by Karina Halle
“Please,” he said again. “Don’t cry. Don’t. I know I messed up. I know you think I’m horrible and I am a horrible person. I’m a bad man. I’m no better than the worst. But please, please know that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill you, not for all the money, not for anything. I would never hurt you.”
“You lie!” I cried out, a sob ripping out of me. “You’re hurting me right now, to the bone!” I turned my head away from him, my eyes squeezed tight as tears spilled out of them and onto the pillow. I felt so stupid, so foolish, so fucking alone. I was alone again like I always was.
The man I loved was only here because he tried to kill me. The man I loved never loved me at all.
I had nobody now. I never did. Not my brother, not my friends. I was as good as dead.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” I sobbed. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“I couldn’t,” he said, his voice ragged. “I couldn’t do it.”
“You should have. You should have pulled the trigger and ended this!” I screamed the last part and then collapsed into sobs. I felt like my body was being torn apart, my lungs and heart and breath all squeezed by the sorrow that was running so violent and deep.
“Alana,” he said, burying his face into my neck. He was shuddering against me, trying to breathe himself. “I fell in love with you.”
“Liar!” I yelled.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. I’m not lying. I love you. I love you and I would have told you the truth but I didn’t know how. I was too afraid to lose you. Alana, please, I can’t lose you.”
I put my hands up to his chest and tried to push him off me. “You’ve already lost me.”
“No.”
I blinked, trying to look through my blurry vision at him. His own eyes looked blurry too.
“Let me go, whatever your name is.”
“It’s Derek,” he repeated, grabbing my arms and holding me tight. “It’s Derek Conway and I am not going to let you go. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll scream,” I warned him, not kidding. “I’ll scream and get you thrown in a Mexican jail and then what the fuck are you going to do, huh?”
Panic shone his eyes, their blue color so hard and cold above me. “Alana, listen to me. You can hate me for lying but don’t hate me for loving you.”
“I hate you because you tried to fucking kill me!”
“But I didn’t!” he roared in my face. “And I’ve been trying to keep you alive ever since! Do you think it’s easy to lie, to worry if the person you love loves you or the lie? Do you think I didn’t wrestle with the truth every fucking day? Well I did, when I wasn’t trying to figure out how to keep us both alive.”
His words meant nothing to me now. None of this meant anything to me. He didn’t kill me but in the end it would still come, whether it was from his gun or someone else’s. In the end I would still die alone, in a dark, sharp place.
I was empty, I was nothing.
I needed to leave.
But his hold was strong. “No,” he said shaking his head. “I will not let you go. The man who sent you those photos knows where we are. He is Esteban Mendoza and he’s the righthand man of your brother. I know him, I’ve worked with him. He’s trying to ruin Javier, bit by bit. Starting with you. When you’re out of the picture, he’ll go after Marguerite maybe, or Luisa. But he’ll get rid of everyone. He’ll do this until Javier is run to the ground.”
That got my attention. I was sure I’d heard Javier mention Esteban a few times but I had never met the guy. If this was true, I had to tell Javier. But Javier would want to know who I heard it from and when that came out …
“Your brother has to know,” Derek said. “And we have to get out of here.”
“I am, without you.”
“Don’t be stupid!” he yelled, his face going red. “You won’t leave here alive if you do so. I promised to protect you.”
“Yeah well promises don’t mean anything coming from someone like you!” I yelled back. “A liar. A killer. A murderer.” I clamped my eyes shut in frustration. “Shit! Shit!” Even though I didn’t trust him, I knew he was right. Someone was setting him up, framing him or exposing the truth. But whatever way you wanted to word it, that someone knew we were here. Whether Esteban was the one behind it or it was a lie that Derek concocted to keep me here, I was fucking screwed.
Then, I remembered the business card Javier gave me. I had one more chance.
I swallowed hard and looked up at Derek with pitiful eyes.
“Please let me go.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“I will protect you to the every end … Alana, I’d lay down my life for you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling sorrow and hatred and bitterness choke out whatever love I might have felt. I had to snuff it out before it hurt me. Love was only dangerous now. Love would get me killed. “Your life means nothing to me,” I told him.
He looked like I slapped him. I felt like I slapped myself too.
But he had to let go of me.
“Let me get away, Derek. If you care about me at all, you’ll let me get away.”
“I can’t do that. Please. I have to save you.”
I let out a sour laugh. “Save me? I think you’re still waiting to pull that trigger. Now, let me go or I will scream so loud. And if you try and stop me, I will make you hurt me. You say you don’t want to but I you will if you don’t let me walk out this door right now.”
“If you walk, you’re as good as dead,” he said but there was a resignation coming over his brow. I was wearing him down, ruining him as he once wanted to ruin me.
“Then let me die by choice and let me die alone,” I said. He relented and I managed to quickly slip out from under him. Actually I was surprised that he let me go so easily. Perhaps he had been telling the truth all along.
I stood there, breathing hard and watching him on the bed. For once he looked absolutely fragile, this big beast of a man who seemed seconds from breaking down.
But I couldn’t care about that. He was an assassin, a liar and it didn’t matter if he had kept me alive this long. I would have to figure out the rest on my own, with someone I could trust.
I grabbed my duffel bag that had fallen off the bed then quickly reached into his bag, taking out a small handgun. I aimed it at him. “You know I can shoot this thing now.”
He swallowed thickly but nodded.
“Let me leave as is and I won’t pull the trigger. I won’t scream. I won’t get you locked away. I know that even though you were hired to kill me, that you have protected me so far. You’ve at least kept me alive.” At that my voice started to shake. So did my hand. I took in a deep breath to steady myself, blinking fast. “I don’t wish you any harm.” Now my lower lip was trembling. Damn it. “I don’t wish you any harm, but I can’t be with you anymore. I can’t trust you. I’m sorry.”
Derek slowly shook his head. “Please, Alana. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
And, oh god, I could see that he was. Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Let me get away.”
He stared at me, his jaw clenched, his whole body tense. Then he nodded. “Okay. Okay. Keep the gun. Use it well, all right? If you can go to –”
“No,” I said quickly. “Don’t tell me anything. Let me do this on my own. You stay in here for twenty minutes. Don’t come out or I will go straight to security, you understand.”
“Yes.”
“Good-bye Derrin. Good-bye Derek.”
He didn’t say anything back, he just stared at me like he was watching me die. I suppose he was.
With the gun still on him, I left the room. The door shut behind me with a heavy click and I was out in the hallway. I waited by the door for a moment, prepared for him to come straight after me. But he didn’t. Not yet, anyway.
I couldn’t chance it. I hurried to the elevator and once inside, stuck the gun in my bag. Once I hit the lobby, I glanced
around for anyone suspicious, anyone who could have sent the photographs, and when I didn’t see anyone, I ran over to a courtesy phone by a bunch of couches.
I picked it up and fished the business card out of my jeans. I dialed the number on it as per Javier’s instructions and then I waited.
“Hello,” a man answered. He sounded kind of young. “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” I hoped I didn’t have to get sucked into another one of these stupid games over the phone. There was absolutely no time for that.
“Juanito,” the guy said and I sighed with relief.
“Juanito, this is Alana Bernal.”
“Ah, Alana,” Juanito said. “Oh Javier will be happy, he was very worried about you. He thought you were going to call last week.”
“Something came up. I need to see him now.”
“I will go tell him, can you hold?”
“Yes.”
I waited about two nerve-wracking minutes while Juanito was gone. I kept looking around the lobby, staring at everyone. People were staring right back at me, probably because I looked scared shitless and my eyes were puffy from crying. But those were just ordinary people. They weren’t assassins. And they weren’t Derek.
Finally he came back on the line. “Alana, where are you?”
“I’m at the Crowne Plaza in Mazatlan.”
“Okay, good,” he said. “Hold on.” I waited while I could hear him typing in the background. “Listen I’m going to come pick you up but you have to meet me, all right? Just go to the corner of Marina Mazatlan and Sabalo Cerritos. It’s a few blocks away. Stay where you are, around people, in the lobby of the hotel. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t go with anyone. We’ll be there in an hour.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling panicked all over again. What about Esteban? Was Derek right about that? “Will it be you picking me up?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Where is Javier?”
“He’s not here right now.”
“Okay,” I said quietly.
“I’ll be driving a white SUV. We’ll stop and get you. I’ll have men with me to watch over you and make sure you’re coming alone. These were Javier’s instructions if you were to call. We’ll take you back here and you’ll be safe, understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Be safe,” Juanito said and hung up.
I sighed and when I tried to return the phone to the cradle, I dropped it. My hands were shaking. I didn’t know if I could wait for an hour in the hotel, even if I was around people, knowing that Derek was upstairs.
He hadn’t come for me yet and to be honest, it worried me. I was torn up inside, knowing deep down that Derek would never harm me, not now, but also knowing he once was paid to. Our relationship, my love for him, was built on lies. How could I be sure that the good, brave man I saw was the real him. What if that was the lie? What if all the wonderful things I saw in his soul was nothing but an illusion and I was duped into it by big muscles and hot sex?
My heart told me it was real. But your heart is what got people killed. I knew I would die at some point for some reason or another, but I would never let it be over my heart.
I stepped away from the phone and walked out of the lobby and into the sunshine. I decided to wait at the hotel next door instead, which wasn’t as nice. Finally when the time was ready, I headed across the road. I was still surprised to see that Derek hadn’t followed me but then again, it had been his livelihood to be invisible.
There was barely any traffic on the road so it was quite obvious when the big white SUV came barreling toward me. Aside from some people at the beach across the street, there were no other pedestrians either so it was quite obvious who I was.
The driver of the SUV rolled down his window. He had a full face, maybe even younger than me, but I could tell he was a bit of a heavyweight.
“Get in,” he said.
“Are you Juanito?”
I think he nodded. He jerked his head at the back door which then popped open. “Get in,” he repeated.
I took in a deep breath, put all my faith in my brother and got in the SUV.
There was a man in the back, staring out the window and another man in the passenger seat doing the same.
I gingerly sat down beside him and the man turned to look at me. He had bright brown eyes and a narrow face, almost lupine in its quality.
“Shut the door, if you please,” he said to me.
I leaned over and shut it. The locks immediately came on and the SUV sped away. I studied the guy more closely.
“Are you Juanito?” I asked.
“Put on your seatbelt,” he said. “And no, I’m Benny.”
“Benny,” I repeated. Meanwhile Benny was looking behind him. “Are you sure you weren’t followed?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, I’m not sure but I don’t think I was.”
“And the man you’re with, you told Javier you had a boyfriend. Where is he?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not with me. I left him.”
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t trust him.”
He seemed to mull that over. Then he sat back in his seat and stared out the window again.
Silence choked the car.
I had a bad feeling. I eyed the bag I brought with me, thinking about the gun inside. If something went wrong, would I have enough time to grab it? Would I even stand a chance against these three men?
“Where’s Juanito?” I asked, trying not to sound as nervous as I felt. I nodded at the man in the front seat. He still hadn’t turned around and I couldn’t see his face in the mirrors. “Are you Juanito?” I asked him, raising my voice so he knew I was talking to him.
He turned his head just enough for me to see a scar on the side of his cheek, made all the more prominent by the fact that he was smiling.
My blood ran cold.
“No,” the man said. “Juanito couldn’t be here so I decided to help him out today with this little chore.” He fully turned his head my way and I found myself looking into the very eyes of the man I had shot. “I’m Esteban. Esteban Mendoza. And I believe we’ve met before.”
Without thinking I made a move for my bag but Benny was fast. I felt a heavy crack on the back of my neck and the world went dark.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Derek
I was a stupid man. A stupid, broken man.
I should have seen it coming. I should have known the lies would be exposed and I would lose her. I just didn’t think it would happen now, before she had a chance to be saved. I figured it would happen down the line, maybe a few weeks, maybe months or years, when my heart would be shattered but at least her life wouldn’t be.
But I was a fool. Fooled by love, of all things. And now it has cost us everything.
I wanted to stop her from leaving. I tried. But when she started to cry underneath me, it absolutely wrecked whatever resolve I had. That reserve of sorrow, that darkness that hid deep inside her, the one that came out when she cried in her sleep, lost to nightmares that were once real, it was taking over. She was ruined and utterly devastated by my lies, by the things I have done and the person I wasn’t supposed to be and while I saw her heart break open before my eyes, mine was doing the same.
There is no pain like heartache. I thought I had forgotten all about it, left in those aimless dusty days after Carmen had died. But it came back with a vengeance, as bright as day. It was merciless and brutal and cut you from the inside out, making it feel like you never had a heart, that you’ve always just had this cold black space in your chest. You can almost feel the wind whistling through you when it gets really bad, carving through those hollow places.
Losing love is lonely. Losing it because of something you did is deathly.
And to see it happening to the person who had your heart, there’s nothing worse than that. We were both hurting and hurting so badly. So when it came down to it, I had to let her go. I couldn’t make her suffe
r anymore, and to be more selfish, I couldn’t bear to witness it.
What I needed though was for her to believe me. Believe that after everything, I had her best interests at heart – I always had. And that we had a common enemy, one that could never be trusted. Esteban would be after her the second she stepped out of here, so even though I knew I couldn’t protect her where she could see it, I still would try to protect her all the same.
I would protect her to the end, just like I promised, or die trying.
See, even though I knew that I was stupid man, blindsided like a fool in love, I had still planned for something. A few days ago when Alana was on the beach, I went through her clothes and made tiny insertions in the inner side of all her cups, near the underwire. There I placed a tracking device that was hooked up to an app on my phone. The device could be activated remotely and when I was pleading with her earlier, trying to mend us back together, I noted she was wearing her black bra with her grey tank top.
The moment she left the room, I started tracking her. I tracked the blinking red dot downstairs into the lobby and then to the hotel next store. By then I was already stealing a Mazda around the corner and waiting for her next move.
It was obvious she had been picked up in a car by her speed on the app and I assumed it was probably bad news. She probably called Javier from the lobby and he sent someone to pick her up. My money was that Esteban somehow intercepted or got wind of the call and stepped in. This theory was only confirmed once I saw her location move away from the highway that would lead toward Cualican and head toward the marina instead.
Though there were a lot of marinas in Mazatlan, as well as ports for ferries and cruiseships, her blinking red dot went all the way to a large yacht club on the south shore near the lighthouse hill.
Even though Javier did have a yacht, I could bet all my money on that she was being taken by Esteban and away from Javier’s compound. Out on the seas, a lot of things could happen and considering Este was frustrated now, I feared that whatever he had planned for Alana was far worse than me being hired to shoot her in the head.