Chapter 13 The Unpleasant Truth
THE UNPLEASANT TRUTH
INEZ
Pain rouses me. I remember the preceding events with awful clarity before I even open my eyes: pursuing Rafael into the bowels of his elaborate, extensive container hideout.
Trading shots with him. I hit him first, a glancing slice to the ribs.
His shot sliced the outside of my left thigh.
He ran out of bullets, and so did I. I remember daylight.
I remember the rage, the hate, and the pain.
My knife swinging wildly, red clouding my vision. Hurtling through the air.
Water.
Choking. Drowning. Darkness.
Nothing.
And now, I'm waking up in pain; my thigh screams, a hot throbbing pulse of pain in time with my heartbeat.
I assess before opening my eyes or moving—I hear engines, splashing water chucking against a hull.
A voice, somewhere overhead. I smell coffee and cooking food—bacon and eggs and rice.
My leg is the only source of real pain. It's bad but tolerable, and I don't feel feverish yet, so hopefully there's no infection.
My hands are bound behind my back, cinched painfully tight by hard plastic ties—the tightness is a good thing, as it means I'll be better able to snap them later. My ankles are also bound. Less helpful.
I listen, but the groan of the engines and the slap of water against the hull are the only sounds.
I open one eye to a slit, peer around, close it again: I'm in the cabin of a boat, obviously, and as far as my first glance can convey, I'm alone.
I wait a few moments, listening. Nothing.
So I open both eyes and take a better look.
The cabin has been stripped of everything except the bed frame and mattress—the frame is wooden and attached to the walls and floor, and the mattress is bare.
There's a 5-gallon bucket on the floor in the corner, orange with a white snap-on lid, in which I'm meant to relieve myself.
I just love pissing in buckets.
I'm on my side, facing the room. There's a small round window showing that I'm just above the waterline, and there's no land in sight on this side of the boat.
I hear boots squeaking on the floor outside and then the lock thunks—apparently, the door to this room has been retrofitted to lock from the outside. I shut my eyes and force my breathing into a slow, deep rhythm, faking sleep.
I hear the door open. Smell food.
"Leave it on the floor, José,” I hear Rafael snap. "Keep your distance from her."
"But chief," the other says—they're conversing in Spanish, "she is bound hand and foot and asleep."
"Oh, she's awake."
"But how do you know?"
"With that one, you only assume wrongly once. You must treat her like the serpent which you all have named her after—the viper. Even bound hand and foot, I imagine she can find at least three ways to kill you."
Inside, I'm pretty proud of this. Good to know my husband is still afraid of me.
He should be—I shall kill him with my bare hands before this is over. A bullet from a distance would have sufficed, and would have been the swiftest end to this ridiculously drawn-out game of cat and mouse, but far less satisfying. Watching the life bleed out of him will be far more enjoyable.
I hear boots on the floor and then the rattle of plastic as José leaves the tray on the ground. I feel him hesitate, feel his stare. I snap my eyes open and meet his with the iciest, most vicious glare I can summon, the kind of glare that would flay him to the bone, were mere looks able to kill.
I wish.
He yelps and scrambles backward, topples to his ass, and then crab-walks backward out of the room. Rafael, arm bound in a sling against his ribs, lounges outside the room, watching amused as his lackey stumbles to his feet and runs, muttering under his breath about "the fucking witch."
"It's impossible to find good help these days, don't you think?" Rafael asks, his tone casual and conversational.
I roll to my back and sit up, and then swing around to perch on the edge of the bed, eying the food; my stomach rumbles at the smell of it, and I realize I have no idea when I ate last.
Rafael grins at the sound. "Hungry, eh?"
I ignore him. I know better.
He saunters in—well, limps. I only remember hitting him in the ribs, but it appears I injured him in more than one place, but I don't remember. I glance down and see that my leg has been bound in bandages.
"Here we are," he says, stopping a safe distance away, "together again. Our last session together was rather rudely interrupted by your friends. I doubt we'll have that problem this time."
I ignore him. Mainly because I have nothing to say, but also because it pisses him off like little else. He’s paranoid out of necessity, but deep down, he craves attention.
He snarls. "Look at me, whore."
I don't.
He is afraid of me. Even when I’m bound hand and foot and injured, he still won't approach me too closely. As if I’d waste an escape attempt on something so foolish and useless as merely causing him pain, as delicious as that would be.
Oh, no. When I make my move, it will have been planned, rehearsed, and executed with intentionality. When I strike, he will look into my eyes and see his death at hand.
For now, I sit perched on the edge of the bed, eyes on the floor, spine straight, shoulders back, head high, pulse calm and steady.
He sighs, as if disappointed. Crouches on the floor just out of reach of my feet, should I decide to try and kick his teeth in; he draws that ridiculous gold-plated hand-cannon of his and angles it in my general direction.
"I will have my son, Sophia Sousa."
I lift my eyes to his. "My name is Sophia Bruna Santos de Silva. I am not your wife. I am not your anything. I never was and I never will be. And that child will never know who you are. To him, you will only ever be the villain responsible for his mother's death."
He seems genuinely puzzled. "But you are not dead yet."
I laugh at this. "Not me, you idiot. Beatriz. That pompous fool, Pugli, murdered her in front of him."
"Which means I did not kill her."
"It was at your behest, and he knows it.
" I don't know if this is true, but I'll see that it is.
"He doesn't know who I am either, Rafa." I meet his dark, cruel, vicious stare.
"And so it will remain. Do your worst. There is nothing you can do to me which I have not already endured.
You cannot break me. Torture me, beat me, set your thugs upon me—I have survived it.
I survived my father's worst. I have survived your worst. I will survive this, too. "
He shakes his head. "I have no wish to harm you. I just want my heir."
“He is not your heir. Find a woman who wants you, Rafa.
There has to be some brainless, greedy tramp out there stupid enough to let you violate her into having your sick whelp.
The child you seek will never, ever belong to you.
He will never, ever know your world. He is innocent and he will remain so, no matter what you do to me or any of us who have been caught in your twisted web of vengeance and greed. "
"Sophia, you leave me little choice. I was hoping we could resolve this with some civility."
"We can, Rafa. Go back to Brazil. Run your pathetic criminal empire as you wish—I could not care less what you do, as long as I, my employer, my men, and their partners are left alone. And the boy, obviously. Forget us, Rafa. Leave us alone."
He stands up, paces away, and then abruptly whirls on me, jamming the gun barrel into my wound, ripping a cry of pain from me, despite my best effort to remain silent. "I will have my son, Sophia."
"No, Rafa," I growl through gritted teeth, meeting his furious stare with one of my own. "You will not."
He jerks the gun away, bizarrely calm once more, the fury buried as if it never was.
"You have never called me Rafa. You know I dislike it.
" He spins on his heel, pries my jaw open with cruelly strong fingers, and shoves the cold, hard barrel of his gun into my mouth.
"I should kill you now and be done with it. "
I gag against my will, but my stare is as cold and calm as ever. I lift my chin, daring him to pull the trigger.
After a beat, he yanks it out of my mouth and paces away again, pistol dangling at his side. "That would be too easy. Too fast. Perhaps I've been going about this wrong. Perhaps you need a different kind of motivation."
"I don't know where he is, Rafa," I say, truthfully. "I don't know, and I can't tell you what I don't know even if I wanted to."
He tips his head to one side, ceding the point. "Perhaps. But you know how to find out. "
"Just have another child, Rafa," I repeat. "One you can twist and manipulate into your evil little clone."
"You are missing the point, Sophia. I do not want a different child. I want him. He is cartel royalty. He is my son. He is your son. He is the grandson of Bruno de Silva."
"He is none of those things. He is the son of an innocent Colombian woman named Beatriz.
He is just a boy." I lay down and turn away from him, facing the wall.
"Do as you wish, Rafa. I have said all I will say.
Just know that unless you forget this silly, petty, childish vendetta, you will die, soon, at my hands. "
He hisses in disgust. "I really fucking hate you, do you know that?"
I turn my head enough to make it clear he's gotten my attention back for a moment.
"I spent a long time hating you. I have resolved to waste no more of my life on the emptiness of hate.
I will kill you because you require killing.
Because I made a vow ten years ago as I bled my way across the jungle that you would die at my hands, and that is a vow I intend to keep.
But I no longer hate you. I have freed myself from the bondage of hatred. "
He snorts. "A pretty speech, Sophia. Very inspiring." He crosses the room slowly, leans over me, and whispers softly in my ear. "We shall see how your resolve holds up against what I have planned."
Fuck.
That doesn't sound good at all.
Three days pass in a haze of stultifying boredom, hunger, thirst, and pain. I am fed once a day, allowed to drink once a day, and, obviously, am given nothing for the pain of my wounds, not that I want or need it.
I hear a helicopter approach around midday on the third day since waking up. It lands, idles for a few minutes, and then departs. Someone getting on or off, I imagine.
Moments later, I hear feet. A key in the lock, the door opens. I remain as I am, hands still bound behind my back—they cut my hands free while I eat under the cold eyes of three armed guards, guns pointed at me, fingers on triggers, and then re-bind me when I've finished.
The door opens.
"Sophia." Rafael's voice is curiously eager. "I have someone I'd like you to meet."
Fuck.
I sit up and turn to face him; a woman of perhaps twenty or twenty-five stands before him, shivering, tear-tracks on her cheeks. I don't know her. But I know what's next: I talk, or he tortures her in front of me.
I sigh, and lift my eyes to hers. "English?"
"No English," she mumbles. "Espanol."
I address her in Spanish. "I will tell you the unpleasant truth. He is going to hurt you very badly to try to get me to tell him information." Her eyes shimmer wet with fear. "Do you have a child?"
Rafael watches and listens, curious, letting this play out.
She nods. "A son. Alejandro. He is three."
I search for the ice and the steel that have gotten me through so much, and I wrap myself in it. I am La Víbora. La Reina de Hielo. "I have a son, too. He is ten years old. That man is his father. He wants me to tell him where my son is so he can make my son like him. I will not."
The woman's eyes close as she comprehends my meaning, my intent. "I understand."
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "Forgive me."
She shakes her head. "There is nothing to forgive. I would do the same."
Rafael has a tool in his left hand, which he tucks under his armpit so he can give a slow clap. "How lovely. How inspiring.” He grips the tool once more—a pair of industrial bolt cutters. "How stupid."
He digs in a hip pocket and produces a large, black-bladed folding knife, and from the other pocket a cigar lighter.
These he places on the floor at his feet, holds the bolt cutters in his hands, and glances over his shoulders.
Two burly men enter and take the woman by the arms. One grips her right hand by the wrist while the other pins her jaw to force her to look at me.
Raffael's eyes never leave mine as he severs her thumb at the first joint with a swift clack of the tool. The woman screams, sags, sobs. The men let her drop to the floor.
Rafael tosses the cutters to one of the men, and then holds the blade in the flame until the metal is red hot. He cauterizes the stump with the flat of the knife, and the scent of boiling blood and seared flesh fills the room.
The woman's screams are breathless and silent.
Rafael rises to his feet, ushers his men out, and pauses in the doorway. "I'll leave you two to discuss things."
Fuck.
Can I hold out? Once, I could have. When I was Inez, fully and truly. When my heart was atrophied and shriveled and cold and empty and calcified in my chest. But now?
I don't know. Even for Little Ren, can I sit here and watch Rafael cut this innocent woman to pieces?
I force myself to sit up straight and stare blankly at Rafael as he assesses me.
He shakes his head. "Women," he grumbles, his tone derogatory and derisive. "Your new bleeding heart will only allow so much, I think. A few more fingers and you'll break." He leaves, locking the door behind himself.
When he's gone, I watch the woman cradle her hand to her belly, shuddering silent sobs. "I'm sorry," I whisper.
She crawls into a corner as far from me as she can get, curls up facing the wall, and weeps softly.
I lay back down and let guilt eat me.
"If you break, it will be for nothing," she whispers, eventually. "You cannot break."
The hate I claimed to have rid myself of erupts from deep within me, white-hot and calculating; it seems I'm not done hating Rafael after all.