by Keri Lake
Another suspicious sweep of his eyes, and he gives a nod, stepping aside. “You can use my secretary’s phone. Make it quick. I was just packing up to leave.”
“Of course!” I squeeze past him, shoving my phone back into my pocket. “I loved Father Damon’s homily last Sunday. So refreshing to hear his perspective on the Bible.” I’m bullshitting, obviously. I have no idea what Damon’s homily was about. I just know the few times I’ve heard it over the years, he’s made sense.
“You know of Father Damon?”
“Well, yeah. Doesn’t everyone in this town?”
His eyes rove me again, lingering a little too long on my breasts. Perfect. “I don’t recall seeing you in church, Miss …?”
I hold out my hand, which he takes in a delicate grip. “I’m sorry, I’m Vatehfair Footrah.”
The groove in his forehead wrinkles even more. “Thats … an interesting name.”
“It’s French. This is my brother, Connard.” The smile on my face is all I can do to keep from laughing at the fact that I just called a priest a shithead and told him to fuck off. “So, where is Father Damon?”
“One of our parishioners was badly injured. He left a while ago to pray with his family at the hospital.”
“Is that where he is now?”
“I have no idea where he is now.”
I open my mouth to respond, but don’t get so much as a peep out before Sergio brushes past me, pushing the priest backward onto the desk behind him.
Father’s expression is about as surprised and shocked as my own. “What in God’s name?”
Holding up one of his M-80’s, Sergio looms over the man, looking far more intimidating than the grocery store boy I’ve chatted with the last few weeks. “You know what this is? An explosive, like dynamite. If you value your nutsack, I suggest you tell us where the hell to find this priest.”
Mouth gaping, I stare at this kid who sounds like Scarface right now. “What are you doing?”
“Getting him to talk, and if he doesn’t, I’m kinda looking forward to seeing what this does to a man’s junk.”
“You’re a sick boy, you know that?” I ask, and the panic-riddled glance of the priest suggests he’s thinking the same thing.
Sergio tugs the Zippo out of his pocket and cranks the igniter wheel. “Don’t fuck with me, Holy Man.”
“Tunnels. Th-th-they’re in the tunnels.”
“Where?” I ask, my heartrate increasing with this new information. “The rectory?”
“Yes. There are a couple rooms that were constructed to house refugees and drugs. One of them is used for … interrogations.”
Oh, God. “How many are down there? How many men does he have with him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a half dozen?”
A sigh of defeat beats through my chest. “We’ll have to call the police.”
“You call the police, and they will trip the failsafe before anyone finds them,” the priest offers, his eyes never wavering from the firework hovering over his crotch.
“What failsafe? What are you talking about?”
“In the event of a police raid, they flip a switch in one of the rooms that’s connected to dynamite wired in the walls. It closes off one end of the tunnel, so the only way in, or out, is through Mexicali. They flee, and you’ll never see Father Damon again.”
“Only a portion of the tunnel is lined with the explosives?”
“Yes. It’s marked in the walls how far the explosives are buried.”
“So, if we were on the other side of that threshold, in one of the rooms, we’d be on the same side as the non-exploding half of the tunnel.”
“Yes. The same side as a half dozen members of Exilio. You’d have a better chance of being trapped with lions in a cage.”
“Unless we separate them from Damon, somehow.”
The priest’s gaze flicks from me, to Sergio, and down to the M-eighty, before circuiting back to me. “They’re not stupid, like lemurs falling into a trap.”
My mind spins with a plan that’s probably dumb as hell, but the only chance I have to get Damon out of there alive. Assuming he’s still alive. “Unless they think they’re under attack by more than just one person.”
“Good luck finding anyone to face off with Exilio in this town.”
“We don’t need to find anyone.” A smile stretches my face, and when I look over at Sergio, who wears an equally devious smile, I know he’s thinking the same thing. I think he is, anyway.
Weird if he is, to be honest.
“Well, like I said, buena suerte.”
“Oh. Didn’t we tell you, Father?” Sergio tugs the gun from his pocket—the same gun I specifically told him to leave in the car. “You’re coming with us. Just in case we need a miracle down there.”
“Young man, it is a grievous sin to threaten a man of the cloth.”
“I’ll be sure to repent later.” With a flick of his wrist, he urges him up off the desk and onto his feet. “It’s time to go blow shit up.”
Dim lights hum overhead, as I stand leaning against the walls, half heartedly holding the gun on the priest. Eyes trailing over the concrete and dirt, I wonder what it would take to set off the explosives inside, without pulling the switch.
Crouched to the ground, Sergio sets up a variety pack of fireworks he gathered from his trunk.
“You just … drive around with fireworks in your car?” I ask, over the thrum of anxiety racing through my veins.
Smiling, he lays down an object that looks like a rocket, propping it beside the others stretched across the width of the tunnel. “You’d be surprised how often they come in handy. Pranks. Diversions. Or just messing around, sometimes.”
The plan, as it has haphazardly rolled out, is that the priest and I will venture farther down the tunnel and hide in one of the rooms, until the gang members, lured by the clamor of fireworks, pass through to investigate, then we’ll keep on toward the room that houses the failsafe and flip the magic switch. Assuming Damon isn’t blown up in the process, or any one of us, for that matter, we keep on into Mexicali, where Sergio will pick us up at the restaurant in which the tunnel apparently exits.
I jerk my head toward a small alcove carved into the wall, where a shrine of Mary has been set up. “What’s that for?”
“The workers who built the tunnels. To keep them safe,” the priest says. “Protected, while they worked down here. Aside from the tunnels caving in, I suppose they had the added stress of the explosvies going off.”
“Go off? Like, on their own?” Prompted by the thought of such a thing, I push off from the wall, rubbing the goosebumps along my arms. “How far is the failsafe from the explosion?”
With a shrug, he crosses his arms over his chest. “Few hundred feet, I’m guessing.”
“How did you get involved in all of this?”
Brows raised, he huffs. “Not entirely by choice, if you must know. I agreed to the rectory being used as a means to house refugees, many of whom have endured violence and threats of death. It is the sanctity of this church, of those who follow God, to welcome all.” He tells me this as if he’s compelled to defend himself, but it’s not the refugees I’m inquiring about. “Gordon donated the funds to construct both the house and tunnels. Unfortunately, they happened to be an effective route to transport … other items.”
“Drugs.”
“There is no good without the bad, I suppose. I chose to look away from the bad, in order to focus on the good.”
“The other priests chose not to look away. That’s why they never lasted very long here.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “We may believe in the same God, but you’d be surprised to know how vastly different our opinons can be.”
Sergio jumps to his feet, wiping the dust from his jeans. “Okay. Get ready.” His lips slide into a devious grin. “Showtime.”
38
DAMON
Rope bites into my wrists, the muscles in my shoulders feeling as if they co
uld peel right from the bone. It’s a wonder they don’t snap, the way they’re stretched over my head, with the tips of my shoes scraping across the concrete below me. My eye throbs with the punches that’ve been thrown in amusement. Air saws in and out of my lungs, brushing over each fractured rib, and one of the torturers took some joy in tearing apart my stab wound, paying homage to Miguel for me fighting back.
Through the blur of my torment, the haze of an oncoming blackout, I stare down at the drops of blood falling from my face.
I’ve passed out twice already. Once, when they jabbed an ice pick beneath my fingernail. The other time, all I saw was a wrench coming at me. No idea what they ultimately did with it. Only that I woke up with half my face going numb.
Now, I just wait for death.
The crux of Jesus being nailed to the cross was not that he was so helpless as to die for our sins, but that he refused to exercise the power given to him to prevent it.
I could’ve avoided all of this shit. Kept my head low, my nose out of it, and I’d probably be in bed with Ivy right now, or sipping a glass of whiskey. I wonder if any father, upon finding out that the man who paid to have his family murdered, could possibly avoid the temptation of vengeance.
I personally wouldn’t have blamed God for raining down hell for the murder of his only Son.
“Revenge is the worst kind of torture, isn’t it? There’s no purpose behind it, other than the joy of watching someone suffer.” Hands behind his back, Gordon paces in front of me, somehow looking smaller than before. This whole time, I made the criminal in my head out to be this massive, untouchable mystical creature, and he’s turned out to be nothing more than an aging man, who probably eats prunes to stay regular. “I didn’t know it was you, to be honest. Feel kinda stupid about it now. But, in all fairness, the whole damn state of California thought you were dead.”
“You killed my wife and daughter.”
“I paid for the murder of you and your wife. Your little one was just a … casualty.”
“She was more than a fucking casualty, you piece of shit!”
“You’re right. It’s a damn shame when a child has to die for the stupidity of the parent.”
Grinding my teeth, I try to ignore the sharp stabs of pain that strike my skull. I have no argument for Val. I only understand her motivations, but not even I would’ve been so foolish as to go up against dangerous criminals. Perhaps a consequence of having been raised by one: I was never so ambitious as to save the world from them.
“It’s unfortunate that it was your wife who dealt with your father’s books. In some ways, I blame him for her death. If it hadn’t been me, someone else would’ve come after her, because there ain’t a man on his payroll that’d have wanted the FBI banging on the door. What I did wasn’t personal.”
Through a painful exhale of defeat, I sag against the ropes. “Kill me, if you’re going to kill me.”
“Oh, I’m definitely going to kill you. I just gotta work through all these emotions, first. The betrayal hit me pretty hard.” He twists around toward the three brawny gang members standing behind him, ones who carried out my punishment on his behalf, and jerks his head. “Give me some alone time, boys.” The minute the men step outside of the room, he turns his attention back on me. “Thought we’d have a heart to heart, you and me.”
“You killed Mac, too.”
“You see, in my line of work, it’s important to eliminate all traces of a family name. It’s like an infection. If you don’t treat it entirely, it comes back stronger. More resistant. Hellbent on taking out everything in it’s path. If cancer wasn’t already killing your old man, I’d have taken him out, too. Lord knows he tried coming after me a few times over the years. Every hitman he sent ended up in a shallow grave.” This is news to me, as I’d have never guessed my father would’ve bothered after the way I left New York. “Calvin wasn’t stupid. Didn’t take much convincing to come work for me instead.”
“How did you know it was me?”
Waving his finger in front of me, he shakes his head and chuckles. “Now, that’s the tricky part. I have what are called pajaritos in a number of places where I do business. And in New York? One of my little birds described a man who sounded a lot like you entering your father’s home. The one in LA told me of a woman, whom I look forward to meeting after our … little session here.”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has information. Information is power in my world.”
“Let her go. She’ll leave the country, and you’ll never have to think about her again.”
“Oh, she’ll definitely be leaving the country.” He strokes his beard, and the smile on his face sends a zap of tension through my muscles, begging me to break these ropes and smash it in, just like I did his grandson. “I have friends in Russia who love buying pretty little things like your girlfriend, like real estate. Buy and sell. Buy and sell. And Ariceli, too.”
“What did you do with her?”
“Sold her. What do you think? I was gonna keep her in my house? Send her off to college? No, no. She’s off to be some mail order bride to a business partner of mine.”
Eyes clamped shut, I pray he’s bluffing. That this is merely just another facet of his torture.
“Your son raped her. Raped her. Another man’s daughter. You had a daughter once.”
Out of nowhere, pain explodes across my face, when his fist slams into my jaw. More blood falls to the ground below me. The ache is unbearable, and for a minute, I see two of him.
“I did have a daughter. Watched a half dozen men have their way with her. They killed her afterward. Right in front of me. All in a matter of twenty-six minutes. Ariceli is off to live like a princess, with a man who will give her everything she wants. Don’t try to appeal to my merciful nature. That died alongside my wife and daughter.”
“As did mine,” I grit through clenched teeth.
“Which is why you came all the way down from LA, isn’t it? If the tables were turned right now, wouldn’t I be strung up where you are?”
“You’d already be dead.”
“Well, you’re more to the point than I am. Good for you.” He scratches his jawline and shakes his head. “Tradition dictates that I let all those boys beat you to death. It’s a rite of passage, you might say. When one of their own is hurt, it’s a chance to take revenge, to prove love and loyalty. But shit, they’d have mauled you in a matter of minutes. Like piranhas on tuna. I like to savor it a little bit.”
“What is this place?”
Turning my head to the side offers some relief to the strain in my neck, and I catch him glancing around the room. “This is a special room I had designed underground. Connects to those tunnels. You never said a word about them, did you?” At the slight shake of my head, he groans. “That’s what I mean! Man, I thought you were gonna make it. I liked you! We had rapport, you and me. I don’t get that so much with Javier, but you know what keeps him alive?” He doesn’t give me the opportunity to answer. “He looks away. Been doing it for years. Every other priest gets nosey. Starts asking questions. Starts reporting shit.”
“And they end up down here.”
“Cocky ones do. The others just pack and up and leave quietly. You had that option, too, but you blew it when you messed up my grandson’s face.” Huffing, he strides over to where the chain connected to my arms feeds from the wall by a crank. With the push of a lever, I drop to the floor, landing hard on my shoulder.
Writhing with the pain, I curl into myself and clench my teeth, until it wanes just enough to let go of the tears welling up in my eyes. Still, by some miracle, my shoulder doesn’t pop from the socket.
“I know, you didn’t know it was my grandson. I’m sure, if you had, you’d have probably left it alone.”
“Grandson, or not, the outcome would’ve been the same.”
“Can you stop with the hero shit? I’m already wallowing in disappointment over here.”
The muffled soun
ds of guns popping off bleeds through the thick walls.
It must come as a surprise to Gordon, as well, as he lifts his chin into the air, brows furrowed, eyes aimed toward the commotion outside. His gaze falls on me again, the dark brown of them carrying what I surmise as both confusion and cunning. “You set me up, son?”
The door to the room flies open, and one of his men stumbles in. Just a kid, maybe eighteen, or nineteen years old, holding a gun like it’s a toy. “Sounds like the whole fucking place is under attack! Should we trip the failsafe?”
Groaning in frustration, Gordon rubs his brow and shakes his head. “No, we shouldn’t trip the failsafe until I say we trip the failsafe. Half the fucking tunnel will blow, you idiot. I hired you and your boys to watch my back. Now watch my back and take care of whoever the fuck decided to crash this party!”
The kid runs back out, shutting us in again, and in spite of having no clue what’s going on out there, I play along, hoping it tears away at his confidence. “It’s over, Gordon. Your little operation is over.”
“My little operation isn’t over until the Fat Lady Si—”
Before he can finish, a thunderous explosion shakes the room and bits of dirt fall from the ceiling.
Ringing blares in my ear, and I tip my head to make it stop.
Lights cut out, turning the room to pitch darkness.
A second explosion rattles the room.
Eyes wide open , I see nothing through the blackness. I hear nothing.
When the lights flicker back on, I catch sight of Gordon on his hands and knees, patting around the floor.
His gun lies within reach, and I scoot myself to the side, struggling to grab hold of it with my hands still tied. My finger loops the trigger.
The lights flicker off again, and when they come back on, Gordon is on his feet, his eyes wide, directed at the gun in my hands. He lurches toward me, and that’s the last thing I see before the lights go out again.
I pull the trigger blindly.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.