9. Grace
9
Grace
M uffled murmurs tugged at the edges of my consciousness, pulling me back from the abyss of darkness.
A searing explosion of pain ignited across my face, a symphony of agony that reverberated throughout my senses. Blood, sticky and warm, coated my upper lip in twin rivers. My eyes welled up, blurring the world around me with a veil of tears.
Rapid Spanish danced around me as they ushered me through a wooden door that soared beyond the reach of even the tallest person alive. Their hands fell away, and I dropped at the tips of someone's tennis shoes—my rib biting under my weight.
No silver. That's promising.
"What's this?"
The man walked backward, distancing himself from my bloody face.
"She belongs to Andrés," Ximén said, his distinct tone like a burr under my skin.
"And you know this how?"
His hand tugged at my hair, wrenching my head back.
"Ahh." I swatted at him as he exposed my brand at the back of my ear.
" A.O . Andrés Ortiz."
"And what do you want me to do with her?"
"Ransom."
"Ransom?"
"Yes."
"You want me to ransom our jefe's sworn enemy…" He shook his head with sarcastic laughter. "How well do you think that will go over?"
Ximén released my hair, and my face jerked downward, inches from smashing into the floor .
"And what makes you think he wants her back? Maybe he discarded her. Are these questions you've asked yourself before bringing trouble to my doorstep?"
"Andrés doesn't let his women go. He buries them… in pieces."
A slight gasp escaped my lips, my forearm and hand flat on the cool tile, the only thing keeping me from being splayed out on the floor.
"Even worse. So he'll be looking for her, and you brought her here."
My stomach tilted and swirled as he ran his finger across his jawline.
"Slit her throat and toss her behind a building."
Ximén growled his displeasure and yanked me up to my feet once again.
"I just want to go home." Ximén tugged me out of the door. "Please, just let me go home."
"Shut up." Ximén jerked me to the side.
I need more time.
The rosary in my pocket burned.
I just need more time.
"Imagine what Andrés will do to you once he finds out you killed his favorite girl."
"Stop." The man stood from his seat, his fingertips braced against his desk. "Bring her back."
My direction changed with a whirl. Blood dripped from my chin onto my shirt as he dragged me back to the man with black hair hanging down to his shoulders.
"And why should I believe you ? "
I craned my neck to glance at him. "Because he sent Miguel to retrieve me."
He laughed and shook his head. "Miguel is nothing but a lap dog. You'll have to do better than that." He grabbed my slick chin and dug his fingers into my cheeks. He jerked my head side-to-side as he examined me.
"I-I…" The words broke on my tongue.
Maybe it would be better to have them slit my throat and be done with it. I wouldn't have to hide or fight for food to survive. It would all just be over.
But then Jorge would have died for nothing.
"I don't know how to prove it."
He released my face and wiped my blood on a clean patch of my shirt. "Then you'll die."
"Grimaldo, qué está pasando aqui?"
A large man covered in religious tattoos walked behind us and stopped beside the desk .
"Javier…" Grimaldo walked around the desk and held his arms out in a big hug. "Nothing's happening. What brings you here?"
"Business. But I see you're busy."
"Not too busy for you, cabrón ."
" Bien." Javier pointed at me. "Who is she?"
"A nobody." He walked up to me and tugged on my hair, moving my head around in a circle as he moved closer to my face. "Someone who thinks she's more important than she is."
I gritted my teeth and cried out, my hand swatting at his rough touch. " Eat shit."
"Oh, Ximén. She's got a filthy mouth." He gripped my cheeks again, pressing the soft flesh of my cheek into my molars. "On second thought, how about I keep her for myself, and when you hear from Ortiz, tell him I said thanks."
"Ortiz?" Javier stood beside me, his brows furrowing.
Grimaldo released me, his hand sliding between my breasts, and stopped at my brace around my chest.
"She's one of Andrés' whores," Jesús said. "We found her at the church where Victor was said to be hiding out."
"So you searched for Victor and found Andrés' whore instead?" Javier moved closer, his intense gaze scrutinizing my frame. "What are the chances of that?"
"I ran away from him."
"You expect me to believe you were able to escape him?"
"No." I shook my head. "But it's true."
"Prove it."
"I've asked…" Grimaldo shook his head as he placed a hand on Javier's shoulder. "She can't."
"No one gets away from Andrés."
"Except me . And I'm the only one that survived." I turned towards Javier, moving far enough away from Grimaldo so he couldn't grab me again—tears pooled in my eyes. "It was me and a group of nine."
Javier tucked his hand in his pocket. "And what happened to them?"
I swallowed a lump blooming in my throat. "They died. Miguel and his men killed them." I turned toward Grimaldo and raised my voice. "While trying to capture me ."
Javier wagged his finger up and down. "Wait right here."
Grimaldo's mouth gaped open as Javier stepped out of the room, the phone to his ear .
" Eres una perra estúpida. You should have prayed for death."
I hunched my shoulders and cast my gaze to the floor. "I do. Every night…"
The room bled with eerie silence despite the TV playing in the background with a woman crying next to a tombstone, her black mourning lace covering her hair and face.
How fitting.
Grimaldo placed his hands on his hips. His men stood around the smaller office and leered with palpable appetites. The pinkish-red walls were a traditional color, along with a Mexico retro poster of a woman with flowers in her arms.
Ximén moved around the room, stopping beside Grimaldo as I took three more steps backward.
There was no chance of escape…
There was no chance at Andrés…
My pulse quickened, and my skin prickled with sweat.
The doors opened, and Javier walked back inside. "Seems you nearly made a grave mistake, Grimaldo." His hand wrapped around my upper arm, his fingers squeezing into my flesh.
"How's that?" Grimaldo crossed his arms over his chest.
"He wants to meet her."
"Well, now you have her. Without my men, she'd be in the wind."
I swallowed my thick saliva, my throat clenching as Javier moved us towards the door.
He shook his head. "I thought you were smarter than that."
"Over a simple oversight?" He tossed his hands to his sides, then slapped them on his legs.
Javier walked us back into the room, and I stumbled as I stared at the tattooed, muscled man who had his fingers pressed into my bruised flesh, my rib flexing as I tiptoed beside him.
"A simple oversight," he said in Spanish. "You could have killed the only source we needed to find the bastard." Javier jerked me back toward the door as though I were a Raggedy Anne doll. "She's the closest we've come to finding him."
To finding Andrés?
What did they want with him?
"That's being a bit much. What makes you think she knows anything?"
Javier threw his head back and laughed as he pushed open the door. We marched back outside toward a shiny G-Wagon, along with two smaller men in tow .
Chills danced down my spine in waves of ice-cold dread, his sinister laugh like a nail in my coffin.
He tossed open the back door and pushed me inside, my sore shoulder hitting the back seat.
I grunted and held my arm closer to my chest, hissing from the ache in my rib. One of his men slid into the space beside me and another in the driver’s side. Javier shut my door and climbed into the front passenger.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked as the vehicle moved down the driveway and turned onto a road.
He tossed a tissue my way. "Clean yourself off. We have a long drive ahead."
I snatched up the tissue and dabbed at my nose. "But that doesn't answer my—"
Javier turned in his seat and faced me in a blur, his fingers digging into my cheeks as he pushed my head into the headrest. " Shhh ." He pressed his finger to his lips as darkness crept into his eyes. "You're in no position to ask questions."
I nodded rapidly, my stomach swirling.
Javier's narrowed gaze flicked across my face and down my frame, only to meet my eyes again. "Get some rest. You look like you could use it." He released my cheeks and turned back in his seat as the men snickered.
My eyes burned, and my heart stammered a wild rhythm.
I couldn't give him up…
He'd get me to disclose Andrés' location, and then I'd end up cut into pieces, floating in the Gulf of Mexico as shark bait.
"I know where he is, and if you let me go, I'll tell you."
Javier sighed, and my chest seized, his head turning to the side as he glanced at the man beside him. "Shut her up."
The man sitting beside me raised his meaty fist.
My arm flew up over my face as I cowered, sinking lower into my seat. "Okay. Okay. I'm sorry."
Andrés flashes a menacing glare, his teeth bared as he hovers over me.
Wacheesh .
"Ahh."
Hot, acidic pain lashes across my backside as he raises the whip for a second blow, my tears his trophy worn with pride.
A sob broke free, and a singular tear trailed down my cheek, curling under my chin before it dropped onto my shirt, dampening the bloodied fabric on my chest.
My breaths staggered as I glanced up.
Javier's studious gaze traveled up and down my body, resting on my face. I jerked my attention to the man beside me, who sat with his fist frozen in the air as if some fantastical force halted his abuse, then looked back at Javier.
"I think you understand. Don't you?" His lips twitched in a contemptuous smile, then flicked his gaze to the statue beside me and shook his head with a minute side-to-side motion.
I twitched out a nod as I lowered my hand to cover my mouth and stifle my cries.
The man steered the vehicle through the city as I watched out the window, cursing everyone going about their normal lives while mine scraped by in Hell.
A little girl walked beside her mother, her frilly flowered skirt swishing around her ankles, her socks bunched around her white tennis shoes. A man climbed into a car with a broad smile while he spoke to the woman getting in on the passenger side.
What are their lives like?
Do they know what goes on around them in this town?
Are they okay with it?
We drove to the city's outskirts and took the two-lane Mexican Federal Highway south until the sky darkened again.
I stretched my legs, shifting to a position that wouldn't put pressure on my filled bladder.
Pursing my lips, I rubbed my tongue along my teeth—a soothing technique Jorge taught me.
"Can you stop moving? You're vibrating the car more than the holes in the road."
I whimpered and stuck my thumbnail between my teeth. "I have to pee," I whispered.
"Qué?" Javier said, "What did she say?"
" No sé ," the man beside me said with a shrug.
"I said, I have to pee." My voice grew louder and cracked on the last note as though I were giving a speech in front of thousands of people.
"Hold it."
"I have been." I bit down on my fingernail again, my eyes rolling into the back of my head. My leg shook, and my knee bobbed up and down.
"Chingado. Pull over. "
My spine grew rigid as I sat. I shifted my attention across the men in the vehicle as it pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of the desolate desert with nothing but fencing and power lines.
Javier jumped from the vehicle as it rolled to a complete stop, then yanked open my door.
"Out. Now." He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder and stepped to the side, his hand braced against the door.
My shaking hand unbuckled the seatbelt, and I groaned as my stiff muscles and ready-to-burst bladder shifted when I stepped out of the vehicle.
"Pee."
My brows furrowed as I glanced up at him, the night sky a darkened backdrop behind him. "Here?"
"Yes. Here." He sighed. "I think Andrés has lost his touch with his putas ."
I winced, my shoulders rising as I cowered. With a soft exhale, I pivoted to the back tire, my eyes blurring.
My feet scuffed against the gravel as I pulled my pants down my bruised legs and squatted.
For three years, I'd shared a communal bathroom. On the good days, I was able to use Andrés's, but I never had someone standing over me, watching as I relieved myself.
My throbbing bladder froze, and I couldn't pee. "Can you…" I paused and shifted. "Can you look away?"
Javier chuckled before clenching his jaw and rubbing the tattoos on his hand. "Listen, ni?ita. If you don't make it quick, I'm going to drag you behind the SUV the rest of the way home. I'd rather hear your body thumping along the road than what you've been doing this whole drive." He paused and leaned on the door. "So what will it be?"