I sat in the driver’s seat of my brother’s SUV waiting for Eva to come out of the penthouse so I could drive her home. It was a typical seventy and sunny morning in San Diego, so I put the key in the ignition, rolled down the window, and turned on the radio. A new Kanye song played and I didn’t even recognize it. It was funny how a couple of years in jail could make you completely out of the loop when it came to pop culture.

I took a deep breath. I had to get out of there after seeing Eva almost nude again. There was a monster inside me, and I knew how badly it wanted her. I was never intimidated by any woman, but the way Eva had no problem stripping down in front of me—with utter confidence—made me need to get the hell out of there, away from her. I was having a hell of a time keeping my hands off her.

Last night after she passed out on the dock, I carried her to my room and tucked her under the covers. She looked so damn sweet sleeping there that I wanted nothing more than to cuddle up to her. Instead, I slept on the couch.

A cold, hard, realization hit me. Just some passing words that my jail psychologist had said to me, but now rung truer than I originally thought. Corbin, when you really love someone, you run. It’s because your mom left you when you were young, and you never knew your dad.

I’ve never been someone who believed in the Freudian analysis bullshit, but maybe he had something there.

I tried to think about what Eva was making me feel—but processing my own emotions had never really been my strong suit. I was the king of wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am’s. I believed that people were really, truly, better off without me, especially women. I’d tear through them like the Tasmanian devil, giving them a few nights they’d never forget.

And then I’d stop calling. They wouldn’t.

The door to the penthouse swung open and Eva appeared, wearing some old blue sweat pants of mine and a white t-shirt, no bra. I couldn’t help but stare at her curvy body as she walked toward me in the sun like some kind of cheesy B romance movie scene. She was knockout gorgeous without even trying, which was infuriating. I reached over and popped the passenger’s side door open for her.

“I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t much feel like squeezing into those pants again, so I raided your dresser and found these,” she said as she hopped into the front seat.

“Keep ‘em,” I said as I kicked the car into drive.

“You’re doing pretty well for yourself for having just got out of prison. A motorcycle and an SUV?”

“It’s my brother’s,” I said, pulling out of the driveway.

“Oh really. Well it’s nice. What does your brother do?” Eva cocked her head toward me.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not important,” I said. I didn’t feel like getting into my brother’s profession, which always yielded ten million questions as soon as girls found it out.

“I think it is important. Very relevant, in fact. How am I supposed to trust you if you won’t even tell me a simple detail about your life? Here, I’ll start. I have one brother who lives in Chicago. His name is Jake. We grew up poor on the south side. I got out of there to start new and ended up at San Diego State. I was raised by a single mom, and I haven’t seen my biological dad in years. See? That wasn’t so hard. Now you.”

I drove in silence for a moment. We pulled up to a red light and I glanced over at her. “I appreciate your family tree honesty, but you don’t want to know about me. No one does. Trust me. It’s not a fun story. Just depressing. Wait...holy shit. Do you mean The Jake Napleton is your brother? Like the baseball MVP of the league last year?”

She nodded.

“Holy shit,” I added.

She put her hand on my knee. “So are you saying my story wasn’t depressing? My brother and I are self-made. We’re two of the only people from our neighborhood who made it out.”

I shrugged.

“Anyways, yes, I do want to know about you,” she continued. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. This isn’t an act. I’m genuinely curious. What drives a guy like you to get into dealing drugs at a young age? And can I trust you on the other side of the drug war?”

For years, I’d been trying to get over my past. I just wanted to forget about it. My upbringing was far from stellar. But she was looking at me with a look that conveyed true interest.

She had no idea what she was about to get into. My life had been a shit show up until…

I was going to say ‘Now,’ but it really was still a shit show. Who knew if I’d ever be out of the woods.

“If you insist,” I growled as I jammed my foot on the accelerator and hung a right at the corner to take a detour. Eva fastened her seatbelt. “It’s time for the Corbin Young roots tour.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, suddenly sounding a little scared.

“You’re completely right,” I said, ignoring her immediate question. “You have no reason to trust me at this point.” My eyes were glued to the road as I sped on. I gave a token pause at a stop sign before blowing through it. I turned left on a dirty old road with lots of potholes, the same ones since the nineties when I grew up there. “I want to teach you a little bit about my life so you understand where I’m coming from. Do you know where we are right now?”

“Of course I do. We’re in Vista Chulo. I have an uncle and a…” Eva paused, like she was remembering an old friend. “…a cousin who used to be from here,” she trailed off.

“Where does your cousin live now?” I asked.

“Javi’s not with us anymore,” she said, glancing at the cross dangling from the rear view mirror.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

A tear streamed down Eva’s cheek, and she immediately wiped it away, pretending that I hadn’t seen it. I massaged her shoulder for a second, and slid my hand down her arm and did something I hadn’t done in years: I held her hand just because I wanted to.

Fingers interlocked, we drove on in silence for a few moments.

I pulled over in front of a dilapidated red brick duplex wedged between two larger houses and put the car into park for a minute. I rolled down her window with my controls and pointed outside. “This is where me and my brother and sister grew up with my mom. It’s a tiny house, obviously. We had one bedroom between the four of us. I slept in a bunk bed with my brother, my mom slept on a futon couch in the main room, and my sister had her own room.”

Eva looked shocked. “Does your mom still live there?”

“Not since she left when I was fourteen.”

Eva’s eyes widened. “She just left?”

“She battled with drugs her whole life. Finally, the drugs won. I think she figured we were better off without her.” I swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Like I said, not a pretty story.”

“What did you do? Like for money?”

I shrugged. “I started selling coke. I had a little brother and sister to raise. And I wasn’t about to go to child services, let them split up the family or whatever they would do to us.”

I felt her squeeze my hand. She turned toward me and looked me in the eye, running her free hand from my forearm up my bicep to my shoulder.

“Corbin, you know none of this was your fault, right?”

“Yeah, of course not,” I said, not really considering the words. Eva was getting all mushy on me and I was done opening up.

I kicked the car out of park and pulled off down the road. It wasn’t even noon yet and we both could easily spot the crack dealers who were circulating down the sidewalk, getting on with their unique brand of sales.

“See that corner over there?” I pointed to the intersection ahead of us. A few teenagers stood there smoking cigarettes and loitering by a corner gas station. Eva nodded. “That’s where we saw our first drive-by shooting when I was eleven and Casey was nine. We heard some pops, came outside, and saw a guy bleeding out on the concrete.”

“Jesus, Corbin, that’s awful.”

“It’s also the same corner I sold my first dime-bag when I was thirteen. Ironic.”

Eva seemed to have a visible, visceral reaction to my comments. Her body squirmed in the passenger’s seat.

“Why are you showing me these things?” Eva asked, still visibly shaken. “How is this going to make me trust you?”

I looked over at her and I had to smile. “I’m not sure how. I’ve never really told anyone about these things. The truth is I’m ashamed of the way I’ve grown up. I’ve always tried to hide my roots. I’ve done my time on the wrong side of things. But moving forward, I’m ready to do whatever it takes to put an end to this awful ring of crime and take down Luis Reyes. I know we had one crazy night together—before we knew who each other were. But a lot has happened since then. And I’m willing to put aside my past, as well as whatever it is that we have between us, if it means taking down Reyes.”

I could feel Eva’s eyes searing into me. She was probably wondering if she could really trust me, if I had changed my ways. It felt oddly liberating to be this honest with her. I decided that I liked being open with Eva. Maybe I would keep doing it.

My grip on the steering wheel tightened as I stopped at a red light. A convertible pulled up beside us.

“Hey cabrón!” yelled an unmistakable voice. On our right, Marco Reyes rode in a red convertible with a dark haired girl who sat silently in the passenger’s seat. “Nice to see you in the neighborhood today! Your mistress ran out on me last night so I decided to get another one.”

I ignored his reference to Eva, who was sitting silently between us. “Blonde yesterday, brunette today?” I asked him, nodding toward the girl next to him.

“New girl for every day of the week. You know all about that, don’t you?”

“Variety is the spice of life.”

“Exactly. Although I haven’t had a girl like her lately.” Marco smiled at Eva. “Alexa, you said your name was? I was so sad when I came out to look for you and you were gone last night.”

Eva held onto her plastic smile. I shot her a look. Just play. The fuck. Along.

“I would never do anything to disobey my papi,” she said, pursing her lips and running her hand over my chest. Wow. Nice Spanish accent. Plus one point.

“Now that’s the kind of girl I like: an obedient one. You’re a lucky man, Corbin. Hasta luego.” The stoplight turned green. Marco’s tires screeched and he spun out, stealing a glance back at Eva.

“Seriously, does that attitude actually work with some women?” Eva said.

“Marco is weird, from what I’ve seen. I mean I’ve known the guy for years—even before I went into prison. And he seems to have gotten weirder in the last three years—much weirder. Specifically with how he relates to women.”

“Does he like the kind of weird stuff we got into on that first night?” Eva teased, putting her hand back on my shoulder. “Does he, papi?”

I smiled and kept my eyes on the road. Although we were just playing, her hand on me felt good. “Christ, Eva, you would play the shit out of this undercover role. If you let yourself get into it and don’t hold back.”

My phone buzzed in the nook between our seats, and Eva picked it up. “Do you trust me enough to give me your key code?”

“Draw a big square starting in the top left,” I said.

“You’re not a complicated man, are you?”

“Only when it comes to you. What’s it say?” I stole a glance at Eva. Her normally tan face had gone white, the blood run out of it.

“It’s from Marco. He says ‘Good to see you and your hot piece of ass Alexa. I want to invite both of you to come down to the mansion in Mexico with me. You wanted to meet Luis--so I will introduce you. We leave tonight. Pack light.’”

I pulled up in front of Eva’s apartment. “So does this mean that your first undercover role is officially going to be as my sidepiece? Congratulations.”

“You know, I’m really starting to come around to getting into the role of Alexa. Just promise me you’ll be a good papi,” she pursed her lips sarcastically in a sexy smile as she got out of the car without directly answering my question.

“So you’ll do it?”

The same grin plastered across her face, she shut the door without answering.

I couldn’t tell if she seriously liked playing my sidepiece or not. At first, it seemed like the dumbest thing ever to bring Eva undercover with me. But something about her had me thinking she could be the key to the whole operation.

Or maybe I was just looking for another excuse to spend more time with her.

I felt movement between my legs as I watched her walking out of the car toward her apartment.

I knew she could handle herself in danger, but there was this aura of innocence around her that I couldn’t quite get over. She had no idea how evil Marco could be, or what she was about to get mixed up with.