Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
MARIA
I watch as the private landing strip in Monterrey comes into view. I can’t believe I’m back here again.
It’s hard to believe all of this has happened in just a couple of months. It’s been such a crazy ride, I’ve had a hard time keeping on top of it. Only six weeks ago, I was in London, working on a research project, when I got a call from my father that sent every nerve ending in my body into panic mode.
My father had encouraged me to take the research position in the UK, even though I had been doubtful about it. Working on my PhD, I had mostly stayed in Mexico, sometimes heading across the border for brief stints in the USA, but London? That was so far from home, so far removed from everything that I had ever known, I couldn’t help but feel a little terrified at the prospect.
But my dad, he’d told me how important it was for me to go out into the world and see something different. How much I would learn out there, not just about my field of study, but about myself. And, yes, it might not be easy, but it would be worth it. That I would regret it if I passed up the chance, and that he would call me every day to make sure I was okay out there.
And so, I took it. The study I was working on was focused on the gut microbiome, and how it might impact the development of certain diseases; pretty cutting-edge stuff, but it held the possibility to provide a lot of help to a lot of people who needed it. I felt called to go there, to see if I could make a difference, but looking back…
Looking back, I wish I had stayed right where I was, and not flown all the way across the world to London, leaving my father behind and vulnerable to the kidnapping that would take him from me.
Arriving in London, I had been so nervous. My English was good, but I was still worried they would judge me on my accent, thinking I was from some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. But the lab I was working at was full of international researchers, and I found myself settling in quickly. My daily calls with my father began to drop off to weekly ones instead, as I was so focused on my work that I didn’t have time for much else.
I had been heading back from the lab, planning to get washed up and head out with a couple of the girls I had met at work, when the call came in. I felt my phone buzzing against my hip, and when I saw it was my father calling, I answered it at once. Looking back, I should have clocked that there was something up right away, given that he would normally have been at work when I was finishing up, but it didn’t even cross my mind that evening. I had been so focused on my studies and research, I’d hardly had time to think about my life back in Mexico.
“Hola,” I greeted him, ready to hear his warm voice down the line, the voice that always sounded like home to me. But, instead of that, I heard something else—some kind of commotion. Voices overlapping each other. His was somewhere in there, yelling something, but it sounded so distant, I couldn’t make it out.
“Papa?” I tried again, but there was nothing. No reply. A few seconds later, the call went dead and a cold wash of panic rushed through me. I stared down at the screen of my phone for a moment, waiting for him to call back and apologize and tell me that he had butt-dialled me or something, but there was nothing.
I hurried home and fired off messages to everyone I could think of who might have been close enough to check on him. Trying to convince myself it was nothing more than my own paranoia. I had gone out that night, but I had spent the evening distracted, compulsively checking my phone, waiting to hear back from him. I kept telling myself I was overthinking it. That when my father called me back I would laugh at how ridiculous I had been, and I would be able to return my focus to my studies in no time.
But there was nothing the next day. Or the day after that. I called up some of my tios, hoping to find him there, but they told me they hadn’t heard anything from him. I even reached out to a few of his coworkers, but they were confused, assuming he’d had to deal with a family issue and that was why he hadn’t been at work for a while. Wherever he was, he was in trouble, I was sure of it, and I needed to get out there and do something about it.
I took a leave of absence from my job, knowing I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to do any good around the lab, anyway, and flew back to Monterrey. I can still remember sitting on the plane, pulling into the airport, and inhaling the familiar scent of the air, but feeling, in the back of my mind, that there was something terribly wrong. That there was something I needed to fix.
I caught a cab back to our part of the neighborhood and headed up the street, to the far end of the road that led to our slightly out-of-the-way house. My father liked it there because it was quiet, less snooping neighbors asking questions about when he was going to get remarried. Normally, home was a sanctuary to me, but now? Now, I knew there was something off and I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
I slipped my key into the door, and pushed it open. I called my father’s name into the house, praying he would call back to me, emerge from the kitchen with a towel over his shoulder, so we could laugh about how far this silly misunderstanding had gone.
And then, Rayo stepped out into the hallway and lifted a gun level with my head, my heart dropping into my shoes.
“You’re coming with me,” he told me, his voice eerily calm. “If you want to keep your father safe.”
I lifted my hands slowly above my head, not daring to protest.
He grabbed me and shoved me into the back of a waiting car, the gun pressed to the small of my back the whole time. I could remember, all too vividly, the bite of it against my skin, the knowledge that with one pull of the trigger, he could end my life.
I had never faced something like that in my entire life, not once. I knew there was a dark side to Mexico, just like there was to any place in the world, but I had never imagined I’d have to see it.
I was driven to a compound outside of the city. I sat, wondering if any of the people who glanced over at the car as it drove past had any idea of what was going on inside of it. I felt numb. I still didn’t know what had happened to my father, if he was even alive. I couldn’t stop playing the sight of that gun through my mind, wondering if that was the end he’d met when he had been least expecting it. Had that been what I’d heard on the call? I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
What would they even want my father for, anyway? He was great at his job, of course, but I was too na?ve to think of what they would need someone like him for. He wasn’t a violent man, or a dangerous one. He wouldn’t have hurt a fly, having dedicated his whole career to making the world a better, safer, healthier place for people.
I was yanked out of the car and pulled inside a large compound—a villa that stretched around a large garden, filled with dogs who looked as though they would have ripped my throat out at the barest hint of danger.
And that was when I met El Serpiente.
I was forced into a small room, where two guards were poised at either side of a large marble desk. Sitting in a huge leather chair on the other side was a man who looked to be around my father’s age, his head shaved, and a tattoo of a snake curling up around his neck, spitting venom across his throat.
He clasped his hands in front of him once I was pushed down into the seat opposite him, eyeing me with what looked like amusement.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, speaking slowly, confidently.
I swallowed heavily and then shook my head. “No,” I whispered. I was telling the truth. But I knew to be careful with him. He exuded a power I had never sensed from anyone before, and even Rayo, who had, up until that point, been happy pushing me around and making me do whatever he wanted. Now he seemed to defer to him, dipping his head down with respect when he entered the room.
The man smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. When he grinned, he looked like a wolf bearing its teeth—a threat before he pounced.
“You don’t need to know my name,” he replied. “You just need to know that I have your father. And if you don’t do exactly as we say, he’s dead. You understand?”
I swallowed down the heavy lump in my throat, and nodded. I didn’t have a choice. They had me right where they wanted me, and they knew it. I had been backed into a corner, and the best I could hope for was making it out on the other side in one piece.
And ensuring that my father didn’t get a bullet in his brain for my mistakes.
From there, they had flown me out to Houston and forced me to gather information on the Kings for them, kept me up in that room, forced me to parade around the streets like I was some kind of whore. It was a miracle I hadn’t gotten myself killed already, and I could only pray that the same went for my father.
My father.
I snap back to reality, to the moment in front of me, as the plane judders to a halt and Blue and Malo get to their feet. I do the same, stretching my arms above my head, trying to remind myself that I’m the one who wanted to come here in the first place. Even if, right now, it feels like the biggest mistake in the world.
I hesitate before I follow Malo and Blue out onto the steps that lead down to the runway outside. I know I can’t turn back now, but there’s a part of me protesting my presence here at all. I should have just stayed at the compound, where I knew I would be safe. What was I thinking, trying to come out here with them? What was I thinking relying on these men in the first place? I’ve gone from one criminal organization to another, and I’ve somehow convinced myself that this one is going to be different.
I force myself to follow them outside, and, though the air is warm, a cold shiver runs down my spine. I shouldn’t be here. I should get back on this plane, let it take me back to Houston. It’s not as though I feel entirely safe at the Kings’ compound, but out here, I feel as though I’m going to do more harm than good. One wrong move, and I could get myself killed. Not just myself, but my father, too. I know he’s relying on me to get him out of the nightmare he’s currently trapped in, but if my emotions get the better of me, we’re both done for.
Malo seems to clock the look on my face as I step off the plane and onto the tarmac below. He reaches for my hand and grabs it, catching me off-guard. His touch, though a surprise, is welcome. I need anything I can get to ground me right now, as I try to figure out what I’m going to do next.
“Hey,” he murmurs to me. I manage to make eye contact with him.
“You’re all right,” he assures me, giving my hand a squeeze. I squeeze it back. It’s not like I can talk right now, not with my mind rushing as fast as it is at this moment.
“Malo, Blue!”
A couple of men are waiting for us just outside the small airport building, and one of them calls out to the two Kings accompanying me. I can tell from the way Blue has been avoiding talking to me all this time that he’s not exactly thrilled that I’m here with them, but he hasn’t tried to kick me off this mission, and that’s all that matters. I can’t give him reason to worry about what kind of a liability I might be. I need to keep my focus, keep my head. It isn’t the same as it was before, when I was caught off-guard arriving back in Mexico. No, this time, I know what I’m walking into, and I have two Ruthless Kings by my side to get me through it.
I follow Malo over to greet the men, and I notice one of them eyeing me. Not in a creepy way, but more as though he’s trying to figure out what I’m doing here.
“This is Maria,” Malo introduces me, stepping out in front of me as though he’s protecting me from their gaze. “She’s here to help us take Las Rosas Negras down.”
“Good,” the man remarks. “We’re going to need all the help we can get. Come on, the car’s waiting. We need to go.”