Dirty Angels 01 (20 page)

She didn’t say anything. I took the opportunity to turn the tables on her.

“Tell me about your parents.”

She gave me a wry smile. “Oh, I see how this works.”

“Give and take,” I said matter-of-factly. “You should know this by now.”

She nodded and her face crumpled a bit as she opened up. “My parents are lovely, loving people. Even though we grew up with nothing, they gave me everything they could. I wasn’t an unhappy child. You’re not unhappy when you have unconditional love. They made sure I had every opportunity that was available to me, and even though I knew how the other half lived, I didn’t want for much. Then,” she closed her eyes, “then my father started acting differently. My mother, she’s blind, you see, and my father was always able to work enough to support us all, even though I helped out when I could. But now he was forgetting things, slipping into trances. One day I forced him to a doctor and they told us he was developing Alzheimer’s.” She took a deep breath and turned slightly away from me. “It set in pretty fast. He is—or he was—getting worse by the day. I had plans for university, you know. I was hoping that the money from the pageant I had won and maybe a scholarship would get me to school. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t be that selfish.”

I shook my head vigorously, hating her selflessness. “Oh, but you should be, my darling.”

“But I’m not,” she said sharply. “So I forgot about that and decided to get a full-time job. I was lucky enough to work at Cabo Cocktails for three years. I was able to keep my job with a bit of
… luck.” A flash of disgust came across her face then vanished. “I took care of my family. I paid for everything. I did everything I could for them, just so they could be happy. I think I made them happy. I pray I made them proud.”

I could feel the sadness leaking out from her heart. I couldn’t help but be tainted by it.

“And how was your job?” I asked.

She shrugged. “It was a job.”

“Was your boss nice?” I asked because I knew the types of men who ran those kinds of places, who hired women who looked as gorgeous as she did.

She pressed her lips together. “Bruno taught me that men were wicked and unkind.”

I swallowed a pit of hate. “Did he rape you?”

She shook her head. “No. He didn’t. But
… he did other things. Not just to me, most of the other girls were … subjected to his advances. But he did seem to have a special fondness for me. I don’t know why. Perhaps because he figured I was a virgin.”

My blood started pumping hot, my face prickling with heat. “I’m going to bring you his head one day,” I told her with one hundred percent conviction.

She gave me a wry look. “It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling the strain build up. “It matters. It all matters. Jesus. Luisa, your life has not been fair. Doesn’t that anger you?”

“No,” she said earnestly. “What’s the point of yelling at the sky, it’s not fair, it’s not fair? It doesn’t change anything.”

She didn’t seem to understand the power her rage could give her. “But if you get angry enough, it could change everything.” Our eyes held each other. “I think I’d like you if you were angry. Very angry.”

“Would you like me to start with you?”

I bit my lip, wanting her to unleash on me. It would be gorgeous. “Yes.”

She smiled stiffly. “Maybe some other time.” She got off the bed, rubbing her arms up and down. I couldn’t tell if she was cold or she was bringing life into her tired muscles.

“It’s been a long day,” I said, feeling strangely awkward. I got up too and adjusted my suit before gesturing to the door. “I’ll take you to your room.”

She complied and we didn’t say a word to each other as I took her by the arm and down the hall. Her eyes took in the photography of world landscapes that I had adorning the walls in gilded frames, noted the various closed doors that all led to guest and employee rooms.

Finally we came to her room, and I led her inside, flicking on the lights. It wasn’t exceedingly large, but it had a lovely en suite bathroom with a claw-foot tub and brass fixtures, walls with moldings, and a large four-poster bed, much like mine. An antique desk and chair were placed in front of the bay windows that overlooked the pool and hot tub in the gardens of the backyard. She’d be more impressed when the morning came and she saw the beauty around her more clearly.

I let her go and nodded to her clothes that were already hanging in her closet. I had called ahead and gotten the gardener, Carlos, to go out and fetch her some brand new ones as well, items that were properly fitted to her body. The man sure sounded embarrassed when I gave him his orders—I’d made him buy undergarments as well.

“If you need anything,” I said, walking toward the door, “the phone by your bed is a direct line to my room.”

She looked at me blankly, perhaps just overwhelmed. That couldn’t be helped. I put my hand on the knob, ready to turn it.

“Wait,” she said in a small voice.

I turned to look at her. “Yes?”

She glanced at the bed. “Do you think
… do you think maybe you could sleep with me?” I frowned. “Or, or just stay until I fell asleep.”

I straightened my shoulders, not allowing myself weakness. “I would if I could.”

“But you can,” she said, taking a step toward me. “You can do anything. You’re the boss.”

And a boss still has to answer to himself.

“Goodnight, Luisa,” I told her, locking her in her new cell.

Javier

I
was having a nightmare. I was on the fishing boat with my father, only I wasn’t a boy anymore. I was the way I was now, thirty-two and wearing a suit. My father looked old, far too old to be alive, and had a Panama hat on his head. Every fish he reeled in he injected with a syringe, some kind of red poison, and threw them back. Soon, the whole ocean was filled with floating, bloated, dead fish everywhere you could see.

He ended up catching something really big on his line, enough that the whole boat started to tip over. When he finally managed to reel it in, we saw it wasn’t a fish at all.

Luisa was hanging on the end of the line, her neck broken. The giant hook was through her throat and blood poured down from the wound, staining her body red. Her eyes were lifeless, like the dead fish that were slowly turning as red as she was.

“What part of her do you want to eat first?” my father asked me with a bloody smile.

I thought I woke up screaming. But it wasn’t my screams at all that I was hearing.

They were Luisa’s.

In a second I was in my pajama pants, a .38 Super in one hand, and I was running down the dim hallway toward the room I had put her in earlier. I kicked down the door, not even bothering to open it, and to my utter horror, I only saw Luisa’s legs on the floor, sticking out from alongside the other side of the bed. Franco’s beefy form was over her, his face grinning. I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I could guess.

Guesses were good enough for me.

I aimed the gun and shot him in the stomach, wanting the fucker alive. He howled, and before I knew what I was doing, I was running across the room and shoving him off of Luisa and tackling him to the ground. He tried to get up, but I head-butted him, breaking his nose. I pistol-whipped the same spot I did earlier, then quickly frisked the weapons off of him. I tossed them away and rolled his heavy, writhing body to the side. The rage, the living anger I had inside of me, was threatening to completely take over, something I rarely let it do, but I had to take care of Luisa first.

Then there would be no helping me.

I looked to her, my eyes wild, mouth open. She was grabbing her throat and coughing, trying to sit up, both cheeks red and swollen from where he had hit her. Her shirt was up around her breasts, and her underwear was crooked, halfway down her thighs.

Jesus Christ. If I hadn’t gotten here in time…

“Luisa,” I whispered, reaching for her. She looked at me with fear, total and utter fear, and tried to scoot backward and away from me. The bed and nightstand was blocking her exit.

I raised my palms as I went toward her on my knees. “Luisa, it’s okay,” I said as calmly as I could. It wasn’t easy. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She shook her head, panicking, her hands clawing at the sheets as if she were trying to climb up on the bed. I gently grabbed her arm, but she pulled it away and started shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.

I was frozen in my own form of panic. I was watching her destruct. I was watching her break. And it hadn’t been me who broke her.

“You promised,” she gasped between her heaving sobs, crying into the side of the bed. “You promised.”

Her words sliced through me like the slickest blade. I had promised. I promised I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. I promised to protect her.

I broke my promise. And by doing so, I ended up breaking her after all.

Suddenly Este was beside me, trying to make a grab for her. I could hear The Doctor behind me, peering over Franco, remarking on my shot, how long it would take for him to die. But I remained there on my knees, stuck in that moment where I finally ruined Luisa. The coldest, blackest rage had a hold on me, and after a while, it was all I could feel.

Fury became my captor. My hands were bound in shame.

Eventually, The Doctor pulled me up to my feet and poured a vial of bitter liquid in my mouth, moving my jaw so I would swallow it. I could barely stand and found myself pitching over but The Doctor held me up. He was saying things but I couldn’t hear anything above the blood roaring in my ears. Fragments of my nightmare came rushing back.

“So what are your plans with him?” The Doctor asked. His words found their way into my ear, sinking in for the first time and penetrating the fog.

I looked to him in slow surprise. I was sitting in my chair in my office, The Doctor across from me, smoking a cigar. “Oh, so you’re finally here,” he said with a nod. “Nice of you to join the real world, Javier.”

“Where is Luisa?” I asked thickly, taking in my surroundings, wondering how catatonic I had been.

“Don’t worry about her,” he said with a flick of his wrist. “She’s with Este and Juanito in the kitchen. She’s drinking tea. She’s a little bruised but she’s fine otherwise.”

Fine? He hadn’t seen her destruction the way I had. That strong, beautiful woman folded over from too many years of fear.

I couldn’t stop seeing her eyes.

“Franco didn’t get a chance to rape her,” The Doctor went on, smiling slyly. “But I still think we should let him suffer, don’t you?”

“As much as humanely possible,” I said, my jaw clenching. My hands kept opening and closing, making fists. “I want to do everything that I told him I would do.”

“Either he wanted to test you or he had a death wish. Regardless, the man is a dumb fool and we don’t need dumb fools in our family, now do we?”

I shook my head absently, not really listening. I was already fantasizing about my revenge. I looked over at him. “You can revive him, right, if he dies or passes out?”

He chuckled. “Well, I can’t revive him if you remove his head, so save that for last.”

“That is the plan.”

He got up, a gleeful tone to his voice. “Tell me what tools you need and I’ll set things up in my office.”

The Doctor’s office was in the small guest cottage on the property. It’s actually where the Doctor lived. I wanted his torture house to be as far away from me as possible. Screams were so disturbing when you were trying to eat dinner, though now I wished his office wasn’t soundproof. I decided I would leave the doors and windows open and let everyone hear exactly what we were doing to Franco.

“I want a saw,” I said. “A very rough, strong saw. The kind that really rips flesh and gristle and bone. I want a jar of acid, something to dip toes and fingers and tongues in. I want a cattle prod. I want a red hot poker. My Taser gun.”

“I see. Would you also like a rat and a bucket? Medieval torture never goes out of style.” He went over to the door. “Franco is unconscious upstairs, but I’ll get him down. I stopped the bleeding because I wasn’t sure what you wanted to be done with him. He’ll be awake and ready for you by the time you come by.”

I swallowed hard, the anger continuing its course up and down my body, firing off in electric flames. I was going to make Franco pay. I was going to make him regret he ever looked in her direction. Then I was going to make Luisa see what I do to those who hurt her. I was going to make her look at him. And then she’d know exactly what I’d do for her.

This was all for her.

Luisa

The screaming started
at four in the morning, about two hours after Franco had attacked me, and continued on well into the afternoon. At first it rattled me, bringing back memories of being at Salvador’s and the torture I had to hear, and it kept me from sleeping.

Not that I could sleep at first anyway. I knew Este and Juanito were always around, watching me. I suppose their job now was to protect me since Javier was out exacting torture, but that didn’t mean I trusted them. Who would protect me from them? Still, Juanito seemed safe enough, maybe because he was young and reminded me of a boy I grew up with. And to his credit, Este didn’t appear to hold any grudges over me attacking him again.

After a while though, I was able to rest, my head on the island in the middle of the chef’s kitchen. When I woke up around ten a.m., light streaming in the kitchen, Juanito was serving me tea and toast, the latter which I refused. I had no appetite. It was then that I noticed the screams were still coming from the cottage—the doctor’s office—though they were weak now and sporadic. They no longer had an effect on me. I was able to ignore them, and perhaps, if I was honest with myself, I was starting to enjoy them.

Just a little bit.

I had been lying awake in bed, daydreaming about a life I never had, when Franco came and knocked on my door. At first I thought it was Javier, coming to stay the night with me. It was so embarrassing when he turned me down, and I hated myself for being so needy and vulnerable in front of him. I just didn’t want to be alone. I had my reasons and my reasons all came true.

Once I saw it was Franco, I screamed. I could see it in his eyes, that vile tar, that blackness, what he had come for. I expected him to lumber toward me with his injured foot, but he was fast. He threw me out of bed and onto the floor, and after he punched me a few times, my cheekbones taking most of the hits, he started strangling me with one hand. With his other hand he squeezed my breasts painfully and started to yank down my underwear.

With Salvador, I had learned to stop fighting back. I learned to stop struggling. He had always told me it was his right as my husband to do whatever he wanted to me and that I had to do whatever he wanted to him. Even if I had been one of his whores, he would probably say the same thing. It was his right simply because he was Salvador Reyes.

But I wasn’t going to let Franco rape me, not without a fight. So I struggled. It was all in vain. His grip on my throat was so strong that I felt all the life drain out of me. The edges of my vision grew black as I gasped for breaths that I couldn’t take in. I thought I was going to die on that floor, completely helpless while he had his way with me.

The thought of dying like that did something to me. It made me so afraid that I couldn’t even function.

When Javier came in and shot Franco and I was free, my first instinct was to get away, to escape. All the formalities and politeness, and yes, lust that Javier seemed to show for me didn’t seem to matter anymore. He was supposed to protect me, and I was a fool to believe a lion would ever shelter a lamb, especially from his own pride.

But, of course, there was nowhere for me to go. There was no escape from the golden prison. So Esteban and Juanito took me down into the elaborate, shiny-clean kitchen where they looked me over and took care of my bruises. And as they did so, as the screams of Franco began to ricochet throughout the surrounding jungle, a dark mass against the hazy blue of the pre-dawn sky, my fear began to melt away. It began to change inside me, as if all the chemicals were taking new forms and shapes.

My fear turned into anger. And when I woke up to Franco’s waning screams of agony, I let the anger wrap around me like a cloak.

Javier had asked why I wasn’t angry enough.

It was because I didn’t let myself be.

But now, it was a part of me. The coil had unraveled. And I wasn’t letting it go anywhere. Not anymore.

I was halfway through the cup of tropical green tea—judging by the excess amount of boxes in the cupboards, I gathered it was Javier’s favorite—when the Devil himself showed up, standing in the hallway.

Javier had never looked worse. His white dress shirt was stained with blood, as were his jeans. He had circles under his eyes, his hair was messy and damp, and his gaze was blank, as if he were sleepwalking, even though he was looking right at me.

“Luisa,” he said in a rough, strained voice. “Would you like to see what I’ve done to him?”

I stared right back at him.

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

He looked taken aback for a moment—perhaps he wasn’t expecting me to want this. But I did. I wanted to see what justice looked like. I wanted to see what his anger was capable of.

He glanced briefly at Esteban and Juanito, perhaps delivering wordless orders. I got out of my chair and joined him at his side. We walked down the tiled hallway, past large rooms that held many secrets, until Javier opened the French doors out into the blinding brilliance of the backyard.

The gardens around the lawn and the pool area were absolutely beautiful and impeccably landscaped with the most exotic and colorful flowers you could imagine. There were bushes of red bougainvillea and white gardenia, pink plumeria, blue and purple orchids, magenta and yellow hibiscus, and birds of paradise, all of them expertly blending into the lush green grass and flowerbeds. Hummingbirds and butterflies filled the air, and dragonflies darted above a pond filled with koi fish and floating white lotus.