Chapter 38
thirty-eight
Natalia
We leave the long-abandoned mining town in plumes of smoke. The convoy of armored cars roll over the desert hills, and I can’t relax until the clapboard building where I almost died collapses, flames licking up the remaining beams in the rearview mirror.
“Do you think they’ll find the bodies?” Matias shrugs in the driver’s side of the car, wielding Santos’ race car over the dirt roads like he’s drifted in it thousands of times.
“If fire doesn’t take them, the coyotes and mountain lions will.
” I’m thrown back into my seat, the powerful engine in the little car roaring as we hit a straight and eventually rejoin the interstate.
Our convoy disperses, branching off in different directions and blending into traffic.
I watch the passing scenery, relishing the feeling of the wind whipping in from the open.
My hair flies in a million directions, and I know I must look terrible—but I can’t bring myself to care.
For a long time, having the wind on my face feel like the only way I can breathe. Until Matias reaches across the console, his hand seeking mine silently and giving me a squeeze. He looks over at me, letting out a harsh breath and rolling up my window.
“What you did…never do that again.”
My lips form a firm line. “I can’t promise that.” Because as terrifying as it was, I would do it again if it means saving his life.
“You almost died.”
“Well, that’s just a risk I’m willing to take.”
“I’m not.” He says quickly, letting out a blustery breath. “I’m done with this life, Natalia. I can’t lose you before we start our new one.” The fight goes out of me like a candle being snuffed. I sigh, relaxing into my seat, hating the way his throat works to keep the emotions at bay.
I look at my lap. “It was an emergency.”
“I know.” He replies quietly, squeezing my hand again before glancing at me over his shoulder. “Thank you.” I nod, fighting to keep the glum look off my face. Because although I saved him, I’m pretty sure everything today was my fault.
Ernesto’s final words echo in my head, a garbled sentence that only made sense to me.
“I don’t understand what he was doing there.” Matias says, referring to the man Papa once tried to marry me off to. “Last I heard he was in prison.”
Ag—Agent Bryce…says…hello.
The words wash over me like a bucket of water, my heart skipping a beat.
How do I tell Matias that the reason Ernesto ambushed him today was because I stopped playing nice with the FBI?
Because weeks ago, I promised them his head on a silver platter, and now I’m doing everything short of manslaughter to protect him?
“What was the plan today, anyway?”
Matias glances at me from the corner of his eyes, weaving between two cars camping in the left lane. “It was just a trade.”
I nod. “For that big shipment Santos was talking about, right?” He nods. “What were trading it for?”
He bites his lip before answering. “…Nothing.” I turn in my seat, craning my head to stare at him.
“What?”
“I wasn’t trading it for anything.”
My brows pinch into a frown. “So…you were giving away a shipment worth what? Millions?” I’m no boss, but that math doesn’t add up.
Matias chuckles under his breath. “It was the payment for the deal I was trying to pull off. The shipment in exchange for a ceasefire. No more games. No more fights. Just send the shit back to its original owner and go our separate ways.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Why would you just give it back after sitting on it all these years?”
“I thought I could find them before they found me.” Matias watches the horizon. “I was wrong. Things are different now, I’m not up for fights anymore.” He gives me a pointed look, and I’m consumed with equal parts guilt and affection when I realize he may be talking about me. About us.
I want to hug him, kiss him—but most importantly, I want to tell him the truth.
It sits so heavily in my throat it threatens to choke me, but when I open my mouth, a loud grating interrupts me.
I turn, realizing at some point, Matias veered off the highway and into rolling hills that look… vaguely familiar.
A rusting black gate in front of us groans loudly, scraping across a paved driveway as it rolls out of the way. Why does this place look familiar?
We enter the winding drive, and my stomach starts to turn. I’ve been here before, and the trees give it away. It was the same canopy of trees I stared at as I was taking what I thought were my last breaths.
The back of Papa’s property looks different than from the last time I was here, but I still recognize it. And once we roll into the giant motor bay that served as a secret bunker, it really sinks in…
We’re in my childhood home.
Where I grew up. Where I fell in love with Matias.
Where I nearly died.
A fact Matias seems painfully aware of as he cuts the engine.
“I’m sorry. We’ll just be a second. I promise.
There’s something really important I need to do.
” I almost decide to wait in the car for him, but something about the tense set of his shoulders give him away.
Matias gets out and bounds over to the open doors of the motor bay, his shadow casting deeply on the cracked asphalt as I dart out of the car and rush up behind him.
He gives me an errant glance when I take his hand in mine.
The bunker looks just like it did the afternoon of the raid, except messier. Crates are stacked up along the sides, some open, the contents spilling onto the cement floor. I walk beside Matias, watching as he takes stock of the assortment of weapons and other contraband.
“Is it just me, or is there more here than…than the last time?”
He plucks a rifle off the ground and puts it back into its corresponding crate. “All that stuff got seized the day of the raid.” He looks at the ground, like he’s trying as hard as I am not to think too much about that afternoon.
“After they seized everything, they catalogued the place to death, and then never touched it again. So…when I suddenly had Reynaldo’s shipment in my lap, and needed somewhere to put it…” He shrugs.
“You’ve been hiding it here this whole time?” I take an astounded turn around the cavernous room, noticing all of the things I never had the chance to notice before. When we were getting chased and shot at by the FBI.
The two-story metal shelving, made in an industrial design that makes me wonder just how long I lived on top of this operation and never knew. High above us, blinding white light fixtures wash everything in a sterilized shade of blue, not a dark corner in sight.
Matias moves unhurriedly, lifting the lids of a few crates and taking stock of what’s left.
“I expected Paco to clean us out.” He says blowing a breath. “Toledo put him in charge of moving all of this. By all accounts he could have taken all of this while we were waiting in the desert.”
I stand beside him. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
He shakes his head. “He left all of this and ran, Natalia. It means that whatever he was actually looking for wasn’t here, or…” He sighs, and the sound sends a nervous flutter in my belly.
“Or what?”
“Or, he’s still getting orders from someone else now that Ernesto is dead.” It isn’t until he turns around and looks at me that the heaviness of his words kick in. “Or both.”
He lowers himself into a wooden footstool, the adrenaline of the day disappearing in the blink of an eye.
“Your dad told you Paco worked for Ernesto before he moved to California, right? What else did he say?”
I shrug. “That’s all he mentioned. It was just in passing, honestly, I didn’t even connect the dots until this morning.” Matias wraps his arms around me when I wind my hand in his hair, trying desperately to soothe the knots in his shoulders.
“It’ll be okay.” I say quietly, biting my lip when he buries his face in my stomach with a soul-crushing sigh.
“I’m tired.” He says, voice muffled against my dress.
“I know.” His hair is thick and textured under my touch, his breaths slowing as I soothe him with a quiet tone.
“Does it make me an idiot that I’m disappointed for overlooking Paco this whole time? I mean, he’s been with us for so long, I never once thought he’d be the weak link.” Matias holds his head in his hands. “I’m such an idiot.”
The words knock the air out of my lungs.
This isn’t a good time to tell him.
But I need to tell him. Now. Before it’s too late. I love him, and the past few weeks having this deal with the FBI hanging over my head have been a never-ending nightmare. I want to love him without the fear that a few well-placed words from a stranger will set us on fire.
“Matias, there…there’s something I need to tell you.” He looks up at me, giving me his undivided attention, and suddenly my tongue turns to stone.
“I…well…I’ve been meaning to talk to you about—” I don’t get to finish my sentence, because a blinding, deafening explosion shakes the room. I don’t see Matias—only feel him—as he takes me in his arms and we both go down together.
The concrete floor is unforgiving, but I cling to him for dear life. Everything happens too fast—my senses struggling to make sense of what is happening. All I can do is watch Matias and observe the side of his face as the room is cast in a heavy curtain of smoke.
My ears ring loudly, making it impossible to hear the words coming out of my mouth.
“Don’t move.” He breathes heavily, his weight suffocating and relieving all at once. Slowly, the brain-piercing ringing in my ears start to clear.
Just in time to hear voices shouting at us.
“FBI, don’t move! Put your hands up where we can see them!” Matias freezes, the fight going out of him immediately.
He moves slowly, his shaky breath matching the galloping beat of my heart. Guilt pushes up my stomach, and I have to swallow back bile when stranger’s hands pull us apart. The next few moments drift by like an out-of-body experience.
Agents swarm Matias, disarming him, slapping shiny metal cuffs on his wrists. He watches me as they search me for a weapon, eyes rapt and inscrutable, visibly relaxing when the faceless agents release me.
There’s too many people here for just the two of us. Men in tactical vests and rifles drift around the room, their appearance so sickeningly similar to those that afternoon of the raid that everything becomes a blur.
It’s all I can do to calm my choppy breaths when I see him.
Agent Bryce strides in, chest puffed up with a smug grin on his face. He carries a stack of papers in hand, and as he walks up to us, starts reading the warrant for Matias’ arrest.
“Matias Rojas, you are under arrest, for the crimes of drug smuggling, possession of illegal substances, possession of illegal weapons…” He goes on and on, and each charge feels like a punch to the chest. Tears well in my eyes, at the defeated set in Matias’ shoulders, like he’d rather go to prison the rest of his life than fight.
He is broken.
And it’s all my fault.
The silence after Agent Bryce speaks is deafening. So it’s easy, too easy, for everyone in the warehouse to hear him when he turns to me like we’re friends, and says:
“Natalia, thank you for your help. Couldn’t have done it without you.”