The greasy and savory aroma of chorizo sizzling in a pan floats through the air as a breeze pushes past the open window in the kitchen. On Sundays, I try to visit my mother and spend time with her like a good son. 

Little does she know, I've been dropping by more often to check on Richie.

As I sit at the table against the meringue-yellow wall, I study her. My mother is so short and petite that when she hugs me, her head rests on my stomach. It’s a mystery how she gave birth to big ol’ me. Except, once you get to know her, you learn she’s a damn warrior, just in a small package, and I’m glad she found her voice after what happened with my step-father.

“Quieres más?” she asks over her shoulder. "You should eat more. You look skinny."

However, I'm not paying attention to what she's asking because my thoughts are lost on a memory of being ten years old and Chuck, my stepdad, scolding my mother for making the bacon too crispy. I remember him heaving the cast iron skillet at the wall, catapulting bacon and grease through the air. And like an ax, the pan wedged into the wall, creating a hole. As I sat there wide-eyed, he grabbed my mother by her beautiful dark hair, walked her across the checkered linoleum floor to the fridge, and demanded she make a new batch of bacon. 

I was too small and weak back then. Ten-year-old me didn't have the strength to stand up to Chuck. Of course, that all changed.

“Mijo, quieres más?” she repeats.

“Hmm?”

“Do you want more?” she says with her thick accent and walks across that same linoleum floor with a pan of Gallo Pinto—a mix of rice and red beans. But I push away my plate.

“No, I’m getting full.” 

“But you not have chorizo yet.” Her brows furrow. “You too good for my food now?”

“No. Just not that hungry.”

“You getting skinny. Eat more.” Before I can argue, she adds more Gallo Pinto to my plate. 

“Skinny? Ma, I’m far from skinny.” I lift my shirt and pat my abs. But she’s not impressed.

“That’s nothing. Your father looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger!”

“Ah, come on, I work hard for this.” I flex, and she smirks.

“You should work harder at finding a girlfriend. You are getting old.”

“I’m thirty-four!”

“Exactly.” She wags her finger. “I had you when I was twenty-three. But, ay Dios mío, by the time you have babies, I will be dead.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I just want you to find someone nice and be happy again. It makes me so angry how that woman wasted twelve years of your life.” 

“Well, we don’t have to worry about Celia anymore. And I have found someone nice.”

“Really?” Her eyes brighten, and she takes a seat.

“Her name is Mindy Arora. I met her at that divorcée support group.”

“Really…” she leans forwards with elbows on the table. “Tell me about her.”

“She’s beautiful. Looks like a Bollywood Princess.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, keep going," she urges.

“She also has these gorgeous hazel eyes, and sometimes they look green, but other times they look like honey. She’s sweet, kind, a good listener, and reminds me of you.”

“Of me?”

“Yes. Her um…” I pause because I’m unsure if I want to reveal this part about Mindy. Yet I do it anyway. “Her ex-husband used to abuse her.”

“And that’s why she reminds you of me?” My mom straightens in her seat, and I think I’ve offended her. 

“No, that’s not why. I mean, her personality.”

“Then why did you mention her husband beating her?” 

“I don’t know. Forget it.” I wave my hand as if it’ll sweep the comment away, and she’ll magically forget about the topic. “Anyway, Mindy is incredible and—”

“Miguel…” My mother leans forward and grabs my chin with impressive gorilla strength. "Look me in the eyes."

“Ow, Ma, fuck!” I reel back, and she smacks the side of my head.

“Watch your mouth in my house!” 

“I’m sorry, but damn.” I rub my chin, and her glare freezes my fingers in place because she might incinerate me.

“Miguel,” she says more calmly, but her gaze still burns me with a laser focus. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you're not thinking of doing something stupid to her pedazo de mierda ex-husband?”

“Of course not.”

“Mijo.”

“What, I’m not!”

“Hm.” She tilts her head, glare still locked. “You eat like a pig every time you come here, but today you are not hungry. And your leg…”

“What about it?” I halt from bouncing it up and down.

“You are restless.”

“I am not.”

“Listen, I pushed you out of my body and changed your diapers. You think I don’t know when something is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” I force out a laugh. 

“Don’t you lie to me!” She jabs her finger in my face. “I know how you get whenever you learn a man abuses his wife.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, so Christina’s husband found in the gutter outside of Rusty’s bar with broken ribs and a bloody face wasn’t because of you?”

“Nope.”

“Please. We both know that it was you again. And before that, you broke the arms and legs of my neighbor after he sent his girlfriend to the hospital.”

“I didn’t do that, either.” I shrug. “Didn’t he tell the cops a burglar beat him up?”

“Ay, mijo," she shakes her head with a sigh. “One of these days, you’re going to get caught, and then who will take care of me? Who will have Sunday breakfast with me?”

“You don’t have to worry about me getting caught because I’m just a boring personal trainer and a doorman at a fancy nightclub.” 

“You’re not Batman. You can’t go around teaching abusive men a lesson all the time.”

“Well, I’m not.” 

“We are fortunate that Officer Rooney helped us when Chuck died, but he’s old and retired and won’t be able to help you clean up the mess again.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not going around being a vigilante.” I smile and place my hand on top of hers, with my thumb swiping across the smooth flesh. “And you know what? I would like some chorizo.” 

We finish eating breakfast, and while my mom washes the dishes, I go downstairs to check the laundry — also known as Fuck-Face Richie. So, I toss another load into the machine, then sneak behind the hidden door in the basement wall. From there, it's a short walk down a tunnel with mini-string lights casting a yellow glow across the masonry surrounding me.

When I enter the room where Richie is, he looks pathetic in the chair. He's slumped forward with his dark hair draping his face in greasy locks. It's been days since he's had a shower, so his clothes are soaked in his piss and sweat. I bet he has to take a shit. Then again, he hasn't been eating much, which shows in the gauntness of his cheeks. He's not such a pretty boy anymore, is he?

"Wakey, wakey." I kick the leg of the chair, startling him.

Richie's head snaps back, and his eyes search the room's dimness in a wild stare. Perhaps I've had him down here too long. He's starting to lose it. So, I snap my fingers in his face to get him to focus.

"I brought you some eggs." I wave the plate in front of his nose, and his nostrils flare, inhaling the scent.  "I'm gonna feed you like the toddler you are, and I need you to be a good boy and eat."

"Fuck you," Richie sputters with a foamy spit on his lips. "Fuck. You."

"Listen, Richie-boy. You're not going to die down here. I still need you alive. So you need to eat."

"Just kill me already!"

"You're not listening," I sigh heavily. "I still need you alive. Now open up like a good boy."

Pressing the plate to his mouth, I force his lips open with the rim until he complies. He might be glaring at me with his impressively long lashes for a dude, but I know he's hungry. After all, who can resist cheesy eggs and greasy, savory sausage? His teeth part, allowing me to slide the lukewarm food into his mouth with a fork, then I step back and watch him chew. At this moment, Richie resembles a cow chewing grass as his jaw rolls this way and that way while burning me with his gaze. I almost laugh, but I refrain.

"I'll be back later tonight." I wipe his mouth with his shirt and smile. "I've got a hot date with Mindy."

"You keep your fucking hands off her!" He strains against the binds, causing his neck veins to bulge and his brown skin to turn as maroon as a turnip. "I swear to God. I will have you skinned alive and put on display like some trophy animal if you go anywhere near her."

"You do realize where you are. You're not killing me or anyone."

But Richie isn't listening. Instead, he jerks in the seat so hard, I'm afraid the binds will saw right through his flesh. "She's mine. Mine!"

"Not anymore."

"Mindy will never love you. I took her virginity. Do you know what that does to a person? She's obsessed with me. She's bound to me."

"That's adorable. But I'm about to destroy whatever possession you think you have over her." I pat his head and leave.

∆∆∆

Hours later, I’m walking down the street in the Sunset district, and it’s a gorgeous afternoon, but it’s about to get kicked in the dick—metaphorically. 

The periwinkle sky is filled with clouds as thin as stretched cotton candy, and birds sing on the electrical wires. There’s traffic whooshing by on 19th Avenue which echoes the neighborhood as I cross the street to the townhouse address Mindy texted to me. 

It’s the day of her party or whatever special occasion she’s celebrating, and I’m sweating as I approach the apartment door. She’s being reticent about who will be here, so for all I know, I’m walking into an ambush of Richie's posse, and they'll chainsaw my head off as soon as I step inside. Except that’s not the kind of girl Mindy is.

Nope. My Mindy isn’t a psycho like Angie. 

My Mindy is sweet, kind, reserved, and has never even uttered a curse word—at least not in my presence. Who knows what she says in Punjabi? Cussing in another language is the tits—I should know—my favorite ones are in Spanish. But now all I can think about is her purring dirty Punjabi words into my ear, with her dark silky hair trailing my chest as she kisses her way down…

Shit. I need to stop. 

All it’s doing is giving me a chub, so I’ve got to think of something else—like Angie the Big Fucking Mistake Mendoza. What a crazy cunt she turned out to be. 

“There you go.” I pat my dick because, sure enough, little Miguel settles down. 

However, my thoughts return to our huge fight and Angie standing alone, wiping tears from her eyes.

Perhaps, I’m the cunt. 

And because of the onset of guilt accumulating in my sweaty palms, I’m not paying close attention to my surroundings when usually I’m alert as hell. 

“Come with me.”

“The fuck!” I spin and bump chests with Andre the Fucking Giant, a.k.a the Sisters' pitbull, Kay. If he's here to kill me, Jocelyn didn't keep her word, and I should have worn brown pants to hide the shit I just shat. “What are you doing here?”

“Move,” Kay grunts and heads down the steps, but I stand my ground because I have plans today which don’t include Angie or the Sisters, and they sure as fuck don't involve me dying. 

“Hell no,” I say.

“I’m not asking. Move your ass.”

“And I said, hell no.” I fold my arms. “I need to know where we’re going because, as you can see, I have a party to attend.”

Without a change in expression, Kay whips out a revolver, the metal glinting with its threat. A pedestrian walks past us with a Yorkshire terrier, but he skids to a halt, and his eyes shift from Kay to me. The, oh shit, ripples across his face in a ghost white. 

This isn’t the first time I’ve been held at gunpoint, yet the steady rhythm of my heart spikes into a rat-tat-tat anyway as Kay points the weapon at the pedestrian. If he’s crazy enough to pull a gun on someone in broad daylight, then Kay is ballsy enough to press the trigger. 

So, as I stand here like a tree stump, I can no longer hear the birds chirping in the trees or the traffic on 19th Avenue. I can’t even hear the man’s dog barking his ass off, despite the snarl on his face and how ferociously he's tugging the leash. That’s when I see a wet spot blooming across the man’s running shorts, followed by a trickle of urine on his thigh as it makes its way to the sidewalk. 

“Keep moving,” Kay says through his teeth, and his revolver follows the man as he skitters past us. “Move. Move. Move. Faster.”

The innocent bystander scoops up his yapping dog and takes off running quicker than I’ve seen anyone run for their life before. And then it’s just Kay and me, alone on the sidewalk.

“Get in the fucking car!” he orders. 

I hate this defeat, but the man is walnuts, and I don’t want anyone else having a gun pointed at their head, so I ascend the steps and follow him to the Mercedes SUV, idling in the middle of the street. 

Guess I won’t be spending time with Mindy today after all. The next time she sees me will be at my funeral, probably with a closed casket because this asshole put a bullet in my head. For fun, I'll make sure to haunt Jocelyn's lying ass.

“Buckle up.” Kay fastens his seat belt with a click as I slide my bottom onto the smooth leather passenger seat,

“Where are we going?” I ask, but it’s the last thing he says to me for the next twenty minutes because he ignores the question, puts the car in drive, and turns up the hip-hop on the stereo.

Cool. I didn’t feel like chatting anyway. I'd rather listen to Tupac serenade me into death since we're obviously heading to wherever Kay will kill me.

After a thirty-minute, traffic-congested ride across town, we arrive at our destination and pull into an empty lot with a dilapidated warehouse down by the waterfront. Kay pulls around to an entrance, the wheels rolling over the slick pavement as if someone took a hose to it. 

So this is where my life ends, huh? 

Maybe I can still fist-fight my way out of this situation.

The SUV stops inside the warehouse and judging by the hacked-up vehicles and men dressed in coveralls, I’m guessing this is an illegal chop shop. This is surprising because this type of operation doesn’t suit the Sisters. 

“Get out,” Kay orders, and I don’t hesitate.

As soon as my shoes hit the ground, I follow him across the scuffed concrete to a set of metal stairs. We hike up to the second level, which overlooks the workers welding and hacking the vehicles with sparks flying as if they’re creating Frankenstein. 

“Watch your step,” he grunts, just in time for me to notice the giant hole in the catwalk. I step around it.

“Jesus. How old is this place?”

“Older than you.”

We stop in front of a metal door, and Kay motions inside as if he's a gentleman allowing me to go first. Except, I’m positive he’s going to whack me in the back of the head, and in a few hours, I’ll wake up tied to a chair in a meat locker—naked. Damn. Why didn't I think about doing that with Richie?

But, if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, so I enter the room and find myself in a small office. There's a cluttered desk with tattered manila folders and discolored pages sticking out like lettuce on a hamburger. In the corner, there's an old metal filing cabinet with drawers overflowing with more documents, and it makes me wonder what this place used to be. My gaze drifts to the red tapestry loosely draped on the wall that says, Full Send in white letters, and it's fitting, considering Kay is about to full send my ass.

However, I freeze when I pivot right, and my eyes land on a familiar someone. My stomach drops. 

“Fuck. Not today.”