by E. J. Mellow
I bite the inside of my cheek, hating that he knows of my life, of what I went through after he left, but I nod.
Mendoza holds my gaze for a moment, a blink of sadness washing over his features before it’s gone, replaced by the mask of indifference, the one I wear all too often.
“I think I should begin a little further back,” he says. “To when I first met…Isabelle, your mother.” He pauses with a swallow. While saying the name obviously causes him pain, it does a brutal number on me to hear, slicing blades along my chest. Over and over.
My mother. My mother. Isabelle.
“Your grandfather,” Mendoza continues, “my father, was the right-hand man to Vicente Rios, who ruled the Oculto before me, and as part of the upper-elite family, all children were sent to the United States to acquire their college education. Vincente believed education was the key to setting our family apart from the rest, which might have been the only thing he and I agreed on.” A darkness looms in his voice before he goes on. “I got in to Vanderbilt University and met your mother. It was only the first semester, but I instantly knew. She was so alive, so filled with good and happiness, that I became spellbound. She was like nothing I had ever known could exist.” His gaze grows unfocused for a moment, and my throat tightens to hear a memory of a woman whose face I can hardly recall. “Once I saw the other life I could have, with Isabelle, I wanted out of my family and their business. I didn’t want her anywhere near that sinful, deprived side of my life, but my father wasn’t having it. Once I graduated, I was to come straight back, or my brothers would come get me and drag me home. I was a Mendoza, cousin to the Oculto royalty, and we did what we were told. We honored our title, our heritage. I was going to end things with your mother, for it was the only way to keep her from it, but then we found out she was pregnant, with you.”
His cerulean gaze bores into mine, and what was once icy cold is now warm, and I want to shout at him to turn away, to not look at me like that, for he has no reason to show me any kindness, nor I him. We might be kin, but we will never be family.
“Once you were born, I became even more desperate to keep you and her a secret,” he continues. “For you quickly showed signs of your…abilities, and we in Mexico knew of your kind, Los Portafuegos.”
The Fire Holders.
“Others had been born in our village in the decades previous, and all had been dealt with the same.” His gaze grows dark. “They were killed.”
My muscles stiffen as I steal a glance at Ramie, who stands expressionless, leaning against a bookshelf, staring at a nondescript point in the room. The small scars along his neck and jaw shimmer against his energy. What led him to be spared?
“Because of the family’s fear of being overrun, overpowered, the Oculto exterminated any sign of a threat as quickly as they saw it coming, and Los Portafuegos might have been the only thing Vincente had ever feared. So while I visited home between semesters, keeping up appearances, I never once mentioned Isabelle, never you, and I never told your mother about my other side. You were each my untouched angels, and I would do everything in my powers to keep it that way.”
“But you didn’t.” It slips from my lips, hard and unforgiving.
A haunted expression sits heavy under Mendoza’s eyes. “But I didn’t,” he echoes. “Members of my family surprised me with a visit, saw Isabelle, you, and immediately knew. We tried to go into hiding, but with Isabelle finally finding out about what I was, a liar, a…monster, she ran, taking you with her. She had no idea that she was signing your death warrants by leaving my side, that even though she saw me as a beast, I was nothing compared to my family. You can’t run from them. Even separated by a country, I couldn’t.” His fingers graze over one of pictures on his desk, bringing it closer. “It was raining the day they brought her body to me, threw it by my feet. Her hair, so beautifully red, looked gray against her pale skin, against all that blood. They told me the details as I sobbed over her, how she screamed while they slit her throat, told me how this was my doing, my payment for my betrayal. I had two choices now—my own death or to forget this fantasy life and come home. My Isabelle was dead, my child was dead, and I wasn’t sure if I was grateful that they kept your body from me or not. I must have been, for it gave me the sliver of strength I needed to plan what I did next.”
He places the frame back into its rightful place beside the other before turning to me. “I came home, showing my penance, my understanding, and became exactly who they wanted me to be. For months I sat behind a shadow of myself as I bid my time until the moment I could step out. And then finally”—his fists curl on his desk—“I killed Vicente Rios while my father watched and then slit his throat as he let them slit hers.”
The office fills with silence, the record player having finished its final turn minutes ago, leaving the ticking of the grandfather clock the only echoing rhythm.
Red, red everywhere. I was born into it, so must I die.
The words turn a phrase in my head, devil children chatting as they spin in a circle.
There it is…my story. My past summed up in a few moments, a grouping of words, while I’ve spent years dreaming to remember and fighting nightmares to forget.
“And me?” I ask. “When did you know I was alive?”
“China.” Steady blue eyes hold mine. “We knew of your possible existence then, but not until this DNA test were we for certain.”
“China,” I whisper, glancing to Ramie. “That was you who I felt at that gala, watching.”
A nod. “I was there for the auction, but I knew Manuel’s story and your mother’s face. When I saw you, smelled you… I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but there are only so many female A pluses in the world, and your scent…so like his. Once we gathered a file on you, saw your true hair color and that you were found in Nashville around the same age—”
“It allowed us to hope,” Mendoza cuts in.
Hope.
What a silly human invention to rest faith on.
“But you tried to kill me in the jungle.”
There’s no doubt it was them now.
“If you paid attention, you’d have noticed none of my men were shooting at you, just that little partner of yours. They had tranquilizers for you.”
“But…the bomb?”
Mendoza waves his hand. “Insurance. If we couldn’t bring you in on our terms, I wasn’t about to let you find us through my men. We weren’t going to let it go off until you were a safe distance away, but as you know…some things can’t be planned. How were we to know you’d end up activating the backup trigger?”
A chime fills the room, our spell broken as the clock in the corner counts to ten. Almost an hour has past.
“Ah,” Mendoza says, checking his own watch before standing. “As they say, where has the time gone?” Rounding his desk, his mountainous form grows near, and I find myself leaning away, the familiar energy coming off him even more suffocating this close. “This has gone better than expected, don’t you agree?”
I don’t answer, merely blink, at a loss for how to respond, how to process any of this. As if he understands my plight, Mendoza gives me what must be one of his rare smiles, changing his face so completely from devil to friend, sending a dozen quick memories flashing behind my eyelids, a dam set free. The same smile waking me up in the morning, lifting me into a swing, nuzzled into a woman’s neck.
“You have no idea what joy it gives me to see you here,” he says softly. “My daughter.”
My lips wobble, from rage or sadness or both I’m not certain, but I manage to hold back the tears I feel pressing against my eyes.
“We have much to learn of one another,” he goes on. “Much to plan, but that must wait until next time, for I have a few things that need to be seen to.”
“Like your biochemical weapon?” I force through clenched teeth.
His smile doesn’t even waver. “I will see you soon, mi pequeña rosa,” he says, and with the back of his finger, lays a gentl
e graze to my cheek, stopping my heart—what’s left of it—before walking from the room.
Leaving me feeling just as broken as when he left me the first time.
“You’re letting me go?” I ask Ramie as he pulls out a syringe kit, picking up the metal tang of the liquid chloroform.
“We’re letting you go.” He prowls toward me.
“But why?” I frown. “I can tell them about you, about meeting Mendoza.”
“But you won’t.”
I scoff. “And why the hell not?”
“Because”—he leans down, grabbing my chin, a lover asking for a kiss—“you’d have to tell them how you came to us and why you didn’t kill Manuel on the spot. How do you think your bosses would take the news that one of their operatives is the daughter of the drug lord they have been targeting? We have the DNA results to prove it now, easily shared with a mere press of a button.”
As his words sink in, I hiss and pull from his grip.
He stands, a pleased grin stretching across his beautiful features, a Dorian Gray blocking his wickedly deformed portrait. “Are you really on their side?” he asks, shooting a bit of the chloroform from the needle’s tip, the liquid splashing the carpet. “Or have you been a double agent this whole time? You’ve had a surprising loss of leads, no? Is it because of your purposeful misdirection?” Deep-brown eyes peer down, a child winning a game. “So many questions,” he croons, “yet only one true answer—you’re a liability now, and we all know what happens to those.”
My skin is washed in a cold chill, taking this in, the reality of it.
“They’re terminated,” he finishes.
Before I get the chance to respond, to ask how he benefits from all this, he pricks the needle into my neck, and for the second time tonight, my world is blanketed in nothingness, the shadow of calm before the category-five hurricane.
I awake, alone, in the same dark alley back in Cuetzalan. From the sliver of stars peeking through the two buildings, I know it’s almost midnight, and my head aches from the chloroform still swimming in my veins, my arms sore from where the binds dug in. Sitting up with a grunt, I wonder for a moment if it was all a dream, half of me wishing it was, the other half…of a different mind. But as I stand, a sound of something crinkling in my jeans pocket has me reaching in and removing a glossy photo.
Peering down, my heart races in what seems like its new rhythm, for the blue eyes that regarded me from behind his desk, that spun me a story, my history, my fate, stare out at me again. But this time they’re accompanied by two other pairs, one green, another blue. My father, my mother, and a redheaded little girl sit together on a bench under the Tennessee sun.
Looking straight at me.
Smiling.
46
Carter
CUETZALAN, MEXICO: 2215 HOURS
I gave her until midnight to come home, but now that it’s fifteen past, I have no choice but to hunt her down. And I am less than pleased by this. I just got to the steamy part in the book Señora Flores gave me.
I mean, how selfish can 3 be? Not answering any of my calls. At first I thought it was because she saw my name on her caller ID, which I’m sure she renamed to Asshat or Tiny Pecker, but when she didn’t pick up for Jules or Akoni either is when my temper really hit the ceiling. Especially when I checked her phone’s GPS tracker and saw she switched it off. I get her need to be alone. I haven’t exactly been doing jumping jacks of joy from being around the same group of humans day in and day out either.
She above all knows we have a job to do though. She’s reminded me enough times, for Christ’s sake. Doesn’t she understand she can’t go strolling for hours on end without checking in? Maybe she’s throwing my “enjoy yourself” lecture in my face. It would be something she’d do. Especially after…everything. But still, she understands we need to get up early to head back into the jungle, that we have things we still need to discuss. And no, not that thing, not the thing that managed to pull something deep within my heart forward, that left me a terrified, confused mess and whose memory still sets my very not-tiny pecker to stand at attention while setting my blood to steam.
That thing, I’m sure, will never be mentioned because Lord knows 3 is the last person who would ever confront something with words. Why talk when you have superhuman fists to punch it away?
Tugging on my boots with a curse, I continue to grumble as I pull my arms through my leather jacket and head for the door to our room. But just as I’m about to wrench it open, it swings forward on its own, and 3 practically stumbles inside.
I reach out to steady her, my heart in my throat, worried she’s hurt, until I see the bottle of tequila in her hand, as well as the bag that holds two more. For once the smell of her doesn’t send flames of desire across my skin. She wreaks of a bar’s floor, and a very different sort of heat engulfs me.
Mangled metal around a tree, one body thrown through the windshield, another strapped in and covered in blood. Dead.
I blink the pictures from my mind, shaking away a shiver.
“You’re wasted.” I all but growl, letting go of her, more than okay watching her knock into tables and chairs as she kicks off her boots.
“And you’re not,” she says, turning dramatically and shoving the bottle into my chest. “Have a drink, hubby. The night’s young.”
With a scowl, I push the tequila away, and she shrugs before taking a swig herself.
“Where have you been?” I demand. “I’ve been calling you for hours.”
“Walking, remember?”
My hands fist at my side. “Yes, but where?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she slurs, lurching her way into the bathroom and quickly emerging with a glass from the sink. She throws the bag of bottles and herself onto the bed.
“Why don’t you try me,” I say, stepping over to her. Even pissed out of her gourd, 3’s still able to pour herself a drink without spilling a drop.
She takes a hearty gulp before leaning forward, blue eyes glazed as she looks my way. “I’ve been with the devil,” she whispers.
I narrow my gaze as she sits back, fumbling to open another bottle. Her vibrant hair is pulled into a messy bun, her black leather jacket, matching mine, over a tight gray T-shirt and jeans. She might be dressed like her usual self, but she’s anything but. She’s ruffled, wrinkled, and I wonder how long she’s been in her cups.
“What’s happened?”
She doesn’t respond, merely stops what she’s doing to shove out of her jacket before yelling “Aha!” as she finally gets the cork of the tequila to come loose with a pop. “I shattered two of these buggers trying to get them open earlier.”
“3.” I take the bottle from her hands. “Stop this.”
“Hey! That’s mine.”
“Not anymore.” I stomp to the bathroom and begin draining it down the toilet.
“What are you doing!” she shrieks, running in and trying to snatch it back. But while she might be stronger, I’m taller, and I hold it out of her reach, pushing against her claws and elbows until the last drop falls.
“You asshole!” she whines. “You owe me forty pesos.”
“I owe you nothing.” Stepping around her, I go for the next bottle.
“No!” She pounces like a bat out of hell, knocking me onto the bed and sending the liquor shattering against the wall. We both watch as the clear liquid slides down the surface, mixing with the glass shards spilled across the floor.
“I’m going to kill you.” 3 hisses as she lunges for my throat, and maybe the only good thing about her intoxication is that while she still has strength, it’s not as lasting, and I easily pry her hands loose, rolling her below me.
“You still have half a bottle,” I grunt, my chest pressing firmly against hers. “That I’ll let you drink, since you seem so determined to drown yourself in this poison.”
“Oh, you’ll let me, will you?” She lowers her voice mockingly. “You’re not my father, Carter. No one is! I c
an do whatever I want.”
I frown, searching her face, her delicate features set in such scorn. We’re close, as close as we were so many nights ago, and like a magnet pulling, always pulling, I move an inch farther. Her lips are right there, parted, panting, wanting. Something in her energy, a lick of a flame, telling me that she’d let me if I tried.
But then the sweetness of her breath, the liquor so obviously coating her resolve to languid, floats forward, and I grip the sheets on either side of her head before pushing myself up.
Not like this.
Muttering a curse, I sit on the edge of the bed, running a hand through my hair. She remains lying there, staring up at the bed’s canopy. “What’s happened, 3? You’re acting crazy, and not your normal crazy.”
“Nashville.”
“What?”
“Nashville,” she repeats. “I’m Nashville right now.”
I don’t say anything, just…wait.
“Do you remember your first kill?” She twists her head to look at me.
I draw my brows together, caught off guard by her random question.
“I do,” she says. “It was a dog.”
“Nashville—”
“It was before they found me.” She turns her gaze back to the drape of cloth above. “So I was probably around four of five. I’ve never been too sure of my age.” She shrugs. “And while I don’t remember much before Bell Buckle, I remember that alley.” Her hand moves to play with strands of her hair, pulling it free from its bun to fan around her head. “I shouldn’t have been able to do it,” she goes on. “Kill that dog. Any other child would have been easily taken by it, its canines straight to their throat. But not me. I was special,” she says with a slight sneer. “It found me there, in the place I refused to move from, looking just as starved as I was, just as desperate. And I think a part of my little child brain understood this and didn’t hate the animal for it. We were merely two forgotten creatures trying to survive in this world. So when it ran for me, I made sure to make it quick, breaking its neck. I was terrified of course, not really understanding what I was doing, why I knew where to place my hands, how to dodge its bite as I twisted, but I did. It yipped once. Only once. A short high-pitched sound. The real fear that was behind all that rage. It rang in my ears for hours and eventually forced me to leave that alley. I couldn’t stay there anymore, not with that dog’s corpse, its whine continuing to echo across those brick walls.”
