Page 3 of Sin of Love
2
Was the link a coincidence?If so, it would be a wildly improbable one. Not when La Familia Lazcano remains one of the most dangerous and lucrative of the Mexican cartels. Not when Ernie dealt drugs for them for years and went to prison for one of their men who had a twitchy trigger finger in a grocery store. Not when our deranged kidnapper, Julep, worked as a sex trafficker for them.
Or it could be karma. Which would mean I was an evil bastard in a past life. Coincidence or karma, or… Ernie was lying and sold me as a part of his debt to the cartel. And somehow, Julep found me twenty miles and three months away from home. Found me, and took Nate, too.
Any way I slice it, it’s still my fault.
With the air conditioner blasting, I roll down the windows. Hot, dry air punches into my nose and eyes, while my fingers and toes tingle with the arctic flow from the vents.
Squinting against the furnace-like air blowing into my face, I savor the warring sensations. I enjoy them, probably more than I should. Heat and cold. Ice and fire. A reflection of the two people—the two lives—inside me. A conflict of selves I can’t escape.
I imagine poetry in the play of opposites.
I imagine art…
Art…
On my dash, an unopened pack of cigarettes beckons. I haven’t smoked in years, and I’m not entirely sure why I bought them—especially since I didn’t buy a lighter and my car doesn’t have one. But the sight of them is oddly calming. Reliably distracting. They help me not think about something else.
Someone else.
It’s been two days since the gallery opening. By now, Gideon knows I’m not coming back. Nate knows, too, though it won’t be a surprise to him, his final words still ringing in my ears.
“When the time comes, don’t do it for me or even you. Do it for all the kids who didn’t survive like we did.”
If I were a normal woman, I’d be horrified that Nate—who’s closer than a brother to me—knows I’m going to murder Julep and supports it. Wants it.
But our lives have been anything but normal. Kidnapped off the streets at fourteen and fifteen, physically and mentally conditioned for a year, then pimped out for nearly three more to high-rolling criminals, politicians, foreign businessmen… anyone with cash and a need for secrecy.
Yeah, this life isn’t normal.
And what I’m planning isn’t revenge—it’s justice.
* * *
Although on the way to my final destination, my stop to see Ernie cost me precious time. Julep gave me three days to come to him, and I’ve burned two.
The first night, the night of the gallery opening, I went only far enough to no longer be in Los Angeles County. Then I attempted to drown my sorrows at a dive bar, playing with a pocket knife on the scarred bar top to discourage company.
No one spoke to me.
Sadly, the booze didn’t work, the pain in my heart shining like a fucking star through my inebriation. Reminding me of what I was missing. Who I was missing. Why I’d never see them again. What I was giving up.
What I was taking back.
I woke up the next morning in a cheap motel with a hangover from hell, eyes swollen almost shut, and puke on my shirt.
Not one of my finer moments.
But later that day, after food and caffeine and using cash to fill my gas tank, something changed. Somewhere on the desolate stretch of freeway to Corcoran, the final vestiges of my false life fell away. My tears and shaking stopped. My hands steadied on the wheel, and my body relaxed.
There’s something to be said for dropping all pretense. Deirdre Moss—for all her composure and savagery as a publicist—is fragile. A glass mosaic built on sand.
Deirdre Anne Fowler is not. She was cured of weakness at a young age by her mother’s vitriol and father’s criminal tendencies. Burned, refined, and polished by the heavy desert sun, thrown magazines, cigarettes smothered on skin, whiskey breath, and little blue crystals being poured into clear bags.
Thatwoman knows what’s to come and isn’t afraid. That woman understands sacrifice. That woman…
When you’ve given up everything, you have nothing left to lose.
Julep told me to come home.
Home.
Not to the dilapidated trailer I grew up in, but somewhere just as familiar. I know exactly where he is. I knew it the moment he said the word, his voice purring with warmth and longing.
The notion of where I’m driving is sickly satisfying.
It will end where it began.
Poetic.
