And when he smiled, God, when he smiled, it was like my whole life lit up. He had this powerful, raw, consuming smile that filled his entire face.
While few saw the soft side of Javi, I got it all the time. Most people saw a quiet, determined, and very rough around the edges boy. I saw a man full of heart, passion, and drive.
In the midst of this storm, in the midst of my loss—our loss, he was giving me his strength. I kissed him back taking all that he would give me. I wanted to drown in the passion building between us. I wanted to be tumbling awash in this sea of emotion. I wanted the world to stop spinning, time to stop ticking, and everything to cease to be but Javi and me. For a moment, I didn’t want to think of my mother’s lifeless body in the next room. For just a moment, I wanted to pretend this was real and not Javi being caught up in his emotions and my own.
He pulled away. I was breathless, but not from the kiss like everyone said happens, but from my own emotions. I never understood why people said they were breathless from a kiss; I mean it wasn’t like my nose was covered up. Now, though, I felt it, I got it, and I was a panting mess. This was powerful. It was some dumb all-consuming thing that I knew I shouldn’t feel but I couldn’t stop.
“You okay?” Javi asked gently. He was always soft and kind with me.
Life in Juarez wasn’t easy. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Maricio and Javi always having someone with me on the occasions they couldn’t personally escort me, I would have been raped or worse by now. It truly was rare for a girl to make it to fifteen with her virginity. The men here were ruthless savages. They weren’t kind or gentle. They saw whatever they wanted and they took it.
Some people judged and any outsider would say Javi and Maricio should stay away from the cartels. But those people, they didn’t know.
They didn’t know what it was to sleep without actually sleeping.
They didn’t know what it was to walk the streets knowing at any moment you could be grabbed and brutalized.
They didn’t know that a girl of my age, body-type, and innocence could bring in millions to a virgin auction.
They didn’t know because like every single person in Juarez, they wanted to pretend.
They wanted to believe there was hope for our city.
They wanted to believe it wouldn’t happen to them.
They wanted to find comfort in a fantasy.
I did not.
I may have been young. I may have been poor. I may not have had a clue about how to get there, but one thing I knew for sure was I would leave this place behind.
My mother lay dead in the next room. My father would not return for us. No, life was now mine to take and I would take it to the fucking top.
That was the gift Javier Almanza gave me the day my mother died. The confidence to take on the world.
“I’m okay, Javi.” My voice didn’t come out as strong as I wanted. “I’m a little lost, but I’m okay.”
“Relax, mi cielito,” he told me softly.
“Javi, what’s gonna happen?”
Casually, he played with my hair while I settled beside him with my head on his chest and my body pressed to his.
“Maricio and I will handle everything. Paco said the expenses are paid. Don’t worry, Mari. I got you. I’ve always got you.”
Truer words had never been spoken. Javi had me alright, I just wasn’t sure if he knew how much he had me. I wasn’t sure I could even describe how much he had me. Watching my mother be so lost to a man for so long, I had this wall. I told myself I would never be weak to a man. The way Javi just kissed me, I was weak. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t altogether hate it either. This was a problem. A problem I was not in any way, shape, or form equipped to handle.
“No one will take you from me, Mari. Not now and not ever,” Javi reassured me, knowing both our fathers told us how the government could take us from our family if something happened while they were away.
“You mean it, Javi?” I asked like some lovestruck girl.
The bigger problem was I was some lovestruck idiot. We were young. Far too young. I had been dealt a harsh blow just moments ago, and yet, as I laid here in his arms, I needed him to tell me I would always be with him. I needed the very reassurance he delivered. With every passing second I was falling into the abyss. The void where emotions were in control instead of my head. Always think with your head, Mari, I chastised myself pushing everything down.
“Whatever it takes, Mari.”
I sighed unsure of what happened next.
“Tell me your dreams, mi cielito.”
I pressed his chest to pull away so I could look him in the eyes. “You know my dreams.”
“No, Mari, tell me your future. Tell me our future.”
I could see the depths of his soul looking at me in that room, on that bed, in that very second. Javier Almanza was giving me the world—his world.
“I want to get married one day, but not here. I don’t want to stay in Juarez.”
“Anywhere in the world, where would you want to be, mi cielito?” His voice rumbled through his chest as I rested against him again.
“America. Not to be cliché, but I want to go to America. I want to be free from the fear. I want to live in the land of possibilities.”
I allowed the dreams to fill my mind.
“I want to have babies, maybe two. I want to have a house, not a big one but a good size home where I have a big kitchen table so we can all be together and eat at the holidays. I want to be close to Luciana.”
“Me too,” he said and I felt his sorrow. “I wasn’t a good brother. I’ve been bitter. That ends today.”
“She understands, Javi.”
“Whether she understands or not, I have not been kind. We aren’t promised a single extra moment in this life and I’ve wasted many with my grudge. She did what we all want to do. She found a way out of Juarez.”
“With a man,” I muttered letting my own bitterness show.
“True. So you wouldn’t leave with a man or for a man?”
“Not like she did. I would leave with you and Maricio because we are family. But no, I don’t want to meet a man and take off like she did. Frederick has been kind to her, but she relies on him for everything. I don’t want to depend on a man. I don’t want to be like our mothers, Javi. I don’t want to wait on a check from some man who left me and my kids behind. I don’t want to be a servant to a man where I have to cook his meals, clean his house, and have his babies to have security in life. I want to be free. I don’t want to have to walk home from school wondering if the wrong man will approach me. I don’t want to be worried about you or Maricio getting caught with the drugs and being taken away from me. I just want to have mi familia, our family, Javi.”
“My girl has big dreams,” he whispered.
“What are your dreams, Javi?”
He twisted to lie on his side and tipped my chin to look up at him. “I want to be free to love. I want to be free from worry. I want a life with mi familia, our family, Mari. I want the sun to rise and the sun to set without fear for you or Mamá. I want to give you a house in America where you and my mamá can cook whatever you like while Maricio and I grow fat bellies.” He laughed and it was Heaven in the midst of such a Hell.
“Thank you, Javi,” I said softly as my emotions built back up. “For a moment you took away the loss and let me have a future.”
Javi stared at me sternly. The look was so fierce I got shivers and goosebumps all over my body. “You have a future and it’s with me, Mari Belle Dominguez. Do not ever doubt where you belong or what is to come. I’m gonna get us out of here, you will see. Your mamá wouldn’t want you in Juarez forever. She’s your angel now, our angel and she won’t let us lose anymore. You are mine to protect, Mari. You are mine.” The last two sentences came out in a pained growl.
His lips crashed against mine. It was intense. Gone was the soft and slow he gave me before. Javier Almanza was making a declaration with his lips, his tongue, and his wh
ole mouth on mine.
It was clear.
I was his.
He was mine.
We would have a future and it wouldn’t be here.
I could dream with him. I could be with him. And he would do anything and everything to give me, to give us, this future.
In that moment, I fell hard and fast. I fell for a bitter boy. I fell for a broken boy. I fell for a battered by life boy.
I gave my heart to the man.
I gave my heart to the man he would become. The man who took my dreams on as his own. The man who took my pain, claimed it, swallowed it down, and gave me the freedom to express it, feel it, and release it.
Javier Almanza was powerful.
No one saw it yet.
I knew, though.
In that moment I knew he was so much more than any man who ever dared to stand in his way. I knew he was destined for a place few could achieve. I knew Javi was determined in a way that no one would ever hold him back.
I knew when he gave me his word that without a doubt it would be.
For Javier Almanza had enough struggles in life. He had enough loss. He had enough bad things, period. He wouldn’t lose again.
This gave me warmth in my belly as I gave him back a promise of my own.
Through thick and thin, for as long as it took, I would have his back. I would support him both in word and actions, whatever dream he chased.
Javier Almanza wasn’t just going after a life for himself, but a life for us.
A love for us.
Chapter Five
Javier
Three years later
“Who knew shit could be this good?” Maricio asked before snorting a line of cocaine up his fucking nose. The noise grated on my nerves every fucking time he did it. The way he wiped the white shit from under his nostrils, the way they flared, and the way his eyes would dilate, it all ate me up inside.
In moments, he was doing his one-two-three hops trying to get a handle on the energy coursing through him from the poison now flowing through his veins. The knowledge that he was so far gone into the life bothered me to no end, but one thing I knew at the age of nineteen—you couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to save themselves. I think that’s what stung the deepest.
Keeping my aviator sunglasses in place, I don’t give him the chance to see my eyes or read me. Instead, I kept shit real like always. “Fuckin’ hate when you do that shit, bro.” I told him the same shit I said every fucking time he took a line in front of me.
“Javi, don’t be a pussy. We earn this shit.”
I shook my head back and forth because I didn’t agree. We earned money. The money that bought Mamá a house and kept Mari Belle in that expensive as fuck Catholic high school. We had a car now for ourselves. We had things, clothes, jewelry, televisions, and more. That’s what we earned. Getting hooked on dope? No, that was a slick move by Paco to keep us in line. I wasn’t a dumb fucker. Maricio and I may both be dropouts, but stupid I was not. Paco wanted us hooked on the drugs. Then we wouldn’t dare challenge him or anyone in the cartel.
While I wouldn’t be questioning anyone, I also wouldn’t get myself hooked on anything more than pussy. I lived my life my way now. Nineteen years old, and I supported my family. Proudly. I crossed a line into illegal activities without a doubt, but I didn’t cross the lines of my own moral code—drugs and women, I didn’t touch them. While I would fuck a broad, I wouldn’t hurt one. While I had killed a man, I wouldn’t end a woman or child. My code to live by, regardless of what my associates did. Maricio, he would do anything Paco said as long as he got high before he did it.
Yeah, watching him made me more determined. I wasn’t about to be dependent on anyone or anything but myself.
My father failed our family. I wouldn’t be the next man to let my mother down.
Maricio couldn’t see beyond the haze of his drug induced stupor to understand he had fucked up. When he was high, he was a pain in the ass. When he was sober, he was a pain in the ass looking to get high. Paco had him right where he wanted him. Paco had the power, not Maricio.
No soldier would fall out of line when the shit you wanted pumping through your veins was handed to you on a silver platter by your General. That was Paco, he was like our General. While Miguel Silvia had attended Maria Luisa’s wake and service along with covering the bills, the man rarely spoke to us. In fact, we had only seen him once in the three years since her death. Paco, he was the one we couldn’t shake. He was everywhere.
Paco wasn’t a bad guy, but I don’t think it could be said that he was good either. He called us his hijos, his sons, like we were familia. But really, in the back of my mind, I always wondered what kind of man didn’t want his sons to better themselves? He knew firsthand the dangers of this lifestyle, having been shot in the past. Why, if he loved us so much, would he want this life for us?
Opportunity, that was why.
He saw an opportunity with us years ago and he took it. With no father figure to guide us or lead by example, we were easy prey. Now that he had us, well, he could set us up however he saw fit. He knew we would fall in line because what other choices did we have. If I had stayed in school when he pushed us to drop out, it would have been like I was questioning the Cartel. One thing no one did was question the Cartel. You did as you were told without deviation.
This was a life game. You got in it and the only way out was in a box. The kind of box they bury six feet under and forget.
It wasn’t some blood in, blood out thing like in the movies. I didn’t have my first kill until my eighteenth birthday. I was brought in as a boy on a bike to take the fall if shit hit the fan. My life was a desperate cry for survival. I didn’t want help, I wanted to earn my way and I did. But my options at ten were shit and Miguel Silvia gave me a chance. His organization gave me more than my father ever did. Paco was part of that. So, even if I saw through his bullshit, I took it.
I took it because when Maricio and I had shit, they gave us a way out. They gave us an opportunity. While Maricio might snort his, I would make mine work for me for the rest of my life.
I didn’t have a way out now and I knew it. I accepted my fate. So, like a man chasing a legit career goal and dream, I was going to work my way all the way to the top. Silvia wouldn’t live forever. I knew what I had to do—keep my head down and do the fucking work. One job at a time, earn my place.
Time was my best fucking friend and I had plenty of it.
“You ready?” I asked Maricio once he seemed to have control of his high.
“You betcha, bro,” he answered me confidently before he led the way inside Miguel’s home.
We were in Colonia Juarez which was in the valley of Piedras Verdes River on the edge of the flatlands of Chihuahua. From the front gate, we could look out and see the big temple for the Mormons. Paco always said Miguel kept his house here because he watched the LDS (Church of Latter Day Saints) Church. He wanted the power they had. The following of people who were so devout.
I never got that impression from Miguel.
Paco was the power seeker. Miguel had it, so why did Paco chase it so fiercely? It didn’t make sense to me, but I didn’t care to question it either.
The gates opened and Maricio and I walked through them. It was the rule, never drive a car through Silvia gates unless you were Miguel Silvia or carried his last name. If you weren’t his blood, you walked into his world and if you were lucky you could walk back out.
The brick paved driveway was laid by hand as Miguel’s way to give back to the locals, Paco said. I took it as the man needed a job done and there were plenty of workers here in town willing to put in the sweat. Some things weren’t complicated unless you made them so and I preferred to keep my shit simple.
With my glasses in place, we made it to the front door where we were greeted and allowed in by Gabriel. He was Miguel’s top man. He led us to the conference room on the first floor just to the right of the front door. Miguel’s house was huge, prob
ably well over six thousand square feet. In all the years we had been working for the Silvia Cartel, we were never allowed any further into the home or around the property than this. Miguel took his privacy seriously and I understood that. A man in his position could trust no one.
Taking our places at the end of the table, I kept my glasses down like always. My eyes weren’t for anyone to read but my mother, Maricio when I wanted him to, and Mari Belle. My mirror lensed aviator sunglasses were always in place, even at night. Since my first kill when Paco was in my ear telling me not to let them read me, I put the glasses on and never looked back.
“Bienvenido,” Miguel welcomed us as everyone settled and Gabriel closed the door.
We all nodded and murmured our replies.
Miguel wasn’t a tall and overbearing man. While smaller in size, he had a look of venom in his eyes and a scar that ran across his neck as a reminder to enemies and friends alike that he overcame death before. It was said he sold his soul to the Devil to make him invincible. I didn’t buy into the myth, but there wasn’t a single doubt in my mind he was fearless.
He wore a dark navy suit today with a blood red shirt. An envelope in his hand was slid down the table to Maricio.
“Dominguez, we are setting you up in America. With your sister and Almanza here, crossing the border won’t be questioned so thoroughly and we have someone to help with the crossing. So here is your paperwork. You will make a life in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We have you set and ready. So pack your bag, your keys to your home are inside, as is the address. You will be our point person.”
Maricio was shocked speechless, but he nodded his head. My mind raced.
“Your sister stays here with Almanza,” Miguel explained and I let the relief wash over me. Maricio was unpredictable on the drugs. Mari was safer with me. “They will marry after her eighteenth birthday, which is in three weeks. Quick service, you need not be here for it. I am sure Almanza will handle it appropriately.” His gaze shifted to me. “Almanza, you will have one month from her birthday to give her your name or I give her to someone else.”
Cartel B!tch: Almanza Crime Family Duet Page 4
