by Karina Halle
“Ah the federales,” I said. “I finally get to meet Mexico’s finest puta.”
Next thing I saw was the butt of the rifle.
Heard the crack of my nose.
And everything went black.
***
When I came to, I was being brought to my feet by a man who had horrible B.O. and being forced into a helicopter.
“Get him in,” someone yelled and it’s then that I felt the heat of the fire. I raised my head, my vision swimming, and saw the ranch burning down. Federales were everywhere and everyone that belonged to me was gone.
Everyone except Esteban and Luisa.
They were a few yards away, beside a convoy of SUVs, their faces lit by fire.
For one beautiful instant I was so damn grateful that Luisa was alive.
But then I became aware of what I was really looking at.
I was in handcuffs, being hauled into the helicopter, federales and their guns trained on me.
Esteban and Luisa were uncuffed. They were free. They were wrapped in rescue blankets, as if the federales had tended to them, fucking kissed their boo-boos and put Band-Aids on them. They weren’t even being watched, except for an agent who walked past Esteban and put his hand on his shoulder, whispering something in his ear.
Esteban kept his eyes on me, ablaze in the flames. His mouth curled in a slight smile.
He wore a look I hoped I’d never see.
The look that said, “I win.”
Then he turned and walked away toward the SUVS, pulling Luisa with him.
She was staring at me in utter horror, throwing the looks over her shoulder, as if she couldn’t quite believe it all.
I’m not sure if the horror was meant for me and my fate in prison.
Or for what she’d just done.
It wasn’t enough that they’d had an affair.
The two of them had set me up.
They’d turned me in.
And they’d rule the empire – my empire – together.
The chopper lifted off and as I stared blankly at the ground below, the two of them got smaller, along with the blazing ranch and the desert hills. It didn’t feel like I was flying though.
It felt like I was falling.
I was heading for rock bottom.
And if the impact didn’t kill me, it was going to fucking hurt like hell.
After everything I’d worked so hard for, in the end, love could have been my ruin.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Luisa
It had all happened in the blink of an eye. My world shifted from one horrific scene to another. One moment it looked like Javier was going to kill the both of us, the next moment the whole world exploded.
I didn’t even have time to react. Even though Esteban had seemed shocked, he acted right away, scooping me up and throwing me over his shoulder as we headed for the door. I screamed for Javier. I knew he’d gone down but I couldn’t see him in the darkness, the power all out and the only light coming from the flames licking the hole in the side of the room.
But Esteban didn’t stop. He kept running until we were in the kitchen. Even though it was late, Evelyn was there, with a rifle in her hands and she was telling us we were under attack, to get to safety. She didn’t even blink at the fact that we were both naked and together.
Esteban pulled me outside to the porch and I looked inside just in time to see Evelyn firing at men in black, masks on their faces.
The federales.
Many of them, one of her.
I turned away before I saw the result.
Esteban still had a stronghold on me and led me out to the dirt road that would take you to La Perla. In the distance, headlights and flashing sirens lit up the sand, coming our way.
“What are we going to do?” I asked him. “We have to get Javier.”
“Javier is gone,” he said, coming to a stop but still holding on. “He’s going to try and escape out his tunnel. Notice that you weren’t included.”
“We left him on the floor!” I yelled and suddenly reality hit me, that he could have been hurt or dead. I tried to run back but Esteban swung me around until I went flying into the dirt.
“I just saved your fucking life,” he said, nearly spitting at me. “You think he wouldn’t have killed us both in there?”
I got to my knees just as the cars pulled up, their headlights illuminating our naked bodies. “We need to run!” I told him, trying to run but he was fast and pulled me up by my hair.
“There’s no running Luisa, not anymore,” he said.
I gasped from the pain, my eyes wild as I looked over at the masked federales getting out of the cars, their guns aimed at us. I felt like it was all going to end in a second.
Javier Bernal’s wife and right-hand man in custody?
Game over.
The federales yelled at us to get our hands in the air and we complied, even though the darkness, the distance, was calling my name. I could run. Find Javier, make sure he was okay. I could save myself at least.
But to move would mean death.
A man stepped out of the first car, tall and extra forbidding with his bullet proof vest, the black helmet, the mask.
“Esteban,” he said.
Esteban nodded. “If he’s anywhere he’s in the tunnel.”
My mouth dropped. How quickly he sold him out!
“We already have our guys on the other end,” the soldier said. “It should be a clean capture.” He turned his sharp eyes to me. “Luisa. I’m Adan Garcia Ruiz. We’re sorry it had to come to this. But you’ll be better off this way. We’ve promised Esteban his protection and yours.”
I stared at them for a moment while one of the soldier’s approached us, holding out silver emergency blankets to cover us up.
“Protection, why?” I asked as I snatched the blanket, taking a step away from them and quickly wrapping myself up.
Ruiz and Esteban exchanged a look. “We made a deal,” Ruiz explained. “We didn’t want to but we saw an opportunity. Your husband for your freedom.”
I stared at Esteban, my heart picking up speed. “You set this up? You sold us out!?”
“I sold out Javier,” he said calmly, wrapping the blanket around his waist, like it was a towel and he was just stepping out of a spa. “It was the right thing to do. He had too much power and the cartel was bound to collapse in time. I just speeded it up.” He gave me a wry smile. “I was tired of the business. Figured this was the only way I could retire and live the simple life on a beach somewhere. Spend my days surfing.”
I couldn’t believe it. I just shook my head, my fingers curling over my heart.
Javier.
All this time, Esteban had been setting him up.
“That’s bullshit,” I sneered at him. “You just want to take over.”
“We’ll be watching him. And you,” Ruiz said. “To make sure that doesn’t happen. But at the same time we’re grateful. Let’s just hope that Evaristo is still alive.”
“He is,” I said feebly. “Javier only wanted information on Hernandez and the Tijuana cartel. He kept to his word and let him go.”
God, at least I hoped he let him go. If the federales captured Javier, it could be the difference between life and prison and killing him on the spot.
And still, I couldn’t believe any of this. I closed my eyes and prayed that Javier would somehow escape, that maybe Diego saw the tunnel had been compromised, that he got wind of a snitch. Javier had already done prison once in America, before I had met him, but now if he were caught, he’d be put in Puente Grande. Where the worst of Mexico’s worst would go.
And with so many narcos in there already, families torn apart and lives shattered by the drug trade, by our cartel, Javier could be fair game.
He would get no special treatment, the federales would make sure of that.
He was in for many years of hell.
And me, I was free.
For the first time in my life, it wasn’t what I want
ed.
I wanted to collapse right on the ground. I guess the soldier closest to me saw that because he put his arm out and led me over to the SUV, placing me inside and giving me a bottle of water. He was saying something to me, but I didn’t remember what it was because all I could think about was Javier.
After everything, he was still everything.
I don’t know how long I was sitting there for. The ranch house went up in flames. I never saw Evelyn again or Borrero, Morales, Diego, Juanito. Javier. It was like Esteban and I were the only ones who got out alive.
Then there was a roar of crunching tires and headlights appeared around the small hill behind the blazing house. They pulled right up next to a helicopter, the blades slowly starting to rotate.
The doors of one of the SUV’s opened and that’s when I saw Javier. Seemingly unconscious and being dragged by two beefy soldiers, but he was there and he was alive.
He was alive.
And he was about to be taken from me forever.
Without thinking, I suddenly jumped up and out of the car, running toward him, my blanket trailing behind me. The sharp rocks and cacti pierced my bare feet but I couldn’t feel them.
“Javier!” I yelled but he didn’t stir and I could hear soldier’s running after me. Esteban was the first to catch up.
He put his hand on my shoulder, nails digging in and pulling me back. One of the other soldiers stepped in front of my vision briefly, yelling at me to forget it, turn around and head to the cars.
I stopped and watched and hoped that Javier would wake up and see me. The soldier backed off and I shrugged off Esteban’s hand.
Look at me, Javier, look at me, I thought. Please be all right.
But when he did come to, just as he was being put into the chopper, I realized my wish had been dangerous. Whatever confusion he felt was gone as his gaze sharpened and he saw me. He saw us.
We were free. He was captured.
His eyes broke my damn heart.
His eyes that told me that he knew what I had done and that he would never be the same. His eyes that told me I ruined him to the very ground.
As the chopper lifted up, I knew I was dead to him.
And I would most likely never see my husband alive again.
***
I didn’t remember much after the federales’ raid. Three days passed in a blur and I was high as a kite on some kind of pills that the federales kept giving me. Every moment that I was coherent, I collapsed into rage or a sobbing fit, unable to get it all out, everything that was killing me inside.
I couldn’t stop blaming myself. I couldn’t stop bleeding over Javier.
After a while, I welcomed the pills.
Though Evaristo had been tortured, damaged, the fact that he was alive seemed to soften the federales attitudes toward us. Then again, Esteban told them that Javier wanted to kill him and Esteban went out of his way to ensure that wouldn’t happen.
It was a lie that did my head in but in my drugged state, I couldn’t do much but sleep and cry.
Esteban and I had been taken back to an unmarked facility in Culiacan that seemed to be half medical facility, half intelligence offices. I spent my days in a small room, with a nurse and I only saw Esteban on occasion or sometimes Ruiz. On my last day, I saw Evaristo who had been recovering nicely and had backed-up Esteban’s story, that he was the reason he was alive.
“Why are you lying?” I asked him, slurring my words as I tried to sit up.
Evaristo put his hands on my shoulders, holding me steady. “Because it doesn’t make any difference to your husband now. And believe it or not, Esteban’s lie is saving your life. You’ll walk out of here soon a free woman.”
“The federales never would have killed me,” I told him.
He smiled but didn’t say anything more.
Finally I was allowed to leave with Esteban. We were set loose on the streets and though it didn’t take long for Esteban to quickly wrangle up a car for us, I couldn’t help but feel that we were being watched with every step we took. Esteban might have traded Javier for our freedom but what kind of freedom would it be. I needed to escape somewhere far away, to get out from the shadow of the federales and the cartels.
But I couldn’t even do that. Because I was a useless mess.
For the first time since I left Cabo and walked off with Salvador Reyes, I knew I was nothing more than a lost little girl, powerless at the hands of men.
An SUV pulled up on the busy street and for a moment I thought Esteban would just let me walk away. Maybe I could disappear into the crowds and start my life over again. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be real and it would be mine.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Esteban quickly grabbed my arm and then opened the back door to the SUV, roughly shoving me inside. The doors all immediately locked and I was surprised to see Juanito in the driver’s seat.
He didn’t seem ashamed in the slightest. In fact, he looked proud as he glanced at me in the rear-view mirror, his posture straight and chin high.
As we drove through the city and then toward the hills, I couldn’t figure out if Juanito was acting for me or Esteban. After all, though Javier was in prison and none of us would probably see him again, as long as he was alive he would still run his business. That’s just how it worked and why so many government agents from both Mexico and America would rather the kingpins be dead. Dead was dead but prison hardly hampered their career.
It wasn’t until we arrived at the compound, my home, that I knew the stone cold truth.
This was no longer my home. It was no longer my compound.
I was no longer queen.
On the fence at the entrance, where the guard house was, the gardener Carlos’s head was on a post. He had been decapitated, blood dripping from his severed neck, his once genial face frozen in fear, in anguish, a warning of all that would happen to me.
I could only watch as we passed by, my stomach sinking as six or seven men with AK’s swarmed the vehicle, following us down the driveway. When we came to a stop, Esteban opened his door, then reached across for me and grabbed me by the hair. I yelped as he dragged me out of the car, threw me down on the cement.
The ground cut my knees and elbows and I tried to get to my feet but Esteban kicked me squarely in the shoulder. Pain radiated from my bones as I fell backward to the ground.
“You’re home, Luisa,” Esteban sneered. I brushed my hair away from my face, feeling like a panicked, cornered animal as the men gathered around me, Esteban standing in the middle of them all and staring down at me with a look of such utter superiority it made me sick.
There was no way he could just take over the cartel like this, not with Javier in prison. My husband had far too many people loyal to him to let this happen.
Yet, as I looked around wildly I couldn’t see a single familiar face. Only Juanito and from his eager, completely unapologetic expression I knew he wasn’t the Juanito I’d known.
Everyone was a stranger and I was in a hell of a lot of trouble.
I didn’t know what to do or say. I tried to scramble to my feet but Esteban was quick and kicked out again, this time the tip of his shoe catching my chin. My jaw slammed together and more stars began to spin outward from my vision. Somehow I didn’t collapse to the ground, though blood immediately filled my mouth. I had a few seconds to make a decision as the men seemed to close in on me, Esteban laughing now, everything sounding like I was underwater.
I could plead for my life, for my place here. I could try and reason with Esteban.
Or I could fight.
The thing was, I knew either choice would end more or less the same way. And even though “more or less” sometimes meant the difference between life and death in our world, both options were bleak.
I chose to fight.
I got to my feet, unsteady and lilting to the right a little, but I did it. Holding my jaw, I raised my chin and look at Esteban right in the eyes.
“I am still queen,�
� I said, though it was more of a mumble, though moving my mouth made me nauseous. I said it as proudly as I could, looking at the depraved and ugly faces of the men around me. “And by law, this is my land, my home, and you are all still employees of my cartel.”
There was a pause before the men all glanced at each other and started laughing, as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever heard. So much machoism in this country, it didn’t matter if I was in power of a cartel or just a simple woman wanting a job. The men always treated you like a joke if you were anything more than a whore or a mother.
Esteban wasn’t laughing though. He was glaring at me as if he couldn’t believe I had the nerve to stand up to him. He didn’t want to hear the truth, that by my marriage to Javier, everything was really and truly all mine.
The truth hurt. And now I knew he was going to make me pay for it.
“Is that so?” Esteban finally said, unable to hide the irritation in his voice. “You must think you’re in the wrong country, hey. There are no laws here. You should know that more than any of us, beauty queen.” He eyed the men and jerked his chin at me. “Get her.”
My body turned on instinct and I immediately began running for the house, the front door just twenty feet away, but before I could, someone reached out and tackled me from behind, sending me flying into the gardenia that lined the edge of the wall.
I screamed but it was futile. Hands, so many hands, grabbing my body, pulling me up and then seeming to pull me apart.
One of the men, the biggest one, lifted me up by my throat, his fat, thick fingers pressing into my jaw. The pain was so intense, I prayed I’d pass out but I didn’t. By some sick, cruel world joke, I didn’t.
“We don’t bow to no queen,” the man said, his nose swollen with purplish veins, his breath so sour I could have gagged if I wasn’t being choked already. His grip tightened until I was sure my windpipe had been crushed in. Light danced before my eyes.
“Don’t kill her,” I heard Esteban calmly say in the background. “Just teach her a thing or two.”
The man grunted and then marched forward, still holding me by the throat, until I was up against one of the white pillars by the door. He banged my head against it, hard, the pain shooting down my spine, while my arms were pulled behind the pillar by someone else and handcuffs were place around my wrists. Two men grabbed a hold of my legs so I couldn’t move.