“Fucking hell,” Miel groans as soon as we’re alone, her voice raspier than usual. “Did they get Javi, too?”
“No,” I say, pulling at my bindings even though I know it’s a useless gesture. The flight instinct is too strong to resist. “But it’s okay, I promise. We have a plan.”
Miel snorts. “Oh, you have a plan? Guess I’m saved.”
I ignore the sarcasm in her voice. “For real. I let them get me on purpose, and then Javier is—”
“Don’t tell me,” Miel snaps. “I don’t want to know. Whatever it is, it won’t work, and I’m not wasting what little time I have left on false hope.”
I open my mouth to argue, but stop myself. She’s probably right, but I’m not ready to give up just yet.
“What do you know about the wife, Marcela?” I ask instead. I wrench my head to try and meet her eyes, but it’s impossible.
“Nothing,” Miel says, but in a clipped tone that indicates quite the opposite. “Why?”
“No reason.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it, but she doesn’t pursue it further, and neither do I. I try to make myself as comfortable as I can in my seat, and begin a half-assed attempt at calming breathwork.
Javier is coming for me.
Javier is going to save me.
No, that’s not quite right.
Javier is coming for me, and then, we’re going to save each other.
El Sombrerón was never the type of criminal kingpin to purchase a mansion, or build himself a fortress. Instead he invested in small pieces of inconspicuous real estate all over the city, like a rat with a dozen dirty holes to disappear into at a moment’s notice. Thanks to Marcela, I know which one he’s hiding out in today. It’s one of his newer places, one I’m not familiar with, which adds to the risk of this so-called plan. But with the way my mind is clouded with panic right now, I’m not sure I’d even be able to find my own ass with both hands.
I’ve had close calls with Selina before, from her initial escape attempt to the night she got shot. I thought I’d felt true fear that night, clutching her cold hand and reminding myself to breathe as I waited for her eyes to open. I hadn’t felt fear like that since I was a child. You can’t be afraid if you have nothing to lose. But Selina is everything, and if I lose her, then it won’t matter if El Sombrerón takes me out or not. I have no life left without her.
I run a red light, and then another, before reminding myself that I can’t save my wife if I’m dead. The rules of the road seem especially meaningless today, though, and I fight the urge to pull my gun and take out every slow driver that’s keeping me from Selina. I can only be a few minutes behind the men that took her, but a few minutes is all it takes for—
I slam on the brakes and lean on the horn as some motherfucker tries to cut me off. Unless his wife is being held captive by the city’s biggest drug lord, the asshole can’t possibly be in a bigger hurry than I am.
Any other day I would let the other driver have a lungful of every four letter word I can think of, but right now, I’m not sure I could open my mouth if I tried. My jaw feels wired shut, anxiety pressing my teeth so tightly together I might snap one off. My body doesn’t know how to function when Selina is in so much danger. I manage to take a left turn on muscle memory alone—two blocks left until I’m there. Two fucking blocks. It might as well be the distance from here to the sun.
Images of Selina broken, bloody, screaming, cloud my vision until I can barely see. They could be doing anything to her. All the things I used to do to our enemies, they could be doing to my bride. The blood in my visions spreads until all I see is red. If they lay a single fucking finger on Selina, I’ll raze the place to the ground. Fuck an eye for an eye. Any motherfucker who even looks at her wrong is getting skinned alive. That’s justice.
That’s love.
I screech to a stop around the corner of the bar that serves as a front to this particular hideout. My heart is pounding and I feel dazed, but for just a moment, it’s not fear that’s shaking me off balance. Or maybe it is fear, at a level I’ve never experienced before.
Because love? Love makes you weak, and weakness is something I’ve never been able to afford. Something I never knew I was even capable of. Love is distraction, submission, failure. I can’t save Selina with love.
I pull a baseball cap out of the glove box and pull it low over my eyes, and quickly pat myself down to ensure my various guns and knives are all where they’re supposed to be. My pulse is steadying, and my frantic worry is turning into tunnel vision. Selina depends on me being at my sharpest. I’m not going to risk both our lives on… whatever this unfamiliar feeling is. Love is what got my mother killed, and what broke Selina. It can’t be what saves us now.
But what if I don’t love the way my mother did, or the way Selina does? Maybe love can be possessive, and violent, and dark. Maybe death and destruction can be just as loving as pretty words and roses. I’ve always known that love can kill. Maybe instead of letting it kill me, I can use it to kill El Sombrerón.
In the right hands, anything can be a weapon.
I wait until the streets are clear, and then I find the basement level window that Marcela told Selina she’d leave unlocked for us. This is what everything hinges on: that the terrified, helpless wife of our enemy pulled through for us. Selina has the utmost of faith in this woman, for reasons I will never understand. But I must have equal faith in Selina, because I march to the rightmost window with confidence, and pull. For a breathless second, it sticks, but then it eases open. I lower myself in, and shut the window quietly behind me.
When I hear the lock start turning from the outside, I perk up, half expecting Javier to walk in and save us. It’s not him, of course. It’s too soon, and I haven’t carried out my part of our plan yet. But when I see who does come through the door, I know this is my chance.
Flanked by the two men who brought me here, an unfamiliar figure steps out from the shadows. I know instinctively that this man is the monster himself, El Sombrerón. I’ve spent my whole life surrounded by powerful men, men who know they’re in control, men who know they’re untouchable. I know how they carry themselves. I know the reckless edge that darkens their eyes. I’m used to seeing that look on white men in suits, but it’s unmistakable even in this context. This man—shorter than I am, bone-thin, dressed in low-slung jeans and a faded flannel shirt—can only be El Sombrerón.
“Selina Palacios,” he drawls, and the immediate tensing of Miel behind me confirms my suspicions. “Javier Vega’s whore.”
A retort rises in my throat, but my mouth is dry, inoperable. The two henchmen stay by the door, while El Sombrerón circles the room. The smell of expensive cologne wafts over me, and I flinch. I’ll spend months waking in the night, screaming, the memory of this smell bleeding into my nightmares. Assuming I ever wake again, anyway.
“And Miel Conde, my whore,” he says when he reaches the back of the room, out of my line of sight. “What a pleasant surprise.”
They say dogs can smell fear, and in this moment, I think I understand. I can almost taste the cold terror coming off of Miel in waves. It never occurred to me that Miel was even capable of fear, and though this unexpected role reversal should render me catatonic with dread, instead I feel my spine straightening. My friend needs me. Miel has already had more of El Sombrerón than anyone ever should. I can take this hit for her.
“I’ve been called worse walking down the street,” I challenge, hating the tremor I hear in my voice despite my best effort at bravery. “Is this really what everyone is so afraid of? Words?”
El Sombrerón hoots and rattles off something in Spanish, making the two men by the door snicker. Fuck. My blood runs cold as I hear footsteps coming back around my way, but I force my mind to clear. This is no time to crack under pressure.
“So it’s true, what they say about you,” he says in English as he comes back into view. I feel Miel relax slightly behind me, but it doesn’t make me feel particularly
better. The single bare lightbulb above us casts long shadows on El Sombrerón’s face, contorting his features into a truly monstrous mask. “Perra que ladra no muerde. What else does that mouth do, rich girl?”
“Bite,” I snap, but the line is about as effective here as it is with random douchebags on the street. El Sombrerón just laughs. To him, I’m a pomeranian yapping at a bulldog. My anger amuses him, and I imagine my fear or tears would as well. I’m not a person to this man, just a plaything for him to bat around until I break, or he gets bored of me. Whichever comes first.
“The hotter the fire, the more fun it is to put out,” El Sombrerón says to no one in particular. He reaches his hand out to me, and I reflexively pull back, but there’s nowhere for me to go. He traces my jaw with a cold finger, and I struggle not to shudder. He’ll get off on my reaction either way, but keeping a stiff upper lip will preserve my pride for a little longer. “I see now why Vega wanted to keep you. But he couldn’t handle you, could he? Not man enough to put you in your place.”
I remind myself that this isn’t any other dickwad on the dance floor; I can’t just throw my drink at him and walk away. So I say nothing, channeling my boiling blood into a death glare. El Sombrerón doesn’t reach out to me again, but I feel his touch nonetheless, in the smell of his cologne knotting around my hair, the sharp hunger in his eyes raking down my body, the chill of terror he emanates stabbing under my skin. I wonder how I could ever have mistaken my husband for a monster, when devils like this walk amongst us.
He turns away from me and says something in rapidfire Spanish to his men, prompting Miel to respond in tremulous Spanish. It sounds like she’s trying to protest, which immediately causes my flesh to goosepimple with dread, but no one else reacts to her words. Instead, the taller of the two men steps forward, first untying the bindings around my ankles, then moving to release my wrists. My heartrate doubles. I’m not being freed. No, I’m going to be transported to a secondary location, one that likely will prove far more dangerous than this cold room.
“Don’t worry, your man will be here soon enough,” El Sombrerón says to me mockingly, when a whimper escapes me as the guard jerks me to my feet. “His first punishment will be to watch his golden girl die. But while we wait, I’m going to show you how a real man handles a mouthy bitch like you.”
I swear I can taste the adrenaline.
No, I am the adrenaline, loosely held together by skin and bone.
I haven’t drawn a gun yet—might as well have an alarm announce my presence if a shot goes off—but I’ve taken down three men already. I got the jump on the first guy, snapping his neck in one fluid motion before he had a chance to register my presence, and the other two went down pretty quick once I got my knives out. I’ve always been proficient in the dealing of death, but not like this. I am a one-man storm today, silent as the grave, more focused than I’ve ever been. The only thought in my head is of Selina, and that’s enough. The protective, masculine beast in me is a machine, running on gut instinct and muscle memory. I wipe the bloody blades on my jeans as I turn a corner, finding another soldier. This one is leaning against the wall beside a locked door, clearly guarding something.
Or someone.
This is where Selina and Miel are.
The guard sees me coming and opens his mouth to yell a warning as he reaches for the gun in his belt, but my knife is in his gut before he gets a chance to do either. I catch his body as it falls to avoid a loud thump, and retrieve a keyring from his pocket.
When I push the door open, the solitary figure in the center of the room doesn’t move, her only reaction the slight tensing of her shoulders. Miel. She’s tied to a chair facing away from me, and behind her sits a second chair, empty. My heartbeat is loud enough to give away my intrusion, but I swallow down the creeping fear and race over to my friend. She jerks when I silently touch her arms, but relaxes when she recognizes me. I use my knife to free her, and in return she hisses rebukes at me.
“Is this the so-called plan Selina was talking about? You both end up dead in this basement? That’s even more fucking stupid than I thought it would be.”
I ignore Miel’s whispered sarcasm, taking a moment to catch my breath as she finishes shaking off her bindings.
“You saw her? Selina was here?” And then, the question I don’t want to ask, but must. “Where is she now?”
“Yeah, they brought her in a little bit ago,” Miel says, rubbing her wrists and not quite looking me in the eye. “They—he took her.”
“When?”
The word comes out of my mouth like a bullet, small and fast and cold. My mind is a weapon, aimed singularly at the problem at hand. I have to find my wife. My attention can’t be spared for any other thoughts or emotions that might be attached to that mission. When it’s all over, that’s when I can allow myself to feel this. If I make it out alive, anyway.
“Just a few minutes ago,” Miel says. “You probably just missed them in the halls. Really, it’s only been—”
I cut her off by spinning on my heel and exiting the room. There is no amount of time short enough where the idea of my wife being alone with El Sombrerón doesn’t make me sick. It only takes a second to pull a trigger, snap a neck, slice a throat. I have to find them now.
I hear Miel picking weapons off the body of the fallen soldier by the door, and then she’s beside me, struggling to keep up as I storm the palace.
I don’t appreciate the way I’m being shoved down the hallway, but I don’t think there’s any point in complaining that my criminal captors aren’t treating me with enough respect. Every second that they’re manhandling me is another second I’m not dead yet, another second for Javier to get here. And he will get here in time, I believe that. I believe that with the same desperate conviction that I believed I could survive the deaths of my family, and that I believed I could escape Javier’s clutches. The belief is the shell that holds me together, fragile and weak. If I allow doubt to crack my shell, even a little bit, I’ll fall apart completely.
So I continue believing the impossible, that I will make it out of this basement alive and in one piece. Even as the brutish men shove me into a new room. Even as I hear the door close behind me, and the quiet stir of a body moving in closer.
Even as I notice the bed.
Queen size, centered under one of the squat, clouded windows, silky looking sheets already rumpled.
The sheets are blood red.
Blood.
Bang, bang.
“Tell me, puta,” El Sombrerón’s sticky voice growls behind me. “What’s so special about your pussy, that Vega is willing to die for it?”
I feel bile rising in my throat, though I can’t remember the last time I ate. I feel warm fingers brush my shoulder, and I jerk away, spinning to face the man.
“I don’t think that’s what he’s willing to die for,” I say, taking a step backward. Taking a step closer to the bed, but there’s nowhere else to run. “I’m pretty sure he just hates you so much that he’ll do anything to kill you. Even if it kills him too.”
El Sombrerón chuckles, a hollow sound. I wonder what it feels like—joy, humor, laughter—to a monster like him. I wonder if the pleasure he gets from cruelty warms him the same way a lover’s touch warms the rest of us. I wonder if, when this is all over, I’ll be just like him. It takes a monster to kill a monster, and once you’ve surrendered to the darkness, there’s no going back.
“Matarme? Ese pendejo?” El Sombrerón says. I don’t understand his words, but the scoff in his voice is undeniable. “Many have tried, many have failed. Vega isn’t going to be the one that finally takes me out. Maybe he could have been, if he hadn’t run away, hiding behind your skirts and money. But that boy never appreciated what I did for him. I made him who he is, and with time, I could have made him untouchable. If he’d had the balls to stay, he’d have the balls to kill me. But he didn’t, and he doesn’t.”
“You don’t know that,” I protest feebly. I’m usually
better at this, and faking confidence no matter the situation, but I’ve never been up against someone like El Sombrerón before. He didn’t maul me as soon as the door closed behind us, which is what I had expected. No, he’s pacing back and forth, getting close enough to make my skin crawl and then stepping away, then coming closer as soon as I let myself breathe again. He’s toying with me. I’m a wounded mouse, and he’s the cat batting at me, trying to see how much fun he can have before my little heart finally gives out. And with the way said organ is racing, we’re pretty damn close to the endgame. But I can’t roll over and die just yet. Javier will be here any moment, and I need to keep my hunter distracted until then. Luckily, if there’s one thing I can do even under extreme pressure, it’s run my goddamn mouth. “You don’t know him, not really.”
“Mija, I know him better than you ever will,” he says, stepping closer, then stepping away. Close, then away. “I birthed the man that he’s become, and I’ll end him, too. But first, I’ll make him watch me kill you.”
Close, close, too close. His breath is hot on my face, hands running through my hair. I step back, stumble against the bed, but manage to stay standing. Too close, too fucking close.
“Will you, though?” I taunt, though my teeth nearly chatter from the tremors controlling my body. “Because I’ve heard people say that you’re off your game. Sick, maybe even dying. Well, more precisely, what I’ve heard is that you’ve been going fucking cra—”
A hand around my throat cuts me off. I don’t take time to relish in the fact that I’ve clearly hit a nerve. Whether due to Miel’s training or some feminine instinct I was born with, my knee flies up of its own volition, hitting El Sombrerón squarely between the legs.
Caged: The Complete Trilogy Page 42