by Camilla Monk
Angel’s eyes widen briefly, as do his guest’s, but she looks mostly amused while cold furor flares in his black irises. I ball my fists and inch closer to March, just in case.
“Your woman can go too,” he growls in March’s direction, ignoring me completely.
Around us, Beatriz and Angel’s goons await the next move with bated breath while Dries runs a hand across his face, perhaps to conceal some amusement of his own. March’s shoulders lift in the slightest shrug. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I have no control over this untamed Amazon.”
I press my lips together in a desperate effort not to smile. At last, Angel deigns to look at me, gauge me. And I wilt. I can’t deny he oozes charisma, in the same frightening way Dries does, but when he locks that stygian gaze on me, I feel my spine turn to a popsicle. I grit my teeth and force myself to stare back. This is the hill I’ve chosen to die on, for feminism! “I’m staying,” I snap. “And Beatriz is an adult; she’s past the age to get sent to her room.”
Angel takes a shuddering breath that makes his nostrils flare, and next to me, March tenses. Okay, this is the hill I’ll die on. If Angel looks at girls like that, they probably end up chained in his basement. And if that’s the look reserved for his enemies . . . I doubt he has that many left. A soft giggle dispels the electricity in the air like a breeze. Angel’s eyebrows pinch in confusion at Beatriz, who’s smiling shyly while Antonio whispers something suave in her ear. She nods and allows him to turn her around, toward the lobby. As they walk away together, he looks back one last time, a challenging glint in his eyes. I’m guessing the message here is basically, I know how to handle your sister, and you owe me one.
Angel flashes me a contemptuous look. “Are we done?”
Look at that . . . Stellar macho douche Angel Somoza now addresses me directly. Like a real person. I stand a little straighter. “I guess so.”
Inside the meeting room, Ernesto fumbles with the remote to a fat multiscreen display covering one of the walls. I swallow not to drool. I want that; I want it so bad . . . We all sit around a mile-long glass table, at the end of which the T-Rex is given a place of honor, in an oversize black leather chair. She crosses her arms, waiting for the screens to light up. The aerial picture of a vast industrial complex appears. I recognize the octagonal shape of Saraya’s facility. The launching ramp is clearly visible at the center of a wide concrete plate, along with a cluster of buildings.
Angel points to the picture. “This is my problem. And I understand it is yours too, my Queen.”
I glance at March, who gives a little nod of confirmation. It is her. I watch her with renewed fascination, wondering what it took to get where she did, how many sacrifices . . . Even now, I have the intuition that this woman holds more power than many heads of state ever will. A deceptively gentle smile curves her red lips. “I’m sorry to hear that, Angel. What did Mr. Keasler ever do to upset you so?”
Next to him, that Ernesto guy presses a button on the remote, and the aerial picture turns into a 3-D model, which he rotates to focus on a river bending around the facility—possibly the one we crossed coming here.
“He needs the water,” Angel begins. “Their pumps are here, and here.” As he says this, red crosshairs flash in two different points, where concrete structures can be seen rising from the brownish water. “He doesn’t want anyone snooping around Saraya, and he’s trying to lock up a twenty-mile perimeter.” This time a red line snakes through the jungle, encasing the facility. “He blew up my airstrips and killed my men. I lose time and money reorganizing my shipments to Colombia, and I see his men, patrolling my land, threatening my people”—a snarl distorts his scar—“all the way to Palma Roja.”
The rumble of a low chuckle rises from Dries’s chest. He tilts his head and gives Angel a look that’s part amusement, part paternal scorn. “So he steps on your feet, and he gets in the way of the gifts you send to your little narco friends. That’s terrible, Angel . . . terrible. Well, hear this: if our hunch about what he’s cooking up in that space center of his proves correct, all your troubles will be gone. Along with you and everything that stands between here and Quito.”
“We think he stole a ship,” I say quickly when the rage in Angel’s eyes threatens to reach all the way down to his clenched fists. “With a very powerful nuclear reactor. And he probably has warheads too, at least twelve intercontinental JL-3s.”
March chimes in as well. “The JL-3s contain both multiple warheads and decoys. Think about it: even if he used a single one . . .”
Angel’s fingers uncurl, and for a second, I get the impression that he’s getting pale.
The Queen offers him a compassionate smile. “We need your help, my dearest friend, and this time, the stakes are bigger than any of us.”
He sits down and leans back in his chair, eyeing Dries and March warily. “I have men; I have toys; you already know that. What else do you want?”
“Well,” the Queen begins, “Mr. Erwin landed in Quito this morning with a little escort of his own, but he certainly has no sanction to raid Saraya with mercenaries . . . unless we give him reason to.”
“You want us to break in and search for that ship?” Angel asks. “It’s risky, but maybe through the water system. The pipes are large enough, if we blow up the pumps . . .”
“No,” the Queen replies, her voice pure silk. “In truth, what I want is to pull out every single inch of Mr. Keasler’s intestines and keep him alive to watch.” Her impeccably manicured nails rap on the glass slowly. “But before I get to enjoy this spectacle, we will indeed need to find Odysseus. Once we have hard evidence, leave the rest to the Americans. All I want is Keasler alive.”
I avert my eyes with a soft gulp. I could almost feel for Anies . . .
An oddly tender smile softens Dries’s features. “I told you you’d be glad to see me again,” he tells the Queen.
The corners of her mouth tug down in response. “Bring me your brother, and when that is done, if you’re still alive, I may consider forgiving you. That being said, it would be more elegant for you to die there.”
I look back and forth between the two of them. Did he . . . ? “What did he do to you?” I ask her.
As soon as my question echoes in the room, March clears his throat, and pretty much everyone around the table blanches.
I blink. “What? I actually want to know.”
Next to me, Dries is evidently stifling a laugh while March’s mouth purses tightly. “I’m terribly sorry for this,” he tells the Queen.
Whatever I said, she considers with benevolence though—real or fake, that’s anyone’s guess.
Angel squints his pitch-black eyes at me in an evident attempt to induce self-combustion. My skin prickles, and I actually wonder if it’s working, if that terrifying gaze has that power. “You don’t address the Queen unless she asks you a question.”
I frown. “But you and Dries—”
“I have killed enough men for her to earn that right,” he hisses.
That still doesn’t tell me what Dries did, but March looks genuinely embarrassed: I decide to drop the issue for his sake. I lower my eyes. “I’m sorry I asked, ma’am.”
“Your father betrayed me,” she says quietly. “He and your mother stole something from me.”
My head snaps up. I hear March again, recounting the life I don’t remember. Dries wanted to capture her, to recover a diamond they’d stolen together. The Queen was the one who missioned my mother to steal it. It all . . . “It all started with you,” I say, my voice brittle.
She nods. “And it ends with me, it would seem.”
I wonder if that sudden vision of my mother smiling in a car is real or if my brain reconstructed it based on March’s account. My mother lets go of the wheel. Her head lolls softly; she slumps in her seat. She’s asleep, and blood runs slowly, like a dark river, from the wound on her temple. Drop after drop, drip, drip . . . The hood is blue, and flames are rising because we hit another car that was parked at a ga
s station. I see myself die . . . until March’s arms are around me, the smell of mint as he pulls me out of the car. And it all started for the Queen’s diamond, because of Anies’s anger, Dries’s weakness.
I’m shaking, and the dripping won’t stop, rolling down my cheeks, hitting the glass table silently. And March’s arms are around me again, anchoring me, like that very first time in Tokyo. “It’s all right . . .”
No. It’s not. They’re all silent, staring at me. I feel their disdain, their pity, and I’m suddenly angry at them. At Dries, the Queen . . . I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and set my sights on Angel, the arms dealer who’s going to save the world. “You’ve been fighting Anies for months, just for your little chunk of territory; how do you think you’ll manage to break into Saraya?”
He glares daggers at me. I don’t feel them. “Who do you think you are—”
“It is, in fact, an excellent question,” the Queen interrupts. “And the answer is very simple: we will need a solid diversion, something that would require his men’s full attention.” Next to me, March raises a suspicious eyebrow as she goes on. “I’m going to deliver the three of you to Mr. Keasler.”
Dries’s eyes close briefly, like he’s trying to contain a fury that might otherwise surge and overflow.
March’s fist clenches on the table, and he breaks the rule. “Dries and I will go, but Island must stay here.”
I place my hand on his, squeezing it with all the strength he gave me. “No . . . she’s right. Anies wants me back. If I return, he gets what he wants, and he’s going to be focused on me, at least for a little while. It could be the opening we need.”
March shakes his head; he’s breathing fast. “No, that’s . . . I won’t—”
“I’ll be surrounded by the best,” I say with a quivering smile. “What could go wrong?”
Angel shrugs. “Nothing ever goes wrong with me.” I’m certain that no bigger lie has ever been told . . .
To everyone’s surprise, the Queen gets up from her chair and walks around the table to March. She places a hand on his shoulder. There’s something tender about the way she touches him, and he looks up at her in that way I know will make her feel like they’re alone in the room. I fight a pang of jealousy.
“You served me well all those years,” she purrs. “To the best of your abilities, I believe.” Her thumb strokes his deltoid back and forth. He’s not moving, and I’m boiling. “I ask for one final sacrifice.”
He sustains her gaze, his expression open and guileless, as he answers, “No.”
One of her eyebrows arches and quivers. Her nails dig into his shirt, and I just can’t. I grab her hand. Angel explodes from his chair, and half of the goons around us reach either to their back or under their jacket. I don’t let go. “I’ll go,” I say, steadying my voice and locking eyes with her. “Not for you. Because I need closure. And March doesn’t owe you any more sacrifices. You should be thanking him for remaining faithful to you through good and bad.”
Under my fingers, I feel her grip on March’s shoulder lessen. “It’s always the women,” she says softly. “Men are never that strong.”
With those final words, she lets go of him and leaves the meeting room silently, without looking back.
After the doors have closed behind her, everyone in the room stares at me, speechless, some wide-eyed, some with their faces scrunched up in mild confusion. March too seems in shock; he looks at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
I comb back a strand of hair behind my ear with nervous fingers. “What?”
Dries’s baffled expression morphs into a grin. He shakes his head as if he’d just downed something incredibly strong. “Nothing . . . I believe there’s one last point we didn’t discuss.”
Angel settles back in his seat and reverts to his default “cold angry mask #1”. “Speak.”
Dries raises his palms questioningly. “In what plane of reality does Anies accept a gift from Guita without suspecting a trap?”
Angel’s lips curl into a terrifying parody of a smile. “It won’t be a gift, and it won’t come from her.”
THIRTY
ICARUS
If this was a movie, we’d be at the scene where the frame freezes with a record-scratch sound effect before my off-screen voice asks, “How did it come to this?” and then answers my own question with some snarky comment about terrible life choices and too much jungle juice.
So yeah, how did I end up in Angel Somoza’s dreaded basement—dirty, sweaty, bloody, stripped down to my underwear, and handcuffed to a steel chair? My bare toes curling on the dusty floor, I whimper through the rag gagging me as the razor blade caresses me, trailing across my chest, up my neck and then my jaw, slowly, leisurely. His fingers wrap around my throat and direct my face to the camera lens gleaming in the darkness.
Against mine, his cheek feels hot and rough, the bristles abrasive. I inhale his scent, something aggressive, made of spice and sweat. The blade threatens to bite into my skin as he speaks to the camera. His voice rumbles through me, raising goose bumps all over my body. “ . . . So now, my friend, we negotiate.”
I grit my teeth when chains rattle in a corner of the room, followed by the dull thud of a powerful punch. A coughing groan echoes in the concrete tomb as Antonio and another guy I recognize as Beatriz’s driver drag March and Dries in front of the camera, their clothes blood-soaked rags clinging to their flesh. Angel moves away from me, but my relief is short-lived: he delivers a few vicious kicks to March’s and Dries’s stomachs and sides while his goons film every growl, every gasp of agony.
After he’s wrapped his little home movie, Angel makes a note that it would have been more realistic if he’d castrated either of them. On my skin, the sweat now feels icy.
Antonio holds out his hand to Dries, who mumbles he’d sooner die. March gets to his feet and is at my side in an instant, unfastening the handcuffs locking my wrists to the chair’s bars. I spring up and wrap my arms around his chest. Behind me, I feel Dries pat my head briefly with a gruff reassurance that we’re done.
I squeeze March harder and feel his tension thrumming through me: it might all be a little act meant to convince the Lions that Angel caught their most wanted and wants to bargain for control over his territory, but the dirt covering our bodies is real, and I know this basement and the filthy clothes March is wearing are probably the closest thing to hell for him.
He locks eyes with Angel. “I appreciate your . . . dedication. However”—his hand wraps around my waist possessively—“that was perhaps a little more realistic than I expected.”
Antonio nods in agreement, and Angel ducks his chin, a smirk curling his lips through the dark stubble on his jaw. “The devil in love . . .” he drawls before his head snaps up. “You get one. Because if another man touched my woman like that, I would cut him up . . . slowly.”
Before I can ask what March is supposedly getting, he lets go of me, and the punch flies, lightning fast and powerful enough to send Angel crashing onto the chair I was strapped to less than a minute ago. A satisfied grin stretches the tattoos on Antonio’s cheeks, but none of Angel’s men otherwise lift a finger to help him up. I think they know better. Sprawled on the chair, Angel massages his jaw with a low, threatening chuckle. “Now all of you get out of here before I change my mind and kill you.”
•••
“You don’t worry about anything!”
Even if I wanted to worry, it’d be difficult to resist the hurricane that is an angry Beatriz. She ran to us when we reappeared in the villa’s lobby following our trip to the basement. Behind her, a young woman in a frilly red apron came to the rescue with three towels for us and is now rolling frightened eyes as she takes in our state of disarray.
“I-it’s okay, Beatriz,” I stammer, taking my towel. “Please don’t be upset . . . Stress isn’t good for your baby.”
“I’m not upset. I’m pissed!” she squeaks, glowering at Antonio, who stands behind us with an air of
genuine contrition—behold, the power of an irate wife. “¡Vete y golpea a Angel por mí!” she orders. Go and punch Angel for me!
He cringes and raises his hands in a pacifying gesture. “Quizás no esta noche, mi vida . . . ” Maybe not tonight, love of my life . . .
Meanwhile, Dries has taken his towel and, in perfect Spanish, asks the young maid if she can lead him to his room. She nods eagerly, and I refrain from a face-palm when I overhear him compliment her hair as they walk away . . .
Beatriz eventually drags me to my bedroom while Antonio guides March down a hallway toward a secondary bathroom. I actually wanted to go with him and make sure he was okay, but I’m starting to realize Beatriz exerts the same kind of power as her brother, only through soft bullying rather than senseless violence. Less than a minute after my abduction, I’m standing in one of the cubes I saw from outside, a spacious bedroom whose glass windows open to the garden. Veil curtains protect our privacy, billowing softly in an evening breeze that carries the heady scent of grass and flowers into the room.
I look around at the king-sized bed and the minimalistic fifties furniture. I wonder how many guns Angel had to sell to purchase a Le Corbusier chaise longue . . .
Beatriz switches on a mile-wide flat-screen and selects a track on YouTube. “You like Delfin Quishpe?” she asks with a cute smile that would almost make me forget her previous outburst.
I have no idea who that is. Apparently that guy wearing a fringe leather jacket, a cowboy hat, and hopping around to the sound of what can best be described as . . . Andean techno. He’s not even really singing at first; he just yells stuff. Kitschy doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Beatriz gazes at the screen, her hands joined on her belly while her hips jerk instinctively to the rhythm. “I love him . . .”
“Me too,” I admit. It’s true. The guy’s bizarre dance moves and off-tune singing have . . . enraptured me. I watch him, slack-jawed, vaguely aware of Beatriz going to the bathroom to turn on the taps of a long stone bathtub. Jesus, his name is written in huge capital letters on his pant legs. This Ecuadorian hero is fearless.
