“Fucking hell.” Elias glances at me and then at the body. “He did that?” he asks, pointing to my face.
I nod. But the words get stuck in my throat.
Elias says something in Spanish, far too fast for me to be able to translate it in my head. “You did real good, Jazzy,” he adds in English.
I give him a small smile.
Elias is the youngest of us cousins. Although we aren’t really blood-related. All of my uncles are my dad’s friends. But I’ve grown up with them since I was six years old and my mother dropped me on my dad’s doorstep, so to speak. It was actually a casino lobby.
My mother wasn’t a bad person. She didn’t have a choice. We’d talked about what she had to do. She was dying, and while I’d never met my dad before that day, I had been told so many good stories about him that I wasn’t nervous.
“Princesa, we need to get you out of here. Elias is going to take care of cleaning up. I need to bring you home,” Tío E says.
I shake my head. “I can’t go back like this.” I point to my face. It’s covered in bruises from where Freddie had hit me. And my bottom lip is swollen and split. I haven’t looked, but I don’t need to see it. I can feel it.
“I’m not leaving you here. It’s either Vegas or Mexico, Jasmine. Your choice.” He shrugs.
Neither is a good option. I trust my Tío E to keep my secret, but if I go to his home in Mexico, my Aunt Evie will be there, and I don’t think she’d be able to keep this from my parents. It’s also not fair to put my aunt and uncle in this position.
“I don’t want them to know what I did,” I whisper.
“No one has to know. Whatever happened won’t leave this room. I promise,” Tío E assures me.
“Dad is going to want to kill someone if he sees me like this,” I say. “How do I explain that he can’t because I already did?”
“I’ll say I did it.” This comes from Elias.
“I don’t want you to lie for me,” I tell my cousin. “I shouldn’t have called. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You certainly should have, princesa. This is what uncles are for.” Tío E winks at me. “And I will always come when you call. You know that.”
“You could have calledme. I’ll try not to let it bruise my ego, though, Jazzy.” Elias smirks.
I smile back at him. “Your ego is big enough to take the hit.”
“Okay, we’re going to get you on the jet and back to Vegas. Elias will take care of this place. Get some movers ASAP.”
“Movers? Why?”
“You’re not coming back to this shithole of a city, Jasmine. Besides, I didn’t want to tell you this, but Carlo could use your help.”
I frown. “Why would my dad need my help?”
“He’s too proud to admit when he’s bitten off more than he can chew. But between the casinos and, well, everything else,he needs someone he can trust to step up and help out,” Tío E explains.
“Why wouldn’t he ask me?”
“Because you keep telling everyone how much you love your life here.”
He’s right. I honestly thought if I said it enough times, I would start to believe it. Truth is, I came to New York as soon as I finished college. I have a good job here. I’m a business analyst. I’ve worked hard to move up the corporate ladder. I can’t just throw that away to move back to Vegas.
But if it’s true, and my dad really does need help, I can’t stay here either. “Okay, I’ll go home.”
“Good. You’ve been running long enough, princesa.” Tío E nods.
My eyes widen.How does he know I was running? Does he know why?
“There isn’t anything that happens that I don’t find out about.” He chuckles.