Dirty Angels 01 (14 page)

“Just a terrible person, then.”

“Yes. There is a difference. I lived with a monster. I know what that feels like.”

I gave her a wry grin and lowered my face so it was just inches away from hers. This close, I could see flecks of gold in the mahogany of her eyes. “Does it feel like a knife in your back?”

She blinked, taken aback, realizing the truth. Monster, terrible person, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t so different from her husband. I was just another man playing the game.

And it had to stay that way.

I got off of her and pulled her to the edge of the bed so she was in a sitting position. I turned her back so I could see the wound. The pressure of being pressed against the bedspread had stifled the bleeding a bit, but now her bed was soaked with blood. “I’ll get you new sheets.”

She stared at me with a dull expression. “Don’t bother. I kind of like it.”

I raised my brow at her. She was nothing if not always keeping me on my toes. “I think the bleeding has stopped. The Doctor may have to give you stitches tomorrow.”

She gave her head a nearly imperceptible shake. “You’re giving a hostage stitches because of the torture you inflicted on them?”

She had a point. A good one.

I couldn’t care about that. I couldn’t care about her pain or her well-being or her past or her feelings. I was holding her for ransom, using her body and life to get what I wanted. I couldn’t care about any of that.

And yet, I think I did.

Luisa

I
woke up in incredible pain, my back feeling like it was on fire. Memories from the night before came flooding into my brain, first a trickle, then a dam unleashed. My attempted escape from Esteban, the Taser shocking me, waking up with Javier watching over me with an unpredictable look in his eyes, Esteban’s half-hearted apology with dinner, then Javier coming back with The Doctor and filming his branding for Salvador.

Javier had hurt me, really hurt me this time, but I did whatever I could to keep that hurt buried. That was until my parents were brought into it and the whole reality came smashing down on me. This was no longer about me—my parents’ lives were at stake. It was a cold desolate feeling knowing that what I wanted—freedom—I could never have. When I was with Salvador, my parents were safe. When I wasn’t with him
… they would be cut off or worse. As much as every instinct in my body was telling me to never go back, to be glad that Salvador wasn’t giving in to their demands, I knew that my selfishness would cost everything.

So when Javier told me to react for the camera, I was reacting to more than just the brutal, deep cut he carved into my back. I was reacting to the fact that I would never ever win, no matter what I did. I was reacting to the unfairness of it all, of my very existence.

And somewhere on that bed, as a drug lord knifed his name into my back, I found the thread of anger that I’d hidden from for so long. It was starting to unravel, slowly, like a snake. I nearly welcomed it. I almost invited it to stay. I suppose it was enough to just know it was there, to know I had a wicked part of me that was mad, that wanted more than what was given to me and everything that was taken away.

That morning, I spent the hours locked in my head. Every time there was a knock at the door, I was both relieved and disappointed that it wasn’t Javier. In some ways, I wanted to talk to him. He had made me open up about my family, about my life, and now I was itching to get the same kind of information from him. There was something so traumatic about the night before that I felt even he was affected by it. That was a silly thing to think, of course. He was a man used to torture on a much worse, much larger scale. But even so, some part of me felt like last night was a first for him, in whatever way that was. Maybe because as he dug that blade in on the side of my spine, I could feel the hesitation in it, like he didn’t want to hurt me to that extreme. I wanted to know why.

Why would this man hesitate for even a second when he had so much at stake?

I know what my mind wanted to think. It wanted to think that perhaps this man found me special, that he would change his ways because he saw me for me. But I knew that wasn’t true, and every time the thought entered my head, I felt sick because of it, because something in me wanted to entertain it. But I’d given up those fantastical notions a very long time ago. Fantasies were for young girls who had no idea how the real world worked.

The last time I remember thinking that perhaps I was special and interesting and would one day capture the attention of a man was right after I had won my first pageant. There was a boy who worked at the restaurant, a line cook, who was only there for a few months. I could tell he liked and wanted me, and I wanted the same, but I was too afraid. So I locked myself in my mind, in daydreams about a better life, and I did that until he left. After that, there was no one else. There was nothing else. Because the truth was, as beautiful as some people said I was, it had done nothing for me but bring me pain. It didn’t end the threat of poverty and the constant struggle, and it didn’t prevent my father from losing himself.

You’re an idiot
, I told myself after Esteban left, the lunch tray lying on the floor.
Get your head back in the game, this is about survival.

And I was right. But even though it was a game, I wondered if I was playing it right. Javier was drawn to me in some form, and though I couldn’t figure out what form that was, he still seemed to take special interest in me. I needed to figure out how to make that work to my advantage. Javier was my only way out of here, I knew that much. Forget Esteban, his power seemed weak at best, and the others seemed ready to throw me to the dogs at first chance. As much as I hated to think it, Javier was the one person who could save me.

I just didn’t know how.

Javier

“Good news,” Este said, limping into the makeshift office I had at the safe house. The door didn’t close properly, which cut my privacy down to zero and apparently other people’s manners as well.

I sighed and snapped my laptop shut, looking up at him with dry interest. I’d been having a hard time believing in good news lately. Luisa had become this ticking time bomb in my life, her presence and predicament penetrating my thoughts, whether I was away from her or not. No matter where I was in this house, I couldn’t escape her.

“Don’t look so happy,” Este said, and flashed me that cheesy dumbfuck grin of his.

“Give me a reason to be happy, then,” I said, gesturing to the worn office chair on the other side of the desk. It didn’t help me get into the right frame of mind when I felt like I was setting up camp in a derelict’s house. Este had assured me the furnishings in the safe house were classy, but then again, he wouldn’t know classy if it took a shit right in front of him.

He sat down and I exhaled hard through my nose. He was complying, which was good. It meant there were no hard feelings about the knife. Well, I’m sure he hated me as he usually did, but at least he was showing respect now. Sometimes subtle violence is all you needed to keep a man in line.

“I just heard from Juanito. He says that though everything is being kept from the media, Salvador knows we have Luisa, has seen both videos, and is currently thinking of a strategy.”

I raised my brow. “Strategy?” I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. A year ago we had tried to strike a deal with an informant for the Tijuana Cartel. He tried to strategize. We turned our assassin—
sicario
—on him instead of the narco we were after. That’s what happened to people who tried to outthink us.

Unfortunately, I was no longer so sure that we were holding all the cards. We only had one, a queen, and I was starting to think she was worth more to me than to Salvador.

Este shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. My call with him was brief. But it seems to me like Salvador is ready to make a deal. Perhaps we can’t get the Ephedra coming in from China, but maybe he’ll give us coke from Colombia.”

A pang of anger ran through me. “We already have that. We want
more
.”

He didn’t look too concerned when he tried to cross his legs; instead he winced from the pain in his shin. Good. “Well then we’ll have more coke. It’s better than nothing.”

He was right, but it did nothing to make me happy. If I wanted more coke shipments, we could have easily gone east, after the Gulf Cartel in Veracruz. I just didn’t like the idea of returning to that city, what used to be the disputed territory of Travis Raines, a city that held filthy memories. I took Luisa because I wanted something I never had—an opportunity for new power from a new source.

“Come on, Javi,” Este said. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m in a lot of pain.”

I frowned. “You don’t seem like it.”

“Well, what good is The Doctor if he can’t get you high all the time? Poppies, Javi, from the very mountains we’re in, possibly from the very farms owned by Salvador. When in Rome…”

I could tell Este wasn’t that high on morphine, otherwise he’d be floating, but I made a note to speak with The Doctor after this. Pain was a lesson, and besides that, we all needed to have clear heads. That was why I had such a low tolerance for drug use. I’m sure it was ironic to many, considering my empire was built on the drug trade, but I’d been burned too many times by past employees whose addiction not only fucked them up but made them mutinous.

As for me, I almost never partook in it. After prison there was a period where I understood how drugs made a preferable reality for some people. It was one of my few moments of weakness, but even then I found strength in it. Discovering how dependent people got, how the right drugs could bury every broken heart and heal shattered pride, made me realize that in some ways, the cartels were doing the world a favor. We were giving people an escape from their sorry existences.

I tapped my fingers on the desk, my gaze directed out the window and at the sunlight trying to break through the clouds. “I suppose the bright side is that we’ll hear from him in two days.”

“How many letters do you have left?” Este asked.

“Today is E. Tomorrow is R.”

“And then we say goodbye.”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Then this is all over.”

“I can’t tell if you’re sad it’s ending because you’re enjoying the torture, or
… other reasons.”

I shot him a sharp look. “What do you think?”

He smiled and got up carefully. “I don’t think anything. You could say I’ve learned.”

“Keep it that way.”

I glared, and he nodded his head, leaving the room while trying to stifle his limp. Once he was gone and I was left in peace, I flipped my laptop open and stared at it. It was a picture of Luisa, the ones that Martin had taken at the wedding. It felt so much safer for me now to admire her from afar, even though I knew she was in the room above my head, even though I knew I would have to return tonight, knife in hand and face her once again.

After dinner, I
decided to be the one to take up Luisa’s food. I told The Doctor to ease up on the morphine for Este, and I volunteered to make dinner. I’d always been somewhat of a good cook, and was curious to see if Luisa would notice. Franco had even been sent into the local village to buy tomatillos, lime, and corn.

I paused at her door, taking in a deep breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the guard down by the stairs trying not to watch me, and I automatically stood up straighter. I quickly knocked and waited but a few seconds before I knocked again.

I heard nothing from her, not a “fuck off” or a cry to go away. It was dark out, evening, and she must have known it was me and what I was there to do. Her silence compelled me to open the door.

The room was dark, and from what I could see, she wasn’t in the bed. I quickly shut the door behind me and switched on the light, ready to be ambushed. She wasn’t anywhere, but the bathroom door was closed. I couldn’t hear her which made my heart pulse with worry. I racked my brain, trying to think if there was anything around here that she could hurt herself with.

But there was only me.

I slowly placed the tray on the bedside table. “Luisa?” I asked softly.

No answer.

I walked over to the bathroom door and rapped on it with my knuckles, saying her name again, hiding the urgency in my voice. Knowing the door had no lock, I turned the knob and slowly opened it.

The bathroom mirror was fogged up with steam, obscuring my reflection. Luisa’s clothes were scattered on the ground. She was in the bathtub, lying there, fully naked and exposed. Her hair pooled around her like octopus ink.

I expected her to cover up, to glare at me, but she did nothing but stare forward, her eyes fixed on the beads of condensation that ran down the edge of the tub. I could do nothing but stare at her naked form, the way her nipples poked above the still water, how beautifully vulnerable she looked. I liked that. Naturally, so did my dick. It strained against my zipper, and for once I tried to ignore it.