“Come here,” I say, reaching for him with my good arm. He is quick to obey, always so careful with me when I’m injured. I grip the front of his t-shirt loosely and pull him close, his mouth eagerly meeting mine halfway. We kiss gently at first, like kids, and then his hand catches the back of my neck. I let him draw me in, slip his tongue between my lips, but I nip it slightly with my teeth. That is our way, after all. Push and pull, give and take. Love and hate.
He groans a bit, but doesn’t stop. He kisses me, voraciously, with all the desperation and panic and overwhelm of the last few days. And I kiss him back, savoring every moment like I know how much it cost. Like I know how it felt to almost lose him forever.
The blinds had already been closed for privacy, but we don’t bother locking the door. Javier climbs on top of me, and my knees spread wide for him, the paper-thin hospital gown falling back easily. He takes his time, now that we know we have some to spare. He kisses his way down my body, pausing to suck on one nipple and nibble on the other, making me swallow back a moan worthy of drawing a passing nurse’s attention. He runs those lush lips up my inner thighs, applying just the slightest suction, how he knows I like. And when he reaches my cunt, parting my folds with the tip of his tongue, I swear it’s somehow better than the last time. His days of running with the mob may be over, but he could make a career out of this. Not that I’d share that mouth with anyone.
Goddamn.
My back arches off the hospital bed, and this time I can’t contain the sound that escapes me, a throaty, ecstatic moan that drips of pleasure.
“Javier.” I can only say his name, layering the single word with a thousand feelings. I can no longer pretend that this isn’t what I want, what I need. The heat between us is palpable, our bodies as inseparable as our souls. When he slides inside me, I feel like I’m finally whole again. When his mouth presses against mine, I feel like I’m fully alive for the first time.
Javier was right all along. This is destiny.
No one ever thanks you for taking down a dangerous drug lord. If you do it right, no one even knows it happened.
At fundraisers, socialites brush elbows with Selina and ask her who she’s wearing or if she’ll be at brunch next month, never suspecting that the smiling princess has blood on her hands. They’re even warming up to me, though they’ll still whisper to each other behind our backs as we walk away. I’ll never belong here, but I don’t mind anymore. With Selina on my arm, we could stroll through hell for all I care, and I’d still have eyes only for her.
The Palacios estate is still under repair, the buzz of equipment echoing across the once silent grounds. Selina and I have been staying in the poolhouse, a far cry from the luxurious mansion next door, but still a palace compared to the shitholes I’ve lived in before.
Miel rented her own place in the city, and turned down my many offers of a job with Café Palacios. Her cut of the money we made last year keeps her well taken care of, and she spends a significant portion of her time laying out by the pool with my wife. I know she must be up to something else on the low, though. Miel wasn’t made to sit still for too long. Like me, she needs a mission, a light at the end of the tunnel. But whatever she’s got going on, she’s playing it close to the chest.
Brock is at an out-patient facility in Fayetteville, tackling physical therapy with the same downplayed determination he once applied both in the streets and the kitchen. Selina made sure he got the best prosthetic leg money could buy, and visits him every week. Another man might be jealous, but I know that her commitment to our people pales in comparison to her commitment to me.
Hernando’s family took his body back to Sacramento. We weren’t invited to the funeral, which I couldn’t blame them for, but we still sent a flower arrangement almost as large as the quiet man himself was.
I’ve been plenty busy running Café Palacios. Adjusting to life above board proves a little more difficult than I would have imagined, but knowing that I could kill every annoying board member in a heartbeat makes it all a little more bearable. You can dress a wolf in silks, but he’ll still have fangs.
At first, Selina came in to the Café Palacios offices with me, but she soon grew bored of trying to fit in to the corporate lifestyle. Instead, she has been spending her time with Miel, Isla, or on her own. She’s still hellbent on proving herself to be some sort of master baker, but after months of burnt cookies, salty cakes, and soggy muffins, I’ve lost hope. Not that I’d ever tell her that. I know exactly what my wife is capable of, given the right motivation.
For now though, we’ve been keeping the violence to the bedroom. We find our hard limits, and surprise ourselves with how few of those there are. I swear this woman is insatiable, and in her presence, so am I. I keep waiting for the comedown, for the high of survival to finally wear off, but it doesn’t.
Still, I know it’s inevitable, no matter how long it takes. I’d be a fool to believe in happily-ever-afters.
Our life after El Sombrerón isn’t exactly a regular life, but it’s a real one.
By day, my husband goes to work while I do my morning meditations, my pre-Javier Vega yoga practice (which I’ve been trying to teach Miel, but she lacks the patience to lie in savasana for more than two seconds), and catch up on some reading or, more likely, some Netflix. In the afternoons, I’ll drive down the street to have tea with Isla. She’s still annoying as hell, but her attention-seeking idiosyncrasies are somehow more bearable when she holds all my biggest secrets in the palm of her hand. It’s definitely not because we’re friends or anything.
In the evenings, I’ll meet Javier in the city for business meetings over dinner, my primary function there being to lay a gentle hand on his arm when the people he can’t stand talk too much and I see him eying the steak knife. Sometimes it’s just the two of us, seated in a dark corner with the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu, our hands wandering under the table like school children.
Weekends are usually filled with the same high society events that I was raised on, brunches and galas and charity concerts. Javier is learning how to wear tuxes with the same confidence that he pulls off stained jeans and ripped t-shirts, and after my old closet got blown to bits, I get to enjoy a brand-new gown every week. We look the part, shiny and silky and smiling, but sometimes I get the feeling that people can still see right through me. I don’t belong in their world of glitz and glory anymore, no matter how generous my donation or who made the dresses I’ll only wear once. My crown is tarnished, my hands bloodstained. Under my waxed and bronzed skin, all that’s inside me is coal. There’s not enough gold in the world to mask my sins. And though it bothered me at first, I find myself caring less and less about the sidelong stares in my direction and whispered conversations that pause when I approach. These days, Cristal tastes like salt water on my tongue, and limited-edition Louboutins just pinch my toes.
Is it still a life, if you don’t feel alive?
Is it still freedom, if you don’t feel free?
Javier says that we make our own destiny, and he proved it by taking me, and clawing his way out of the underworld he was born into. So why don’t I get to write my own fate? And if I could, what kind of life would I even want? I’ve never known anything but what was handed to me, by my parents, by my husband, by the world.
I know Javier feels me pulling away, feels the new walls between us, but I don’t know how to tell him that I’m drowning in everything he fought so hard to give us.
We’re driving home from dinner with the del Reys one night in early October, the late summer sun still stubbornly refusing to set, when I notice Javier’s grip on the steering wheel tighten. I follow his gaze to the rear view mirror and see what’s making him tense: a black SUV with tinted windows, much like the one we’re driving, speeding straight toward us.
My chest tightens, and I feel my heart beginning to race at a speed I had almost forgotten it was capable of. Javier reaches behind his back and pulls out his Glock, and for some reason I’m shoc
ked to discover that he still carries it. One hand tight on the wheel, one hand holding the gun just out of view from other drivers, he steps on the gas. I watch the SUV weave through traffic behind us, my nails digging into my palms, but all I feel is release. I’ve been waiting for this, I realize. For months, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The other vehicle is just a few cars behind us now, and Javier tells me to get down. I lean forward, making my body small, but I can’t help but keep my eyes on the action. The SUV pulls up next to us, close enough to see the figure silhouetted in the passenger seat, and—
They keep on driving. I rise up to peek over the dashboard, and watch the black car dart ahead, until it’s nearly out of sight.
Javier relaxes and puts his gun back in his waistband, but my body refuses to accept that the danger has passed.
Because it hasn’t, not really.
Even though this time was a false alarm, eventually, the delicate truce that keeps us safe will shatter. Whether it’s Caleb Guerrera, the law, or a new enemy we haven’t met yet, our comeuppance will arrive eventually. And until it does, how can I draw a full breath, knowing that every second of this life is another moment stolen? As long as we’re in Atlanta, our days are numbered. You don’t get to kill a criminal kingpin and walk away from a life of crime and just get away with it.
I make Javier pull over, push open the passenger door, and spill my guts on the highway shoulder. I puke up my overpriced dinner until my body is completely empty, but still, I feel the planet spinning out of control beneath us. My hollow stomach sinks deep and heavy.
I know what I have to do.
I know what I need to do.
Atlanta is the only home I’ve ever known. This is the place where my parents and brother are buried, and where the legacy they entrusted me to uphold is. This is the place I was born, and where I cheated death, time and time again.
And Javier, the man who kidnapped me, tortured me, blackmailed me. The man who stole my entire life, and then stole me too, with a ring on my finger and a signature on a piece of paper. The man I love more than I knew was possible, the man that I have lived and died and killed for.
I thought that love would be enough to save us.
I thought our story was over, that happy ever after was supposed to last forever.
I thought that the sacrifices and loss and impossible decisions were behind us.
I was wrong.
It’s early in the morning in late October when I get a call at the office from Isla del Rey. She says the Palacios mansion is on fire.
Not just a little on fire, or even a contained explosion, but tall, greedy, all-consuming flames that she can see from her window.
I call our contractor as I run to the car, but he says he and the crew were told to take the day off.
I call Selina, and get a recorded message telling me that this number is no longer in service.
So I call her again, and again, and again, until I’m so frustrated I’m throwing my phone out the window, watching the little rectangle shrink in the distance, then disappear under an eighteen wheeler.
Fuck.
Where is my wife? Why isn’t she answering her phone? Why is her number not even working? There must be a mistake. If I wasn’t the idiot who just willingly lost his phone, I could be calling Miel right now, getting her help. But all I can do now is drive faster.
Luckily, the traffic at this hour is going into the city, so I get out to Johns Creek in record time. I can see the black smoke billowing into the sky from miles away, feel the suffocating heat as I turn onto the drive.
The fire department is already here, the sight of their red trucks on our manicured lawn all too familiar. I pull the Hummer off the drive and don’t even bother cutting the engine before I jump out and start running toward the mansion.
The air is too thick to breathe, and I have to pull my shirt over my nose and mouth to keep from choking. It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t breathe right now even if they gave me an oxygen tank.
Hungry flames are still lapping at the east wing, but the west wing, the one we had just started to repair, is nothing but a skeleton. Black bones bending and bowing, muddy soot and ash bleeding across the courtyard. Irreparable, unsurvivable destruction.
Where is my wife?
I can’t see the pool house from here, so I start running toward it, ignoring shouts telling me to stop, to get away. I don’t stop running until a body slams into me, the force so unexpected it knocks me on my ass.
“Javi, you can’t go in there.”
Miel, kneeling on the grass beside me, an expensive scarf tied across her face. Hermes. Selina bought it a few weeks ago, wore it to a luncheon to support breast cancer research. When we came home, I tied her to the bedpost with it.
“I have to find Selina.”
I push Miel away and stand, but she grabs my arm, tugging at me as stubbornly and uselessly as a toddler.
“She’s not here, Javi.”
That gets my attention. I spin around and face my oldest friend, struggling to read her expression through the scarf and my own stinging eyes.
“Is she—”
“She’s okay,” Miel says quickly, pulling me farther from the blaze. I’m so stunned, I simply allow it to happen. “Safe, I swear.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Miel says, too calmly. We’re far enough from the burning mansion now that I don’t feel the hair on my arms singeing, and Miel stops, turning to face me.
Nervous. The look on her face is nervous.
“Where the fuck is my wife, Miel,” I grit out, more a demand than a question.
“I swear I don’t know,” she says. “But she’s safe.”
I grab Miel’s arm, hard, rough, in a way I’ve never touched her before. The anxiety in her eyes turns to cold fear.
“What the hell is happening?”
“She’s gone, Javi.” Miel’s voice is quiet, almost inaudible over the roar of the flames. “I’m sorry.”
I swallow hard. “When is she coming back?”
“I don’t think she’s coming back.”
I release my friend’s arm forcefully, pushing her back.
“Why?”
Why would Selina leave now, after all this time? Now that things are finally good? Now that the danger is over, now that we’re in love, now that we’re free?
If she loves me, why would she leave me?
Miel just shakes her head.
“All she told me is that she’s not in danger, and to tell you that. Put a gun to me, I swear I don’t know anything else.”
I’m tempted to do just that, but I don’t. Instead, I collapse into the grass, staring blankly ahead as the last of the Palacios mansion crumbles apart. I could keep interrogating Miel, but I can feel the truth in my bones. Selina is gone, and with her, everything I ever cared about. It doesn’t matter why, or how. All that matters is the sudden hollow in my chest.
“You should have stopped her.”
“Javier, I—”
I refuse to look her in the face, afraid of what I might do. The pain and fury that boils in me now is new, unfamiliar. Uncontrollable.
“Get out.”
“But—”
“If I ever see you in Atlanta again, I’ll shoot you on sight.”
The words sound like they’re coming from another man. And maybe they are.
“What am I supposed to do, Javi?” Her voice breaks on my name, the vulnerability in her tone just as unfamiliar as the cruelty in mine. “Where would I go?”
“Just get away from me, Miel. And don’t ever fucking come back.”
She stands over me for another moment, but then she leaves. My oldest friend in the world, the closest thing I have to family. She walks away, and I let her.
Then I sit on the ground, alone, until the only home I’ve ever known is nothing but a pile of ash.
I told Selina from the start that there was nowhere she could run that I wouldn’t fi
nd her.
I’ll find her.
Even if I spend the rest of my life searching, I will find my princesa.
And when I do, I will chain her up in a basement if that’s what it takes to make her stay for good.
I turn over every five star hotel and flop house in Atlanta, enlisting Brock’s help to comb through footage of every security camera in the city. I spend weeks driving through neighboring counties and small mountain towns, showing everyone I see Selina’s headshot, until the color begins to rub off the paper.
By the time it becomes clear that my wife has left the state, and likely the entire Southeast, I’ve lost a dozen pounds, grown a full beard, and been asked to step down as CEO of Café Palacios.
So I do. I leave it all behind, just like Selina did. I sign away the company, with the caveat that the Palacios family’s usual portion of the proceeds go to Selina’s favorite charities. I donate the land that the mansion once sat on, to be transformed into a shelter for local youth displaced by gang violence. I don’t have them name it after Selina; she wouldn’t want that.
Max’s Haven has a nice, though cheesy, ring to it.
I leave flowers at her parents’ and brother’s graves, take the last of our money, and leave Atlanta.
I know I won’t be coming back.
My first destination is Nantucket. I interrogate Kate, Selina’s old nanny-slash-housekeeper, until she breaks down in tears of terror, but the old woman hasn’t heard from my wife in months.
Then I go to Mexico and Colombia, tracking down Selina’s extended family, facilities connected to Café Palacios, and resorts they used to frequent on family vacations. No one there has seen Selina since she was a child.
I fly to Paris, retracing the journey we took on our honeymoon, then the boozier voyage that she and Max took as teenagers. All I find there is a new level of heartbreaking nostalgia I didn’t know I was capable of.
Caged: The Complete Trilogy Page 44