"Exactly! So if you wanna stay on my good side, this is what I want from you…" his words trailed while he took the time to pull out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket.
I tuned him out as I surveyed the room, looking for a possible exit. I definitely had to wait until I could find something to unlock the cuffs before I made any attempt.
He took a couple puffs of the cigarette before proceeding. "So as I was saying…" he said, pulling the cigarette from his mouth, eyeing the burning end as he blew a puff of smoke at it.
Can he finish a fucking thought? Who put this asshole in charge?
But before he could continue there was a slight knock on the door.
HER
The door creaked open and in walked the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. She was perfect. Just perfect. Her light brown skin perfectly complimented her long, straight, black hair that edged the small of her back. Her light brown eyes were framed with thick black lashes, set atop high cheek bones, and her lips. Fuck. What I would do to those lips.
Her frame was slender, but her thick hips and supple breasts set her apart from most of the women I was used to pursuing. An hour glass figure pulled straight out of a fifties smut magazine.
I almost lost myself in her presence, but was quickly snapped from my daze when the asshole leaning against the wall chimed in.
"What the fuck are you doing in here?" he asked her. "I'm trying to conduct business."
"Màma sent me with your lunch," she replied, her accent not quite as thick as his.
"Puta. Stop telling people màma sends my lunch," he said, pushing himself off the wall.
"Well, stop leaving your lunch at home, and I won't have to bring it to you," she said with her eyes lowered to the floor.
I shifted my gaze over to him. "What a punk bitch. Your mom makes your lunch?" I asked with a smile.
"Pinchè wèro," he said, right before slamming his size ten boot into the side of my face, knocking my head onto the hard concrete floor.
SIERRA
"Hey," I said, jostling the American's arm. "Wake up."
He opened his eyes and shot up from the ground. "What the fuck happened?"
"You pissed my brother off and he kicked you in the face. What do you think happened? You've been laying here for an hour," I said, trying to wipe the blood from his brow with a small rag.
He hooked his hand on to my wrist, making every hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
"Help me?" he asked quietly.
"No. I can't. Jesus is crazy and he'll kill me," I said, shaking my head.
"Tell me where I am at least?"
"The outskirts of Tijuana," I replied, shaking my wrist away from his hand.
"That's not where the convoy was attacked though."
"Maybe so, but that is where you are," I said, pushing myself off the ground. "I have no reason to lie to you."
"I didn’t say you were lying," he replied, stretching out his hand.
"I have to go. I shouldn’t even be here."
"Wait, will you be back?" he asked.
I shook my head as I reached for the door. "I don’t know," I said, knocking on the door.
He looked at me like a caged animal, and I felt bad leaving him there alone, but I had to think about my own safety. Brother or not, Jesus was a hot-head, and unafraid to kill family. That's how my cousin, Hector, disappeared.
Pfft. Disappeared.
That's how they liked to explain it away around the dinner table, but we all knew Jesus killed him. Probably chopped him up into a million pieces and fed him to the chickens we were eating for Sunday dinners.
If Jesus didn’t have the loyalty of every vato in Mexico I would've escaped a long time ago. But no one escapes, Jesus. No one.
The guard on the other side unlocked the door and pushed it open. Stepping through, I took one last look at the handsome American then left.
CHANCE
I slammed my hand against the concrete floor, pissed that I missed the opportunity to convince her to help me. She was probably the only chance I had at freedom.
What did I know about this Jesus character…maybe he was as crazy as she said? Maybe I was putting her in danger by asking for help?
Fuck it. Desperate times. Desperate measures.
I ran my fingers through my hair, contemplating my next move. Even if I escaped, I'd need to find a way across the border into San Diego with nothing but the sun and my wits to get me pointed in the right direction. I'd need to start my recon immediately, guard shift trade-offs, individual habits…the works.
This shit was so much easier with a tactical team and mission op in place, but this was what I had been trained for…to survive on the fly.
My head began to throb with the distinct pain of an oncoming migraine. I guess that's what happens when a heavy boot makes contact with a skull.
Shit! This is gonna be a long night.
I closed my eyes, hoping the pain would go away, but that would have made me too lucky, and lucky had never been my middle name. My face cringed as the throbbing moved, pricking the area behind my eyes. Sleep would be my only reprieve at this point, so I pressed my back to the wall and closed my eyes.
After what felt like only a few minutes later, I was awoken by a piercing yell and a swift kick to the leg. "Hey!"
My eyes shot open as the searing pain traveled from my leg to every part of my body. "What the fuck do you want?" I asked Jesus, who was standing over me like an overbearing mother.
"We never finished our conversation."
I rubbed my forehead, readying myself for the shit he was about to shovel into my brain.
"I want you to work for me," he said, sliding a cigarette into the side of his mouth.
"Work for you?" I asked confused by the idiotic request.
"Yeah. I need a strong man to haul drugs back and forth in the tunnels to Otay Mesa," he said, taking a puff of the cigarette as he leaned up against a wall. "It's a lot of heavy lifting and you look like you have some muscles," he said, tapping the tip of his boot on my bicep.
"What makes you think I would do some shit like that for you?" I asked, coughing when the fog of nicotine hit my lungs.
"You'll do what the fuck I tell you to do. I own you now."
"You don’t own shit," I said, my voice cracking from thirst.
"You need to eat don't you?" he asked.
I didn’t reply, but my stomach did, grumbling loud enough for the prisoners in the next room to hear.
He pushed himself off the wall and moved in front of me. "Until you agree to work for me, I'll only allow you to eat the cockroaches crawling around you and that's it."
I shifted my gaze to the countless roaches crawling on the floor. "I heard they're good protein," I said with smile.
"Pinche cabron!" he yelled, clenching his fist before he tried to bring it down on my face.
Mustering all the energy I could, I grabbed his wrist and kicked his ankle out from underneath him, causing him to fall back onto the floor. The pain was excruciating, but I handled it, it was what I was trained to do.
I jumped on top of him, landing a punch square across his jaw.
"Auxilio! Auxilio!" he yelled, damn near swallowing his cigarette trying to call for help.
"Call all you want, fucker!" I yelled, raring to throw another punch before his lackeys rushed in and pulled me off of him.
They held each arm, keeping me in place as Jesus stood up and dusted himself off. He chuckled a little before asking, "You think you're slick, huh?"
His goons laughed like a pair of hyenas while he paced around me.
"I'm not working for you," I said, readying myself for the beating to come.
He threw his cigarette to the floor and smashed it with his boot. "You're gonna do what I tell you to do or you're gonna die here!"
"Then I guess I'm gonna die here," I said, spitting on his pant leg.
His eyes turned red with anger as he balled up his fist and pounded one ri
ght across my left temple. The room blurred, but I was still conscious enough to feel the next blow to my left cheek which rendered me unconscious.
I woke up to what I could only assume was the next day, my left eye was halfway swollen shut and my stomach churned from the lack of food.
No one came to my cell that day or the next, but by the third day, when the hunger was at its worst, she came back. Quietly and without warning she slipped through the door, pressing her finger to her mouth.
"Shhh," she whispered.
She kneeled next to me, her hair caressing the side of my arm as she dug in her gray backpack.
"What are you doing here?" I asked quietly.
She pulled out a small clear plastic bag with two sandwiches in them, along with a small juice box. "I brought you food. I overheard, Jesus telling his men he was going to starve you to death. So you would die slow."
I wrapped my fingers around her wrist. "Wait, if you help me, he will eventually figure out that someone is feeding me. I don’t wanna put you in danger."
SIERRA
I looked into his striking green eyes, not dulled at all by the starvation he was being subjected to, and shook my wrist away. "I can't stand back and watch this happen to you. I won't."
"But you don’t even know me," he said, biting into a sandwich.
"I know you need me, and if I were in this situation I would hope someone would help me," I replied, piercing the straw into the foil opening of the juice box and handing it to him. "How does your face feel?"
"Like shit."
"It looks like it," I agreed.
"What's your name?" he asked, gulping down the entire juice box in one sip.
"Sierra."
"What is he planning on doing with me…other than letting me starve?"
"Nothing. He's sick that way. He has always been sick that way."
"So I need to escape or die a slow painful death?"
I didn’t want to answer his question. Something about him was different, unlike any other man my brother imprisoned in this shithole, and secretly I prayed he survived.
"What's your name," I asked, handing him the second sandwich.
He greedily swallowed the food in his mouth, and said, "Chance. My name is Chance."
"Fitting," I said, quickly stuffing the trash back in my bag.
"Why is that?" he asked with his right eye brow furrowed.
"Maybe you'll have a chance to get out of here," I said with a smile.
He cringed when he laughed. "You're full of jokes, huh? Listen, I'll make you a deal."
"What's that?" I asked, standing up.
"Keep bringing me these sandwiches and you can make fun of my name as much as you want."
"Make fun? I think it's cute," I said, glancing over my shoulder as I made my way to the door.
CHANCE
"Cute?" I asked, watching her thick hips sway as she walked away from me.
She pressed her finger to her lips again. "Shhh," she whispered again, slipping quietly out of the door.
I shook my head as I took the final bite of my sandwich, dusting off any remaining evidence from my shirt. The last thing I needed was to get her in trouble for helping me.
I stopped dusting just long enough to realize I cared. I cared if she got hurt. Surprising, considering how much I distrusted women after Nicole's bullshit.
Sierra came back every night with something for me to eat and drink, and every night we grew closer, sharing more than just a secret meal and a joke or two. She told me about her hopes and dreams beyond the crime family she was tethered to, and I told her about the amazing things I'd seen in the many countries I had visited over the years.
She was amazed at the world waiting for her just outside her doorstep, and as the days passed, I wanted more and more to show her that world. I wanted more and more of her.
SIERRA
A month or so later…
I couldn't wait till the sun set to get to him. He was the only thing I looked forward to every morning when I got out of bed. Waiting until my mom and brother left the house to make Chance his usual two sandwiches, and then stuff them in my bag.
Jesus walked back in unexpectedly with Alex, his right hand man. Startled, I threw the bag in the corner of the room and met them at the door.
"What are you doing home?" I asked, resting my hands on his chest.
He brushed my hands away. "What are you talking about? I come and go as I please." He chuckled with Alex.
"No, of course. I just meant I didn’t have dinner ready," I stuttered.
"No need. We are headed over to the warehouse. Getting' rid of the dead weight. Pinche gringo won't work for me and he won't die. Gotta speed it up, he's taking up space."
"Pendejo," Alex chimed in.
"What do you mean 'speed things up'?" I asked nonchalantly.
"Gonna chop him up and feed him to the perros," Jesus said, laughing.
I chuckled with him, not wanting my face to give away my fear. "You're gonna do that tonight?" I asked.
"That's what I fucking said," Jesus replied sternly.
"But màma wants you to meet her at church," I said, trying to come up with an excuse he wouldn't be able to turn down.
If Jesus feared one thing, it was our mother, and he dare not turn down church.
"Really? I don’t remember her telling me anything."
"She told you last week. Remember?" I asked, pretending to wipe down the counter.
His brows furrowed. "Fuck. I must be getting old. I don’t remember that shit at all."
"I have been noticing a little gray," Alex said, vigorously rubbing Jesus' hair.
Jesus slapped his hand away. "Shut up, puto!"
I knew once he went to church it would all be over. My mom wouldn’t be there waiting for him, and once he asked her, he would be pissed off that I lied to him. Tonight was it. I had to make a decision. Help Chance escape before Jesus killed him, and go with him, or stay and face the consequences for lying?
If I left I would never see my family again. If I stayed, Jesus would probably kill me to show the others he had no problem killing anyone who went against him. There really wasn’t a choice anymore. The minute I lied to him, I sealed my fate.
"Okay, we're going to church. Have dinner ready when I get home. I'll kill the fuckin' American tomorrow," Jesus said as he walked toward the door.
How strange it must be to live in his brain. Killing a human being was as easy as marking off some random item on his to-do-list. No matter how deranged I thought he was, I just smiled and waved goodbye as he walked out of the door with Alex.
I watched as they got into the car and drove off before grabbing another bag and filling it with extra food and water, and a cell phone Jesus didn’t know about. Throwing the bags over my shoulder, I took one last look at the dining table I grew up around, cooking, eating, and enjoying my family. I knew I would never see it again, but saving Chance was more important at this point. He meant more to me than anything, and I was willing to give up everything for him. I closed the door behind me for the last time.
LAST BREATH
CHANCE
Staring at the ceiling was how I spent most of my day waiting for Sierra's visit. Well, that and sleeping. I did a lot of sleeping. There was a small spider in the corner of my cell that I watched spin its tiny little web, snatching up bugs for its dinner. I knew how those bugs felt, trapped with nowhere to go. It was only a matter of time before Jesus realized I wasn’t dying from starvation anytime soon, so I would need to put my plan into action.
I was escaping, and I was taking Sierra with me. There was no way I was leaving her alone with that animal. The familiar creak of the lock on my cell door alerted me to Sierra's presence. Using the wall as leverage, I pushed myself up from the ground, and used my shirt to wipe the dust from my face. It was all I could do to look presentable for her.
She slipped in like usual, but there was something different about her. Her face was anxious, and her movements w
ere hurried.
"What's the extra bag for?" I asked, meeting her half way.
"We have to go. Jesus is gonna kill you in the morning," she whispered.
I felt a rush of adrenaline after hearing her words. "Okay. Let's go," I said, grabbing a bag from her and flinging over my weak shoulder.
"Just follow me and keep low," she said, peeking out the door. "The guard is on his nightly shit break, and he always takes an hour, so we should be okay."
I followed her out through the door, crouching against the wall under the windows as we moved toward the exit.
"Once we go out this door, you have to run as fast as you can to the building across the street," she whispered.
I nodded, mustering all the energy I could. The minute she opened the door the burst of natural light blinded me, my eyes took a second to adjust, but I ran anyway, following the sound of her footsteps against the gravel.
"C'mon," she urged.
With my eyes finally adjusting to the light, I could see her huddled against the side of a building, urging me to hurry. I made it to her within a few seconds, my lungs already dry from the heat of the day.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah," I replied, breathing heavily.
"We need to get you to the border," she said, cupping her hands to my cheek.
"You're coming with me," I said, looking into her beautiful brown eyes.
She smiled, and with that I took a chance and pressed my lips to hers. She was so soft, and I wanted to rip her clothes off and take her right there, but it definitely wasn’t the right time.
She dug her fingernails into the side of my arms, her eyes were still closed and her lips slightly parted as she broke our kiss. My dick was as hard as rock at this point, and the sight of her beautiful face made my body ache for her even more.
"As much as I want you right now, we have to go," I said quietly.
She nodded and stood up. "This way," she said, stretching out her hand for me to grab.
I had never met such a woman. A woman who cared about me and me alone, and not for anything tangible I had to offer.
Betrayed: A Bad Boy Military Romance Page 2