Caged: The Complete Trilogy

by Francesca Baez

  I’ve never been rock hard in the middle of a shootout before.

  Selina adjusts her stance, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face, and the sight of a bullet exploding against the asphalt to her left jolts me back to reality. She looks like the star of an action movie wet dream, but she’s completely uncovered. I know better than to waste my time yelling instructions for her to ignore, so I slide across the hood of the SUV and leap to my feet beside her, taking out a guy who looks like he can’t even legally drive yet, then I yank Selina behind the cover of the Hummer.

  “Stay here while I check on my people,” I growl at her, peeking around the corner and taking another shot. There weren’t too many men to start with, and they’ve almost all fallen by now. “Not a goddamn suggestion.”

  “They’re my people too,” Selina says, her voice defiant despite its light tremor. I duck back to safety and look at my wife’s face for the first time since this all started, really look at her.

  Concern. My captive princess is worried about Miel and my men, the very people who took her hostage in the first place. I am perplexed both by the absurdity of that fact, and the equally nonsensical desire to know if she ever worries about me.

  I stole Selina’s home, money, freedom, but still I want more. I want her heart. I had it for a moment, and I want it back.

  What kind of fucking sense does that make?

  A shot rings out closer to the mansion, then another. I peek around the corner of the destroyed vehicle and see Miel standing in the now open front door, looking a little worse for the wear, but efficiently taking down the last few of our enemies. At the sight of my oldest friend, I find that my next breath comes a little easier, but I tell myself it’s just because we’re all officially out of danger. For now, anyway.

  “Miel!” Selina shouts in relief, pushing past me and running across the courtyard. She flings her arms around the other woman, and to my surprise, Miel doesn’t resist. She doesn’t move to return the embrace, though. Still my Miel.

  My eyes drift from the exchange, moving from the bodies scattered across the drive, to the smoking abyss where the western side of the mansion used to be. Where the bedroom I shared with Selina used to be. Of course, I knew from the start that the deadly explosion was meant to take me out, but for a moment I had forgotten that El Sombrerón wants Selina dead, too. The thought twists in my gut, a dull pain that even the adrenaline can’t numb.

  In our world, it’s kill or be killed. It’s not enough to try to outrun or outhide our enemy. We need to kill El Sombrerón, and we need to do it fast.

  When I release Miel and turn back to the courtyard, I’m unsteady on my feet. The adrenaline of the moment is gone as fast as it arrived, and all that’s left is me. Me, the sight of over a dozen dead bodies scattered in front of me, the smell of smoke and ash behind me, and the sound of approaching sirens in the distance.

  Even with the chaos surrounding us, all my eyes can fix on is Javier. My enemy, my husband, my lover. He uses the back of his hand to wipe a splatter of blood off his chin, a gesture he makes look casual, natural. As he surveys the destruction, his gaze catches on mine. He gives me quick nod, the kind that asks if I’m alright. I nod back, though my hands are shaking. Am I alright? I’ll never be alright again, not truly, not since the first night I met him. But I came to terms with that a long time ago.

  Javier turns away and gets on his phone, but I still can’t tear my eyes away. He’s a killer, this man, the man that I love. That I still love, despite everything. He’s in so deep, under my skin, inside the darkest parts of my mind. I grew around his twisted hold, until his captivity became such a part of myself that it could never be removed, like a tree growing around a rope swing tied to it. He’s ingrained in me now, heart, body, and soul, and I couldn’t live without him even if I wanted to. And I have to admit to myself that I don’t want that, not anymore. I can never go back and be the Selina that I was before him, and there is no Selina after him.

  I turn around to face what remains of my childhood home, the place that’s always been both a safe haven from the world’s cruelty and a sick reminder of what I’ve lost. The west wing suffered the most damage, especially the upper floor, but if the fire department doesn’t get here soon, there won’t be much left to salvage. As is, even with money like mine—ours—it will be months until the mansion is fully restored, if not years. We’ll have to find a new place to stay until then, Javier and I, Miel, and—

  “Where are the guys?” I turn to Miel, panic flooding me again. The loss of so many of the private security hires is horrific, of course, but in truth I didn’t really know them. Not the way I’ve grown to know—and oddly care about—Brock and Hernando.

  “I don’t know, I was down in the basement when it happened,” Miel says, her jaw set grimly. She’s not nearly as shaken as I am by this disaster, but I can tell by the tightness in her voice that she’s not completely unaffected. “I think H was on duty at the gatehouse, but Brock might have been in the mansion.”

  I turn back to Javier, watch him run his fingers through his hair as he barks into the phone. He used to be able to hide his anxiety better. Then again, things have never been quite this bad.

  The sirens are louder now, probably clearing the gate. I remember the sight of it pathetically hanging open, utterly unguarded. My stomach twists with the knowledge that H would never have let the enemy enter the estate without putting up a fight, and that there were no signs of life in the gatehouse as we sped down the drive. And Brock, if he was able to, he would have already run out to join the fight like Miel did.

  I instinctively move to run into the mansion, but Miel grabs my arm, effectively stopping me in my tracks. She doesn’t have to say anything. Javier would be furious if I put myself in further danger, and there’s nothing I can do to help Brock if he’s hurt, anyway. All the power I felt when I pulled the trigger on the pistol and helped my husband take down our enemy drains out of me. Now that the violence is over, I’m more useless than I’ve ever been. The familiar feeling of helplessness stings more than it used to.

  Miel walks me over to join Javier as a couple firetrucks, an ambulance, and a small fleet of police cars tear up the perfectly manicured lawn. I worry for a second that we’re in trouble, but Javier marches out to meet the officer in charge, his mask of control back on. Of course. My husband still owns the police department, though I imagine this small massacre will put a strain on their arrangement.

  The firefighters are already hard at work on the west wing, and Miel is talking to the EMTs, pointing them toward the mansion. I pace anxiously, forcing myself to do my breathwork. It isn’t quite as effective, though, when every inhale carries the stench of smoke, gunpowder, and blood.

  Blood, blood, blood.

  I can feel hot wetness against my stomach, and when I look down, there’s a dark red stain spreading across my one-of-a-kind Givenchy blouse. For a second I wonder if I was shot, again, but when I lift my shirt I see that some of my stitches must have opened back up in the chaos.

  Blood.

  My knees go weak, and I remember all at once that I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning.

  Then there’s nothing.

  I wish I’d slept yesterday, because I sure as hell won’t be getting any sleep tonight.

  We’re back in a hospital room, with Selina unconscious on the sterile white bed, and Miel and I hunched over in the unbearable blue chairs. Selina is fine, all she needed were a couple new stitches and stern instructions to stop exerting herself, but I insisted she stay the night just in case.

  That, and we have nowhere else to go.

  “What do we do now?” Miel asks me in a hushed voice, the heel of her boot tapping a nervous rhythm against the linoleum floor.

  Miel is fine too, not even a scratch. She was safely in the basement at the time of the explosion, along with our prisoner, Andrews, who somehow escaped in all the chaos. If there wasn’t so much else going on, I’d be handing Miel her ass for lettin
g that happen, but we’ve got more pressing issues.

  Brock was in the mansion when the explosive hit, and though he made it out with his life, he took a fair amount of shrapnel. I wasn’t there when the EMTs rolled him out, but Miel gave me a nauseatingly graphic retelling of what his left leg looked like. He’s still in surgery now, under a false name for good measure, even though El Sombrerón might not know he’s still alive. He’ll pull through, probably. And if he doesn’t, well, he knew the risk when he took the job.

  Just like the handful of hired guns we lost, and… and Hernando. One of El Sombrerón’s coyotes brought him to Atlanta a few years ago, and he’d been forced to work off his so-called debt since. He joined my little rebellion once it became obvious that El Sombrerón would never release him. When this was all over, H was finally going to join his family in Sacramento. And now, the only family reunion happening will be at his funeral.

  The facade Selina had been stubbornly holding up for days had finally crumbled at the news, and she cried herself to sleep in my arms. I assured her we’d do the only thing we can do for him anymore: complete the mission.

  So, what now?

  “The hired men are skittish, but if we throw in more money, they’ll stick around,” I tell Miel. “The police, too.”

  “Fucking cowards,” Miel growls, although we both know that if she had any choice, she’d run too. But taking the easy way out is a luxury neither of us has ever been able to afford.

  “He came to us on our turf, so we do the same,” I propose, my eyes on Selina’s face as I let the idea formulate on my tongue. Her dark lashes fan out against the heavy bags under her eyes, and there’s still a smudge of ash on her forehead, almost hidden by her hair. I think of her in the shootout again, holding the pistol like she knew what she was doing. Was it dumb luck? Has she always known how to use a gun? How did I not know that about her? “Of course, there’s no way we can get anywhere near his place, so we hit somewhere almost as important. The warehouse out by Lakewood. He’s always there on Thursday afternoons.”

  I can feel Miel’s eyes on me even without looking, can sense the furrow in her brow. “What if he’s changed his schedule since we left?”

  I shake my head at her. “He doesn’t see us as a threat, so he wouldn’t bother. We’ll let the Chief know it’s a done deal, so we’ll have the full force of the APD with us, and as many of the private security guys as we can get. They’ll all know that the final kill is ours, of course.”

  “If it was that easy, we would have done that months ago,” Miel says. She’s the only person who isn’t afraid to call me out on my shit, and that’s both why I keep her around, and why I want to wring her skinny neck right now. “You’re just desperate, and that only leads to mistakes.”

  “Of course I’m desperate,” I growl, gripping the plastic frame of Selina’s hospital bed until my knuckles whiten. “You should be, too. It’s now or never. If we don’t take him out soon, we might as well just give ourselves up to him.” My friend only arches a brow at that, so I go on, leaning closer to her. “Listen, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. We have the power, the resources, the connections we need. We’ve got an army. We didn’t have that a few months ago. We’re ready, Miel. We can’t keep waiting for a perfect moment. We’re coming for him now. We have everything we need to take him down.”

  Miel shifts in her seat, eyes darting between me and Selina. She sees my pretty wife as a weakness, a distraction, but she’s wrong. Before Selina, I had nothing to lose, and that made me reckless. Now, my princesa makes me ruthless.

  Miel finally lets out a deep sigh, slouching back in the faded blue chair. “Fine. It’s not like I could change your mind, anyway. Make the calls. You’re right about one thing: we’ve run out of time to waste. If we’re doing this, we have to do it now.”

  Money is power. Leverage is power.

  Violence is power.

  That’s what Javier says. That’s what everyone says.

  But as I watch my husband, the woman who has unexpectedly become my best friend, and a motley crew of law enforcement, strap on their weapons, I can’t fight the feeling that they’re all wrong. I’ve had it all, the money, the leverage, and now the violence. I’ve felt its power.

  But here I am, powerless all the same.

  Despite my show of skill at the shootout yesterday, Javier refuses to let me participate in today’s endeavors. The fact that I was making my arguments from a hospital bed probably didn’t help, but I was only there at his insistence. Aside from the now familiar dull throbbing at my side, I feel fine. Fine and more full of vengeful anger than I’ve been in years.

  Hernando is dead. Brock pulled through his emergency surgery, minus his left leg. I made Javier take me by his room before we left Grady this morning, but Brock was still knocked out, his long blond hair curling around a paler-than-usual face. My heart rose to my throat, tears threatening to erupt, but I swallowed both down and let the acid running through my veins turn the sorrow to rage. It’s more useful.

  And while I can’t manage to quash the feeling that this is somehow all my fault, or maybe my husband’s fault, I channel all that bloodthirst toward the man who is inarguably responsible. El Sombrerón. The monster that Javier seems certain we’ll be wiping out once and for all in just a few minutes.

  I shift in the passenger seat of the Hummer, parked across the street from the warehouse Javier and his people are currently surrounding. This is as close as my overprotective husband would let me get, and the bodyguard babysitting me is under stern instructions to whisk me away at the first sign of trouble. Should those protective measures fail, there’s always the Kevlar vest strapped over the scratchy hospital gift store t-shirt I’m wearing. The bloodstain rendered yesterday’s blouse unwearable, and the rest of my wardrobe was either burnt to ash or ruined by the hosewater. I feel only a small itch where I should be feeling the pain of this loss: my carefully curated collection, built over years and worth more than most people’s homes, gone in an instant. But it doesn’t matter anymore. It never did.

  I watch the scene across the street unfold, watch the hidden figures signaling silently from their positions around the warehouse. I’ve seen this movie before, a dozen times with a dozen different casts and plot variations, but never like this. I’m scared shitless. I wish I was in the action, standing beside my husband. I wish I was safely at home, never having met him.

  But mostly, I wish I could stop feeling that this isn’t enough. The men, the backdoor deals that got them here, the heavy artillery in their hands. After all this time, it can’t be this simple. The buff stranger in the driver’s seat nervously drums his fingers on the steering wheel. There has to be a catch, and we all know it. We’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  I lose the ability to breathe as the final silent cue is given and our people begin to rush the warehouse. I picture the scene inside the way it would play out on TV: sketchy looking men standing around with guns, women in their underwear packaging drugs, then chaos as smoke bombs roll across the floor and men with bulletproof vests and bigger, shinier guns rush in. Somewhere in the background, Javier and Miel will beeline for the side office where El Sombrerón is supposed to be. He’ll have a few more seconds to prepare than the men outside do, the element of surprise slightly lost, but Javier and Miel will still have the upper hand. They’ll put a bullet in the monster’s head and sneak out the back, and in the official paperwork, the drug kingpin’s death will be chalked up to collateral damage in the raid. And then we’ll all be free.

  Right?

  The shooting begins, and I tense in my seat. Lives will be lost today, there’s no avoiding that. Will it be as many as were lost yesterday? I feel the dark specter of death following me like an extra shadow. I don’t belong in this world. No one does.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Bang, bang.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Bang, bang.

  “How do you think it’s going?” I ask the stoic bod
yguard, hoping he can decipher something in the staccato of endless gunfire that I can’t. He says nothing, but I notice that his fingers are on the keys in the ignition, ready to go at any second.

  There, movement at the back left of the frame. Two big men, and between them, a woman, uselessly fighting their iron grip.

  A woman with a familiar mane of unruly curls and too much eyeliner.

  Before I can fully register what I’m doing, I’m grabbing the handgun that the bodyguard set out on the console between us, pushing the passenger side door open with my foot, and leaping out. I hear the bodyguard swear behind me—I guess my husband forgot to warn him that I’d be one of the things I’d need protecting from—but I’m already gone.

  What the fuck am I doing? Miel told me a million times that if I found myself face to face with any of El Sombrerón’s men, I was already dead, no matter how good I got with a gun. And here I am, running as fast as I can straight at two of them. Three, if you count the driver that just pulled up.

  Five, if you count the other two thugs that just ran out of the warehouse’s side door, with another woman walking briskly between them. She doesn’t look like anyone I imagined being in that warehouse, with her sleek hair pulled up into a tidy chignon, a plaid wool dress that can only be Gucci, and the same pair of impractical Jimmy Choo pumps that I have in my closet back home. Had.

  Who the hell is that?

  Whoever she is, the mystery woman is the first one to spot me, the men all too lost in the chaos of outrunning the shootout and shoving their captive into the waiting car. She looks directly at me, eyes widening in surprise as they meet mine, but she doesn’t alert the guards.

  Even as I slow my pace to raise and aim my gun, the woman remains silent, simply quickening her own steps in order to reach the car faster.