by M. N. Forgy
Copyright © 2016 M.N. Forgy
Edited by Ellie McLove
Cover Photography Allan Spiers
Cover Design Cover It Design
Proofed by Kim Ginsberg
Formatted by Elaine York/Allusion Graphics LLC/Publishing & Book Formatting
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
M.N. Forgy Books
To those who have lost someone.
It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on.
The mattress dips beside me and I turn over on my side, the ugly brown sheets that feel more like steel wool than cotton, scrape along my skin, sending an uncomfortable shiver down my body. For as much money as my uncle claims to have, you’d think he’d buy better bedding. At the very least, hire someone to do it for him. I miss my old bed. I would fall onto it and would literally sink into a cloud of luxury. I rub the sheets in between my index finger and thumb. The abrasive feel making my nose scrunch with disgust. This is far from a fluffy cloud.
“Fuck,” Alvaro sighs as he rubs a hand down his face. Kicking his legs over the side of the bed, he just sits there, head bowed like he’s got something on his mind. I don’t know how he does it. He didn’t get in until three this morning from whatever it is he does for my uncle, the pale light shining through the sheer curtains on the window tells me it’s probably not even six a.m. yet. How is he up already?
“You okay?” I ask, my voice coming out louder than I expected in the small room. Startled, his shoulders jump before he turns and looks at me over his shoulder. His ink black hair falling in his eyes from lying on it, and a sharp jaw that could go for days. Looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days either, giving just enough stubble to make any girl look twice.
“Yeah,” he says, “just, you know…can’t sleep.”
I smile, biting my lip as I scoot closer to him. “Well, I can think of something we can do that might make you tired.” I reach out and run my index finger lightly down his spine.
“Jesus, Anahi,” he spits, jumping up and stepping away from the bed as if I just offended him. “Is that all you ever think about?” What the hell is his problem? I silently question myself, watching as he grabs his clothes off the floor, dressing quickly and causing the dust that seems to always linger in the air here to fly off them, filling the space around him in a cloudy haze.
I push myself up and slide back to my side of bed. Sitting with my back against the headboard I can feel the tension in the room. Alvaro is changing. He’s becoming more like them. Like my uncle and his men. He turns, the disgusted look on his face − confirmation. He’s not the boy I fell in love with anymore. I pull the sheet up, plucking long threads from its edges with my fingers, using the rough material as a barrier between the two of us. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and find myself thinking about my mother for the first time in years. Her death the dividing point in my life. Before and After. And after all these years, words she said that then made little sense to me as a child, suddenly became clear.
“In every angel a devil smiles and in every devil an angel cries.” Her voice resonates through me, forcing chilling bumps to breakout across the surface of my olive colored skin as I recall the events that led us to this moment right here.
Not long after my mother died, my father married Alvaro’s mother, Serena. My father who had never been around much because he was always gone on business − even before my mother died − didn’t change his habits. Except now when he left on business, Serena, unlike my mother, went with him.
Whenever they were away, Alvaro and I were locked behind the gates of my father’s compound, which was fully equipped with a kitchen filled with every kind of food you could imagine, a game room with every system available, an outdoor swimming pool, a tennis court, a riding stable full of horses, and fifty fenced in acres to ride them. Alvaro was always left in charge and left with one important responsibility. To take care of me. And he did. He cooked for me, helped me with my online classes, tended to me if I got sick, comforted me when I was sad, spent time with me when I was lonely, and well, in time my ten-year old little mind and heart started seeing him as my prince charming and no longer as my older stepbrother. We grew close. Too close. At fifteen he was my first kiss and by the time I turned sixteen, he was my first…well, you know. And I was happy. But then it happened again. Death roared its ugly head and everything changed. My father died while away on a business trip in America, ripping my perfect world right from under me like a rug. And to top it off, Serena, Alvaro’s mother, who my father trusted with his estate, sold off everything. Keeping the money for herself she fled in the wind never to be seen again by anyone. Not even Alvaro. Looking back, that is the day Alvaro’s true colors began to come out.
My father’s brother, my Uncle Benito, came in acting like the concerned caregiver, and took us into his home.
“When do you think the lights will come back on?” I whispered. The blanket Alvaro threw over us making the air stuffy and hard to breathe.
“Until the storm passes probably,” he replied, lying on the pillow next to me. It’s been storming all day, and it’s becoming more severe by each passing hour. “How are you holding up about your father?”
I fidget where I lay, averting my eyes. My heart is heavy with the loss of my father, but I can’t say I miss a man I never saw.
A cough sounds in the room, and Alvaro and I tense, throwing the blankets off us.
“Hello kids, I need you to gather your things and come with me,” Benito said, standing before us with two strong looking men behind him. Lightning strikes, shadowing his figure and a chill runs down my spine.
“Why?” Alvaro asks, raising a brow.
“I’m not going to sugar coat it, son, because you look like a man who doesn’t have time for gimmicks. Your mother has sold this house, and everything you own.”
“What?” My eyes widen with surprise.
“You’re lying,” Alvaro sneers.
“Afraid not, and she ain’t coming back for either of you.”
“How do you know?” I question softly.
He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “She told me.”
I glance at Alvaro, and his face is hard, and eyebrows narrowed inward.
“Are you okay?” I reach for Alvaro’s hand a
nd he tears it from my grip with a force I don’t recognize nor can I ignore it. My heart stings from his sudden rejection and I curl in on myself.
“Look, I wish I could tell you kids that this abandonment is justified, but it isn’t. That is why I am here—”
“Why are you here?” Alvaro cuts him off standing up from the bed, his hands curl into fists.
“To take you in. To do the right thing,” Benito continues.
“We don’t need your charity,” Alvaro hisses.
“I can assure you, I am not one for charity. I am here because we are family, and looking at you I can tell you are a man I can use,” he chuckles, impressed by Alvaro’s hard demeanor. And like that, Alvaro was sold. I followed along because where else could I go?
I should have run into that storm and never looked back.
He took us into a room and before we knew what was happening, we were locked in. Trapped in here when we were only eighteen years old.
I look at the wall, at the tally marks I carved into it from day one. We’ve been at Benito’s mercy for three years now.
This life he’s thrown us into has become our norm. It’s like one of those prison shows you watch, you eventually just give in and go with it. Alvaro seems to have adapted a lot better than I have. Last time I was let out of here I was brought to a basement and ended up clawing the shit out of the man who had escorted me. The smell of toxins was heavy, almost smothering down there. Women and men stood around tables with gas masks on, lining and weighing drugs.
I went nuts kicking and screaming. Throwing scales off the table causing a vortex of white powder on the floor. I wouldn’t succumb to their illicit acts. I wouldn’t fall so far for nothing in return. I refused and was brought back here.
I haven’t left since. To be honest leaving this room is a scary thought. I’ve been in here so long I’m not sure what I’d do on the outside. It’s crazy to think I was riding purebred horses, and learning tennis from one of the best professionals… to being a hermit afraid to leave the shell that has become its security. In here I’m safe. Out there… reality and darkness waits.
The door to our room clicks open, first Alvaro’s head snaps up and then mine to watch who enters.
Shiny black shoes meet my eyes, followed by creased black slacks and a crisp white dress shirt lined with buttons. The man known to me as Uncle Benito steps through the threshold of the door with a menacing look on his face, that ridiculous fedora placed perfectly on his head being the final touch to his cliché drug lord appearance.
“My dear niece and nephew,” he greets, his arms out wide, as if we’re the extended family he’s searched for all his life. I curl into myself on the bed and eye him warily. The sound of endearment laced in his voice misplaced. Family wouldn’t take you in and put you in a room like a prisoner. I haven’t seen him since the day we became his.
He sits on the bed, the weight causing me to shift. Taking his hat off, he places it beside him. Sweat slips down his forehead just as he pulls a green bandana from his back pocket and dabs his forehead. All of his men have that bandana, you’re not a part of his crew unless you carry one and not just anyone carries one, you have to earn it.
“I know you’re wondering why I’ve kept you all these years, Anahi. Why I took you in when your father died. To be honest I didn’t know what to do with you in the beginning. That’s partly the reason why you’ve been locked in here all this time,” he states, his hands gripping the side of the mattress as he looks down. “You’re obviously not my own and I can’t just accept anyone off the streets and into my home, but I’m a businessman.”
I snarl at that. I’m not just anyone. I’m his brother’s child. His own flesh and blood. Hell, I even came over here and played with his daughter every weekend growing up.
The door creaks open and a man walks in that looks familiar, but I can’t quite place him. As he gets closer my spine stiffens at the recognition of the laughing skull tattoo on his bicep. He’s the one that forced me to bathe the first week we were here. He was strong and vile. He picked me up as if I weighed nothing and threw me in the bathroom, locking me in there until I washed. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a very clean person. Showering wasn’t a daily chore for me, but a twice a day choice. Plus, I had the most expensive hair products to ensure my hair had a perfect shine. But when I was placed in this prison getting a shower felt like I was submitting, surrendering to the fact that nobody else was coming for us as all my enemies screamed defeat.
I stayed adamant that I would fight against them, until I could no longer. On week two I gave in.
A little piece of me died that day. Sitting at the bottom of the aqua blue tile, my tears mixing with the droplets from the showerhead.
“Alvaro, go with Potzi,” Uncle Benito commands. Alvaro glances over his shoulder at me with a blank expression. I reach for him, scared to be in here by myself with my uncle, but Alvaro doesn’t notice. His focus on everything but me as he follows Potzi.
The door closes loudly after them, echoing throughout the room.
“Anahi, what is it you want most?” Uncle Benito questions as he pulls a cigar from the lip of his fedora. He brings one end to his mouth, his lips wrapping around it slowly as he bites the end off and lights it up with the lighter he pulled from his pocket seconds before.
I’m caught off guard by his question, my eyes rising with surprise.
“You know, dreams? Do you have any? Goals?” Uncle Benito continues after he senses my confusion. His left hand wafting through the air with a huge cigar tucked tightly between two fingers.
I clear my throat and blink through the smoke. My only dream was to leave Mexico and explore America, the place my mother told me about as a child. The whole reason we would practice English every Sunday in a fort of blankets in my room.
Until she died that is. It wasn’t until I was much older I was told my mother was shot to death in a drive by shooting. Retaliation from my father’s wrongdoings. What exactly that consisted of, I don’t know.
A newspaper clipping showed balloons that had escaped my mother’s lifeless hand and were dancing their way into the sky.
She was shopping for my birthday. Spending hours of her time and energy planning the perfect gifts and party plans to celebrate my special day.
I mourn my birthday instead of celebrating it now. Guilt tugs on my heart that maybe if she didn’t go shopping for my birthday she’d still be alive. I was told it wasn’t my fault, and have accepted that to some degree, but still, if she wasn’t out on that day, at that time for me. Maybe she would still be alive.
When my father died, I didn’t shed a tear. I blamed him for my mother’s death and could hardly stand to look at him. His death only serving to show me how quickly things can change. And change they did.
“Tell me, Anahi,” he hedges, sensing I’m holding something back.
I shrug before muttering, “I want to go to America,” my accent coming out thick.
He laughs. The sound making my dreams feel stupid. I cross my arms, tucking into myself. Feeling idiotic at the thought of ever getting the chance to step foot on American soil.
Most people want big mansions, or more cash than they know what to do with. I’ve had all that, and I can honestly say I don’t really miss it. What I was back then and who I am now are two very different people. What I want is something that isn’t materialistic. I want to live a dream that is much bigger than this place. Have opportunities at my feet that aren’t stained in blood, or dusted with heroin.
“Oh man. That is… that is to be expected from you actually.” His voice comes out bitter. “Your mother?” He raises a brow, knowing exactly why I want to go there. My mother came from America and often spoke about it. She was born in America, and met my father while he was there on business. Mom said it was love at first sight. She came to Mexico with my father and got married.
I look at the gold sequined comforter folding down to the foot of the bed and nod softly.
“W
ell, I tell you what. I need someone to haul something over to America for me. I am setting up shop in Texas, and eventually will be moving up the West Coast. I think you and Alvaro would be very well suited for the task.”
“What do you want us to take over there?” I ask anxiously, the thought of seeing America sooner than I imagined spiking my anxiety to new levels of high.
He grins slowly, his yellow stained teeth from decades of smoking coming into view as his thick brows narrow. Smoke dances toward the ceiling, painting a picture of sin and greed perfectly as I look at the man before me.
“Drugs,” he hisses between clenched teeth.
“Drugs?” The word slips from my mouth almost too easily, but the tone of shock is lost on me. I’m not surprised. Not at all. It’s what my family specializes in after all. Some families trade salsa recipes, my family trades the best heroin concoctions.
When my mother died that wall of protection she tried so hard to build around me came tumbling down brick by brick. Bound by the ties of my DNA, it was only a matter of time before I submitted to its darkness. My days of being on top, having the nicest things and the best living conditions were over.
“What if I get caught?” I can’t help but ask. I’ve never taken part in the drug trade. I’ve seen glimpses of the things my father did to men who were short on cash or drugs, though. It was gruesome. Maniacal. Who knew a machete could slice through bone without as much as a hiccup? I didn’t, but I learned that day when I was only eleven-years old and saw my first beheading.
I was traumatized to know my own flesh and blood was capable of such a thing. I ran out to the stables to feed one of the horses, only to discover my dad had a young man bound and hanging upside down over a feeding trough.
I never looked at my father the same way again. I didn’t look at life the same way again.
“You won’t because you are going to swallow them. That’s how you get them across the border. Then you sell them and after you’ve given me my percentage you can take your cut and run off into your delusional dream of the land of the free.” He swings his hands in the air again, catching my attention.