by Karina Halle
The minute I was behind the cover of the palms and reeds, I collapsed to the ground, just feet from my usual spot. The look in Javier’s eyes, the sincerity in his words, kept flashing through my mind, stabbing me over and over again.
It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt me. It’s that he wanted me to hear the truth.
That horrible, bitter truth that seemed to be stuck in my throat, and I was unable to dislodge it no matter how hard I tried to fight.
The tears came, broken at first, just like me. Fragments of sobs. I felt like a little girl, curled up on the floor of the closet after a fight with my parents. My mind even wanted to hold on to the hope that Javier would feel bad for what he’d said, what he’d done, that he would show remorse, worry, that he would come out here looking for me. That he’d scoop me up in his arms and tell me that we would get through this. That we could survive.
That he loved me.
But I knew that wouldn’t happen, because he was right. I knew what I was getting into when I married him. I knew he wasn’t like most men; in fact, I’d never known anyone like him. So ruthless and cunning, but with tenderness, loyalty, and a twisted code of morals hidden deep inside him.
All the good in him vanished with Alana, and the Javier that was left was a walking ghost. And I had promised, for better or for worse, to stay by his side.
So I was stuck with a man who no longer wanted me to be a part of his life. But there was no way I could up and leave either. How do you leave one of the most powerful men in the country? You don’t. You stay and you keep quiet.
And the worst part was, as much as I was falling out of love … I still loved him something terrible.
Love was a terrible thing.
I lay down in that grass, mosquitos buzzing at my ears that I didn’t bother to swat away. Let them suck me dry, let them take the last of me.
“Luisa?” I heard Esteban’s voice in the dark. Footsteps and his presence over me followed. I didn’t want to move, didn’t want to acknowledge him.
I felt him crouch beside me, and he put his hand on my arm. His skin was soft and warm, and the contact seemed to bring comfort. I would have taken anything as comfort at that point. I realized just then how starved for affection and attention I was.
Before I opened my eyes, I realized that Esteban had been the only person to offer me anything recently. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“Luisa,” he said again, gently now. I looked up at him and saw nothing but concern in those green eyes of his. They stood out in such sharp contrast to the scar on his cheek. Like Javier, he was a man comprised of both good and bad, with the bad side often pushed to the extreme. But now, when I needed it most, he was offering me the good.
I was such a fool.
“Hey,” I said softly.
“What happened?” he asked, hand now on my hand. I didn’t brush him away.
“Marital problems,” I managed to say. I sighed and slowly lifted myself so I was sitting up. Bats began to fly overheard, snatching up the evening’s insects.
“I figured as much,” he said, settling down to sit beside me. “I talked to Juanito, hey.”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly wary. “It wasn’t his fault he told me. He thought I knew.”
“As you should have. I thought Javier would have at least informed you on when we were leaving and that you would have to stay behind.”
I swallowed hard, feeling the pinch again. The rejection.
“I’ll talk to him though,” he went on. “Let him know how ridiculous he’s being. You’re a team, you two. You’re just as much in this business as he is. You’ve made some incredibly insightful moves, you know, and I know he needs to be reminded of all this. If it weren’t for your own plans and ideas, we wouldn’t have the cocaine pipeline from Columbia.”
I nodded absently. It was true that I had been contributing to the organization, even finding ways for us to expand. But that was all past tense now. Still, it was nice that Esteban remembered.
“No need to talk to him,” I told him. “He won’t listen. He doesn’t care. He says he’s keeping me safe but … it’s not just that. He doesn’t consider me part of the family anymore.”
“Then he’s an idiot,” Esteban said. “There’s a time to grieve and there’s a time to move on. He can’t treat his own wife like she’s no longer a part of him. He can’t just kick you to the curb. Doesn’t he see how wonderful you are?”
His words made my heart flip, just a little. It was jarring to hear anything nice about myself, especially coming from him.
“I don’t think he cares if I’m wonderful or not. I’m just in the way.”
Esteban shook his head and grabbed my hand again. “Luisa, I wasn’t kidding when I told you that you deserve better than this. You do. And you know it. That’s what pains me.”
I eyed him. “I don’t think you know anything about pain.”
A stiff smile came across his lips. “No? Maybe you don’t know much about me.”
He was right about that. I actually knew very little about Esteban Mendoza. Maybe it was about time I started.
He seemed to lean in closer as he said, “You could let me in, hey? I’d like that. I would like you to get to know me. You might like what you find. You might find we have more in common than you think.”
There was a glittering intensity in his eyes that I hard time looking away from. I tried to remind myself that this was Esteban, the man who decided it was fun to taser me at one point. Granted, I had been trying to escape at the time. Perhaps now, in the position I was in, I couldn’t say I’d do anything differently.
Maybe we were alike.
Finally I had to look away, my gaze directed at the base of the palm in front of us. In the grainy twilight I could barely make out tiny red ants scurrying up the tree. They had absolutely no interest in the brutality of our compound, the screams or the breaking hearts or the ending marriages or the lives full of bad choices in order to live selfishly. They didn’t care. We were insignificant to them.
Suddenly, Esteban reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, a disarmingly tender gesture. I couldn’t help but freeze, afraid for my eyes to meet his again, afraid that this weird electric current in the air was more than it should have been.
“I won’t leave you behind,” he said. “You’re coming with me tomorrow.”
With us, I wanted to say. But I didn’t. Because at that moment, what he said sounded real.
I wanted real.
I just wasn’t prepared for how real it was going to get.
CHAPTER SIX
Javier
I wouldn’t admit many things to people, but I would admit a lot to myself. And when I hit Luisa, I knew I had done wrong. Taken it too far. That I’d become less of a man for doing that.
All my life, I thought I could operate under my own code of morals and ideals. It was no different than most, I supposed. The cop who had to shoot someone in self defense. The soldiers that go to war and raid villages in the name of freedom. Everyone made excuses for what they did, because they believed in it. Because they believed they were in the right.
I had always thought of myself as a somewhat civilized, almost classy, narco. I, at least, wanted to bring purpose and grace to what I did. I didn’t believe in killing mercilessly. I believed in mercy, in forgiveness, in giving people second chances. I believed in letting people go after I got what I wanted from them.
I believed that to snitch was an outrage, even though we were dealing and fighting and killing each other to work in a billion dollar industry. I believed that religious celebrations were to be respected. I believed that family came first. I believed that women and children were not to be harmed.
I believed a lot of things. I also believed that I would never hit any woman. I knew that it didn’t make sense, considering that I could carve up their backs without a sweat. But there was something elegant and sexual about knife play. Whips, chains, ropes? Sure. But to hit was ugly. Brutal.
Unbecoming.
Cheap.
So when I found myself striking Luisa across the face, I thought for a moment that perhaps I had lost my mind. Never mind the needless, senseless deaths that were at my hands over the past few months. Never mind that I had broken promises to others and to myself. Dirty, filthy promises. It was then and only then that I knew I had lost who I was. That every moral fiber that I based myself on was threadbare, and I was close, oh so close, to losing all sense of myself forever.
It scared me. I watched her leave the room, and though I was reeling from her own words, the callous ones that reached deep inside me and left a scar, I knew I might have damaged her beyond repair. I could heal myself in time, but could she? Would we? I didn’t think so.
I tried to tell myself that it was for the best. That things were so strained between us that we never had a chance of coming back. But the fact was, I didn’t want her near me anymore. Not because I didn’t love her, but because I didn’t want to do that again. I didn’t want to see that look in her eyes, the betrayal. Not just because of how I slapped her, but because the truth was, I was a terrible, horrible husband. Unfaithful, cruel, and cold.
I knew she wouldn’t be in my bed that night; regardless, I decided to sleep on the small couch in the office. Perhaps a mistake, considering the big day I had ahead of myself. I needed as much sleep as possible.
But who was I kidding. I didn’t even close my eyes for a second, and it had nothing to do with the couch. I kept seeing Luisa in the black and did what I could to absorb the guilt that was threatening to eat me from the inside out. So I did what I always did when it came to those kind of feelings — I blocked them out, shut them down, and told myself I didn’t feel a thing.
The next morning there was a knock at the door. I’d just finished doing my morning exercises, push-ups and sit-ups to get the blood flowing, and a small part of me was hoping it was Luisa, perhaps here to apologize, maybe to spare me from apologizing to her.
But it was Este. He came in and gave me the once over.
“You look like shit, esé,” he said, and though his tone was juvenile as always, he didn’t smirk. In fact, he looked rather grave.
“Even on my best days, I’d rather look like shit than you,” I answered quickly, reaching for the hand towel and dabbing the last vestiges of sweat from my face. “What do you want? We don’t have much time before we push off.”
“It’s about Luisa,” he said. He was hesitant, probing.
I made sure I gave him nothing to go on. “What about her?”
“I don’t think …” He paused then seemed to compose his thoughts. “It’s not safe to leave her here, Javi. I know you trust Artur and the others, and I do too, but I just don’t think it sends the right message.”
I eyed him curiously. “And what message is that?”
“That you’re afraid to bring her along,” he said. “Or that you just don’t care for her anymore.” He seemed to watch me closely. “That makes you both more vulnerable.”
“She’ll be fine here,” I said, even though I was starting to doubt it myself. What if I came back and she was gone? I remembered everything I’d said to her last night but it all still scared me. I wanted to push her away, yet at the same time the thought of losing her entirely wasn’t something I could handle at the moment.
“Will she?” He folded his arms across his chest. “How do you know that?”
“Because I would kill anyone who would let harm come to her.”
“Be that as it may, she would be dead. And all you’d have is the chance to kill someone who fucked up, which isn’t anything new. Listen … do you really want that blood on your hands?”
I cocked my head, appraising him, wondering what his angle was here. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re a lot easier to deal with when she’s around,” he said. “And you listen to her. At least, you used to. She might be a good person to have during the interrogations of Evaristo, just to keep you in check. You don’t want to bring out your machete on him, not right away.”
“Not ever,” I said quickly, knowing we’d already done enough damage when one of the sicarios — who was lying in a dusty grave somewhere — took out a federale during the raid. “Look, what’s been happening …” I ran my hand through my hair then shook it off, standing up straight. “I will stay true to my word with Sanchez. I want him because I want someone else. When I get the info, I’ll let him go. I’m not stupid enough to anger the federales.”
“Well, then I believe you,” he said. He stepped closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder. I eyed it warily. “I don’t often get hunches, Javi, but when I do I listen to them. Trust me when I say that leaving her here would be a big mistake. You need her still, even though you think you don’t. She’s more than just your wife — she’s good for all of us.”
Well, here was something fucking new. Esteban being sincere and somewhat emotional. I wasn’t sure I liked it. In fact, I didn’t like it at all. Emotions got you killed in this business. But he was making sense, and I knew that if something happened to Luisa, I’d never forgive myself. Besides, the ranch was no less safe than here.
I just nodded and stepped away from his hand. “You go tell her, then. She needs to be packed up in twenty minutes.”
He grinned at me like he’d won the lottery and quickly left the room. I stood there in the middle of my office for a good minute or two, my brain trying to focus on something in Este’s smile. When I couldn’t figure out what it was, I started packing.
***
Helicopter travel comes with some risks, but you can’t beat the immediate payoff. I hopped into the craft with Diego, Esteban, Luisa, and our trusted pilot, and headed off to the finca in the Chihuahuan Desert, while the rest of the crew would come via a protected convoy of armed SUVs.
Luisa was sitting beside me, staring out the window at the scenery below with wide eyes as the landscape changed from the verdant mountains of Sinaloa into the fawn-colored desert as we headed deeper inland.
To me, there was nothing more beautiful than the desert. While others found it boring, I found it stark, rough, and relentless, filled with a million hidden things that wanted to kill you. The desert demanded our respect, and in return, it would clear your head and remind you how damn insignificant you really were.
I needed that sometimes. Sitting here in one of my nicest white linen suits, being chauffeured by one of the many helicopters that I owned, a whole world at my feet, sometimes it was good to humble me, just a bit. Humility only made me want to work harder.
Luisa shifted in her seat, trying to get a better look at one of the craggy canyons that opened wide and long below, rust, taupe, and coffee-colored sands stretching into the distance. She was wearing a short but simple black dress that lifted as she strained to see, and her perfect legs, toned and golden brown, were on display.
I felt my dick twitch in my pants and took a deep breath through my nose. Aside from the other night, I hadn’t been this close to her in what felt like forever, and it was hard not to just flip her on her knees and maul her right here. It didn’t matter that we weren’t alone, the patron could get away with more than just murder.
Luisa would have allowed a public fuck under normal circumstances, but today she wasn’t even looking me in the eye. I couldn’t blame her. Even though she did a good job with her makeup, you could still see the puffy red mark on her cheek. She kept her hair on it, flowing dramatically over that side of her face, but I knew it was there. We all did.
Besides, it was still for the best to keep her as far away from me as possible. Even though she was coming to the ranch, she would be put in her own room, and I would be spending as much time with Evaristo as needed.
I wondered how long and what it would take to make him talk. Perhaps he’d be a pussy like so many agents and cough it up right away. After all, what was it to him if we nabbed Hernandez? One less narco to deal with — isn’t that what they wanted? Though the thought of
him giving in made the whole situation a little less fun.
I looked at the rest of the cabin and saw Esteban leering over Luisa in the same way that I had. I frowned, watching him carefully, waiting for him to remember where he was and that he wasn’t supposed to ogle the patron’s wife.
Eventually, the corner of Este’s mouth lifted slightly, as if he were smiling to himself. The expression in his eyes, though, was anything but happy. It was carnal, something I wasn’t used to seeing from him. I swallowed the slight sense of unease I had, telling myself that I was prepared for anything.
It wasn’t long until I spotted the ranch on the horizon. I nudged Luisa with my shoulder, and she glanced at me with hardened eyes.
I nodded at it. “There she is. Your new home for the next while.”
She nodded, silent, and looked back.
The ranch was located down a five kilometer dirt road off the desolate highway sixty-seven. The closest town — La Perla — was nothing more than a few houses and dusty shops, a hard place where the locals would lean back against their adobe houses and squint into the sun, beer in hand, wondering where the years had gone.
We flew close to the sandy road, following it as it led to the compound, the dust whirring beneath the rotors. I’d picked out the spot myself last year when we snatched the property from a narco who wasn’t following the rules. There were other fincas, properties to hide in, but I liked this one the best. It wasn’t all harsh desert either. There was a wash that had some water trickling through it during the winter, and mesquite trees lined it, providing shade. The rest of the property sat beneath the rocky crag that hid a family of coyotes at its base and a golden eagle’s nest at the top.
The chopper touched down on the landing pad, which was located between the long garage and the barn. The horses in the outer pasture ran away from the sound, their tails flying in the wind.
“Oh,” Luisa said excitedly, and when she turned to look at me, I saw the woman I fell in love with. “I didn’t know you had horses.”