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Chapter 6

Hadina

Hadina watched her sister—the person who had taught her how to be calm and collected—fidget nervously and chew on her lower lip. Just the thought of Zellie being nervous made her feel uneasy. Which was deeply annoying because Hadina was already feeling far too much.

“ Entonces habla. What is it you have to tell me?”

Zelina brushed a strand of her short hair behind her ear, her hand almost trembling, something the untrained eye wouldn’t have caught. But Hadina was more than trained and could spot a myriad of things in the human behavior.

“I made a mistake…a big one. When Papi first stepped down from Adis people not within our circles. Demi’s circle would give us an in.”

It took all of her willpower for Hadina to bury her growl and sit still. Zellie had split their family apart when she tried to make those connections, work with those disgusting people. Demi Treyva was scum. She’d push drugs, booze, bodies…whatever it took to make money. Hadina still harbored hate for her sister for betraying their code like that.

“That’s not what we stand for, though. Protegemos a los inocentes. Demi is everything we stand against. You should have known better.”

Zellie looked up at the ceiling, blowing out a long breath. “I got greedy, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I know I messed up. I thought I could do a better job than Papi and that I could make him proud of me if I could go after bigger targets. In my mind, Demi was simply a means to an end.”

Despite her anger, Hadina could partially understand where her sister was coming from. Zellie was an asshole, but her heart beat with the same purpose that Hadina’s did: save the people who couldn’t save themselves. Zellie had gone about it all wrong, but her reason for doing so made sense.

“ ?Entonces qué pasó?”

“ Papi omitted some of the vital details about Demi. Like the fact he had paid her to give Peyton up for adoption. I thought she was just a screwed up woman who made a series of bad choices. I figured I could use Peyton as leverage. Papi had all the details about where she was and her adoptive family…”

“ Mierda ,” Hadina cursed, rubbing her temples. “Tell me you weren’t that fucking na?ve, Zellie.”

“I know how stupid it was! But it didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time. I arranged a meeting and told her I knew about Peyton. I told her I knew where she was, what she looked like. Then this perra psicótica laughed like I had told her the funniest joke in the world. She said she didn’t care where Peyton was.”

Hadina shook her head, gripping onto the armrests of her chair to stop her finding something to throw at her sister. “But you couldn’t let it go, could you?”

Zellie threw up her hands. “Of course I couldn’t! What kind of pinche puta acts like that? We were raised by Mami, Hadina—I couldn’t fathom someone not loving their child when Mami loved us so fiercely.”

She was taken aback by that admission from Zellie and it struck Hadina in her heart. While she could be angry with Zellie for the stupidity of her actions, she also would never be able to comprehend why Demi was so heartless. Their mother had showed them love at every moment of their lives and losing her was something they could never recover from. And Demi had simply given away her opportunity to have that connection. She understood why people gave children up for adoption—she wasn’t stupid—but Demi didn't have a reason for doing it. No reason other than greed and wanting.

“I threatened her, Hadina,” Zellie whispered solemnly. “I threatened Peyton’s life when Demi refused to work with me. I thought I could force her hand.

“It was like a switch flicked in her. She laughed like a fucking maniac, called me a stupid little girl, and told me to leave. I know when I’ve lost and I refused to dignify her with me arguing like a schoolgirl.”

Things started to slot in place for Hadina as Zellie continued talking. The alcohol in her stomach was threatening to come back up and she had to focus on a point on the wall to stop the room from spinning around her. She wished she hadn’t come here, especially not when she was still half drunk and dizzy. She no longer wanted to know any of this information.

“I… Demi was beyond pissed that I thought I could use Peyton as leverage over her. Instead of finding a way to protect her daughter, she decided it was better to just get rid of her so nobody could ever assume she had a weakness.”

Hadina rose to her feet and began pacing the living room, suddenly wishing that she had stayed home and found another bottle of tequila to drown her sorrows with.

“Stop, please. I don’t think I can hear anymore right now.”

Zellie stood too, stepping closer to Hadina. “You have to hear it, Hadi. I have to say it. Demi sent people to kill Peyton but they messed up. I don’t know if the girl’s ever shown you photos of her sister, but they could have almost passed as twins. Peyton was running late on the day Demi’s men arrived, but her sister Melina was at home. They murdered that poor girl and staged a suicide.”

“You stupid fool!” Hadina yelled, stepping away from Zellie. “Her blood is on your hands. You know that Peyton was the one to find her, right? She’s traumatized for life because of your fuck up!”

For the first time in years, Hadina watched her sister’s eyes fill with tears. “I know that! I told Papi straight away and I begged him to do something. It’s why he started paying for her schooling; why he even hired her to work for you guys in the first place.”

Hadina thought back to the sadness that seeped out of Peyton from the moment she stepped foot at the house. She remembered the absolute heartbreak in her voice as she told Hadina about her sister, about the way it had devastated her life.

And all this time, it was her own sister’s actions which had cost Peyton the one person in life who had loved and protected her.

A violent vehemence filled Hadina’s veins and before she knew what she was doing, her fist was connecting with Zellie’s nose. She heard the bones crack beneath her hand, blood gushing from her sister’s face. Seeing her bleed was like waving a red flag before a bull and all Hadina could think about was making Zellie hurt the way she had made Peyton hurt all these years.

“You took away the one person she had, Zellie. Losing her sister made her empty the way that losing Mami made us!” She took another swing, landing this hit to her chin with such force that Zellie stumbled backward, tripping over the coffee table and landing on the floor.

Climbing over her sister, she straddled her hips and landed another two blows to her face. She could barely see Zellie’s face now that it was covered in blood, her nose still gushing and her lip split open. “As if that wasn't enough, you fucking let her go to the restaurant with us. You let Demi see her and then you helped that bastarda go free! You knew she would come for Peyton and you still helped her!”

“I let her go because I knew she would tell you what had happened, or that she’d tell Peyton the truth. I thought I could get ahead of the game somehow; that I’d let her go and then be able to trap her afterwards. After I shot Adrian, I tried to follow her. I thought I could kill her myself and get it over with.”

Hadina roared, pounding her fists against Zellie’s chest. She no longer had the energy to fight her, but she couldn’t stop wanting to hurt her. Zellie was the direct cause of everything that was going wrong in her life… She was the reason that Hadina may lose the love of her life.

As she went to land another hit, Zellie grabbed her by the wrists and shook her. “ ?Basta! Y ou came here because you need me; let me do this. Mami would want us to get Peyton back safe, and you need me to do it. You can go back to hating me afterwards. Let me correct my fucking wrong, Hadi. Let me do this for you, mi hermana. ”

All the emotions and hurt that Hadina had been trying to bury came flooding out in wracking sobs. She collapsed into Zellie’s shoulder, crying uncontrollably. The scene, while far more bloody, reminded her of how she’d similarly collapsed into Zellie when their Mami had passed, which only made her hurt more.

Zellie loosened her grip on her wrists and wrapped her arms around Hadina’s crying frame. From the small shudder she felt every few seconds, Hadina thought Zellie may have been crying too.

“You think I wanted this to happen? You think I want that kind of blood on my hands? I may be a piece of shit, Hadina, but I’m not like that . I have fucked up so much in my life and I’m okay with that because that’s my shit, but now that my actions have touched you in the worst way…I can’t live with that on my conscience. I can’t take it back, but I can help you find Peyton and end this once and for all.”

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