by Karina Halle
Oddly enough, Javier hadn’t been around a lot. Most of the time he was at the helm of the ship, even though one of the crew boys seemed to be extremely adept at handling a sailboat, even one of this size. Javier always had a thing for control, but I started to get the feeling he was avoiding me. It was somewhat unwelcome and I couldn’t figure out why.
“Who said I’m killing Travis?” I shot back at him and took a large, medicinal gulp of my wine. I had been sitting in the “theatre lounge” area, hiding out from the relentless sun and trying to occupy my frazzled mind with books. The peace didn’t last long. Raul had sat down across from me, leaning back in the seat, one leg crossed, drink in hand. His eyes had gotten extra lecherous, even though I was wearing breezy pants and a flowing peasant top. His eyes were so much more intrusive than Javier’s.
Raul tipped his chin down and smiled. “I suppose you think Javier will be the one to do it, that you’re just the trap. The bait.”
“Something like that,” I muttered and looked down at the book I was attempting to read, Stephen King’s Duma Key. It seemed fitting, the storm and boat on the cover.
“Doesn’t that bother you,” he continued, “knowing he only sees you as a pawn.”
“I’d rather him see me as a pawn than anything more than that,” I said.
“Hmmm,” he mused. “And I see you mean that too. Do you still have feelings for him?”
I lowered the book again and gave him the most disgusted and incredulous look that I could muster. Considering I was already buzzed from the glass of wine, I’d say it was probably pretty good. The drunker I got, the nastier I became – facial expressions included.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Raul,” I drew out the syllables in his name, mocking it. “Whatever feelings I had for Javier died six years ago, when I found him cheating on me.”
He raised a brow. “Oh yes. That. Have you ever asked him about it?”
My heart stopped a bit. Raul knew. This was public knowledge. Oh, of course it was. Javier was probably screwing everyone, calling anyone with legs – even scarred ones – his angel and coming all over them. Somewhere deep inside I flushed at that last memory and shook it off.
“No I haven’t because I honestly don’t care. I’d like to find that chick and shake her fucking hand. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be wasting my life, attached to a complete psychopath with an addiction to pussy.”
“And being a con artist wasn’t a waste?”
“What are you, a shrink?” I asked and looked away. The book wasn’t helping anymore. The wine was. I got up and made a move to the bar (there was one in every single room on this ship, a total booze cruise) but Raul beat me to it. He was quicker than he looked and within seconds my wine glass was being filled with expensive Sauvignon Blanc and I was slightly too buzzed to care.
He sat back down across from me and brushed back his hair. My god, why did cartel members have to be so ugly? I’d lucked out when I picked Javier for my plan all those years ago. He was the only one who was pleasing to look at. Even more than pleasing, when you added in the fact that he had that whole primal animal vibe that slithered off of him.
Why was I thinking so many pleasant adjectives about a man who was blackmailing me and essentially holding me hostage on a ship that launched Raul in my direction at every turn?
“How are you going to kill him?” he continued after a moment.
“I told you, I’m not. I’m the bait.”
“You know, if I had you in my possession, I’d set you free.”
I glared at him. “Right. And I’m not in his possession.”
“Maybe he’s in your possession.”
“Seriously, what do you want? If you want to annoy me, you’re succeeding. If you want to be creepy, you’re succeeding at that too.”
“I’m just wondering how it is that you’re going along with all of this so well. It’s like you belong here.”
“It’s called making the best of a bad situation.”
Raul leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think you only do your best in bad situations. Because you’re a bad, bad little girl, Ellie Watt. And I can teach you to be worse.”
“What’s going on here?” Javier’s voice broke in.
I swallowed the sour feeling in my mouth and looked over at Javier who was standing by the entrance to the lounge, eyes boring into Raul in a most unsavory way.
“He’s annoying me,” I said, not caring if it got me in shit with either of them.
Raul only smiled, his eyes darting to me and back to Javier. “I’m trying to prepare Ellie here for what’s to come. You know, Javier, for an assassin, she’s awfully blasé about the whole thing. Doesn’t that worry you? Perhaps she might flake out, maybe fuck everything up. On purpose, no less. She really seems to harbor some sort of grudge against you.”
Javier didn’t look at me. “She’ll get it, sooner or later. And I trust her.”
I almost snorted wine through my nose. Javier trusted me? I’d dump him over the side of the ship at the first opportunity if I knew that Raul wouldn’t kill me right afterward.
“That trust might get you killed, señor,” Raul said bitingly.
I raised my brow at that comment but Javier’s face was blank.
Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Well, Raul, I think you’re done with annoying Ellie for today. Why don’t you go join Roberto at the helm, huh?”
Raul narrowed his eyes at him and got up. He left the room without saying a word, brushing past Javier with utter disdain.
The whole exchange had put a weird vibe in the room. For some reason I felt like things had gotten even more off-balance, or perhaps that was the combination of the wine and the ship. Not seeing land for twenty-four hours couldn’t help.
Javier folded his arms and looked at me. “Are you okay?”
I raised my glass of wine. “Drinking away the blackmailing blues.”
“That’s funny,” he said, though his tone was flat. He walked over, smooth and sleek. That whole primal animal analogy came darting in my brain again. Today he was a cat dressed head to toe in olive green. He stopped right behind the chair I was sitting in, so I had to twist around to look up at him. “What was he talking to you about?”
“About how I was going to kill Travis.” And if I had feelings for you anymore. Of course I didn’t want to say that. I didn’t even want to go there.
He peered down at me. “That wasn’t all. He said he was going to teach you to be a bad girl.”
“Well, I don’t know what he meant by that …”
“I do. I don’t like the way he talks to you.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what. If you want to go stick Raul all the way up the crow’s nest, you have my full support.”
Finally his mouth twisted into a smile. He raised his brow and nodded at my glass. “I say the drinking is working. You’ve got a little spring in your step.”
For one split second I was able to fool myself into thinking we were old lovers who were having a lovely cruise together, old sparring partners, shooting the shit. But things couldn’t have been further from the truth.
His face grew colder as he studied me. He turned around and left the room, calling over his shoulder, “Enjoy your book. Dinner is at six.”
He didn’t remind me to eat like he’d been doing at every meal, even though that’s one of the reasons the wine was hitting me so hard. And just for that, I decided I would finally partake in dinner. My stomach punched me in anticipation and I went back to reading.
As much as I hated to admit it, dinner was fabulous. The snapper was so fresh I could have sworn that they’d just caught it off the side of the boat. The coconut rice and mango salad was amazing. The cocktails, syrupy hurricanes, were phenomenal. It was almost good enough to make me forget why I’d been avoiding meals in the first place.
I did my best to put a damper on my enjoyment of the food and instead paid attention to what was going on around me. It was just the four of
us since the crew had their own mini mess hall in their quarters. The other man I came to learn was Peter. He seemed fairly intelligent if not quiet most of the time. I didn’t know why he was there with us or what he did but Javier seemed to treat him with respect. Maybe it just seemed that way because he was getting increasingly short with Raul while Raul was acting more and more like a petulant child. I could feel Javier’s authority over him crumbling brick by brick and it kind of scared me.
Once dinner was over, cleared away by the boys who seemed to appear out of nowhere, Raul and Peter retreated to their cabins, leaving me and Javier sitting across from each other at the dinner table. When the last tray was cleared and we were left alone, I felt the weight of the star-filled sky crushing me. The boat’s deck was lit up with tons of mood lights, making his eyes shine as he gazed at me.
It was a steady gaze, not adoring or concerned. But interested. He had always seemed so intrigued by me.
“It’s beautiful out,” he said, his voice dull. “You can see so many constellations out here. None of those city lights. You can feel how … insignificant we really are. Can you feel it?”
I didn’t know if this was a trap or a trick question. Still, I nodded. “Yes. Like God might flick me away with his finger.”
He tilted his head, his mouth drawing into a slight pout. “God would never do that to you. You’re Ellie Watt.”
“Sometimes I am,” I said, hiding my uneasiness with another sip of my hurricane.
“You always are. I see that now. I might have only seen bits and pieces of you before. But now, you’re … formidable.”
Was that a compliment? If it was, I didn’t think I could take it as one since it came from him.
He smiled. “It is a compliment,” he said, back to that whole mind reading thing. “You’re so strong. I’m lucky to have you.”
I nearly rolled my eyes then decided it was a little more serious than that action portrayed. “Javier,” I said slowly, “you don’t have me. Your only luck is how far you’ve gotten in life without someone chopping your head off. Yes, I am strong. And I’m afraid that Raul is right. You shouldn’t trust me.”
“Why?”
I frowned, taken aback at the sincerity in his voice. “Why? Why? I don’t think I’ve ever hated a person more than I hate you.”
He seemed to mull that over, his eyes shining even more. He took a sip of his drink, then sat back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. “That’s funny. You treat me quite well for someone you hate. What do you do to the people you love?”
“You should know.” I blurted it out before I realized my mistake. The alcohol was ruining me. I was saying things I’d once locked inside my head.
His eyes widened momentarily. I saw a look in them that I never wanted to see again. I quickly drank the rest of my drink and slammed the glass down on the teak table. “Well, here I am drunk and talking absolute nonsense.”
He appraised me before saying, “Apparently. But I find your lack of censorship amusing. Care to entertain someone that you hate by having another drink with me?”
“Are you drugging me again? Because if I have another drink I’ll probably pass out anyway and you’ll have to get one of your little crew boys to drag me back to my room.”
His face became instantly stern. “No one touches you on this boat.”
“Not even you?” I asked wryly, testing him, pushing him.
He shook his head. “No. Not even me. You are not mine to touch.”
“Oh, of course not. I’m just yours to use as a pawn.”
“Ellie,” he said. Then he got up and held out his hand. “Come join me and I’ll explain.”
“Explain what?” I asked, eyeing his hand like it had some disease.
“Explain what’s going to happen. I don’t know what you heard from Raul but I want to make some things clear.”
I didn’t understand what the point of that was. What did it matter what he told me? I probably wasn’t going to like it, which didn’t matter if it meant keeping Camden alive. I was in a shitty situation and I was tired of trying to wrap my head around it.
Finally I put my hand in Javier’s and he helped me to my feet. His hands were warm and rough. Familiar and strange.
As soon as I was up though, he dropped my hand like it was a hot coal. I’d found that to be the strangest thing about this whole thing with him. He really did see me as a pawn, not as his ex-lover or ex-girlfriend. Of course I still saw his eyes on me from time to time and that hopeful expression on his face. But for the most part, whatever feelings, mentally, physically, whatever, he had for me in the past, they weren’t the same anymore. He was detached, unpassionate, and utterly focused on this task at hand, the one my brain kept skirting. Part of me found his distance admirable. I couldn’t have wanted him to keep playing the part of the creepy, obsessive ex-lover. The one who kept all my clothes yet took six years to come chasing after me.
I just didn’t understand this Javier. And maybe that’s the reason why I let him pour me a stiff drink and why I followed him down the stairs to the main deck and to the back of the ship where his private cockpit was. I wanted to understand him, whether it would do me any good or not. Understanding the enemy was to my advantage, wasn’t it?
I hadn’t spent any time at his cockpit before, a round depression that led down to his office and quarters below, two curved couches on either side, plus a bar that popped up with the touch of a button.
I sat down on one couch, spreading my legs out, hoping that would deter him from sitting near me. It worked though I had a feeling he was going to sit opposite from me anyway.
“I think this is the best part of the ship,” I said. I put my head back and looked up at the stars. I still felt the weight of the universe on my shoulders.
“It’s my favorite too. It reminds me of the old boat.”
My mind jumped back to the first time I stepped foot on his old boat. The first time we made love on it. He wanted to stain me. And he did, just not in the way he had hoped.
I knew I shouldn’t have been thinking of it – it was the booze, plus Raul’s words that had implanted the seeds there. But I was thinking it and before I knew it, I was saying it.
“Why did you cheat on me?” I kept my eyes on the stars, feeling the dark bruise-colored sky lift a bit.
Javier was silent. Stunned or formulating an excuse. Maybe preparing to tell the truth. I didn’t know what I hoped to gain out of this aside from having a weight lifted. Unanswered questions can stay with you a long time, riding on your shoulders, wearing you down.
I heard him take a sip of his drink and place it on the side table. The sounds were all louder now, the drone of the engine since we weren’t under sail, the water as it crashed behind the stern of the boat.
“I cheated on you more than once,” he said cautiously, as if he was waiting for me to spring up and kill him. I didn’t. It hurt my pride just a tad but the anger was on the way out.
I cleared my throat, feeling stupid despite the circumstances. “I see. It figures.”
“Why?”
“That I would be the one with the wool pulled over my eyes. The whole time I thought I was keeping a secret from you and you were the one keeping it from me.”
“Ellie, it wasn’t exactly like-”
“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Forget I asked.”
“I can’t forget you asked. What if I asked why you lied to me all that time?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated.
“It does matter,” he said loud enough to make me jerk to attention. He was gripping his glass, eyes blazing. “I was a different man then, just a boy, but I did love you and I never would have done anything to intentionally hurt you.”
“Love and respect don’t have to go hand in hand,” I retorted, recalling what a wise woman had once told me. And they say you never meet anyone worthwhile at roadside bars. I still had that woman, Marda’s, driver’s license in my scrapbook.
“That can be true,” he conceded. “I had reasons for being unfaithful. It went beyond sex and love.”
“You loved her?” I exclaimed, feeling sick despite myself. I could blame the wine and the boat all I wanted.
“No, I didn’t. But I had revenge. You of all people should know how far you are willing to go for it.”
“What does revenge have to do with sleeping with someone else?”
“What does revenge have to do with loving me?” he said, his voice collapsing over the last two words so they spun out in a hush.
I slowly sat up, feeling dizzy. “It shouldn’t matter but I did love you.”
“You broke me,” he replied. His eyes went to steel.
I didn’t want to hear any of this anymore. “Why did you cheat on me? And don’t give me that revenge shit. If it was this revenge, this thing, then tell me exactly how it was.”
“Her name was Patricia,” he said.
Oh, so she had a name. A dumb one at that.
He continued, looking down into his glass, “She was a nice girl. Nice enough. Pretty. She liked me. That’s all I needed. She was the sister of Enrique Morrow.”
“Who is Enrique Morrow?”
“Enrique was one of the higher ups in the Los Zetas. Patricia lived in New Orleans, he was in Nuevo Laredo. I got to know her, I suppose in the same way you got to know me. I used her to get to him.”
I stared at him. “And did you get to him? Did it work?”
He nodded and shook the ice in his glass. “Yes.”
“What happened to them?”
He eyed me briefly. “They are both dead. I killed them. Killed her first, in front of him, to prove a point. Held her down and took her hand. Then slit her throat. And made him watch. Then, when I thought he’d suffered enough, I cut off his head. Seemed fitting, considering the Los Zetas practically think they invented the act.”
My mouth dropped open. I needed to shut it. To say I was horrified was an understatement. “You … you did that to the woman you were cheating on me with?” A memory flashed in my head, the one of when I found them together, that terrible act of intimacy, him calling her pet names as they lay beside each other on the bed – my bed – laughing. They looked so … in love. So in touch with each other. That’s what had hurt me the most, more than the sex.