“Name’s Yolanda Rojas. Fifteen years old. Her father, Javier Rojas, was caught stealing from Cruz—skimming profits from the dealers who worked under him—and Yolanda was payback. That’s typical Cruz style. He didn’t have Javier killed—just blinded. And he may or may not walk again, but as I said, it just happened last week, so he’s still in the hospital.”
I can’t look away.
Emilio clicks to the next shot.
This one is dark, all shadows and mixed shades. It must’ve been taken at dusk, or maybe right before a storm. There are more people, but it’s less personal—five rigid corpses lined up in a row like little dolls, hands tied, feet pointing skyward. Dolls. Broken dolls. They have no heads.
“Decapitation is a relatively new thing for Victor. It freaks people out, though, draws more media attention to the deaths. These five worked for another cartel, so this was most likely retaliation for something or other. That one took place three weeks ago, but he pulled a nearly identical stunt back in September.”
I stand up.
“You’ve only seen two,” Emilio says. “I’ve got nineteen in that file, and that’s only a fraction of the murders we can pin to him.”
I turn my body away from him so he can’t see my face.
“Hard to look at, aren’t they? It’s easier to sit there and accuse me of being a monster.” He grabs my arm—not hard, but his touch startles me—pulls me toward him, and turns me around before I can jerk away. “Decades of this. This is why the FBI doesn’t care if I have to shoot a scumbag drug shipper. And this is why they’ll turn a blind eye when I get involved with a willing young woman to get access to information. You’re not the victim here. You’re the daughter of one of the sickest, most dangerous men in the world, and you can’t even stand to look at a couple of pictures of what he’s done. Do you want to know exactly what Victor’s sick goons did to Yolanda Rojas before they shot her?”
I might vomit. Emilio’s face is close to mine, but I refuse to look at him. I stare at the wall, blurry through the tears that are pooling and betraying me. Why am I seeing Papi’s face in my mind? There it is. Jovial, like he’s just thought of something to say that will make me laugh. I can’t scream that it’s not true. I see now. Emilio’s staring at me, waiting for a response, but I won’t give him one.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” he says, dropping my arm. “I can’t believe you found my badge. And the timing. You’re forcing my hand here.”
“What are you talking about?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. This is the first weekend of December.”
“The Vizcaya Gala,” I mumble.
More castle than mansion, Vizcaya is where Papi chooses to gather his people—art dealers and buyers, celebrity artists, the wealthy of Miami who buy Warhols like they buy Ferraris, the segment of socialites who consider themselves erudite, and of course the pretenders who know nothing but spend enough to make up for it. They all flock to Papi’s annual gala for the auctioning off of his latest acquisitions, to bleed money all over one another as publicly as possible.
“I have good memories of Vizcaya last year,” Emilio says.
Finally, I look at him. No, I glare. He can’t seriously be reminiscing about the first time we met.
It was Papi who introduced us. Emilio was Papi’s newest minion, eager just like all the others, but different too. More intense. And he was so beautiful I couldn’t not watch him work the crowd, laugh at Papi’s jokes, charm the women with the biggest rocks on their fingers like he wasn’t afraid of anyone. From the dew-drenched lawn I watched him go with Fernando down to the jetty to smoke. But then Fernando left. He was finally alone, so I took a deep breath and joined him, my heels in one hand, a drink in the other. I remember how the stone was cool and wet, and I could hear the Atlantic licking the pier beneath us. Cigar smoke coiled out of his lips. I asked him if he’d ever swum in the ocean at night. He smiled. He asked me if I knew what a mandolin was.
I hate him.
“What are you planning?” I ask.
“It’s what Victor’s planning that’s more interesting. He’s paranoid. Thinks everyone is a spy.”
“It’s not paranoia if it’s true!”
Emilio cracks his knuckles, and I’m struck by his ability to tune out my emotion. Has he always been so good at that? I’m not sure.
“He has the yacht here in Miami to collect a shipment coming in on a cargo boat that’s supposed to be carrying plantains. That should be happening in the morning,” he says. “In a few hours, actually. And then of course the Vizcaya Gala is going on tomorrow night—like his little party will distract people from the fact that he has fifty-five million in coke sitting in Biscayne Bay.”
Fifty-five million dollars. It’s so improbable it’s almost funny. But Emilio isn’t smiling. “What are you planning?” I repeat.
“The drugs are being seized, and Victor’s little party is being raided. And I can tell what you’re thinking, so no, you’re not running off to warn anybody about anything.”
“You can’t tell me what to do. You don’t own me.”
“And yet I can’t let you wander out of here either.”
“You’re going to arrest me?” I sneer. “I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“If I do take you into custody, it’ll be for your own protection.”
“I bet.”
“This investigation is too important. We’ve finally got everything we need to convict him of the worst of it.”
I picture Papi in a prison cell. It’s what he deserves and where he belongs, but it’s too pitiful. He’s still my father.
“But your being here . . .” Emilio’s eyes travel over me. “That makes everything more complicated.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say.
“Which part?”
“I don’t believe you were allowed to use me.”
He laughs, but his face is tight. “At the end of the day, it’s not about what you believe.”
“That’s it, isn’t it—why you didn’t want me to come back to Miami? Nothing to do with my own safety or screwing up the investigation. I could get you in a lot of trouble.”
“No.”
“Afraid they’ll take away that pretty badge?”
He closes the laptop, like that’ll shut me down too.
“So now what?” I push on recklessly. “You can’t just kill me like you killed Lucien.”
He stands and walks out of the room, leaving me on the bed. My words continue to ricochet around the room while my thoughts argue with one another: If he made Lucien’s death look like an overdose, why couldn’t he do the same to me?
Except Emilio would never hurt me. But this man is not Emilio. There is no Emilio.
I look frantically around me for something . . . something I don’t know what. Heavy or sharp. There’s nothing.
I hear the drawer in his office opening and closing.
A sharp-cornered frame gleams from the bedside table. Tempting, but too small. I grab the lamp by the neck. It’s heavy enough, but it’s not like I can hide it behind my back.
Footsteps. He’s coming.
I rip the cord from the wall, grab the lamp with both hands, and slip into the space between the open door and the wall. Trembling, I move my hands up the neck of the lamp to where I can grip it best, swing it behind my head, and wait. He isn’t hurrying. The footsteps down the hall are deliberate, each one followed by the softest clink. What is that clink? His watch?
My arms tingle. My heart pounds. Sweat pours down my neck, and I pray it doesn’t make me lose my grip on the lamp.
“Valentina?” His shirt passes by me on the other side of the hinge, inches from my nose. He stops where I can’t see him on the other side of the door. My heart. He must hear it.
He takes another couple of steps forward, and I see all of him, or the back of him, with the source of the clink in plain view. Handcuffs. They dangle from his right hand. No time. I nud
ge the door with my hip so I have enough room to swing. But the hinge creaks. Now. He’s turning. Now. Now. Now. Every muscle in my body contracts as I bring the lamp over my head and down, and his face turns just in time for me to see the shock in his eyes as the lamp explodes against his forehead. The sound of a million chimes shatters over us. He staggers backward, crunching over porcelain, a web of blood stretching over his face, skinny scarlet lines pouring down.
I run. Barefoot, I run over cold shards and hot blood, from the room and down the hall. I hear him cursing and stumbling behind me, but I don’t turn to see how close he is or how badly he’s hurt.
By the time I reach the front door I can’t hear him chasing me anymore, but I don’t stop. Not for shoes or pants or phone or breath. I glance over my shoulder, but I don’t stop even when I hear him scream, “Valentina!” from the hallway where he’s collapsed. It sounds like the scream of a tortured, desperate, lovesick animal. But he never loved me.
I fling the door open and run.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTY
Hibiscus. Jasmine. Magnolia.
My body is numb. I feel nothing but the pounding in my chest as I tear down the steps and across the courtyard, but somehow I can smell the heady stench of floral rot. The air is sticky sweet and pulsing with it. Too much.
I don’t stop to think which way to go once I reach the curb. My legs propel me in one direction and I fly, feeling nothing. Birds squawk and shriek in the low-hanging branches over my head, which means it’s nearly morning, but it’s still dark. They scream loudest right before the sun rises. That’s when paradise sounds like hell.
Slap, slap, slap, slap. I can’t feel my feet, but I hear them smack against the pavement. The sidewalk carves a tunnel through the foliage, shadowed from moonlight and street light and the beginnings of a sunrise. I can barely see, but that’s safer. The dark can hide me. I know vaguely where I’m heading—away from Brickell and downtown—but destination is irrelevant as long as Emilio’s not behind me. I check over my shoulder without slowing my pace and see nothing. Still, he could be driving around looking for me, or maybe he’s called someone else to come get me. The FBI. The police. I don’t know.
Once my adrenaline starts to wane, the obvious becomes painfully clear. I’m shoeless, pantless, and phoneless. I need help, and though practically everyone I’ve ever known lives in this city, there’s nobody I can trust. Not now. Not ever again.
I pause at an intersection, and in the distance, I catch sight of a figure on the street. Running. Toward me. A surge of panic hits me and I nearly stumble backward, but then I see it’s a runner. A woman. When she gets close enough I wave my arms, praying she doesn’t look at me and run in the other direction.
“Excuse me,” I call.
She slows to a walk, eyes wide as she fiddles with something in the side of her hydration belt. Mace. She holds up her clenched fist to show me the canister.
“Do you have a phone?” I ask shakily, taking a step toward her so she can see me better, both hands held out.
She swears.
“I just need to make one call.”
“Are you okay?” She puts the Mace back in her belt and pulls out a cell phone. “Do you want me to call the police?”
“No. I just need to call my friend to come get me. Please.”
She’s staring at my feet, no, behind my feet. I follow her gaze and see the trail of dark splotches. Blood. My feet are suddenly throbbing. There isn’t just one point of pain, but dozens, like the soles are on fire, and the flames are climbing up my calves.
Speechless, she hands me her phone, her eyes never leaving the trail behind me. I close my eyes, concentrating. His number. A jumble of digits appear in my mind, but are they in the right order? I need them to float magically into place. I’ve seen them enough times now, since I could never bring myself to program his name into my phone. All the times he called when I hoped it was Emilio. A fresh rush of anger pushes the numbers into place, and I’ve got it. I hope. I dial. He won’t be awake, and if he is, he’s probably in no condition to drive.
Marcel picks up, and I choke out his name.
“Valentina.” His voice is groggy but clear.
I let out a sob. The relief is so strong I can’t think what to say.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” I manage. “Can you come get me?”
It takes Marcel only ten minutes to find me. Jogger girl waits for the first few, but I eventually convince her that I’m fine, that I locked myself out and stepped on a broken beer bottle, that she should go. She can’t possibly believe any of it, but she trots off anyway.
Once she’s gone, I wish she wasn’t. The sky has lightened to cobalt, and I’m more visible every second. I lean into the trunk of a palm tree and watch the corner where I told Marcel to come. More runners pass. Homeless people. Early commuters. Feral cats.
Finally the black Range Rover glides up onto the curb, and I begin limping toward him before he even stops, pain shooting up my legs with every step. His face is hard with rage, but I don’t let myself think about it. Not yet. I look down. Almost there. I reach the door, pull it open, place my foot inside, and try to climb in, but lightning shoots up my calf when I put my entire body weight on the ball of my foot. I start to fall back, but Marcel grips my upper arms and hoists me up onto the seat.
“Thank you,” I mumble, righting myself, tugging the T-shirt down.
He leans across me, closes my door, and pulls back onto the street. “What the hell did he do to you?”
“Nothing. Just drive.”
He drives, anger rolling off him like smoke, his knuckles white from choking the steering wheel. I should have already thought through what I’m going to tell him, but my feet hurt, and the shock is wearing off, and I want to cry, so I say nothing. He says nothing. We make it through downtown, to the MacArthur Causeway, and halfway over the bridge to South Beach before either of us speaks.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” he says.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with your feet.”
“My feet?” I look down at them. Easy enough to explain. “I broke a lamp on his head, then I ran over it.” From the top they look fine, except for the rust-colored stain between my toes where the blood has worked its way up and dried. But when I lift my right foot and see the sole for the first time, I almost gag. It looks like hamburger where the flesh has torn and ripped away. Only three jagged chunks of the porcelain lamp are visible—one in the heel, two in the ball—but there could be a dozen more that I can’t see in that pulpy mess.
I don’t check my left foot, but it feels about the same.
“You need to go to the ER,” he says.
“No. Just take me to . . .” I almost say wherever you’re staying, but I don’t even know who he’s staying with, or where we’re going right now.
“I’ll take you to my hotel,” he says.
“I thought you were staying with friends.”
“Well, I’m not.”
I lean my head back and close my eyes, picturing Emilio staggering down the hall behind me, blood trickling down his forehead onto his perfectly pressed shirt. Except he’s not Emilio.
“You cold?” Marcel asks.
“What?”
“You’re shivering.”
“Oh.” But I’m not just shivering, I’m convulsing. My teeth are chattering, and I feel like my whole body is tightening around an earthquake.
He turns on the heat. “The blanket is still back there. You want me to pull over and get it for you?”
“I’m not cold.”
I stare out my window. Palm trees fly by, too fast to count, skinny bars against the background of cruise liners and ocean. I thought I missed this view—the pristine white ships rising out of sapphire waves—but I don’t feel nostalgia. I feel t
hrobbing in my feet and my chest and my eyes.
We drive through the trickle of Miami Beach’s earth lovers—dog walkers and joggers and Whole Foods patrons with their cloth bags and organic greens. It’s all familiar, but I’m separate. Just a spectator. The luxury condos and hotels flip by like a movie.
Marcel pulls into the valet lane of the Setai. “Wait,” he says to me, and hands the valet a bill from his wallet. He comes around the front of the car, opens my door, and slides an arm under my knees and behind my neck.
“I can walk,” I say.
“Don’t be an idiot.” He lifts me out of the car.
The lobby is glossy and dimly lit, but not so dark that I shouldn’t be embarrassed. The T-shirt may or may not be covering my butt, but I’m too spent for humiliation. I could insist on walking and I might look like I’m on my way to the pool, but I’m not convinced I wouldn’t pass out if I put an ounce of weight on either foot, so I lay my head against Marcel’s shoulder and give up.
Once we’re in his room, Marcel takes me to the round marble tub and sits me on the ledge. He turns on the water. “Is this okay?”
“It’s a lot nicer than the Holiday Inn.”
“I mean, is the water too hot?”
My feet are still up on the ledge, but I take my right and dip a toe in. “No, it’s good.”
But when I try to put my whole foot in, the pain makes me gasp.
“Here. Put it under the running water.” He reaches for my foot. I shake my head, but he takes it anyway and holds it under the faucet.
I grit my teeth until the burning recedes into numbness and I can’t feel anything. Ribbons of blood twist from my foot, curl around the drain, and disappear. All that pain. Gone. Emilio. Gone.
Good.
Marcel takes my left foot and does the same. It hurts just as much, but this time the pain is the start of something new and constructive. Like anger. This is the last of Emilio hurting me. I’m finished being lied to by him and my father. And I’m finished being taken by surprise. Valentina the victim is gone, swirling-down-the-tub-drain gone.
Marcel lifts both feet out of the tub and wraps them in a towel, then leaves me in the bathroom. I hear him pick up the phone. “Can I get a first aid kit brought to the room, please? . . . . Tweezers and bandages . . . Yeah. . . . Oh, and Neosporin too. Thanks.”
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