Inked in Lies: The Fallen Men #5 Read online

  Then, not waiting for the rest of the family to file in behind me, I started singing at the top of my lungs as I launched myself at Dane’s bed and kneeled on his chest so I could chant into his sleepy face.

  “Estas son las mañanitas,

  que cantaba el Rey David,

  Hoy por ser día de tu santo,

  te las cantamos a ti,

  Despierta, Dane, despierta,

  mira que ya amaneció,

  Ya los pajarillos cantan,

  la luna ya se metió.”

  I ran through the verses of Las Mañanitas as I shook my big brother’s shoulders and stared down at his smiling, indulgent face.

  When I finished, I cocked my head to the side and beamed at him. “We made you a tres leches cake! Molly and me! Do you want us to shove it in your face now or later?”

  Dane scowled at me in mock anger and shot up into a crunch position so he could grab me under the pits and tickle me. I snorted on my laughter and squealed as I tried to evade his hands.

  “You’re not going to shove cake into my face this year, right, Li?” he demanded as he tickled and tickled me.

  I gasped, clutching at my middle, aware that the Booths were gathered around the bed laughing at us. “No, no, I’m not!”

  He stopped and bopped me on the nose. “That’s what I thought.”

  “She might not,” Hudson called out, only five and always eager for mischief. “But I will!”

  Everyone laughed, and I felt the sound score through me. I wondered if you could be scarred in a positive way, if something could sear so deeply into your skin it left a magnificent, lasting imprint.

  And then I realized that must be the reason why Jonathon loved the idea of tattoos so much.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and made a wish like it was my birthday instead of Dane’s, hoping that this day would remain tattooed on my psyche forever.

  “You ready for your birthday breakfast?” Diogo asked. “Molls made you the Booth family classic. Chocolate chip and blueberry pancakes.”

  “Oh, fuck yeah.” Jonathon shoved up from his grey comforter, wavy brown hair all over the place like sleep had run its hands through it.

  “Language,” Molly chided half-heartedly.

  “Mum, we know what fuck means,” nine-year-old Milo said with a sage shake of his curly head.

  “I’m a terrible mother,” Molly bemoaned, but she was smiling.

  “The worst,” Oliver agreed, wrapping his arm around her waist. “You can make it up to us with those pancakes.”

  “Pancakes sound good,” Dane agreed, but he pulled me up onto his thigh and wrapped an arm around me. “But Lila and me got something important to do real quick first.”

  Molly rolled her lips under her teeth, eyes suddenly wet like a pipe had burst behind her lids. I stared at her in confusion, but she smiled wanly at me and let Diogo gently usher her out the door with the rest of the crew.

  “What do we have to do?” I asked Dane when it was just the two of us. “Don’t you think we should spend the day with them? What if they think we don’t love them and––”

  “Hey, hey. Li, you’ve got to stop worrying so much about that. If you live your life in fear, scared that if you act against someone in any way they’ll leave you, you won’t ever live at all. Not really, not fully.”

  I stared at my hands, trying to call up the warmth of the laughter that had echoed through the room only minutes before. “I just don’t want to lose them.”

  Dane was quiet for a long minute, just holding me, breathing into my hair. Finally, he pulled away enough to look into my eyes, his so clear a blue I thought they were the prettiest thing I’d ever see in my whole life.

  “You are the fiercest, bravest, and kindest girl in the whole world. If someone chooses not to love you, they aren’t worthy of you. It’s really as simple as that.”

  There was an ache in my throat that made it difficult to speak. “What if I do something stupid that makes them angry?”

  I’d seen the product of anger, how it led to violence and how violence led to death.

  Not just with Mamá and Papá, but with other people in Ignacio’s business.

  You could love someone and still hurt them.

  Still leave them.

  And that was the nightmare that lived in the darkest corners of my heart.

  The crippling fear that everyone I loved would leave, and I would be alone.

  Dane crushed me to his chest and made a noise in his throat that meant he wanted to cry but he wouldn’t. “The Booths might screw up at some point, you might fight over something or get annoyed with each other because that’s natural for a family, but that doesn’t mean you have to lose them. I’m not so good at this part, but if you love someone, even if they hurt you, if it’s in you to forgive them, you should. Everyone makes mistakes, Li.”

  “Not you.”

  “Not yet, maybe, not with you,” he agreed. “But I’m just a kid too. I’ve got years to go, and I’m not stupid enough to think we’ll go our whole lives without hurting each other. It’s just human nature.” He paused, a slight smile tilting his mouth as he saw me bite my lip. “No matter what, though, Lila Mia, we’ll always forgive each other, yeah?”

  “Promise?”

  He tipped his forehead against mine and whispered, “Promise. Now, I’m eighteen today, so that means I can legally apply to be your guardian like we talked about, but…” he studied my face. “What do you think about staying with the Booths? I want to be able to look after you properly, but even after I graduate in a few months, I won’t be able to make real good money for a while. I’m working on that, but for now, what do you say?”

  Something I didn’t even know had been twisted up in my chest unspooled. “Yeah, I want that.”

  He smiled. “I thought so. It’s nice having a big family, and they’re good people. The best.”

  “The bestest,” I added, because it was true.

  “Yeah, Li, for sure. But listen, I got something drawn up for us.” He moved away to lean down beside the bed and rummage in his backpack. When he came up with a stack of stapled pages, I frowned but accepted them from him. “This is paperwork to legally change our last name. I’m eighteen now, so I can do it and apply for you as well because you’re a minor. I don’t want us to share the same last name as Ignacio anymore. You and me? We’ve always been our own family, and I’m thinking we need our own name.”

  Our own name.

  Not Davalos. Not Ignacio’s or Ellie’s.

  Just ours.

  “Yeah,” I whispered because my voice was lost in the swirl of emotions raging through my chest. “Yeah, I want our own name.”

  Dane grinned, more boyish and carefree than I’d ever seen him. “Yeah, I thought so. Why don’t you pick one for us?”

  My eyes went round as twin coins. “Like any name I want?”

  “Like any name you want,” he agreed, ruffling my hair before he got out of bed and slipped sweatpants over his boxers. He’d gained weight and muscle since we moved in with the Booths, and he wasn’t so gangly anymore. I liked seeing him fit and healthy; it made something in my chest bloom.

  I flopped onto my back on his bed and stared at the ceiling where Jonathon had painted a black sky filled with constellations across the entire space. Name ideas ran through my mind too quickly to catch until I turned my head on the linen sheets and looked out the window at the grassy knoll to the left of the house. It was overrun with morning glory, with daisies and daffodils, and the random red burst of poppies.

  My mind slowed and stilled, soothed by the sight of those flowers swaying so gently in the breeze tunneling through the streets off the ocean.

  They were peaceful, steady in their life cycle, gone so quickly but always returning, just as lovely as before.

  At first, I wanted a flower.

  Dane and Lila Lilac.

  Dane and Lila Suntastic.

  Dane and Lila Clematis.

  But I didn’t want a n
ame that represented just one thing, one flower, one star in Jonathon’s painted-on universe.

  I wanted a name that had the possibility of meaning anything and everything depending on what I wanted to plant within myself as I grew up.

  So I swivelled my head on the blankets to look at Dane as he crouched beside the bed so that we were eye level and reached out my hand to touch him on the forehead the way Diogo had done with me after the murder, when he’d promised me his family.

  And I anointed Dane with our new name.

  “Meadows,” I said softly, tattooing it on his brow with my touch and my intent. “Dane and Lila Meadows.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Breakfast was delicious. I’d never eaten pancakes because Mamá barely cooked, and Ignacio only made what he knew and liked, which was mostly beans, rice, and greasy, deliciously seasoned meats cooked on a grill. Dane and I both ate way more than we should have, and the Booths laughed with us as we smeared the confections in whipped cream.

  Dane got presents from everyone, and he let me help him unwrap them. They were packaged so prettily in tidily folded black and silver paper that I hated ripping them apart.

  But Dane loved the gifts.

  A fishing rod from Diogo because all the other boys had their own.

  A black toque sewn with Dane’s name in silver stitching across the brow from Molly.

  Milo and Oliver had pooled their money to buy him discounted Nike sneakers. They were so white they glowed, and I could tell by the way my brother touched the high tops gently with his big hands that he was afraid even his fingers would mar their beauty.

  Jonathon and I had picked out a present together. It was really from Jonathon because he had the money, but I helped him design it by painting little flowers between the skulls, guns, and brass knuckles Jonathon had etched on the underside.

  It was a Krooked skateboard, black on the top, trimmed in red with our designs on the bottom. I’d known it was expensive because I’d seen the number on the till when Jonathon bought it, but I was reminded again when Dane lifted his shining eyes to Jonathon, and they shared a moment so bright and fleeting it streaked between them like a shooting star.

  When Dane said, “thanks, bro,” it was in a hushed, choked off voice, and when Jonathon responded it was only with a jerky nod.

  Boys were so silly.

  We finished breakfast and immediately served the birthday cake. Hudson and me both shoved Dane’s face into the soft treat while shouting ‘mordida’ like I used to do with Ignacio, and even though it made my chest tight, I was happy to continue the tradition with the Booths.

  It was the best morning I’d ever had.

  Until Molly paused at the kitchen island with an opened letter in her hands, her auburn brow puckered and her mouth open in a gasp. When she looked up from the letter, we were all frozen, our gazes glued to her, but it was Jonathon she looked at with utter dismay.

  “Jonathon,” she murmured. “Please tell me this isn’t true.”

  My head twisted so quickly, my neck cramped as I looked at her eldest son. Confusion filtered across his face before his features solidified and his shoulders stiffened.

  I would never forget what he looked like in that moment, a soldier called out by his general for flagrant treason, his shame tempered by steely determination that he’d done what was right morally if not legally. He wore his hair longer back then, and it fell in his eyes as he locked them on his mother.

  “It’s true,” he said, voice hard, but tone deceptively easy. “And I don’t care if you’re mad as hell. It was the right thing to do.”

  Tears pooled over Molly’s lower lids and splashed to the flour strewn countertop. Diogo’s chair screeched as he pushed it back and strode over to his wife. He took the letter and read it, brow descending over his eyes with each passing second.

  When he looked up at Jonathon, his throat was working oddly, and he seemed suspended between grief and anger. “This is unacceptable.”

  A muscle in Jonathon’s jaw ticked as he clenched his teeth. His hands, drawn with balloons and cake, party streamers and hats depicting Dane’s name and age, curled into fists over the crepe paper tablecloth.

  “No, what woulda been unacceptable is if we couldn’t’a gotten Dane and Lila back,” he ground out. “You said we didn’t have the money. I made it so we did.”

  Hudson knocked his shoulder into me. Without looking, I tangled our hands together and squeezed.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Dane demanded, standing suddenly so he could lean against the table on his fists and glare at his best friend. “What the fuck did you do, Jon?”

  Jonathon stood up, too, both of them canted over the big round table like mountain goats about to lock horns.

  “I made it so you could be here with us,” he growled. “You gotta problem with that?”

  “Fuck yeah, I might,” Dane shouted. “Depends on what idiotic thing did you did now.”

  “He dropped out of school,” Molly breathed from the circle of Diogo’s arms. “He dropped out of school, and the part-time job he said he got, well, I’m guessing it’s full time.”

  Jonathon’s square jaw was so tight, I could read the pulse in his cheek. “You better fuckin’ believe it. I don’t give a shit what you think about it, you or my parents. You think you can make me feel bad about doin’ somethin’ to rectify the worst wrong I’ve ever seen? You got another thing comin’, Dane.”

  The air in the kitchen was hot, bubbling over like a pot left too long on the stove. I wasn’t sure how to turn the heat down, so I didn’t say anything even though my skin itched and my breath was too warm, scorching down my throat.

  I didn’t want Molly or Diogo or Dane to yell at Jonathon.

  Not only because yelling reminded me of the yellow house across the street I’d used to live in with Ellie and Ignacio.

  But because I thought what Jonathon did was the most selfless thing I’d ever heard.

  “You’re a goddamn idiot,” Dane finally said into that waxy hot silence. “You know that, right?”

  Jonathon scoffed because he was Jonathon, and nothing fazed him. Nothing, not even his parents or his best friend could make him doubt himself for a second.

  “You think I’m an idiot, I don’t give a fuck. As long as you’re here, you can think whatever the hell you want.”

  It was so romantic to my young mind, those declarations. It didn’t matter that he cussed every sentence or bit off the ‘g’s at the end of his words. It didn’t matter that his chin was cranked so high in the air we could barely see his squinting brown eyes.

  He was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, and it went beyond so much more than his pretty eyes and wavy hair.

  He was beautiful like Dane was beautiful.

  Because he’d committed to me the way no one else ever had.

  He’d fought for me, not because of me.

  I must have made a noise because suddenly both teenagers were looking at me, their faces falling simultaneously.

  “You’re crying,” Hudson whispered to me, a hand cupped over his mouth as if that made his words less loud amid the silence. “Do you need a Kleenex or something? You’ve got snot running down your chin.”

  I hadn’t realized I was crying, but I wasn’t embarrassed. I was every other thing: ashamed that Jonathon had made such a sacrifice, moved that he’d wanted to make it, in love with him for thinking it was the obvious choice to make when no one else would have.

  Unable to articulate any of that, I let go of Hudson’s hand and slowly rounded the table. I was so filled with feelings, it cut off communication from my head to my body, my legs wobbling and my hands shaking. When I reached Molly and Diogo, I looked up at them with my heart throbbing behind my eyes, and I whispered, “Please don’t be mad at him. Please don’t send him away.”

  Molly bit off a sob and covered her mouth with her hand.

  Diogo blinked as if I’d pinched him then shook his head slowly as h
e bent in half to look me in the eye. His large, rough hand descended as it always did, so slowly, like I was a wild animal who would run, onto my head.

  “We’re mad at him, Li girl, but we would never send him away, okay? Just like we’d never send you away.”

  “I’ll get a job so Jonathon can go back to school and you can be happy with him and we can all live together still because I’ll have money.” Saying this in such a rush, I somehow bit my tongue, and metallic blood filled my mouth.

  “Honey,” Molly said softly. “You’re six years old. You can’t get a job.”

  I tipped my chin into the air like Jonathon and planted my hands on my hips. “I’ve got skills, you know. I can plant things because I have a green thumb.” I held them up for Molly and Diogo to inspect. “And people pay for pretty gardens.”

  “They do,” she agreed, reaching out to clasp my hands so she could place kisses on my thumbs. “But kids can’t work. Only adults can do that, which is why we are upset with Jonathon. It’s a child’s job to learn and go to school. It’s an adult’s job to provide.”

  “He did it for us,” I whispered through my throat as it closed up, my nose stopped up with tears. “Please don’t be mad. No one ever did something like that for me and Dane before.”

  There was a hand on my shoulder, and I turned slightly to see Jonathon behind me. His face was sober like at a funeral, but when he crouched in front of me, I could tell it was because he was moved, and he didn’t want anyone to see it.

  “You remember your dream?” he asked.

  I nodded, worried it was a trick question.

  “Well, it’s a dream that’s come true. There’s no goin’ back now. We’re all a big family now, and even though I did somethin’ because I felt it was right, my parents are allowed to disagree with me. Because they’re my parents, they’re gonna worry ’cause they want what’s best for me. They feel that way about me, Milo, Oliver, Hudson, and now you and Dane. They love us, and when we don’t respect them, we gotta live with the consequences’a that. But those consequences will never be to send us away, okay? That dream’s never gonna die for you, Li. You’re here with the Booths now, and you’re here to stay.”