by Pam Godwin
She was innocent, serving a sentence for a crime she didn’t commit. A guilty plea would mar her criminal record forever.
After two years in Jaulaso, she didn’t give a goddamn fuck about her pride or her record. She just needed to get out and didn’t care what it took.
“I’m confident the U.S. Department of Justice will concur with your request,” he said. “Once everything is signed off, arrangements will be made for your transfer.”
“How long will it take?”
“You’ll be in U.S. custody within a month.”
CHAPTER 30
The knock on the door came an hour later. An hour that Tula had spent shoving her pain so far down beneath her bones she could no longer feel it.
She moved stiffly to the door, expecting Garra on the other side. But when she opened it, he wasn’t alone.
Garra stepped back to make room for Hector to enter.
The air tried to rush out of her lungs, but she held it in and arranged her features into a mask of pleasant surprise.
He stood two feet away, infecting her precious sanctuary with his pedophilic, child-killing pestilence.
His black hair combed back neatly with silver streaks at the temples. The cardigan was gone, but he wore his signature button-down shirt, open at the collar.
She couldn’t think about his pants or the things he did when he wasn’t wearing them.
Please, leave.
She didn’t want him here. Not in the place she’d shared with Martin and Ricky.
His dark eyes took her measure, the depths warm and gentle, camouflaging the sickness that festered within.
What were his true intentions with her? Had any part of the past two years been real? Or was it all manipulation?
He’d sent Garra to collect her DNA in a violent, repulsive way. He required her to sit through his meetings but kept his human trafficking operation concealed from her. Then he tasked her, his only daughter, to seduce his enemies, not knowing if they would kill her or hurt her. All the while, he protected her from the other inmates, learned English through her instruction, and danced with her. Why?
Her mind delivered the sound of a zipper to her ears, but she didn’t react, didn’t look down. She blocked out the reminder of who he was and assumed her role.
“Have you seen Martin and Ricardo?” She craned her neck around him to glance into the hall. “They said they were going to get food, but they never returned. I was just on my way out to find—”
“They’re gone.” His eyebrows knitted together as he studied her.
“What?” She squared her shoulders with feigned indignation. “You had them killed? You said I had time to—”
“No,” he tsked. “They left Jaulaso. The military dropped their charges and released them.”
“Oh.” She slumped onto the mattress and blew out a breath. “Shit.”
“You don’t know anything about that?” He cocked his head, his expression soft and concerned.
“No.” Her fingers trembled, and she flexed them. “What does it mean? Are they working with the military? Like undercover or something?”
“That’s my assumption.”
“Oh, God.” She pressed her face into her hands and made a noise she hoped sounded like a self-loathing groan. “I failed you.”
“Petula.” He lowered onto the bed beside her, sending her nerves into a shrieking fit of horror. “You kept them distracted. Whatever secrets they came to steal from me remain safely guarded. They failed. Because of you.”
There was so much truth in that it fucking hurt. If they hadn’t become entangled with her, if they hadn’t chosen her over their mission, they might’ve succeeded.
They could’ve taken down Hector’s entire human trafficking operation if they’d learned where his officers were hiding. But she’d gotten in their way.
She’d distracted them just like Hector had wanted.
“I don’t feel like I was any help at all.” She stared down at her hands, playing coy as she worked up the courage to meet his eyes. “They got away.”
When she finally lifted her head, she stared at him through a one-way window. She could see his ugliness, his unadulterated evil. But he couldn’t see her. The utter fear she felt in his presence, the grief of losing Martin and Ricky, her plan to kill him—all of it was invisible to him.
Because she was his daughter. Their genetic connection made him partial to her. He wanted to trust her.
She would manipulate that trust until her transfer went through. Then she would kill him with it.
He watched her for a moment, his head tipping with curiosity. She held still, her facial muscles slack as she thought about the gooey goodness of grilled cheese, her favorite passage in The Hellbound Heart, the tattered stubs of her shoestrings—anything except the images of him with that little girl.
Disgust raged beneath her schooled features, seething under her skin and cooking her from the inside out.
“You liked the gringos,” he said.
She loved them.
Losing that love felt like a straitjacket constricting her body. She would never adjust or grow comfortable in it. She would never be able to take it off. It would forever bind her and prevent her from holding anyone and anything. Maybe it would eventually make her insane, and she would welcome the madness because a reality without them hurt too damn much.
“They were attractive.” She shrugged. “I mean… I had a good time distracting them, I guess.” She glanced around the room. “But it’ll be nice to have my privacy back. Can I keep this cell?”
“If you’d like.” His gaze drifted to Garra, who waited outside the door. Then he returned to her. “I put an alert out. The entire city is on the lookout for the gringos. If they attempt to contact you—”
“I’ll castrate them,” she deadpanned.
He laughed, just like she knew he would, and the air around him settled into affectionate trust. She felt like she was going to throw up, but at least he hadn’t noticed.
“I’ll let you know if they contact me,” she said. “In the meantime, I’m probably just going to hang out in here for a while, read some books, and enjoy my alone time. Is that okay?”
He inclined his head. “As long as you delight this old man with a dance every now and then.”
The shudder that rose up was so powerful she had to clench her core muscles to stifle it.
“Of course.” She stood with him and followed him to the door. “I’m sorry they got away. I hope you’re not too disappointed in me.”
“You never disappoint me, my girl.” He touched her chin in a featherlight caress of fingers and filth.
“Thank you.”
He entered the corridor and breezed past Garra, vanishing around the corner.
Garra remained, and his eyes moved over her like lie detectors. She gave him the same treatment, questioning every crease in his brow and twitch in his bearded jaw.
Did he know about Hector’s depravity? He was the most loyal man in the cartel. It was safe to assume he knew about and guarded every skeleton in Hector’s closet.
“I will watch over you again,” he said in Spanish.
“No, you will not. Did Hector tell you to—?”
“No.” He glanced down the hall and looked back at her. “I don’t want you wandering around alone. I know you feel safe—”
“I’ve never felt safe. Not in Jaulaso, and definitely not with you.”
He inhaled sharply. “Fine.”
As he turned away, she shut the door and locked it.
Her hand lifted to her face where Hector had touched her, and all the pain she’d pushed down over the past hour came roaring back.
She clawed at the stabbing burn in her chest and buckled over, gasping for breath. Her knees gave out as she hurled herself toward the sink, landing against it.
With the faucet on, she shoved her face under the spray and frantically scrubbed away the feel of Hector’s fingers.
He was so fucking vile and sick, and he was
related to her. How could that be? How could she share DNA with something so atrociously inhuman?
She turned off the water and stared at the yellow stains in the sink. She was alone. Martin and Ricky were gone, and she had to continue on without them. She had to carry the weight of Hector’s sins without their protection or help.
It was too late to tell them about the things that happened to her last night. She’d made a decision, and she couldn’t take it back. She would never be able to curl up between their bodies and cry through the horrors she’d witnessed.
The safe, happy world she’d lived in with them was gone. That place would never return to her. They could never come back here.
They were gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Their absence swallowed all her attention, smothering her entire existence in desolation. She felt it in her face, throbbing through her gums and consuming her sinuses. Tears burned from her swollen eyes. Her throat filled with lava. The pain spread through muscles, arteries, and organs, weakening everything in its path.
She dragged heavy, useless limbs to the bed and buried her nose in the blankets, breathing in their masculine scents and seeking out the indentations of their body prints in the mattresses.
Mattresses that had been clawed by passionate hands. Walls that had been dampened by the press of sweaty bodies. Bedding that had tangled and twisted in the throes of hunger.
Surrounded by remnants of their time together, she rewound their love scenes, remembering them inside her and clinging to the blissful sensations. She knew them inside and out, and she would never forget.
Ricky’s panty-melting smile, the commanding rumble in Martin’s voice, the way they stared at each other so intimately and possessively, and how that captivating eye contact eventually included her—all of it tattooed across her soul.
She lost herself in the pain.
She grieved them with her whole body.
Once the sobbing began, she couldn’t stop. She fell into the black abyss and didn’t try to climb out. Curling up in the darkness, she cried through the rest of the day and into the next one.
No one knocked on the door or tried to invade her isolation. She wouldn’t have let them in. She was in no position to show her face.
A few cans of soup and early-morning showers got her through that first week. The two times she ventured out at three in the morning, the sounds of a crying child haunted her. But the corridors remained silent and empty.
Over the next few weeks, she pulled herself together long enough to inject her presence into Area Three.
At night, she walked the halls, listening for children and monitoring the vacant sewer room.
During the day, she watched the inmates from her favorite bench in the yard and swallowed her fear during visits with Hector in his cell.
On the surface, she was the woman she’d been for the past two years—aloof and unapproachable, present but not involved. She sat on the outskirts of the common areas with her nose in a book, just like she’d always done.
But on the inside, everything had changed. She couldn’t understand how the world could go on around her when her life had completely stopped.
Life had abandoned her the moment Martin and Ricky walked out that door.
She tried not to dwell on it, but it was a splinter under her fingernail that couldn’t be removed. Sometimes the pain dulled, but it never went away. She couldn’t think of anything else except for that damn splinter, stuck in a place it didn’t belong. Her entire body felt it. She couldn’t pull it out, couldn’t chop it off. She couldn’t escape it.
Three weeks later, she received the green light on her transfer to the United States. It didn’t ease the agony of her loss, but it gave her some focus.
In six days, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons would begin her transfer to a federal correctional institution near her home. She was going to a satellite prison camp for female offenders in Phoenix, Arizona.
She knew the date and time of her departure.
She knew when Hector was going to die.
CHAPTER 31
The morning of Tula’s transfer, she waited in the stairwell across from Hector’s cell. Her heart hammered in her stomach, and her legs burned to run.
She’d managed to keep her scheduled departure a secret. In fact, the whole transfer process had been shockingly easy.
Too easy.
Something felt off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
A late phone call to the consular last night confirmed everything was in order.
She could just go now. Run straight out of Area Three and head to the front of the prison. Her ride would be here in a few hours. She could find a place to hide and wait it out.
Maybe she could contact the Mexican military and tell them Hector was smuggling children into the prison. But part of her suspected they already knew.
They’d tortured her for information on the cartel, desperate to bring down the whole organization. Then they framed her.
She didn’t trust them.
But if she ran now, how many children would be raped and murdered while she served the rest of her time in the States?
This was the only way.
Right on time, Garra appeared at Hector’s door to walk his boss to the showers. She slipped out of view in the stairwell, listening to their voices and tracking the retreat of their footsteps.
Then she waited through a minute of nerve-wracking silence before she sneaked into his cell.
Over the past few weeks, she’d cataloged the placement of everything in his quarters. It took her five seconds to locate the knife under his pillow. Another five seconds to slide it into the narrow space behind the record player.
In under a minute, she was out of his room and strolling back to her cell with deliberately slow steps.
Then she waited for an hour—hands drenched in sweat, fingers trembling uncontrollably, and pulse pounding in her head.
Once she stepped out of this prison cell, she would never return. If she lived through the next part, she would head straight out of Area Three without looking back.
One more glance around the room filled her with unbearable sorrow. She had to leave it all behind. The signed novel of The Hellbound Heart. The candles that illuminated so many nights of pleasure. The box of men’s clothing that was scented by them. A distinctive fragrance that would forever haunt her.
It was okay. She could do this. It was just stuff, and this cell was just an empty space they’d left behind.
Time to go.
No amount of detachment or determination could overpower the terror that owned her body as she walked back to Hector’s cell. Maybe this would’ve been a good time to square things up with Jesus, but she didn’t think the Lord and Savior would be on board with what she was about to do.
By the time she reached Hector’s door, she’d built a sturdy wall around her emotions. But she wore her fear like an invisible cloak. Ice-cold and unshakable, it clung to her skin and drained all her warmth. She felt it with every breath, but she couldn’t see it.
If prison life had taught her anything, it was how to keep her weaknesses hidden beneath a veneer of tattoos and cool reserve.
Or maybe it was an inherited skill that had been passed down in her blood. Hector had mastered the art of concealing depravity beneath a soft cardigan and layers of affection.
He answered her knock on the door, wearing a pleased smile. “Petula.”
“Are you up for getting your feet stepped on?” By some miracle, she’d evaded all dancing and touching for the past month.
“I thought you’d never ask. Come in.”
As they exchanged their usual greetings, she chewed blistering gashes on the insides of her cheeks.
Drawing this out wasn’t an option. Her nerves unfurled with every miserable heartbeat. At any second, he would detect her distress.
“Can I select the song today?” she asked.
“Go ahead.”
Sh
e floated to the record player on numb legs and pulled an album from the stack. Her hands shook as she set up the record, her mind focused on the knife she’d hidden behind the turntable.
Was it still there? Would she be able to grab it before he stopped her? Would she chicken out at the last minute?
“Which song did you choose?” He approached her, staring too closely at her tingling face.
Fuck, she’d forgotten to look at the album.
Her tongue twisted through the saliva pooling in her mouth. “You’ll see.”
She adjusted the needle but didn’t place it on the vinyl. The next few seconds had to be timed flawlessly.
Deep breath.
“Ready?” She positioned her stance beside the record player, turning her body just right as she opened her arms.
He stepped into her space, pervading her senses with the gruesome echoes of a dark sewer room.
His hand clasped her hip. His other reached for her fingers.
“I’ll start the song.” She angled toward the turntable and twisted her ankle just right to make it look clumsy.
Her tripping step distracted him away from her hand as he caught her fall. In that blur of a moment, she bypassed the needle on the player and wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the knife.
Her pulse exploded as she swung.
She’d sat in the prison yard for two years, listening to inmates talk about the most lethal ways to kill a man. She would’ve never considered the armpit as a target. Evidently, neither did Hector.
He saw the knife coming and shielded his core. She put all her strength behind the thrust as she stabbed upward into his armpit. With the blade still pointed up, she yanked it back toward her, making sure she severed the main artery there.
Blood spurted instantly, but instead of falling, he attacked.
His hand caught her throat, and she shoved him off with a surge of ferocity. The blood loss made him weaker, and his injured arm didn’t work.
As he shuffled to stay upright, she stabbed him again in the same spot. And again. She must’ve hit cartilage or bone the second time because the knife stuck, slipping from her fingers as he stumbled backward.