His grandmother still lived there, but he didn’t see her much anymore. Not with his lifestyle. She’d done the best she could to raise him once his mother had split and he couldn’t bring any heat on her. She didn’t deserve it. He’d driven by a few times in the past couple days and hadn’t seen any cops or worse, cartel members loitering around. Cecil still couldn’t believe that cop West was dead. They’d planned to kill Mateo Diaz and make it look like a robbery gone wrong—then later the 19th Street Gang would take credit for it. Cecil hadn’t worked with West before, but the man accepted bribes from certain gangs in the area and he occasionally looked the other way. The cop had just been with him to make sure the job got done right—as if Cecil needed a fucking babysitter. But then that witness had fucked everything up. They’d been careful too, picking a deserted alley, the right time of day, everything. And that bitch had come out of nowhere. Worse, West had been murdered in prison.
