I won’t need the extras, but it’s always good to have a little cushion.
On my way back to my room, I stop at a thrift shop to pick up extra clothes and a bag large enough to hold the meager belongings I kept. I stop at the bus station and peruse pamphlets displaying the routes I will need to take to my final destination.
I purchase a one-way ticket.
After all, there’s no coming back from this.
BACK AT MY DINGY motel room, I pick up the phone—the secret one—and center myself. It isimperativethat I give nothing away, otherwise Joaquin will pay, and then I will, too.
“You better be calling me for a good goddamn reason,puta,” Xavier growls from the other end.
“There’s a problem,” I whisper, cupping my mouth as though I’m making this call from the secrecy of a closet or the like.
Taking the bait, he quiets his voice, but it hardly masks his rage. “What kind of fuckingproblem?”
I pause a moment for effect. “He’s bringing in people to decorate the condo. He wants to go back to Vegas for a week while they work on it.”
“Of course that spoiledmaricónwants the place fucking decorated.” Xavier curses under his breath. “Fine. When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Where’s he planning to put you guys up?”
“Um.” I pause again. “He has a preferred suite at the Bellagio. The same one we were in before.”
Xavier hollers at someone, and then they holler back from what sounds like a large room. “Good. This is actually better. Here’s the new plan, so fucking listen up.”
“I’m listening.”
“On the third day, talk him into taking you to Hoover Dam after dark,” he orders. “Tell him some shit like it looks fucking amazing all lit up and shit, or what-the-fuck-ever. Leave at around eight p.m. There’s an offshoot from the access road that leads to the dam that’s like a fuckin’ photo-op spot overlooking Lake Mead. It’s a left turn off the main road. Tell him you want to stop there.” He pauses and heaves a sinister chuckle. “And then, I think I’m actually going to take over. I kinda want to watch this pussy suffer and then die slowly.” He laughs again, louder this time. “I think I’ll even get a nice video to show to Ernesto when I inform him that I’ve bled his assets dry.”
My lips curl involuntarily into a smile.
He’s right.
Thisisactually better.
I know the location precisely.
And it’s a perfect place for me to ambush them with all the retribution that I can rain down upon them.
And after that… I don’t know.
I won’t allow myself to be tempted with hope that Joaquin and I have any kind of future after this is all over. When his father learns who I really am, he will hand me over to the authorities or worse. At the very least, he will never allow Joaquin to see me again. And sadly, Joaquin and I are not all that different in that area. I am at the mercy of the cartel; he’s at the mercy of his father. I can rid the world of the evil men controlling me, but Joaquin’s father isn’t going anywhere.
There is no future for us.
I will have to be satisfied with the fact that the only person I’ve ever loved is out of harm’s way. And that’s more than enough for me.
TWENTY
JOAQUIN
THE TWO DAYS SINCE Natalia left might as well be two years. On the third day, I’m still at the hotel with nothing to fucking do other than hit up the goddamn fitness center.
After running five miles on the treadmill and lifting the barbell more times than I can even count, I’m soaked to the bone with sweat and still not any less distracted, so I resort to slamming my fists into the punching bag. When my hands are numb and my arms feel like jello, a digital beep chirps in my headphones over the vintage West Coast hip-hop slamming heavy beats against my eardrums.
With shoulders heaving as I catch my breath, I turn from the bag and wipe my face and hands with one of the complimentary towels and trudge to the weight bench where I left my phone.
