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Thiswas nuts.
There had been so much going on over the last few weeks that Maite and I hadn’t been kicking it as much as we usually would, but we hadn’t been out of touch.
I’d explicitlytold herto put some distance between herself and anything Rojas/Renegadoadjacent, without telling too much. Maite was my friend, and she worePredatorink, but she wasn’t chain of command.
Icouldn’ttell her all our plans.
Especially when she kept choosing the recklessness of being involved with Trin.
I took my mind back to that day at theRenegadoscompound, when Trinidad had made it a point to put herself in the room with me, Manny, and Maite.
Why did she do that?
At the time, there were more pressing things to think through, but now I kept playing that over.
It would’ve made so much more sense to keep a distance, to not cause any sort of rise in suspicion.
Yet she chose to make a point of seeing if we needed anything.
It wasweird.
But I couldn’t hang around to think it through. We had to go get Maite and without causing too much of a ruckus or alarm. Yes, we’d already planned for Manuel Rojas to die, but there had to be some kind of plan about it.
Plans lessened collateral damage.
Plans increased the chance of success.
Plans could mean avoiding outright war.
This shit?
There was no way it wouldn’t be seen as an act of aggression.
“Hey, where’s her studio?” Onyx asked, suddenly right in front of me. “Alicia is sending some people to meet us.”
I quickly gave him the information and then snatched up my phone and headed out the door—heading straight for Brandon while I shot off texts to Ozzy and Keira.
I knew they’d get them.
This is a mess.
This is a complete and total mess, was what kept playing in my head as I moved down the hall to Brandon’s room.
We were supposed to be smarter than this!
I knew love could make people dumb but goddamn.
Really, Maite?!
“Murdering a drug lord,” I muttered to myself as I raised a fist to knock on Brandon’s door.
I didn’t even know how to explain this shit to him.
But when the door flung open and Brandon appeared there, half-asleep and irritated, it wasn’t my voice that spoke up; it was Onyx, who I’d been too absorbed in my own thoughts to even notice had approached behind me.
“Maite’s girlfriend killed Manuel Rojas,” Onyx said, and all traces of fatigue, annoyance, or confusion instantly wiped from Brandon’s face.
“Trinidad?” he asked, looking at me, and I nodded.
