by Anna del Mar
“I’d explain it to you,” I said. “But you wouldn’t understand.”
“Watch your mouth.” He slapped me so hard that my cheek burned and my neck hurt from the whiplash. “See? You made me lose my temper again.”
I ground my teeth. If only my hands were free.
“You think I’m a bad man,” he said. “You think the world is black-and-white, that good and evil have clear distinctions. But the world is not simple, querida. In Colombia, I’m a national hero. I build schools, fund churches, feed thousands of poor families and sponsor great works of art. How’s that evil? Explain it to me. Come on, speak up. How can I be evil when I do so much good with my money?”
“You get people hooked on drugs,” I spat between clenched teeth. “Kids who can’t think of anything but their next fix. Men and women who get sick, overdose and die when they buy what you sell. You kill people for a living. You force others into lives of violence, dependence and misery. How’s that good?”
“Free will.” He pocketed the incense packet. “Supply and demand. It’s their choice to buy what I sell. I simply provide the product they want.”
“An illegal poison that destroys a person’s capacity to think.”
He scoffed. “Drugs have been used since the dawn of mankind. This moment in time is no different from, let’s say, Prohibition.”
“It’s not the same.”
“But it is,” he said. “Listen and learn, querida. When you met me, I was but a local warlord who couldn’t even speak good English. Look at me now. The world is changing again. Yesterday’s vice is today’s virtue. The unacceptable has become commonplace and complete acceptance is the only standard of morality.”
“Murder is murder.”
“I’m a businessman,” he said. “There are plenty of opportunities for legal business ahead. Uncle Sam likes his share and as long as he gets it, he’ll square off with us. People today prefer settlement to war. The drug lords of yesterday are today’s entrepreneurs and tomorrow’s senators and presidents. The voters are generous. I’m the tax base of the new economy.”
I shook my head, rejecting a world ruled by drug lords, murderers, sex traffickers, kidnappers and psychopaths whose crimes were ignored for the sake of the almighty dollar.
“I know what you’re going to say,” he said in his silken voice. “You had to warn Steiner in order to keep the Feds happy. But don’t worry.” He twirled a strand of my hair in his finger. “I have some ideas on how you’re going to redeem yourself. As to Steiner, he was incorruptible and he had good habits. He never gave us anything much.”
“Then how did you find us in Ohio, when you had Adam killed?”
“Ah, that.” He smiled, happy to torture me by showing off his competences. “Steiner’s assistant was very helpful with that. She also helped with his mail. Poor lady, she had a disabled son who needed pricey special care. I was the answer to her prayers. But she had to be careful. Steiner kept a tight watch on his staff.”
I remembered the truck running over Steiner. Tears came to my eyes. He’d been a difficult person, bitter, unfriendly and cold, but he’d died for me. I said a silent prayer for his soul. We’d never trusted him and yet he hadn’t betrayed us.
“No way you traced that package of Red Rush to the cottage,” I said.
My defiance stung him into the type of reply I needed. “You forget who you’re dealing with,” he said. “The postmark on the packet narrowed my geographical search and then, about three days ago, my technology associates discovered someone trying to hack into my devices.”
Three days ago? The timing seemed wrong. Will had hacked into Red’s devices weeks ago.
“My technology experts were able to track the hacker all the way back to his computer.” Red gloated. “He was quite good, but no match for my experts. e was quiThey hacked the hacker and were able to deliver his files to me.”
They had gotten into Will’s computer?
“There were some interesting files in the hacker’s computer,” Red said. “I found out, for example, that the Feds had set up a decoy safe house to try to nab me. So I stayed away from the trap. The info also told me this guy was for real. He knew stuff no one else knew.”
I tried to wrap my mind around that one. Nothing made sense. Why would Will have such sensitive information available in his computer?
“But it was one particular file that convinced me to expedite my plans,” Red said. “I can be patient. I was prepared to meet you at the courthouse. I can put up with a lot and, in your case, I have. But there are certain things that a man of principle can’t tolerate.”
A man of principle? Is that how Red saw himself?
“Watch.” Red grabbed the television’s remote and clicked on the screen.
The dark screen gave way to movement. The paused movie resumed. The theater room’s superb acoustic design enhanced the sounds, lusty groans, intimate moans and lots of whimpering. The clip was a grainy, single-angled compilation. It started with a man sitting on a bed. I couldn’t see his face, but he was commanding someone to get naked. A few moments later, a woman stepped into the screen, wearing nothing but a pair of panties. I didn’t recognize her until the man stripped her panties off, pulled her down on her knees and put his penis in her mouth.
My face ignited. I tried to look away, but Red clutched my chin and forced me to watch.
“You liked it, didn’t you?” Darkness ruled Red’s eyes. “You weren’t so eager when you were with me. You balked as if I put out rancid milk. But you sure seemed to like his come.”
Part of me was angry, mortified and humiliated. The smarter part of me was baffled. Think. My mind traveled back to that night. I recalled how Ash had set the laptop aside on the night table. The lid had been opened. The camera had been pointing in the direction of the bed. A game, that’s all it had been, therapy. Had Ash recorded our lovemaking on purpose? Why?
It struck me then. Red’s experts hadn’t hacked into Will’s computer. They’d hacked into Ash’s laptop instead.
I knew precisely what would come next on the TV screen: me, on all fours on the bed, while Ash took me from behind. My mouth open with soundless pleas, my body rattled with the pounding, my breasts flailed with the force of Ash’s strokes.
“You cried when your lawfully wedded husband did that to you,” Red said. “What was it he gave you that I couldn’t?”
Love, friendship, trust, encouragement, empowerment, confidence, pleasure...the gifts were too many to list. But these notions didn’t fit in with Red. He favored pain and anguish.
To be fair, the clip on the screen showed no evidence of the tenderness and affection that had defined my game with Ash. It featured none of the kinder words he’d had for me, or his therapeutic approach, or the earnest ways in which he’d pleasured me.
The clip had been edited to show only selected parts and to eliminate any semblance of tenderness between us. The man on the screen was forceful and commanding. The woman was lewd and obscene. And yet there was something fascinating about the way he claimed possession of her body and the way in which she granted him tenure.
“You’re mine,” Ash said. “Say it. Who do you belong to?”
“You,” I rasped. “You!”
I squirmed. I’d pay for this. It was very possible that, despite Red’s intentions to deliver me to that courthouse, the end of the clip would coincide with the end of my life.
Red’s stare was glued to the screen. White droplets of saliva pooled at the corners of his mouth. He was furious, I could tell, but his crotch bulged with the shape of his erection and his body was abuzz with arousal.
I scrambled to make sense of my situation. A crazy idea began to coalesce in the back of my mind, too reckless to be rational, too calculated not to be logical.
“The most effective defense is an intelligent attack
,” Ash’s voice echoed in my mind. “Most fights are better fought sooner, rather than later. If all the intelligence suggests that an attack is coming, then it’s coming. I’d rather fight on my own terms and turf, than when it suits the other guy best.”
Had Ash baited Red’s technology experts by making them think that he—not Will—was trying to hack into Red’s computer? Had he lured them into his files only to give them access to the clip he knew would provoke Red into action?
It was inconceivable, dangerous, daring. It was the kind of complex, intricate strategy that only a highly confident, top-notch professional with extensive combat and intelligence experience would consider, someone trained in the harshest and most hostile environments in the world, someone exactly like... Ash.
But if Ash had gone to all the trouble to bait Red—in the only possible way that Red could be baited—why then had Red’s attack on the cottage succeeded? Ash was skilled, careful and calculating. He understood Red’s capabilities. Where had he gone wrong?
The clip ended. The screen went suddenly dark. I could smell the fetid rage puffing from Red’s pores. He turned to me. I braced for a hit. Instead, he put his hands on my shoulders and planted a chaste kiss my forehead.
“See what happens when you go out into the world without me?” He drew my stiff body into his embrace. “You’re weak, Rose. I’ve always known that, since the first time I saw you across the fire, trembling in fear. You’re fragile. You need me. You must be supervised, trained and disciplined in order to achieve your potential.”
Was that really how he saw me? No, this was the rationale he used to justify his dark cravings. I wasn’t nearly as weak as he thought I was.
“This really upsets me.” He shook the remote in the direction of the screen. “I feel as if I’ve shirked my responsibilities, as if I failed you and let your father down.”
I swallowed a full-blown sob. “You killed my father.”
“One thing doesn’t belay the other,” he said as if his twisted logic made perfect sense. “I should’ve kept better track of you. I should’ve been tougher on you, stricter. I should’ve found you earlier, before you trespassed on our vows.”
“I never swore you anything.”
“But you signed the papers, remember?”
“You made me.”
“Rosa, Rosita.” He caressed my hair. “I know what’s best for you. I also know you missed me a lot. This video? It’s not your fault. That jackass took advantage of my absence and your weakness. He wanted to take my place. He thought he could own you like I do. That’s not something I can tolerate.”
I stared at Red, horrified by the depths of his delusions.
“What he did to you?” Red ran a finger down the center of my body, along the line of my undone buttons. “That’s what I’m going to do to you. Only better. Oh, yeah, so much better—”
A knock on the door interrupted his lust fest. I let out the breath I’d been holding.
Red adjusted my shirt and buttoned up a couple of snaps before he yelled. “Come in.”
The door opened and a group of four men came in, carrying a bundle between them. Red got up from the couch and watched as the men placed their load on the ground and left without making eye contact.
Another man came into the room, a tall, droopy-eyed fellow with a luxurious head of blond hair, dressed casually in a leather jacket, but with a weapon clearly bulging from his holster. I recognized him right away. His name was Samuel, and he’d been third in command when I escaped Red. I guessed he’d moved up in the ranks since.
“Boss,” Samuel said tentatively. “This might not be the best time for this sort of thing. We need to get back to New York before the Feds notice.”
In a blink, Red had Samuel by the throat and against the wall. “Don’t ever presume to tell me what to do. You work for me. My buck pays for that spurt of piss that just wet your pants. Understand?”
“Sure, boss,” Samuel croaked.
Red released his grip and gestured with his chin to the bundle on the floor. “Get to it.”
Samuel straightened his collar, cleared his throat and pulled out a knife. He cut off the ropes and rolled out the tarp. A beaten-up body tumbled out, covered in blood and torn clothing. Samuel prodded him with the tip of his boot. After a harsh poke the man gulped in air and broke into a coughing fit.
I tried to make out the face beneath the crust of blood. His eyelids fluttered, and all of a sudden, the blue eyes that had pierced through my life’s darkness fastened on Red like a pair of laser range finders.
No, no, no, a voice keened hysterically in my mind. My heart dropped into a bottomless canyon. The broken man sprawled at Red’s feet was Ash.
Chapter Twenty
Ash showed no hint of fear or alarm. That is, until he saw me. For an instant, I caught a flicker of surprise in the slight, almost imperceptible widening of his eyes. Then his stare was back on Red and his expression turned blank.
I fought back tears. Ash’s hands were cuffed behind his back. His feet were shackled with chains. His T-shirt was torn and his pants ripped at the knees. He wore no coat. The puffy eye, the swollen lip, the bruises on his arms. He’d been beaten. It was exactly what I’d tried so hard to avoid. I swallowed a moan of despair and cursed a world where the good suffered and the wicked thrived.
Red clasped his hands behind his back and paced around Ash.
“You could’ve lived,” he said. “You could’ve had a long, productive life, but on the day you touched her, you died. You just didn’t realize it.”
“We all have to die sometime.” Ash pushed himself up on his elbows and leaned against the wall. “Some of us just go sooner than others.”
“A philosopher?” Red chuckled. “The Navy Cross. The Purple Heart. I can see that you’ve had occasion to consider death closely.”
Ash tilted his head. “You read my file?”
“Getting your military file was a piece of cake for my guys,” Red said. “I like to have the advantage of knowing my enemy before I destroy him.”
I shivered with gut-chilling fear.
“It must rankle you a bit,” Red said. “Despite all your precautions, I found her because of you.”
“There’s a lot about you that rankles me,” Ash said, perfectly calm. “That you found me is a minor irritation in the big scheme of things.”
“A minor irritation?” Red let out one of his awful caws and pulled out a knife. “We’ll see what you think when I’m done with you. I hope you’re a fan of blades?”
“I respect blades,” Ash said. “I like them even better when my hands are free.”
“What are the chances of that?” Red said.
“I’d thought I’d give it a try.” Ash flashed a furious smirk. “On the off chance you craved a fair fight.”
“A fair fight?” Red laughed. “A uniquely American concept. Allow me to clue you in. If you take the fair out of the fight, you win. And just in case you haven’t figured it out, I always win.” Red motioned to Samuel. “We’ll start with his toes.”
Samuel crouched next to Ash and fiddled with his boots.
“Wait.” I leaped to my feet. “What are you doing?”
“My dear Rose.” Red tsked, keeping his eyes on Ash. “She’s so damn sensitive, always has been, since she was a little girl. I try to save her the grief, but she has this annoying habit: she’s curious. It’s like she welcomes the suffering that comes with the knowledge.”
He smiled and turned to me.
“Allow me to enlighten you, querida,” he said. “First, I’m going to cut off your friend’s toes, one by one. Then I’m going to geld this stallion. That should make him less mouthy and better behaved. When I’m done, I’m going to rip out his eyeballs and make him eat them, to make sure he’ll never dare to look at something of
mine again.”
My stomach turned in horror.
“When he’s gelded and blinded,” Red said, “I’m going to very carefully carve out his heart and lay it on his chest while it’s still pumping, so we can all witness it quaking during the grand finale as I cut off the filthy cock he used to trespass on my property. At that point, I’m going to slice his heart like a ripe tomato and watch the motherfucker die.”
I stared at Red, terrified. My stomach ached. His sick mind was capable of all of that and more.
“Red, please,” I said. “You can’t—”
“What?” Red said. “You didn’t think I was going to let this son of bitch get away with fucking you, did you? And just to add to this teachable moment, you’ll watch the whole thing, right here, with me.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. The room spun around me. My stomach had turned into a heavy chunk of concrete. I tugged on the duct tape, praying for superhuman strength. The tape held up.
Samuel took off Ash’s boot and ripped the brace from his foot but, before he could peel off his sock, Ash’s body snapped like a rubber band. His knees crashed against Samuel’s head. The man careened backward and crumpled against the wall. Red whipped out his gun and centered it on Ash.
“No!” I cried out.
“Shut up.” Red kept his gun on Ash. “What the fuck was that about?”
Ash smirked. “I don’t like strangers messing with my stuff.”
Samuel stumbled from the floor, holding his gun in one hand and his forehead with the other. He groaned when he spotted the blood on his fingers. “Motherfucker.” He grabbed his gun by the muzzle and was about to bring it down on Ash’s head when I stopped him.
“Don’t hurt him,” I said. “He’s not part of this. I’m the one you want.”
“Hey, lady.” Ash squinted through his swollen eye. “Stay out of this one. Will you? Let me take care of these clowns.”
“Who the fuck are you calling a clown?” Samuel looked to Red.