“Are you serious?” Chip let his head fall back into the headrest. “Goddammit, I’d sooner tell my mum than her.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Chip?” I hissed. “As if you couldn’t find whatever you want in Miami after you drop me off?”
“Not the same, love,” said Chip. “Achille’s is extraordinary, not that ammonia and gasoline laced junk they make out in paint buckets in the jungle. He was telling us that his stuff is made in a state of the art lab, by scientists.” He closed his eyes and moaned as if recalling a prior experience. “It’s like super-coke. I’ve never tried anything like it.”
“He’s a drug dealer?” I felt the blood drain from my face, everything Rafa had said about Achille suddenly making perfect sense. Drugs. That’s why Rafa wanted nothing to do with him. “I’m not getting off this plane.”
“Sweetheart,” said Chip, visibly annoyed. “Let’s not make a scene in a foreign country. You don’t have to partake, but don’t start freaking out or making calls back home about it. They monitor everything, especially communication. In fact, your American phone probably won’t even work there, so just relax, will you?”
“It’s fine, Amanda.” Charlotte tapped the heel of her boot on the floor of the plane. “We’re going to the Hotel Nacional. It’s beautiful. You look around, have a drink or two, and in a couple of hours we’ll be ready to go.”
“You’re going with them?” I asked, incredulous. I’d literally had no idea who my friends were all these years.
“Well, hell yes,” sniffed Charlotte. “I mean if it’s that good, I have to try it. Too bad Chip and James and those two sluts back there haven’t shared any. Just found out they’ve all been coked up since Monte Carlo.”
“Charlotte! Have you always been into this?” I gestured to Chip and everyone else on the plane. “Wait, you said, ‘we have a rule’ about not bringing anything on planes. You do this often?”
“Don’t be mad.” She tugged on one of her long braids and shrugged her shoulders. “We do on occasion, when the opportunity presents itself.”
“What if you get caught? Cuba is one of those places where the government has zero tolerance for drugs, like Singapore.” I was in an absolute panic at the thought of all of us in a Cuban jail. Everything Rafa had told me about the government had scared the living hell out of me, and now I couldn’t believe I was in the same precarious situation Rafa had almost died trying to leave. I glanced at Achille, who was of course listening in on our conversation.
“That was before, Amanda,” he said, calm as ever. “It’s a whole new ballgame out here now. Who do you think I’m meeting with?”
“One hour,” I spat, my entire body now stiff as a board. I refused to look directly at Achille now that I knew the truth, but I made myself clear to all of them. “If we’re not back in the air headed toward Miami in one goddammed hour, I’m calling Kieran’s plane and getting the fuck out of there.” Then to Charlotte, I said, “Lose my number.”
“An hour is plenty,” nodded Chip, his mouth a straight line. “Just make sure you hold your shit together until then, will you?” He shot a glance at Charlotte as if he was going to kill her later for telling me the truth.
The Hotel Nacional was as beautiful as Rafa had described, but as I walked the lobby and grounds alone, I felt sick to my stomach. I wasn’t really willing to trust anything Chip or his friends said anymore, but I did believe what they’d said about communications being monitored because Rafa had told me many stories about how carefully he’d been watched at home and abroad. There were tourists everywhere from all over the world at the hotel, having fun and behaving as they would anywhere else, oblivious to the political regime that was so cruel to its own people. If one observed the faces of the locals carefully, it was easy to see there was a great deal of pain hiding behind their practiced smiles. Aside from the antiquated buildings and vehicles, the landscape and weather were virtually identical to Miami, even the people were similar, but something here was just off.
The art deco style of the decaying property was just as lovely as the most celebrated buildings in New York, but being in Cuba without Rafa felt so wrong that I wanted to just close my eyes until we were back on the plane. If we were still together he’d be beside himself knowing I was here in his home, without him to guide me and show me everything about his life before us. It felt like a betrayal of the highest order, and I wanted nothing more than to leave as soon as possible, to get away from these horrible people I’d once thought were my friends, and from the city that had so radically defined Rafa’s life.
Supremely uncomfortable, I went back up after having a quick look around. I’d refused to go anywhere near Chip and James’ party suite, so Achille had given me the use of a small room on the opposite side of the same floor, presumably to keep me quiet and happy. It was quite meager by American standards, even down to the unlabeled toiletries that looked as if they’d been refilled many times over from some larger bottle in housekeeping, and the blue carpet was simple and shabby, an odd pairing with the heavy purple velvet curtains carefully draped across two small windows. I couldn’t see any real pillows under the bedspread, so I simply sat in the pale yellow armchair across from the bed and waited for Charlotte to let me know it was time to go.
I was sure Rafa had been to this hotel, but I wondered if he could have ever possibly been in this room, or one just like it, attending to a tourist who’d called for a doctor. I let my mind wander and thought about what he must have been like in his professional life, before he even had any inkling of leaving Cuba. He would have been self-assured as always, but even more so in his own country, communicating in his own language as a highly regarded professional. No one would have been clapping their hands at him to fetch another drink or cook another plate of pasta. Here, not even a year ago, he would have been treated with deference by everyone, and yes, life might be better for him now, but how utterly shocking it must it have been for him to go from respected physician to illiterate waiter in the blink of an eye. Yet Rafa never thought in those terms, always unconcerned with prestige or status. For him every person was of equal importance and had something beautiful to offer in their own way. It was probably that philosophy that got him through the toughest of times in his life, whether he was up or down, but it was more than self-preservation: he believed it with all of his heart.
And now here I was in Rafa’s home, the beloved country he feared he might never see again, gambling with my freedom by waiting to rejoin a group of drug addicts after they finished their party upstairs. He’d warned me over and over to keep away from Achille, to always stay close to him, my family, because I was unprepared for the harsh realities outside of my comfortable cocoon, and my only my response had been to carry on about my rights and freedoms. Your life has been quite different from mine, and you’ve not yet learned that most of the world doesn’t give a shit about your rights. Rafa and I might be about the same age, but he’d lived much more than I had, and I’d been too preoccupied with asserting my independence to listen to the voice of experience. He’d know exactly what to do now, while I could only sit and cower in a corner of this strange hotel room, frozen in fear. If I called him now, it could put us both in danger and yield nothing, yet I toyed with the idea and fingered my phone, wondering how I could reach him and explain the trouble I was in without alerting anyone who might be listening.
I opened the phone app and scrolled down to the R’s, expecting to find his name at the top of the list as usual, but instead found Robin, my mechanic, Rob’s where I ordered takeout, and Ruben, the landscaper. Somehow Rafa’s number was gone, and I didn’t know the whole thing by heart. On impulse, I checked to see if there was some file for deleted numbers like deleted photos, but there was nothing. However, I did see the number one in parentheses next to a blocked numbers option on the menu, and never having used it, opened it to see what was there. It was Rafa’s number, and I knew it was his because I remembered the last three numbers, 131, my father’s bi
rthday. Had I gotten drunk one night and blocked it after one of his many calls? Impossible, I hadn’t even known the function was there. I quickly unblocked it and returned it to my contacts list, then hit the green button, only find that the call couldn’t go through anyway, as the words ‘no service’ had popped up on the home screen next to the low battery icon, rendering my phone completely useless. Starting to panic, I tried to think about what I could do instead. James, Chip and Charlotte would never let me borrow their phones at this point, and Emily and Ashley’s phones would be out of service like mine. I looked at the landline beside the bed and wondered how difficult it would be to reach Kieran or Rafa if something went wrong, but then it occurred to me that perhaps there was some hotel Wi-Fi I could use, and just as I was reading from a sign on the desk that I could go down and purchase a Wi-Fi card for seven dollars, the door swung open and Achille entered, the key card in his right hand and a bottle of wine in his left.
“Amanda, are you alright?” he asked, a genuine look of concern on his face. He didn’t appear any different than earlier, leading me to wonder if he was at all interested in the poison he so readily made available to his friends. “They’re finishing up. I’m sorry you’re upset, but to this crowd it’s nothing. They’ve never grown up, I’m afraid.”
“Stop right there,” I said, jumping to my feet, an arm outstretched in his direction. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Why?” he said, ignoring my request. He moved toward me and stood about five feet away, blocking the door. “I had business here, and that was it. You may not like it, but I assure you no one will give our group a hard time. I told you, my arrangements are made at the highest levels.”
“No!” I said, almost in tears. “That’s why Rafa will have nothing to do with you, isn’t it? He’s not difficult, or an inexperienced businessman, it’s that he knows what you are, and he hates drugs. In fact, he’s helping a wonderful young man clean up right now. Don’t you understand the damage you do by dealing in that garbage?”
“Alex,” said Achille with a sigh. Defeated, he sat in the yellow armchair, his long legs still outstretched between me and the door.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Alex is the young man. He’s an important client of mine. Very well connected. Unfortunately I’m finding it very difficult to reach him these days, thanks to De Leon.”
“Oh my god,” I said, everything starting to click into place. “Is Alex the thing you want that Rafa won’t give you?”
“Amanda,” he said, placing the key and wine on the side table. “You really do talk about your ex far too much. Why don’t you start thinking about your future, with me? I meant what I said. I want us to get married. I need a partner polished enough to aid my political career. You’re the only woman I’ve met I would who could be a worthy first lady.”
“First lady of what?” I couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“Haiti. Cuba.” He shrugged. “Who knows what might be in store for us.”
“You’re out of your mind, Achille,” I said softly, backing away. “You think you’re going to become president of a country by dealing drugs?”
“Do you think it’s done any other way?” he laughed.
“Get out,” I said shakily. “I want nothing to do with you. If you don’t leave, I’ll scream.”
“Go ahead. And when they get here, they’ll find the cocaine I hid in the room earlier, track you down and arrest you and your friends long before you can arrange a flight out on your own. James’ plane will be impounded, and the six of you will have quite a time with the Cuban justice system. I have friends in high places, Amanda. My word means much more here than yours.” In a daze, I tumbled onto the bed, aware that I was way out of my depth.
“I want to go home,” I pleaded.
“Not for a while, I’m afraid. I’ve set Chip and the rest up quite nicely. I predict they’ll go on for about three days, then need at least another two to recover.”
“But you just said—” I barely recognized my own voice, it had become so small. I started to feel nauseous, the smells in the room becoming more pronounced by the minute, a sure sign of an impending migraine.
“We’ll be on our way after that,” said Achille, “but not to Miami. I want you to spend a little time with me at my lovely home in Haiti. If you still aren’t convinced, then I give you my word we can part ways on good terms. But I insist you at least meet my counselor, Grégoire, and give me an opportunity to make my case. He’ll advise the best course of action and tell us if our coupling will be fortuitous. Doesn’t that sound better than an extended stay in a Cuban jail on drug charges?”
“Your word means shit. There’s no way you’ll let me leave once we’re in Haiti. You’ll do something so I can’t or won’t leave. I’m trapped, and you planned it that way.”
“I told your beloved Rafa exactly what would happen if he didn’t give Alex back, and this is how he played it. You only have him to thank for this situation. But his loss is my gain, if you just give me a chance.”
“Unbelievable,” I stammered. I went over the events of the trip since Monte Carlo, certain I had to be missing something. “How could you possibly have worked it out so that I’d be traveling with your friend?”
“You’re book smart, but not very street smart, I’m afraid.” Achille’s golden eyes glowed with amusement. “I followed you from Miami and waited for the right time to approach. Chip and I met for the first time in Monaco, at the bar. I know a couple of rich kid cokeheads when I see them, Amanda, and a long time ago I learned how to capitalize on the weaknesses of others. Amazing what lengths they’ll go to for virtually unlimited access to high quality product: let you on their private plane, introduce you to their friends, fly wherever you want to pick up more. Nothing seems excessive when you’re in that state of mind. It’s the principle my entire business is built on. Hell, entire countries are built on it.”
“You made it all up?” I stammered, though I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything at this point. “Even the boarding school was bullshit?’
“Absolutely not,” he said, insulted. “I went to Chantemerle, not Rosey, and my boat is the Amilèt, not the Belinda. Everything else is true.”
“Not everything,” I said, an ugly feeling spreading deep in my gut. “It only took thirty minutes for me to decide to leave Miami and get on a plane, yet you happened to be watching at that exact moment, ready to follow. I don’t care what you say, I know you had something to do with that redhead. You set Rafa up.” Achille shifted his weight in his chair, presumably debating whether or not to come clean. “You stole my phone that night in Monte Carlo and blocked his number, then pretended to find it the next day. Holy shit, I gave the whole table my passcode at dinner,” I said, hiding my face in disbelief. I couldn’t believe how naive I’d been about everything, but then I had an epiphany. “I was a fool, but Rafa’s gut instinct about you was spot on. The minute he saw you among decent people he knew you didn’t belong.”
“Enough!” he bellowed. Achille sprang up from the chair and pushed me down on the bed, nostrils flaring. “If you don’t want me to lose my temper, I suggest you relax and have a glass of wine while I make our travel arrangements. I’ve earned some time alone with you.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It wasn’t called the 812 Superfast for nothing. Amada’s blood red Ferrari chewed up the road between Boxwood and Madrina’s with controlled speed and precision, its motor growling as if begging to be opened up to even half of its full potential of over two hundred miles an hour. I still had too much alcohol in my system to drive, so I had no choice but to call that weasel Mauricio at the gate house and have him take me to Madrina’s. However, I didn’t waste the opportunity to berate him every second of the trip, and even though I was sobering up quickly I still felt exceptionally uninhibited and talkative.
“You have no idea the trouble you caused, do you, comemierda? I heard she cracked you one. You’re lucky that’s all you got,
idiot.” Mauricio glanced at me and then fixed his eyes on the road. “What the hell were you thinking, forcing her to go home when she wanted to come to me?” I turned and sized him up, taking in his beady eyes, weak jaw, greasy skin. Yep, he even looked pathetic.
“I was afraid she’d attack the girl and—”
“Shut up!” I bellowed. “You,” I said, pointing right at his nose, “just fucking drive.”
“Yes, sir,” he muttered under his breath, racing the rest of the way to Madrina’s. He’d surely been told to stay off my radar for a while, so being this close was probably something he hadn’t planned on anytime soon. To his credit, he let me go on at length about his epic fuck up without responding to even a single word, so by the time we got to the restaurant, I had vented enough to feel significantly less animosity toward him. Besides, there were much bigger issues at hand, namely Achille Demarais.
Sandro met me at the circle drive, shooing Mauricio away as soon as the car was in park. “Boss, about twenty-five of Los Treinta are here,” he said, following me inside. “The rest are on their way.”
I’d called an emergency meeting for three o’clock with full confidence that everyone in our circle of trust, or as Sandro had begun to call them, Los Treinta, would attend. A crucial part of the membership agreement specified that any member could call a meeting at any time, and unless there were extenuating circumstances, failure to attend would result in immediate expulsion from the organization. Accordingly, by the time I joined the others at the oval conference table, all but one of the thirty seats were occupied, the last one waiting for me. At three in the afternoon on a Friday, most of the members had already been in weekend mode, in casual clothes, though some were still in business attire and medical scrubs. Each person at the table had dropped everything to be here, as it should be. I’d showered and thrown on the first thing I saw in the closet, a white Oxford shirt and khakis, thankfully remembering it was Friday, my day to wear Changó’s necklace as requested.
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