“You were a statue carved from everything I was taught to fear.”
“You have nothing to fear from me.” Yes, I do. “Do you have a destination? Or is it just a magical mystery tour with guns?”
“You’re letting me go?” I’m shocked.
“Stay off the main roads,” he says sharply. “Your car’s been reported. Take mine. If you want to be a shadow in this world, you need to think like a shadow. Stick to dark corners. Reach your location by dawn, and trust no one. At least you can shoot a gun... Aim for the head or the heart, and never hesitate.”
“I won’t.” We hold each other’s gazes. I feel like I’m driving away in that taxi again, only this time there’s an ache in my chest where my heart used to be. “Why are you doing this, Joseph?”
“Take the road trip. Get your shit together. Go all fucking Thelma and Louise in South America. Who am I to judge?”
“If you love someone, set them free,” I say, without thinking.
“Don't confuse this with love, Luna.” His voice is cold steel suddenly. “I won’t... I can’t. That part of me is dead and buried. When you said you’d never feel that way about a man like me, I felt relief, not defeat.” He pauses to let this seep in and settle.
“Just finger fucking then,” I say, giving him a weak smile.
“Don't be discriminative… My tongue’s holding you to that promise.” And just like that he’s wrapping me up in the warm coat of his lust again. “Get your arm seen to. This time when I say you’re bleeding out, it’s not metaphorical. Wrap the towel tighter. Keep it elevated. You’ll find Advil in the car. If you need help, call Eve. She knows how to get ahold of me.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Will you ever tell me why I was stolen by Bratva?” I blurt out, needing confirmation suddenly. “I’m assuming it was Bratva… Nice Russian men don’t tend to rape and humiliate you for days and days.”
My admittance is so heavy it forces both of our gazes to the floor.
“It was the same trafficking ring that Santiago and I were targeting last year, yes,” he admits reluctantly. “The same group Eve infiltrated in Miami... They got to you through her.” He shifts his weight, and I know he’s lying about something.
“Why didn't you tell me this before?”
He shrugs.
That’s it? That’s all I’m worth?
“You said I was ‘making my own right’ earlier. Is that what you’re doing now?” Are you trying to make up for something, Joseph?
“I try.” His mask slips again, and I see the wasteland of the war he wages with himself. He was a US Marine once. Decorated. Honorable. Eve told me all about it. It’s where he met Dante: The man who turns everything he touches to darkness. “I mitigate the damage where I can. When I kill, I kill for a reason. It wasn’t always that way.”
Bruised. The word hits me out of nowhere. It’s what he is. He’s damaged fruit. Below his surface, he’s as mutilated as I am.
The door opens. Vi reappears, out of breath and with a roll of black gaffer tape in her hand. I lift the gun back to shoulder height just in time.
“Found this in the trunk,” she announces. “Let’s tie him up and go.”
20
Joseph
I wait until I hear the screech of tires outside, and then I’m ripping off the gaffer tape that’s binding my hands and my feet together. I don’t know whether Anna wound it too thin on purpose, or if she underestimated my strength. Either way, I’m free in a matter of seconds.
I must be out of my mind letting her leave like this. Outside, Colombia is descending into a cloud of cartel gun smoke. Fernandez is already hurling accusations at Gomez and the rest of Los Cinco Grandes. Retaliation is the word on the street in every city across the country, and it has only been a matter of hours since the bodies were discovered. In a day, the same streets will flow with blood. Governments will fall for this. Corruption will rise. This is a chess game where every player chooses white. He who controls the coke channels, controls this place. I should know. This was my fucking life before Dante and I walked away from it.
But amid all the chaos, she’s coming back to life out here. She’s a butterfly emerging from a blood-soaked chrysalis, and it’s stunning to watch. She killed to defend herself, she snatched the power back for herself, and that’s the most beautiful metamorphosis of all.
I’m high on it.
Willing to take chances for it.
Willing to piss Dante off for it.
I’m slackening her leash and keeping my distance. I say slackening… I’m not letting her off it completely. I know where she’s going, or I will when I pull up the stats on the GPS tracking device I attached to the wheelbase of Gomez’s car. As soon as I have a location, I’ll be building an invisible fortress around her. I can only give her four days grace before Dante arrives, but it’s a start. It’s a show of fucking faith.
I rise to my feet and roll my aching shoulders back. The room still smells of vanilla, orange blossom and sex. When she screamed my name earlier, when her fingers unleashed those six months of hurt and suppression, I found myself palming her cunt to get a taste of it. Feeling her throb against my skin had nearly undone me. Being that close to her had damn near consumed me.
And then she asked the question.
Bratva.
Did I know more? I know everything. Is guilt one of the seven deadly sins? If not, then it should be.
My cell starts ringing as I’m walking out of the door.
“Dante.”
“Grayson. I’ve put the word out to the Five that we had nothing to do with Santa Perdito.”
“Think they’ll buy it?”
“They better,” he says coldly. “If shit doesn’t die down, I’ll be joining you at that table in a couple of days.”
“As what, a bloody-handed intermediary?” It’s a fitting description for him. If there’s an opportunity to kill, he’s not the type to walk on by. “You’re assuming there’ll still be a table, and not a pile of firewood by then…”
“Oh, there’ll be a table,” he says with a growl. “And every single member of Los Cinco Grandes will be warming their respective chairs. That’s if they don’t want me resurrecting my legacy.”
“Is that a possibility?” I’m surprised. Cartel life isn’t conducive to happy marriages, and I know he values that most of all.
“It’s more of a heavy threat at this stage. Eve has no fucking desire to live in Colombia, and I have no desire to expose myself like that. Talk about an American Interference clusterfuck… The CIA would be hounding our asses, day and night.”
I go mute when I reach the girls’ discarded vehicle, trying each of the four doors in turn. The driver one gives me pass. I swing into the seat and check the casing under the wheel, cursing as I slice my finger on the edge of the plastic.
“What the fuck are you doing?” asks Dante curiously.
“Hot wiring a car,” I say, opening the door wider for more light. “It’s an old vehicle so I need to smash in the key mechanism.”
“Side business, is it?” he drawls, sounding amused.
“Long story with a satisfactory sub-ending.”
I think about Anna’s face when she climaxed. How I caught a split-second glimpse of the woman in red on the sidewalk. She isn’t like any other drug I’ve ever known. She’s an elixir for all the dead and useless parts of me.
“Give me an update on the women,” he says, losing patience. In the background I can hear a baby crying. It’s drags me back to a time when I had a baby crying in my life too.
“I’m closing in on them.” The engine roars into life.
“Have you seen her?”
“Anna?”
“No, the other one.”
“Yes, I’ve seen her.” What the hell is up with him and this woman? “She’s a pain in the ass, like you said.”
“Starting all this shit is the least of it… What did she look like?”
“Are you trying to make me lose my shit on purpose?”
Go fuck yourself, Dante. I have a serious case of blue balls, I haven't had a shower in two days and I need a goddamn drink. “Why don’t you stop dicking around and tell me what’s really going on?”
There’s silence on the line. “Did you take a look at her eyes?”
“Her eyes?” The unthinkable slips into my path like landfall, and I slam my foot down on the brake. “I swear to God, Santiago… If you have some secret woman down here in Colombia I will hunt you down for Eve myself.”
He blows out a harsh breath. “Grayson, the day I look at another woman will be the same day I find religion staring down the barrel of my own fucking gun. Call my question a curiosity.”
“I’ll call it something else if you don’t start talking to me.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t recognize her yourself.”
This stops me in my tracks. I knew I’d seen her before.
Dragging my mind back, I replay the action by the outdoor vending machine, with my hand pressed tight over her mouth as those two fireballs tried to knock me on my ass.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter, as the dots connect, depicting a face I’d never thought about or had any goddamn desire to see again. “Did you know he had a daughter?”
“I heard a rumor. Figured it was hearsay. Figured the truth was all twisted up like the inside of his fucking head. The man was screwing half the whores in Colombia and busy slitting the throats of the rest. So I ignored it. Hoped it would go away. Then I took a phone call yesterday, and now my ass has bite marks all over it. She’s not a fan of me, as you can imagine,” he adds dryly.
“Who else knows about her?” Unease has paced my voice to a slow drawl. I sound like a fucking Bond villain.
“Us, and one other.”
“You planning on terminating her?”
“That's the idea.”
I hang up without saying goodbye. All I can think about is Anna driving off into a soon-to-be sunrise with the spawn of a second devil, riding shotgun.
I let her go.
I fucking let her go.
Without hesitating, I tap a code into my cell and bring up the tracking device stats from Gomez’s car. She’s heading south, with nearly a half hour of driving time on me.
I chuck my cell onto the dash and hit the gas, eating up the same route like I’m a Pac-Man chasing down the bad guys. Correction. One bad girl, and another with the propensity to fuck all our shit up. There’s giving Anna freedom, and then there’s giving her enough rope to wrap around her delicate white throat and hang herself from the rafters.
I nudge the car to top speed with one thought ripping up my insides. If Anna gets brave and spills about our connection to her new BFF, there’s not a single phase of the moon that will save her from decades of bad blood.
She’ll be leaving Colombia in a body bag.
21
Anna
“Did you see it? Did you fucking see it?”
“See what?”
Vi’s acting wild and crazy. She keeps swiping her hair behind her ears and dragging the back of her hand across her mouth.
“The scorpion. Hijueputa! I never ever wanted to see that scorpion back in this country again.”
I go blank for a minute, and then I remember the tattoo on Joseph’s bicep. “You mean—”
“Yes!”
She overtakes a rusty pickup, and then swerves to miss an oncoming delivery truck. The skyline is a gradient of blue and black. It’s the last trick of night before dawn shows us her big reveal. I can see the sloping shoulders of a mountain range in the distance. Our headlights are revealing small shacks and endless fields by the roadside. We’re keeping off the main highways like he told me to, but it’s killing our progress. The bends are vicious. The lack of road maintenance is worse.
“Loads of people have scorpion tattoos,” I say, trying to reason with her.
“It’s the Santiago cartel insignia.” She curses in Spanish before sucking in a breath. “What the hell are they doing back here, Anna? Why are they hunting us? Their allegiance is with the Gomez cartel, not Fernandez. None of this makes sense.”
“Just take it easy, okay?” I grab the door handle as she swerves around another vehicle. “Why is this such a head-fuck to you? All the cartels are bad, right?”
“Yeah, but that guy back there belongs to a dead one. He should be on the other side of the world right now.”
I feel sick. I thought I didn't do guilt anymore? “Maybe Fernandez called in a favor?”
“What, already?” She shakes her head and takes another bend in the road like a Formula One racing driver. Joseph’s appearance has sent her into a new dimension of paranoia. “There’s no way he could have mobilized a sicario like him. Do you remember me telling you about Santiago’s second in command?”
“El Asesino,” I say quietly.
“Right.”
“And you think it was him?” I say, heart sinking.
“Dead-eyed American assassin, check, Santiago, check…. Mierda! You should have let me kill him!”
I want to argue that he wasn’t dead-eyed; that those gray-blues crystalized when I screamed his name, reflecting all the light in the universe.
“Tell me why you hate Santiago so much.”
“Do you want more nightmares tearing up your soul? That man is pure evil.”
But it’s more than that. She said it was personal, and that kind of comment has rivers than run as deep as oceans.
“What did El Asesino say to you in the motel room before I came around?”
Her question sounds more like an interrogation.
“Let’s just say his body parts did most of the talking.”
At least it’s not a complete lie.
I wrap the blood-soaked towel a little tighter around my forearm and prop my elbow up against the door rest to keep it elevated. I know she wants more, but I’m feeling way too edgy to form a defense. Instead, we fall into a jarring silence. There’s too much tension in the car for it to ever be tranquil. She can’t stop her ghosts from haunting her. I can’t stop reliving what happened in the motel room with Joseph. When I close my eyes, it’s there waiting for me: The frantic need of my fingers, his hand roughly pressed against the most intimate part of me, the fierce possession in his kiss, my burning fever for more…
Two hours pass. The stereo stays silent. Music is even more of a vacant pleasure to me with half of Colombia on our tails. I doze, and then jerk awake a couple of times. My first and last thoughts are always the same. When I glance at the dash clock after a few rounds of this, it’s 5 a.m., and the horizon is a blizzard of pink and red. I’m getting that heavy feeling in my lungs again. The humidity has kicked up a gear, even with the air conditioning working at full blast.
The green road signs tell us we’re nearing Leticia. Vi doesn't glance at them. It’s like she knows the route by heart. Twice, we have to hold our collective breath as we’re guided through military checkpoints on the outskirts of town, but we’re waved through each time. The soldiers don’t look at us. They don’t even glance at the jagged line of bullet holes down the side of Joseph’s car. Vi’s paranoia must be infectious, because I’m getting a case of it too.
We push on, keeping within the speed limit as a light urban sprawl opens up and sucks us in. Leticia is much smaller than I expected. It’s set on the banks of the Amazon River with the rainforest serving as a vibrant backdrop to the town. Even at this time the streets are busy with a constant stream of scooters and motorcycles buzzing past us in every direction.
“Welcome to con city,” announces Vi, taking a left off the unpaved streets and driving on for a couple of miles out through the other side of town and back onto roads that box us in with towering palm trees and great swathes of green. “As in ex-convict city,” she clarifies with a frown. �
�This place is crawling with former drug traffickers and guerrillas, all tucked away counting their dirty dollars.”
“How can such beauty conceal such sin?” I say, taking in the gorgeous vegetation, and thinking about Joseph again.
“Blame the rainforest climate. It washes away the evidence.”
“Did you grow up here?”
“For a time...” I catch her glancing at the dash dials. “We need gas. There’s a station up ahead with a store. We’ve missed about a billion meals in the last twenty-four hours, which is like torture for us Colombians.” She shoots me a wicked side-eye. “We live for snacking when we’re not running for them.”
Her poor attempt at a joke has me breaking into a smile. My arm has turned into a throbbing pit of fire and I’ll take any distraction. “What do you recommend?”
“What, from this place?” She makes a face as we pull into the empty forecourt that’s more weeds than asphalt, braking next to a red and yellow pump that’s about a hundred years old. “Anything not cooked on the premises, okay? It’s no fun being on the run with food poisoning.”
“Bag of chips for breakfast it is, then,” I say, climbing out of the car. “I’ll get the gas.”
“I’ll go find a payphone.” Vi slams the door. “It’s been awhile since I last spoke with my aunt. She’s going to be pissed… Imagine the crap I’ll get when I tell her I’m a wanted fugitive.”
I laugh despite myself, watching her walk to the far side of the forecourt. She’s swinging from vulnerable to fierce again, with her hips swaying and her black hair fanning out in the early morning breeze. It doesn't matter that her white dress looks like it got tangled up in the thorns of her tattoo, or if her skin is more bruise than tan. The same charm that pulled me into her world is still working its magic. I’m still following her white rabbit, wherever it may lead.
I fill up the tank and make my way to the store. I’m not even sure the place is open at first. It’s hard to tell through all the yellowing flyers stuck to the windows.
The door caves in to the chimes of a bell, and there’s no warm hospitality from the guy sitting behind the counter. He barely looks up from his portable TV, and his grunt is a universal “go fuck yourself” in any language. Still, I can forgive him because his shelves are stocked with variety and color.
Shadow Man: Grayson Duet: Book One Page 12
