and, well, I’m obviously not. His Caucasian uncle, my dad, married my African American mother et voila! I am the resulting by-product of this meeting of hearts and minds and…other body parts. I just happen to be a little blacker than white, and that suits me just fine. Rebel’s father, my uncle, hated me on sight. I’ve always thought that was the reason why Rebel and I were so close. There are many misnomers and inaccuracies in circulation about the man sitting beside me, but the one I know to definitely be true is that he hates his father more than any other person on the face of the planet.
“We’ll drop you here.” Rebel pulls the Humvee over to the side of the road, four motorcycles drawing tight formation at the rear like Rebel’s the damn Pope and in need of protection at all times. He probably is in need of protection at all times, but I’m not feeling very generous toward him right now. Sue me. He puts the car into park and twists in his seat, facing Medina. “This is it. You get out of the car, you go to that payphone. You call Julio, find out where he is, tell him you got the jump on Zeth and you want to meet up. Go to him. Once you’ve found out what they’ve done with Cade and where we’re supposed to meet, you let me know right away. And for fuck’s sake, Andreas, do not breathe a word to anyone you’ve seen me.”
Medina’s jaw muscles pulse, like he’s grinding something small between his front teeth. “I got it, man. And then after this, you and me, we’re done. I don’t want nothing to do with your bullshit anymore.”
Rebel gives him a solitary nod—whatever—and then Medina is getting out of the Humvee and hobbling very slowly across the busy road toward a bank of payphones.
“You think he’s going to do what you’ve told him?” I ask.
Rebel grunts. “If he has any sense, he will. There’s a bounty on that guy’s head down in Colombia. One phone call and there’ll be some very interested members of the cartel flying in to pay him a visit.”
Since it’s just Rebel and me in the car now, I could ask him anything I want to about Alexis and this DEA bitch they have hot on their heels, but I don’t say a word. I’m not exactly in a chatty mood. Plus I’m waiting on Rebel to kick this thing off; it’s on him. He’s the one who vanished into thin fucking air.
Rebel doesn’t say anything, though. He drives us around, his club guys taking it in turns to peel up ahead and scout out a safe driving path for us. I get a text from Zee letting me know Lacey’s not at St. Peter’s, Charlie’s taken her somewhere else, and that he’s moving Sloane to a temporary safe house not too far across the border into Oregon. He also tells me the DEA are trying to swing some sort of deal with Sloane—a fresh start in exchange for my cousin. I don’t even bother to ask about the deal; I know Zeth won’t be keen on taking it, so Rebel has nothing to worry about on that front. The place in Oregon, I’ve been there before. I text him back and tell him I’ll meet him there as soon as Julio’s dealt with.
“You like working for this guy, Mikey?” Rebel asks—he must know there’s only one person I would be communicating with right now, and he sounds a little suspicious.
