It’s not under thebed. It’s under themattress. And that’sreallyfriggin’ weird.
I shove my hand between the mattress and box spring, and sure enough. The slim, hard frame of a smartphone is right there, about five inches from the edge, buzzing like a mother fucker.
I have no idea how this phone got here. Natalia and I have been in the city for the past three days, so I’m wondering if a member of the housekeeping staff is having some kind of personal drama and needed to hide their phone in here.
“What the fuck,” I mumble, pulling it out.
Mid-grab, it stops buzzing for a second, but before I can even hit the button to light up the screen, it starts buzzing again. The name flashing in front of my eyes nearly causes my heart to stop.
X Reyes
Who the fuck isX Reyes?
Reyesobviously indicates it’s someone I’m related to, but none of my sisters are here to stick a random phone under my mattress, and I can’t exactly see my parents doing that, soagain.Whose fucking phone is this?
I stare at the screen until it stops blinking, and then I immediately swipe it open. It’s a super basic set-up. Almost no apps beyond the text messages, web browser, and a generic email icon. The phone icon is showing six missed calls. The message icon shows four new messages. I would normally never go through another person’s phone, but I don’t know whose phone this is, so if nothing else, I need to know who to return it to and then chastise them for hiding a damn phone under my mattress, all sketchy-mother-fucker style.
In the message app, there’s only a thread with the aforementioned X Reyes, so I press my thumb to the icon and open it.
I immediately rock back off the balls of my feet to fall flat on my ass on the floor.
“What the fuck…?”
X Reyes: u see Ernesto yet?
You: not yet. We’re back at the house and we’ll to talk to him about everything in a few minutes.
X Reyes: he suspects u?
You: no. He’s just pissed at J over the marriage.
X Reyes: good. U able to find his other laptop?
You: no. If they work it out and we stay I can look around tonight.
You: if they don’t I’ll have to figure out something else.
X Reyes: u better not fuck it up, perra.
You: I won’t
My room feels really fucking freezing all of a sudden. Or maybe that’s just my own fucking blood running cold.
This is Natalia’s phone.
And now I know exactly whoX Reyesis.
Xavier Reyes. My second cousin. The guy who was promoted to second in command of Los Dolorosos’ operations inEl Norteafter I put a bullet in myothersecond cousin, Ignacio’s head earlier this year. One of the mother fuckers who sent Papá a threat after that shoot-out.
No lo verás venir.
You’ll never see it coming.
We’ve known these mother fuckers were going to dosomethingafter all of that, andnow…
If I’m reading this right…
I scroll through the entire text thread. The messages go back for weeks, but I don’t even need to get to the beginning before I know.
