by Lisa Cardiff
“No. If I don’t come back, I’m dead.”
My mouth dropped open, and my stomach somersaulted…repeatedly. He was halfway to the back door of the bed and breakfast before I could think of a response, and even then it wasn’t much of one. I curled into a ball, my back to a tree, the gun resting on the top of my knees, and my hand on the trigger.
Regardless of what Ryker expected me to do, I refused to leave him here. If I heard one flicker of a struggle or a single gunshot, I was going in. I wouldn’t make it to the village or anywhere else without him. Now that he opened my eyes to the dangers of being alone, I couldn’t imagine stumbling into some random village, begging for help, shelter, food, or a phone. I didn’t speak Spanish beyond being able to ask for a beer or the bathroom.
Minute after minute ticked by, and my blinks became longer and longer. The humid heat and sultry jungle breeze acted like my personal lullaby, and before I knew it, I fell asleep.
I could scarcely open my eyes when warm, strong arms wrapped around my body. “So much for your future as a lookout,” Ryker said as he pulled my body against his chest. I should’ve objected, but I was too beaten down to do anything but bury my head next to his neck.
“The tires were slashed?” I whispered against his ear.
His muscles tensed beneath my legs. “Yes.”
“Damn…that sucks.” I lifted my head, but he didn’t look at me. He kept his eyes trained on the terrain in front of us. “What about the phone?”
“The lines were severed.”
“And Ricardo and his—”
“Wife?”
“Yeah. Are they okay?”
“No.”
“Are they,” I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath. “Dead?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” A wave of regret slammed against my chest, thick and twisted like a wall of thorns crushing me, sucking the air from my lungs. This was my fault. All of it. From the moment I decided to go to Mexico with Vera instead of staying home and licking my wounded ego. Now countless men and at least one woman were dead because I refused to wait until Ignacio and Evan’s dad finalized some stupid diplomatic prisoner swap. I whimpered as seismic shock after seismic shock rocked though my tormented body. My vision tunneled, and for an instant I thought I’d faint. It was too much to absorb.
Ryker froze mid-stride. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He released my body, and my knees nearly buckled under my weight when I hit the ground. My feet throbbed from two days of running in leather-soled sandals. “Tell me.”
“This is my fault.” I swallowed the nausea rumbling in my belly. “There were so many times I could’ve made a different decision and avoided this mess. I should’ve stayed home.”
“You really believe that?” Ryker raised one eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest, his muscles stretching the fabric of his shirt in thick, horizontal ribbons.
“All these people are dead because of the stupid choices I made. I should’ve never come to Mexico. Then, I didn’t want to go to that bar where I met you, but I agreed because Vera wanted me to go. Finally, I tried to escape twice, and I didn’t even do that right.” I held up finger after finger until I finished my list of misdeeds and stupid decisions.
Ryker looked away for a few excruciating beats before turning his steely gaze back to me. “What you did or didn’t do is irrelevant. Like I said, your future was sealed weeks before you made any of those decisions.”
Squinting into the glare of the late afternoon sun, I threaded my hands through my hair and tugged at the roots. “Tell me what that means. You already said that. Tell me something new. I need to understand.”
He shook his head slowly. “I can’t. Let’s go. We have to start walking.”
“No,” I yelled, my blood pressure soaring as my heart worked overtime. “Not until you tell me something…anything.” He reached for my hand and yanked me toward him, but I stiffened my body, refusing to move. Granted, he could’ve taken off down the trail, and I would have followed him eventually. I didn’t want to spend one more second alone in this jungle. I’d never tell him that, however.
He ran his hand along my cheek, and my skin tingled under the pads of his fingers. I backpedaled a few steps, but it wasn’t far enough. The intensity of his gaze and his tight grasp on my hand kept me firmly in his orbit, his magnetic gravity pulling on me, making me forget everything.
“Hattie, we were coming for you regardless of where you were. Mexico, your parents’ house, your school campus…it didn’t matter. My job was to get you here. Your trip to Mexico simplified a few things, but in the end, you’d be here.”
My tongue knotted, and I couldn’t form a response. The green walls of the jungle closed in on me, suffocating me inch by green inch, unraveling my sanity. My body swayed, and for a second I thought I’d collapse under the weight of my reality, but Ryker wrapped one arm around my shoulders and the other under my knees. Part of me wished he had let me fall, and god-willing, unconsciousness would have followed.
“Let me carry you for a little while. Your feet are sore, and you look exhausted,” he said.
Both were true, but most of all, my mind reeled with the implications of what he said. “Why me? There are plenty of daughters and sons of high profile politicians. A lot of them are more powerful than my dad or Senator Deveron.”
“You’re who they wanted. Who they needed.”
“Who are they? The Cartel?”
He kissed the top of my head. “They’re everyone with something to lose if this doesn’t succeed. Politicians. Cartels. Businessmen. You fit all their requirements. End of story.”
I sucked in a deep breath and nodded, my heart shattering with doubts. I held my body rigid for a few seconds, but in the end I melted into his embrace, wrapping my arms around his neck. What more could I say? Why they picked me wasn’t important. I was here, and hopefully I’d find my way home in the not too distant future.
Ryker’s heart pounded sure and even next to my body, and I inhaled his scent, drawing his essence inside my lungs. For the first time in weeks, I felt like I had somebody on my side, looking out for my best interests, and protecting me…which was a dangerously delusional sentiment. He shoved a needle into my neck and abducted me. He told me I was just a job. He told me not to believe anything. But I didn’t care about any of that. I didn’t want to analyze the madness of my life any longer. I closed my eyes again, trusting Ryker to take care of me and grant me a few moments of comfort.
Chapter Eighteen
The horizon had swallowed the sun about ten minutes ago, and humidity coated my clothing. With each step, my feet pulsed with a bone-deep pain that vibrated up my legs. I missed the spongy comfort of my running shoes. I missed the air conditioning. I missed the comfort of my bed. I wanted a shower, but my desires or needs weren’t important. I kept putting one foot in front of the other, marching into oblivion, following Ryker through the heavily shadowed jungle. My head bowed; I studied the faintly visible contours of the path beneath my sandaled feet, trying to avoid the stones and twisted tree roots.
Just when I accepted that Ryker planned to walk until the night had faded into the haze of the orange sunrise, he halted, and I slammed into his back.
“Shh,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard the faint hum of people talking and a baby crying. A flicker of fear raced down my rigid spine. I threaded my fingers through the belt loops on the back of his pants. “What is it?” I whispered next to his ear.
“It’s the village.”
“Is that a good thing?” My mind swirled with possibilities…both good and bad. I envisioned a cozy bed and a hot shower even though I realized both were implausible. On the flip side, I knew there was a real chance we could walk into a hostile village with more men like those we encountered earlier.
“It could be,” Ryker answered. “Historically, the Vargas Cartel controlled thi
s region, but I don’t know how far Dario’s influence extended.”
“Dario’s influence?” I echoed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think Dario planned to launch an offensive against the Vargas Cartel, which means he had more than four supporters, especially since he was a plaza boss.”
“What’s a plaza boss?” It sounded like an important position, but I didn’t know much about the hierarchy of a cartel.
“A plaza boss is the lead representative for the cartel in a particular region or town. He ensures the safe passage of a cartel’s narcotics through the region, which includes making recurring bribe payments to Mexican law enforcement and local officials, and recruiting new members.”
“So Dario would’ve had a lot of connections both in and outside of the Vargas Cartel.”
“Exactly. Hopefully, he hadn’t allied himself with one of the other regional cartels.”
“Why?”
“Because then we’d be sitting in the middle of a turf war, which means there could be plenty of cartel hired executioners, or sicarios, lurking around the area.”
“Fuck,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Those aren’t the only potential players either. Hold this.” Ryker handed me a gun. “We need to worry about the fuerzas autodefensas too.”
“The what?”
“Self-defense forces.” He laced his fingers through mine.
“Who are they?”
“They’re a confederation of vigilantes that united a few years ago to fight back against the Cartels.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“Not when you’re with me.”
“Fuck,” I said again, but the word came out fractured as it vibrated over my suddenly dry vocal cords. My heart thundered against my ribcage, and acid burned my stomach. I’d always thought the political backbiting in D.C. was rough, but it didn’t compare to the complexity of stepping into the middle of a regional drug cartel war. Images of the unseen dangers creeping around me swarmed through my mind. I couldn’t believe I ran away from the villa. If I had even a fraction of this information, I wouldn’t have stepped foot outside of Ryker’s bedroom yesterday, much less ran out the back door of the villa.
Throughout my entire undergraduate and graduate career, I had been fascinated by the motivations of different political factions. None of their motivations or history seemed half as interesting or compelling once I found myself in the crosshairs of these competing factions. I didn’t give a shit what they wanted or why. I just wanted to be as far away as possible from them.
“Stay behind me.” He pulled me forward step by step by our intertwined hands, but I didn’t want to go in the village anymore. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. My whole body tensed, muscle-by-muscle, ligament-by-ligament, bone-by-bone, rebelling against the invisible barrier marking the village ahead.
“Let’s just keep walking. We’ll be fine. It can’t be that much longer.” I leaned backward, yanking my clammy hand from his grasp.
Ryker reversed his course and turned to face me. His gray eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. “Your feet are bleeding. You can hardly walk the twenty feet to the village, much less another couple hours.
“I won’t complain, and besides, all these people and groups are probably sleeping.” Shrugging, I stifled a yawn and backpedaled a few anemic steps. In a perfect world, I’d already be in bed, but my world was anything but perfect.
“Mexico’s drug industry and the people caught in its web never sleep. Twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, new plants are harvested, turf wars are fought, hits are ordered, sicarios kill, smugglers carry loads, burros slip undetected across the border, and innocent lives are stolen for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But if you want to keep going, we can.”
“You’re trying to scare me.” He succeeded, but I didn’t want him to know that.
In one seamless movement, he snatched my arm and pulled my body flush against his. My heart rapid fired, pounding wildly against his chest. “Dammit, Hattie. You should be scared. Don’t let go of my hand. Don’t contradict anything I say or do. You’re my wife. We live outside D.C. Our tour group left us behind. Neither of us speaks much Spanish. We need a place to rest for a few hours,” he said, his lips a hairsbreadth from mine, the electricity that always flowed between us bursting to life.
“No way,” I yelled before I could stop myself. “I’m not saying any of that.” The idea of creating some altered reality, linking me to Ryker on some level beyond the present, scared the shit out of me. He’d already stolen enough of me. I didn’t need further sins marking my soul, severing me from my former life and the second chance I had promised Evan. Jesus…was I really planning to run back to Evan after everything? I couldn’t even begin to answer that question. I couldn’t think past ten minutes, much less weeks or months into the future. I didn’t know whether I had a future to bargain with anyway.
“Exactly. You won’t say anything. You’ll just nod as necessary.”
“I can’t do it. I don’t like telling lies. It’s not right. Let’s just rest right here for an hour, and then we can move. ”
He smiled, but it was frosty, and his gray eyes glittered with anger. “Haven’t you learned you need to listen to me if you want to survive?” He shrugged. “But if you’d prefer to wait here where someone could discover us and do god knows what, we can do that.”
My eyes widened, and I sucked in a breath. “Maybe. I’m not sure.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You make the choice. I thought you’d be more comfortable in the village, but maybe I misunderstood. If you can’t stand the idea of telling a few harmless lies, then we can take our chances out here with the snakes, the wildlife, and whoever else happens to wander by.”
Crap. He was right. He called my bluff. I couldn’t walk any more today, and I needed to get off my feet. I balled my hands into fists. “Fine, let’s go. I’ll say or not say whatever dumbass thing you want. I’ll never see these people again. It’s irrelevant.” I surrendered again, but there wasn’t any point to my objection. It had ended before it started. I had to rely on Ryker to do the right thing and make good choices. He knew it. I knew it. Believing I could navigate my way out of this maze alone was as smart as believing a pot of gold waited for me at the end of every rainbow.
Ryker chuckled softly, dragging his hand through his dark hair. “I thought so.” Ryker slipped the strap of the assault rifle over his head and leaned it against a tree. He placed a few dead branches in front of it.
“Why are you leaving it there?” I asked.
“I doubt the people in the village will roll out the welcome mat if I have an assault weapon hanging from my shoulder. Besides, it doesn’t fit with our story.”
I didn’t argue. Even though I felt safer when Ryker was armed, he was right. We couldn’t walk into the village with weapons.
Chapter Nineteen
The minute we crossed the invisible barrier marking the village, people stopped and stared from the windows, from their front porches…everywhere. Life in the village stretched to a halt. You would’ve thought a marching band had accompanied our arrival.
It was more of a town than a village. Small, adjoined white homes lined the street. A freestanding hut stood to the right with advertisements for soda painted on the crumbling light blue exterior walls. Clothes hung from clotheslines.
“Hola,” Ryker said, lifting one hand in a hesitant wave. “¿Habla usted ingles?” he said to no one in particular. The words rippled through the village like a bomb. Heads turned, more people peered out their open-air windows.
After a few moments of lingering silence, a lanky man in his early twenties stepped forward. He wore dark jeans and a faded blue t-shirt. “I do,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“Hi. I’m Rick, and this is my wife, Tina.” My mouth dropped open. What the hell was he doing? Why didn’t he tell him our real names?
“I�
��m Roberto.”
“Nice to meet you, Roberto.” Ryker held out his hand and the man shook it. “We need your help. My wife and I were separated from our tour group. Can I borrow a phone to call our hotel?”
“I don’t know.” The man rocked back on his heels.
“We have money.” Ryker pulled out his wallet and waved five hundred pesos in front of him, which amounted to forty or fifty U.S. dollars, probably more than this guy made in a week. I cringed, imagining the entire village charging us and stealing his wallet, but I buried my doubts. I had to believe Ryker knew what to do, because I sure as hell didn’t.
“Un momento,” the man said, snatching the money from Ryker’s open palm, before slipping away into a nearby house.
My eyes darted to Ryker. He smiled, wrapped one arm around my waist and kissed the top of my head in a surprisingly intimate gesture. His touch warmed and comforted me, even though I knew he did it for our audience rather than for me. I buried my head in his chest, playing the role he demanded. Unfortunately, part of me wanted it to be more than a role.
“Here,” Roberto said, interrupting our embrace. He held out an old flip cell phone with hundreds of scratches and nicks. It looked as though Roberto had dropped his phone in the garbage disposal more than once. Hopefully, it still worked.
“Thank you.” Ryker plucked the phone from Roberto’s hand. Ryker threaded his free hand through mine and led us to the crumbling rock wall adjacent to the buildings. I trailed in his wake, too exhausted to do anything but blindly follow him, stiffness and pain settling into my joints with every step. I was dead on my feet.
“Who are you calling?” I whispered after we sat down.
“Ignacio,” Ryker responded, not looking up from the phone.
The name triggered a ripple of fear through my body. I squeezed his hand, seeking a connection to him. I didn’t want to see Ignacio or any of those other people again, but I didn’t have a choice. Ryker must have noticed my reaction because he dropped my hand and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me closer to him. He ran his hand up and down my upper arm, lulling me into a false sense of security.