by Kiki Swinson
My brows shoot up as I take my time to do a slow drag over her shapely figure. She doesn’t stir my blood either—not like the woman who teases me in my dreams nightly. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Tempting—but I’m on the clock. I need to keep a clear head.”
“On the clock? Dressed like that? You must have another job that I don’t know about.”
Amalia laughs. “You’ll be amazed how far a ho’s uniform can get you in my line of work.”
I laugh. “Okay. So what business brings you here this time of night?”
Amalia’s smile fades. “Well, you’re still quite a mystery. So far you’re a man that appeared out of thin air.”
“Great.”
“So I brought this.” She reaches down for her clutch bag and pulls out a few items.
“What’s that?”
“A do-it-yourself fingerprinting kit.”
“You carry a fingerprint case?”
“I do now.” She smiles. “Look, I know that you don’t want to deal with the police.”
“Because they like to shoot at me,” I fill in for her.
“Well. I have a contact that I can trust at the department. I can have him run your prints for me on the down low.”
“No.” I shake my head. “No cops. I told you that.”
“Look. I trust this guy—and my going door to door flashing your picture has gotten me nothing but blisters.”
Frustrated, I look down at the small kit and then notice the bartender clocking us. “Hey. Let’s not do this right here. Let’s go in the back.”
Amalia glances around. “Good idea.” She gathers her things and follows me to the club’s storage room.
“All right. We should have some privacy for a few minutes,” I say.
Amalia places the inkpad and the print card down on top of a box.
“So what happens if it uh . . .”
“Comes back dirty?”
I nod.
“I promise to call and give you a heads up before the cavalry bangs down your door. Deal?”
I hesitate. A voice in the back of my head is telling me not to this, but at this point I’m ready to do this and get the shit over with.
“Well?”
“All right. Let’s do this before I change my mind.”
Amalia flashes me a reassuring smile. “Relax. It won’t take long.” True to her word, the process takes less than a minute.
“Now what?”
“Now we wait,” she says as she seals the print card and then crams the kit back into her clutch. “You should be used to waiting.”
“For how long?”
“No more than forty-eight hours. If I get something sooner than that I’ll call you. Promise. You’re still at Ms. Castillo’s place?”
“Yeah. But let me give you my cell phone number. It’s a pre-paid but it does the job.” We exchange numbers and then I proceed to take her back into the club. The throng of people has thickened near the dance floor where a tall brothah shoves into me, but instead of apologizing, the man turns toward me with an attitude.
“Yo, nigga! Watch where you’re . . .”
My chest swells up as I step up to this Goliath, who has an ugly scar across his face. “Is there a muthafuckin’ problem?” I challenge.
“Holy shit,” the man mutters, stumbling backward and reaching for something tucked behind his back.
I waste no time going for my own piece and shoving Amalia off to the side—a second before the bullets start flying.
I return fire.
Screams go up and people dash everywhere.
I clip the man’s shoulder. In retaliation, the scarred man grabs a petite woman and shoves her into my direct line of fire.
I take my finger off of the trigger and then shove the woman out of the way. However, that gives the man time to bolt toward the front door with the crowd.
I chase after him and have to dodge more bullets for my trouble. By the time I make it through the door, the shooter is long gone. “What the fuck?”
CHAPTER 16
THE BOSS
“He’s alive,” Salazar announces.
I power the wheelchair around from my office bar and face him. “Are you sure?”
“I saw him with my own eyes,” Salazar says. “His hair is different. He’s scarred and burned, but I’m sure that it was him.”
I draw in a long, measured breath. More sightings. I’m almost too scared to believe.
“Where?”
“Club Fuego in Playa del Carmen. He was there with some woman.”
I perk at this news. “Cataleyna?”
Salazar drops his gaze and scratches at his scar. “No, boss, but—“
“But what?”
“The woman did look a lot like her.”
Against my will, hope needles its way into my heart. “Check it out. If it’s him, you know what to do.”
A mischievous grin slides across Salazar’s mangled face. “Yes, sir.” He turns and marches out of my office.
CHAPTER 17
THE PRINCESS
“Push! Push!” the large midwife, Maria, coaches from between my legs.
“I can’t! I can’t!” Sweat pours down my face while every muscle in my body seizes with pain. “Please, make it stop.” The baby is ripping me in two.
“You can do this. You can do this. I know you can,” Ruthie, a girl who’s no more than fourteen, presses a cool compress against my forehead, but I’m in too much pain to notice. No doctor. No epidural. And no Julian by my side. The pain only intensifies my anguish.
“Wait. This is all wrong.”
“Wrong? What’s wrong?” I pant, peering down at the woman between my knees. I can’t take it if there’s something wrong with my baby. The baby is all I have left of Julian.
“I have to turn the baby.”
“What?”
“Hold on,” Maria pushes in her hand.
“Aaaarrgh!” My body turns into one large spasm.
“Don’t push.”
I hear the order, but my body has a mind of its own and it wants the baby out.
“Stop pushing!”
“I’m trying.” I toss and turn while the midwife battles to keep me still.
The wild-eyed teenage mops the sweat from my hair and neck.
When is this torture going to end?
“I almost got it,” the midwife says, still turning the baby.
I hope so. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I twist and squirm on the huge California-king sized bed. My gaze finds the two cameras in the corners of the room.
They are watching me. They are always watching me. The fucking assholes. Why do they get off doing this shit? How much longer will this nightmare last? Why isn’t my father doing anything about it? Does he even know that I’m still alive?
“All right. Got it. Get ready to push.”
Tears well up. I’m too weak to fight them back. That only makes me angrier. Once upon a time, I was a lot stronger than this. I wasn’t afraid of anything. Now I’m this weak, pathetic, groveling creature imprisoned in yet another golden cage while a set of mad men pull the strings in my life.
“All right now. Push!”
Exhausted to the point of delirium, I lay in a pool of my own sweat. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Señorita, you must,” Ruthie says. “It’s almost over.”
I want to believe her, but I can’t. The pain is all-consuming, and it feels like it’s going to go on forever.
Ruthie sets aside the compress and takes my hand. In the next second, I crush her fingers as the next spasm hits, but the teenager bears the pain without complaint.
“Aaaaaaaah!” I push down with all I have.
“It’s coming. It’s coming. I can see the head,” the midwife cries.
I pant a few more breaths and push again.
“That’s it. That’s it. You can do it.”
“Aaaargh!”
“One more,” the midwife coaches. �
�We’re almost there. Give me one more big push.”
Panting, I don’t know whether I have it in me to continue.
“One more,” Ruthie whispers.
“Julian,” I beg, needing to believe that he’s with me now. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Yes, you can, Señorita,” Ruthie encourages. “Push.”
Digging deep, I find a strength that I didn’t know I had. “Aaaaargh!”
The baby’s shoulders clear and the rest of its body slide out.
“I got it. It’s a girl,” Maria announces, and then turns to clean the baby.
“Oh thank God,” I moan, closing my eyes for a prayer of thanks. But something isn’t right. “What’s wrong? Why isn’t she crying?”
Ignoring me, Maria continues to clean the baby.
“Answer me. What’s wrong with my baby?”
Suddenly, the door bursts open and he strolls into the room, his dark gaze raking over me with contempt.
Fear creeps into my heart. “W—what do you want? What are you doing here?”
Maria finishes cleaning my baby and then wraps her in a thin blanket.
“Give her to me.” I hold out my arms, expecting Maria to hand me the baby, but instead she makes a beeline toward Vasquez. “What are you doing? No! No! Give her to me!”
Maria lays the baby in his arms.
At long last, the baby wails at the world. “Whaaa! Whaaa!”
“Give her to me!” I block out my pain and scramble to get up from the damp and bloody sheets. “Give me back my baby!”
His lips curl sinisterly. “What baby? You don’t have a baby.”
“What? No!”
He turns back toward the door.
“You can’t do this.” I stand up onto my wobbly legs and stumble after him. “You fucking monster. Give me my baby!”
Ruthie makes a feeble attempt to pull me back, but I shove her so hard that she careens into the wall.
The midwife gets into the act and the two struggle with me.
He laughs, never breaking his stride toward the door. “You’ll be doing yourself a favor if you could forget all about this.”
“No!” I wrestle free. “You can’t do this! You can’t do this!” I reach the door just as it slams in my face.
Locked.
I pound on the door, desperate. “Give me my baby back!”
Laughter rumbles through the door.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“Give me my baby!”
The laughter fades as I slide to the floor, a broken woman. “Please, give me my baby.”
CHAPTER 18
THE LOVER
“Help! Julian! Help!”
I bolt straight up, sweaty and confused. I realize that it’s the middle of the night and I’m crashed on Malena’s couch. It was that damn dream again. Dropping my head in between my hands, I exhale a long, frustrated breath. How much longer is this shit going to go on? Night after night, it’s the same gunfire, the same woman’s screams, and the same dark water. What the fuck happened that night? If I can figure that shit out then I’ll know why muthafuckas are trying to kill me.
A sound catches my ear and my hand snakes out for the .45 tucked beneath one of the couch cushions. Malena clicks on the living room’s lights and finds herself staring down the barrel of a gun.
“What the hell?” She jumps, eyes wide.
“Oh. It’s you.”
“Who else would it be?” she snaps.
I lower my weapon. “Sorry.”
She keeps her gaze locked on my weapon. “Diego said that there was a shooting at the club last night. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what the hell that shit was about. Dude took one look at me and started blasting.”
“This isn’t good. We now have my brother mixed up in this shit.”
“What did he tell the cops?” I ask.
“Nothing. He said it was a couple of party goers—but the cops confiscated his security tapes. It’s just a matter of time before that tape jams Diego up.”
“He’s going to rat me out?”
“I don’t know what he’s going to do—but I doubt that he’s going to risk losing his baby to protect you. He gave you the job as a favor to me.”
“I get it. I get it.”
Malena’s eyes tear up. “I’m sorry but I think whatever’s going on it’s a little too much.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that . . . I’m scared. I think I’m in over my head. Maybe in your past life you . . . you . . .”
“I—what?”
“Maybe you weren’t such a nice guy,” she says and then looks contrite for having spoken her mind. “Look, Diego said—”
“Diego. Diego.”
“My brother has done nothing but try to help you out,” she defends. “And he’s pretty adamant that the man that tried to take you out is a known drug lord with the Rosales cartel. A cartel! So that means if they know you then . . .”
My blood boils at her insinuation. “Then what? I’m one of them? That’s what you think of me—that I’m some low-life drug dealer? C’mon. Give me a fuckin’ break.”
“And what about the police?” she asks.
“What about them? They’re some dirty fuckin’ cops. What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. I just know that you’re in danger or dangerous—and the longer you stick around here, I’m in danger, too.”
I want to understand, but the more she talks the more she’s pissing me off. “Just fucking say it already. You want me out of here.”
There’s a long pause before she finally says, “I’m sorry.”
“Whatever.” I stomp past her toward the spare bedroom and toss what little clothes and stashed money I have into a duffle bag.
Malena rushes into the room. “Wait, Julian. You don’t have to do it right now.”
“Now is as good a time as any.” The idea of bouncing suddenly feels liberating. I don’t know what’s waiting for me out in the streets but it’s got to be better to meet my fate head-on than to suffocate in this damn house, fucking this needy bitch to keep a roof over my head.
“Julian, please wait. Please.” She is frantically wrestling my arms and trying to block me from grabbing more clothes.
“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it,” she raves. “I’m just under a lot stress. Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.” She gives up holding my arms and instead tries to cradle my face and force me to look at her.
I easily pry her hands away from my face, but she springs up onto the tips of her toes to pepper my face with kisses. The shit annoys me at first—but then my dick gets hard and the next thing I know I’m ripping her clothes off.
CHAPTER 19
THE P.I.
I curse Emilio’s ass for the millionth time, leaving me with all these damn bills. I should’ve listened to my mother and married for money instead of love. Emilio Vega was a sexy, smooth-talking devil that never met a set of tits that he didn’t like. When he wasn’t off fucking everything he could nail down, he was gambling us into a debt that’ll take two generations of Vegas to pay off. If I didn’t love being a nosey bitch, I would pack up my shit and start all over again somewhere else. Somewhere like Argentina or Brazil. The same places that Emilio had always promised to take me.
There’s a knock on the door.
“Who in the fuck is that?” I glance at my watch and wonder who could be here at this time of night. Standing from my desk, I retrieve my Glock and then creep to the front of the office. I immediately recognize Angel peeking at me through the glass.
I relax, click on the safety and then rush to answer the door. “What are you doing here?”
He comes through the door, looking around. “I got your results back and since I was coming through the neighborhood, I’d figured I’d drop them off.”
I frown. “You could’ve called.”
He continues to look around. “You got a minute?”
&nb
sp; “Sure. C’mon in.” I lock the door behind him and then lead him back toward my office.
“Sooo.” I sit my gun on the desk, drop back into my seat and kick up my feet. “Please tell you got good news.”
Angel draws and levels his gun on me.
“What the fuck?” I drop my feet.
“Ah. Ah. Ah. No sudden moves,” he warns.
“What the hell is this about?”
“Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
“Don’t play stupid. Where is your client?”
“Who?”
He laughs. “Don’t play stupid. You only have one client.”
“Why? Who is he?”
“Let’s just say that he’s someone with a mighty big price on his head that I’m going to cash in. So I’m going to ask you again. Where is he?”
“How much of a price on his head? You know a sister is looking for a come up, too.”
He hesitates and studies me hard. I can’t believe that up until a minute ago I thought Angel was one of the good ones—a rare commodity in the crooked police department.
“The address,” he presses.
I can’t make a move for the weapon on my desk—but chances are he doesn’t know about the .22 taped underneath it.
“What’s the reward?” I ask, equally serious.
Silence.
“C’mon. How much?” My hand inches toward the .22.
“Twenty-five million,” he answers.
I release a long whistle. “That some serious fucking cash. Who posted the reward?”
Angel hesitates. “Vicente Rosales. Dead or alive.”
I whistle again. What the hell does a drug king like Rosales want with my client? “If I give you the address how much will you cut me in for?”
He waivers.
“Fifty-fifty?”
“Hell, no.”
“Sixty-forty. I’m not greedy.”
“Eighty-twenty,” Angel counters. “That’s five million. Take it or leave it.”
I smile as my hand closes around the .22. “Oh. I’ll take it,” I tell him.
He lowers the gun and I blow his fucking balls off.
CHAPTER 20
THE LOVER
Malena pulls me down onto the bed, lifting her silky legs and hooking them over my shoulders to allow a deeper penetration. I lose myself in her jasmine scented body, but it’s another woman I see. She appears more clear to me now than ever before. The heart-shaped face, sleek nose, rosy cheeks. She’s dressed all in red and glittering with diamonds.