Dirty Angels - Halle Karina - Страница 49
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There was a pause and the other end of the phone erupted with laughter. It was so loud that I knew The Doctor and Este could hear it. They exchanged a concerned glance with each other.
“Deal?” Salvador spat out when he calmed down. “What was the deal again? An Ephedra lane for my wife? Javier, Javier, Javier. Have you seen my wife? Have you tasted my wife?” His voice grew lower. “If you’re anything like me, you have.”
I’m not anything like you, I thought bitterly.
“But for her beauty and body,” he went on, “do you really think she’s worth a shipping lane? You just might be dumber than I thought.” He snorted and my chest constricted painfully. “The world is full of naive, brainless, helpless women like her. I can pick up another one. In fact, I already have. Several. So no, Javier, I will not be making a deal with you.” He paused. “Chop her fucking head off.”
The line went dead.
Everything inside me went dead. I slowly removed the phone from my ear and stared at it in my hands.
I had been wrong. Luisa had been right. Salvador didn’t want her. I kidnapped her in vain. I wasn’t getting anything in return.
It seemed fitting for a man who loved to fuck so much that I had royally fucked myself over.
“Javier?” The Doctor asked carefully. “What happened?”
I glanced up, meeting Este’s eyes by accident. He immediately grimaced, knowing the look of failure.
“Shit,” he swore. “No fucking deal, hey.”
The Doctor made a tsking sound, leaning forward on his knees. “That is a shame. A real shame. All the time we wasted. And now we look like fools. Well, the only way we can recover from this, Javier,” he said my name sharply so that I would direct my attention to him, “is if we show we don’t mess around. And I know you don’t. Look what happened to Franco. No idle threats there.” He got out of his seat and peered down at me with curiosity. “You know we have to kill her and do it publicly.”
I raised one finger to silence him. It was oh so hard to think when you could barely even breathe. “Give me a minute,” I managed to say. My brain was working on overdrive, trying to figure out a way to save my pride, save my cartel, and save Luisa at the same time. I barely noticed Este leaving the room.
But I certainly noticed when he came back.
I looked up to see Luisa in the doorway looking beyond frightened, Juanito and Este with tight holds on either side of her. Her eyes flew to mine, and in an instant she knew exactly what was happening.
I’m sorry, I mouthed to her. I didn’t know what else to say.
“Ah,” The Doctor said, clapping his hands together gleefully. “Just the woman we wanted to see. Luisa, Javier has something very important and troubling that he’d like to tell you. Don’t you, Javier?”
I wanted nothing more than to chop his fucking head off. My eyes burned into his but he took no notice. He had that look on his face, that dreamy, wistful look that preceded his torturing someone.
I slid my gaze over to her. “Luisa,” I said thickly. “I just spoke with your husband. He doesn’t want to make a deal. You were right. He wants me to chop your head off instead.”
I suppose I could have said that more eloquently.
Her eyes widened for a moment before something passed over them, something that made them grow cold. She was retreating inside herself. I didn’t want that to happen. I wanted her to fight back. Her fight would give me courage to do the same.
“I see,” she said blankly. “Sometimes it’s horrible to be right.”
I nodded and looked to the men. “Do you guys mind excusing us? I need a moment with her alone.”
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. “Javier, you know you have to do what’s right for all of us. As gruesome as it may be.”
“Please go,” I said, my voice growing harder. “Now.”
Juanito, Este, and The Doctor all exchanged a worried look before they reluctantly left the room. As soon as the door shut behind them, I went up to it and locked it before turning to look at Luisa.
We stared at each other for a long moment. There was so much to say and yet so little.
“So this is it,” she said.
I shook my head and went over to her, grabbing her face in my hands. “No. This isn’t it. I won’t let this happen if you won’t. Tell me you’ll fight this. Promise me.”
She stared up at me in the open need to believe. “How can I fight?”
I licked my lips and looked away. “I don’t know. The cartel will suffer—I will suffer—if we don’t deliver. We all follow through on what we say we’re going to do. If we say we’re going to kill you, then we have to do it.”
“Then find someone else,” she cried out, her eyes dancing feverishly. “Go into the village, go and find a woman, a hooker, someone, anyone, anyone that looks like me. Bring her back here and tie her up and film it. Cover up her face in a bag and take her fucking head right off!”
I jerked my chin into my neck. Where had this brutal Luisa come from?
She smiled and shook me. “It will work,” she assured me. “Killing another woman instead.”
“No,” I said, watching her closely. “It won’t. They might want proof of your actual head.”
“Then let me stay here,” she said. “You don’t have to kill me. You can tell them no. You’re their boss.”
“I know I am. But that doesn’t help with pride, with image.”
“Fuck your pride!” she yelled, her face contorted. “What the fuck has that ever gotten you?”
She didn’t understand. “It’s gotten me everything,” I told her.
She made a sweeping gesture to the room. “All these dear things you love so much,” she said sarcastically. “All your fucking flowers and your clothes and your money and the shitheads who work for you.”
I rubbed my face in my hands, trying to get a grip, trying to get control back. I felt like I’d lost it many days ago, somewhere deep inside of her. No matter what I chose, I was going to suffer in some way.
“Look,” I said carefully, slowly meeting her wild eyes. “If you stay here, even if the cartel can’t save face, what do you think happens to your parents? If you run off into the jungle, what do you think will happen to your parents? If we kill some other woman and pretend it’s you—what do you think will happen to your parents?” Her face fell and I took a step toward her again. “You’re not thinking straight. You’re thinking out of survival and instinct, and that’s good because that means you’re finally being selfish. But you’ve got a pure heart, my darling. You wouldn’t be able to be selfish for long. I don’t want you living or dying with that kind of regret on your shoulders.”
She seemed to think about that for some time, her eyes staring at a blank spot on my shirt. I could almost see the wheels turning inside, that fight to survive and the fight to protect the ones she loved.
I hoped I wasn’t included on that list.
When she came to a conclusion it looked like she was wearing the weight of the world on her face. She looked me dead in the eye and said, “I have to go back to Salvador.”
I frowned, a bolt of panic going through me. “What? No.”
She nodded and raised her chin defiantly. “Yes. It’s the only way. I have to go back to him. I have to be his wife again. It’s the only way I can live and keep my parents alive at the same time.”
I grabbed her by the hand and squeezed hard, hoping to press some sense into her. “But you won’t be alive for long,” I hissed at her. “You know what that man will do to you. Christ, what happens when he sees my name on your back!”
“You never cared about that before.”
“But I do now! You can’t do this, this is a death wish for fuck’s sake.”
“I will do this,” she said, her voice growing calmer by the moment, as if she had made peace with the horrible fear. “You’ll let me go. Even better, you’ll have someone drop me off in Culiacan. I’ll wander around until someone spots me. The whole city knows who I am, the whole city is still under my power. I’ll tell them what happened—that I knew I was going to be executed. I’ll tell them I escaped and that I’ve come to beg my husband to take me back, that he made the right choice by picking his business, that there are no hard feelings. I will grovel. And to save his own face, to save his own fucking pride, he will take me back into his house.” She swallowed. “And I … I will be his wife again. Just as before.”
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