Vinnie Pasquinois flashing on the screen, and I smash the Bluetooth button to answer.
“Hey, Vin—”
“Listen to me, you little shit,” he spits over the line.
I curl my upper lip into a sneer as I squint at the screen. “I beg your fuckin’ pardon.”
“I told that hoity-toity brother-in-law of yours that I didn’t want nothin’ to do with your seedy fuckin’ family,” he snaps, “and that includes dealing with you,andyour street-walkin’ wife.”
I suck in a breath with such force that I choke on my own saliva and cough. “Mywhat?” I rasp and cough again. “Who the fuck are you calling astreet walk—”
“Yourwife, kid. That’s what I said, and that’s what she’s up to, so send me the rest of my money, and I’ll give you the files I got, and then you can do me a fuckin’ favor by never fuckin’ contacting me again.”
Natalia’s turningtricks?
It’s disturbing in a way I can’t articulate, and on some level, it simultaneously isn’t surprising, but also doesn’t make any fucking sense.
“Fine,” I grit out. “I’m sending the rest of the money right now, but there better be a friggin’ address in those files or I’m—”
The line disconnects. I don’t give a fuck about his measly fee. After transferring the balance, I stare at my phone for five solid minutes until an email pops up. I open the attached file, and I suddenly fuckingloveVinnie even if he’s kind of a dick.
It’s a friggin’gold mineof information about Natalia’s history.
Birth records, newspaper clippings, police reports, pictures, literallyeverything.
At least… everything until she was about five years old.
She’s from just outside a tiny town called Doña Ana, which is about ten miles north of Las Cruces. Her father was a Marine vet, who apparently drank himself to death before she was born. Her mother was Juana Elena Esposito, and she worked as a housekeeper for one of the local motels. And she…
The hair on the back of my neck stands up as I squint at the scan of a photocopied page.
Yep.
She’s alive.
She lives in El Paso now, but she’s still working as a housekeeper, and she’salive.
Natalia’s believed she was an orphan this whole time.
I skim to the next document in the scan. A police report filed by Juana regarding the kidnapping of her five-year-old daughter, Natalia.
The cartel has been holding her since she wasfive.
My mind reels and my veins go hot at the idea of what they did to her beginning at agefive. How scared she must have been. It’s almost too much to process. But then I keep scrolling, and there’s a photograph.
It’s grainy and a shitty quality scan, but it’sso herthat I couldweep.
Big, stormy, blue-gray eyes, bright, innocent, and happy. The same long, thick, ebony hair, tied up in two cascading pigtails on top of her head, affixed with baby blue yarn. A big smile with two of her little, bottom baby teeth missing.
I could stare at the gold mine of information for hours, but I’m on a mission right now, and it’s just distracting me.
I scroll through the rest of the attachments until I get to a scan of a guy’s handwritten notes, and in them is the address I need.
The Bronx.
Whether she’s turning tricks or not, the address makes it clear she’s in areallybad part of the city, andnow, I’ve finally got exactly what I need to stop spinning my fucking wheels while I wait.
I don’t waste another second lingering in the hotel gym. I practically sprint to the elevator so I can go up to shower, change, and go get my fucking wife.
