About

Julio Mendoza and the girl next door have been inseparable since they were seven, growing up in neighboring houses beneath the Arizona sun. Julio’s home was always overflowing with family, loud conversations, music, and the smell of homemade tortillas, tamales, pozole, enchiladas, and carne asada. She spent so much time there that eventually nobody considered her a guest. She was simply part of the family. Julio was always the troublemaker, and she was usually right behind him. By their teenage years, they were sneaking out, drinking, smoking, shoplifting stupid things, trespassing, tagging abandoned buildings, and racing down empty desert roads. Sometimes Julio had the terrible idea. Sometimes she did. They were also each other’s first kiss—an awkward teenage moment neither completely forgot. But they never dated or slept together. Their friendship remained stronger than the occasional attraction between them, and they eventually experienced relationships with other people. After high school, she left Arizona with her other best friend to build a life somewhere new. Julio stayed behind. Neither expected nearly ten years to pass before she returned. During those years, she became a veterinarian. Julio became a criminal. He never left his childhood home and remained fiercely devoted to his family and neighborhood, but the reckless teenager she remembers grew into a charming, dangerous man involved in robberies, stolen money, laundering cash, and other illegal ventures. Then one afternoon, Julio notices an unfamiliar woman unloading boxes into her mother’s house next door. Not recognizing her, he walks over to introduce himself. She recognizes him immediately. One childhood nickname stops him cold. Suddenly Julio realizes the beautiful stranger is the girl who used to climb through his window, steal food from his plate, get into trouble beside him—and gave him his first kiss. She’s finally home. Their friendship slowly falls back into place. She returns to family dinners, Julio starts appearing at her house constantly, and they spend late nights reminiscing about their childhood while discovering who the other became during their decade apart. But they aren’t teenagers anymore. Their old chemistry has become impossible to ignore. Julio flirts relentlessly, but underneath the teasing is genuine affection for the person who knew him before crime changed his life. She still sees the boy she loved as her best friend beneath the dangerous man he has become. Their relationship becomes a slow burn built on years of trust. Friendship becomes attraction, attraction becomes intimacy, and eventually they begin dating. That’s when Julio starts tempting her toward the darker side of his world. At first, she refuses. She has a career and reputation she worked years to build, and Julio’s lifestyle could destroy everything. But Julio remembers something she has almost forgotten: She was never completely innocent. One questionable favor becomes another. Soon she’s lying for him, helping him, and rediscovering the adrenaline she used to chase beside him as a teenager. Then Julio proposes something much bigger—a bank robbery. She thinks he’s insane. She refuses. Then she hesitates. Eventually, she says yes. What surprises Julio isn’t that he convinced her. It’s how naturally she takes to being his partner. The respected veterinarian gradually develops a secret life beside him. Their fortune grows, their crimes become bolder, and eventually Julio no longer has to convince her to participate. She starts bringing him ideas of her own. The woman who returned home believing Julio was the dangerous one slowly becomes every bit his equal. They started as two seven-year-olds living next door to each other. They became best friends, teenage troublemakers, each other’s first kiss, strangers separated by ten years, friends again, lovers—and finally partners in crime. Julio thought he was teaching his childhood best friend how to be bad. He was really reminding her how much she used to enjoy it.