Amelia is still fast asleep with her back against my chest in the morning. I don't want to move in case I disturb her, so I stay still, waiting for her to wake up while replaying last night over and over again in my head.

Maybe now that we've had sex she'll get out of my head. Girls never usually fill my thoughts as much as she has, and when they have it's just because i've been horny. This has always solved the problem.

Eventually she stirs a little in my arms and I watch her eye lids flutter open. She turns around to face me, giving me a clear view of her chest.

"Hey."

She smiles and I'm taken aback by how beautiful she looks. "Are you going to talk to me when we leave this room?"

"Obviously. Why wouldn't I?"

"You're just... very hot and cold. Like the night you hugged me, the next day you didn't speak to me."

That's because I was a little preoccupied with Caligari and didn't want to take my anger out on you. I don't say that though.

"You didn't talk to me either," I smirk.

"You didn't give me a chance to because you were never around."

I laugh. "You never give up do you?"

"And that reminds me, you still need to tell me about what happened to you last night."

"Pancakes!" Yasmin shouts from downstairs, saving my ass.

"After breakfast," I smile then get out of bed and pull on a pair of black jogger shorts. I throw her panties and shirt onto the bed for her to wear.

"Can you get shorts from my room? I don't want one of your brothers to see me like this."

I go to my drawer and pull out grey jogger shorts and throw them to the bed. "Wear these."

"Ooooh, I get to wear Alex Fuentes's clothes," she says with sarcasm laced in her tone. I watch her put them on and get a warm feeling inside of me from seeing her in my clothes. It's kind of turning me on.

Fuck.

The thoughts are still there.

"What?" She catches me staring at her.

"You look sexy."

Her head tilts to the side and she rolls her eyes, involuntarily making herself look hotter.

We walk into the kitchen together and Yasmin, Val, Carlos, Ray, Diego, and Max look at us. Marco is too busy focusing on eating to care. Max's eyes avert to my shorts Amelia is wearing, his forehead creasing.

It's called marking my territory, Maximino.

I sit in the middle of Ray and Amelia, and we grab some pancakes. Val is glowering at me from across the table, his eyes narrowed to splits. I shoot him a questioning look.

"You're looking pretty today, Amelia," Diego says, glancing at me. He's just trying to annoy me. It's working.

"Right back at you, Di," she winks at him.

"I'd say they're flirting," Ray whispers to me.

Why do my brothers try so hard to ruin my good mood?

"Eugh," Val falls onto his bed. "Santiago please tell Alex to leave the room."

"Alright, spit it out. What's your problem with me?" I demand to know, sitting up from Tiago's bed.

"I stayed home last night! I wanted to have a nice relaxing night in, but no. You keep me up all night with your thumping."

Santiago laughs loudly.

"Now you'll know how it feels."

"Hey, I warn people when I'm bringing a girl home."

They don't ask questions, which I appreciate.

I roll my eyes, putting my feet on the ground and about to get up and leave, but I feel something on the back of my foot. When I look down under the bed, I see an empty vicodin container.

"Tell me you didn't take all of these last night," I say, holding the container up. Santiago looks away from his phone, staring at me wide-eyed.

"Not it all."

"How much?" I press.

"Just half."

I just about crush the thing in my hand. "Just? That can kill you! How are you even okay right now?"

He shrugs. "My bodies used to it I guess."

I look at Val, his face is unreadable. "Did you know about this?" He shakes his head no.

"It's not a big deal, Alex."

"Not a big deal?" I scoff, getting up and taking his backpack and emptying everything out.

"What the fuck is your problem?" He gets out of bed and pushes me back, but my eye has already caught the orange container in his bag.

"It's you with the problem. You're addicted. That plus your thirty cigarettes a day will kill you. Do you even care?"

His face goes taut. "Get out."

"No."

"Get the fuck out!" He pushes me, my back hitting the wall hard.

"Stop it!" Valentino yells, holding Santiago back. I've never seen him this aggressive. He's usually just so relaxed, but now he's sweating, fighting out of Val's arms, with a viscous look in his eye aimed at me.

"This is your fault," he spits, looking me straight in the eye. "You could have stopped him. You just watched Dad kill him!"

I wince from his words, my heart rate quickening.

"What is he talking about?" Val asks desperately, after Santiago reveals to him for the first time that not only did our Dad kill someone, but I was there when he shot the guy in the head.

"There was nothing I could do," I plead, my voice small.

"You tell yourself that, but we both know that's not true." His voice is so malicious. I don't even recognise it. Val is now looking at me in a whole new way too.

I hold my breath and walk out the room. As soon as I close the door behind me, I look up and see Ray standing outside his room, watching me, his expression unreadable. He heard.

I walk straight to my room, slamming the door. I don't know what else to do other than to express my feelings in anger, kicking stuff, smashing things. My eyes catch the photos on my wall of my Dad and my siblings from when we were young and I don't hesitate before pulling them all down and ripping them apart. My door flies open and Amelia comes in.

"Not now, Amelia," I snap. She frowns but doesn't move. "Just leave me alone!" I punch the mirror on my wall and it shatters. My hand burns.

"No."

"Then i'll leave." I throw on a shirt and slip into my shoes, grab my car keys and move past her. Ray is still standing in the hallway, frozen.

Amelia chases after me, following me outside and gets into the passengers side of my car.

"Go back inside."

"No."

I hit the steering wheel. "Suit yourself." My cars speeds away from the house, with no idea where I'm going. Amelia doesn't speak for the first fifteen minutes, until we are on a quiet road somewhere.

"Pull over." Her voice is soft, and after thinking about it, I do. "What happened back there?"

"Santiago's addicted to pain killers. He took too many and they– they fucked him up or something – I don't know. And now Val and Ray know."

"Know what?"

I stare ahead at the trees, a knife forming in my throat, stopping me from saying the words. "That my Dad is a murderer. And that I saw him put a bullet in an innocent mans head. Santiago said I could have stopped him, and maybe I could have. I've been going over it in my head a millions times since it happened, thinking what if. But at the time all I knew was that Caligari had a gun pointed at my Dad, and if he didn't do it, we'd both be dead."

I look at Amelia for the first time, and have no idea what she's thinking. She just looks at me, her face blank.

"I don't know who this Caligari guy is, but I do know that it seems like there was nothing you could have done."

A tear falls from my eye as I rethink it in my head again. The gunshot. The man falling to the ground, a puddle of blood forming around his head. Caligari's smirk as he congratulates my Dad. And the way my Dad couldn't look me in the eye after that moment.

"You can't torture yourself over something you had no control over, Alex."

"He took a mans life. A man with a wife, and a young kid."

She grabs my hand, her voice becoming firmer. "It wasn't your fault, okay? It wasn't your fault. And I don't think it was your Dad's either. It seems like the blood is on the guy's hands who forced him to do it."

I've been telling myself that since it happened, but it's never sounded more true than it does coming out of her mouth.

"Caligari is my Dad's boss. His job wasn't perfect, I'll tell you that, but it payed the bills. When my Dad got arrested, Cal came to me, telling me he wants me to work for him. I said no, obviously, but he threatened to ask my other brothers instead. Either way, one of us was going to have to do it. It was me or them."

"So you're, what? Killing people for money now?" Her voice is shaky.

"Of course not. He just makes me beat up some guys for him. Sometimes make deliveries for him."

"As in... Drugs?"

I nod. "Cal is known as the Drug Lord. If you piss him off, or owe him money, then you're already dead."

She is worried now. "Alex, you have to get out of it-"

"The only way I can stop working for him is if i'm dead."

"What about if you call the cops-"

"Even if he is in jail, his men would kill me and my family."

There is a long silence, and then I feel the hand Amelia is holding start to sting. She's picking out bits of glass from the mirror I hit and throwing them out the window. "You never give your hands a break," she jokes and I manage a smile.

"Lo siento. I'm sorry for snapping at you."

"No hay problemo," she manages. "Is that right?"

I laugh. "Yeah. But it's not pronounced like hey. The H is silent, and you say it like eye." I point to my eye with my free hand.

"Okay okay. My spanish teacher will be impressed by my new knowledge."

I smile and watch her use the sleeve of her hoodie to put pressure on the cuts in my hand to stop the bleeding. "Where did you learn your med knowledge?"

"Clarke from The 100."

I burst out laughing.

"Hey, you binge watch four seasons and you learn a couple things," she shrugs.

Amelia uses GPS on her phone to get us back home, and we laugh the whole way. It's amazing how she can take my mind off of things.

Enrico and Santiago are sitting at the dining table when we get back, and I prepare myself for him to lash out on me again.

"Alex, Im sorry," he says instead, standing up. "I didn't mean what I said."

"Olvídalo."

"No. I went too far. You have to know that I didn't mean it. I'll say anything when i'm angry."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's okay now."

His eyes avert behind me to Amelia, and he nods.

"Just promise me you'll stop taking them."

"I'll try."

That's good enough for me. I walk upstairs, hoping Amelia will follow and she does. I don't know what I'm going to do about her – about these thoughts I'm having. Or are they feelings? All I know is that she made this shit day a lot better. And that we have good fucking sex... shit.

+++

omg drama drama drama

how do you think valentino and ray will feel about what they found out?

teaser: val throws another party and amelia gets upset with alex

vote, comment, follow

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-e