Chapter 11 Mateo
MATEO
Ididn’t actually have a damn clue what was going on in that closet, aside from álvarez being too pissed off to even look at Zerkos for the last two days since he finished building it, and mentioned putting her in there.
Except for the non-stop pounding ache in my head that only quieted with music, it was completely silent down here.
I figured if it was really so bad in there, I would be able to hear something about it, but she wasn’t even shouting or banging on the door.
I sat there for three hours like I had been told to.
It wasn’t until I opened the door to the room and the heat poured out of it along with the blaring sound of gunshots, that I realized the bastard put her in a soundproof box inside of the closet.
She was sitting there with her eyes open; a dry stream of tears marked her face as she tiredly rested her elbows on her knees and clutched her ears with her hands.
She had the most vacant expression on her face, one I recognized from my own nightmares, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from picking her up and cradling her in my lap as she wept.
I wanted to tell her it wasn’t me. I don’t know why but I needed her to know that her misery was not my doing, that I didn’t know what was happening in there.
It seemed pointless though and I couldn’t find a way to will the words out.
Once her tears stopped and her breathing became shallower, I took an ear bud out of my pocket and placed it inside of her ears. I thumbed my playlist with one hand and turned on my favorite classical playlist.
She gazed into my eyes for the entirety of the song, feeling every heartbreaking pull of the cello string through as she exhaled into me.
We sat there on the floor for longer than I planned, though it only felt like a blink of an eye.
I secretly dreaded the minute reality would take me away from this moment.
I lazily ran my fingers through her hair, it smelled like coconut, though I wasn’t sure how because there was definitely no coconut shampoo, it was just dial soap we let them use every few days.
I made a mental note to get some coconut shampoo for her, never wanting this scent to fade away.
I eventually decided to stand, picking her up and carrying her back into the kennel and she laced her hands behind my neck. I sat down on her bed to put her down but as I went to get up, she tightened her hold on me, and I understood her silent plea to stay.
This was so completely fucked, there was no way that asshole was going to make me put her through this again, if he wanted to torture his ex-girlfriend, he could come clean up after himself too.
I mean, I understood his pain, I made it my own for so long.
When she first showed up, I was excited to see my brother get a taste of revenge.
She wasn’t some Yakuza or Bratva bitch who was going to lead us to the big fish though.
It was too personal, too close to home and Ronan fucked us all when he brought her in here.
It had been over a month now since we locked her up and all I could see was a chick who was tougher than nails and refused to break for him.
Every time I looked into her nightshade-colored eyes; I could see her hatred for him growing tenfold with every new thing he put her through in his mission to get answers from her.
I had my own questions too, they were burning inside of me as I shoved them down day in and day out.
I wanted to know everything about her, what created a woman like this?
Out of what ashes did she emerge from that stoked the inextinguishable flame in her eyes?
That look of revenge that could never be satiated, a bloodlust that couldn’t be fulfilled.
I wanted to know what kind of music played through her head when she was all alone.
Did someone like her even care about music?
What were her favorite things?
I realized I wanted to know everything I could about what made her tick. What made her, her. In that same train of thought I realized I was fucked beyond return now, and it was just a matter of time before Ronan killed me just for looking at her.
I sat next to her while she rested her head against my shoulder for the better part of an hour until she fell asleep and I stood up to make my way out of the kennel without paying any mind to the other occupants.
I didn’t need to lock it behind me, the doors had an automatic lock once they closed shut.
Before I arrived in the lobby, I heard Ronan calling my way.
“All good?” He asked nonchalantly with his arms folded behind his head casually, though I knew he had likely been watching me through the surveillance for the last hour.
“No. Not all good. Fucking asshole,” I muttered the last part as I stormed out of the room to try to avoid giving him an actual piece of my mind.
Before I could make it to the elevator, he was cutting me off and blocking me with his arm.
“You want to tell me what happened over there?” He raised his eyebrow at me, but I shook my head at him.
“You don’t get to play jealous boyfriend while you’re making me torture her.” I pushed his arm off the wall and entered the elevator.
He didn’t follow me in, so I closed the door and pressed the button to go back up to the penthouse. When I walked in, álvarez was in his usual position sitting on the couch with a drink in his hand staring off at the wall.
“He’s crossed a line,” I said to him.
He just rolled his eyes at me and raised his glass, “I’ve been saying that for five weeks now man, welcome aboard the S.S. Sanity.”
“I don’t even think we’re working the others right this year. Everything feels off with her here. His attention is everywhere but where it needs to be.” I said and álvarez nodded quietly as he opened up the laptop on the coffee table in front of him.
He pulled up the live feed for the kennel’s surveillance which showed her there, exactly as I left her, with her eyes closed and holding on to the smallest granule of peace she was offered.
“Last year they had all broken at this point, remember we joked that he should go work for the CIA with how fast he made work of the Irish and the Odessa?” Santos asked without lifting his eyes from the screen, and I grunted my agreement at him.
“Something bad is gonna happen, man, I can feel it.” He lifted his gaze up to me and I could see the concern in my brother’s features.
Even though I knew it was his superstitious Mexican bullshit tugging at his thoughts, there was more to it than just bad juju floating around.
Everything was wrong this year.
“We’ll sort it out together,” I promised him.
“There’s no together if Ronan is on this revenge mission. He’s gonna destroy her, and then he’s gonna destroy himself. He’ll take us all down with him.” He warned and worry began to fill me from the inside at the idea that it might be true.
All I knew was the life I worked so hard to build with my brothers, without them I was a nobody, with nothing.
We may have been kings in the hill we conquered for ourselves but at the end of the day we were all just shadows of the little boys we used to be.
We sat on a throne out of the skeletons from our past hoping we could muffle out their cries and screams.
Santos was always just barely drowning in regret from all the things he did in Los Muertos, all the lives he was forced to take that were innocent to their war as he fought to make his way out of something you can only understand if you were born into it.
I thought about my little sister, Andrea and sorrow permeated through me as my mind froze on the image of her lifeless body in her bedroom.
I tried to clear it from my head, but I couldn’t, I knew I would have to smoke tonight to clear the memory long-term as my heart held on to the feeling of failure.
That feeling was why I agreed to do these trials to begin with, to save a few innocent girls where we could, even if it wasn’t in the nicest way possible, a little brainwashing for a couple of weeks and a few months from now they would all be free to live their lives exactly how they wanted, this was a future that wasn’t possible if they’d stayed locked up and sold by the gangs who previously owned them.
With Cecilia, there was no justification though, what I saw today didn’t have a higher meaning or purpose.
What would happen once she gave him the information he was looking for?
Would she be free to live her life a few months from now?
Would Zerkos ever let her leave? How far would his punishment go?
There were so many unknowns and the biggest one that swirled through my mind were the words she spoke to me today.
Because he’s making you?
I trusted Ronan with my life, he’d saved it enough times in the twelve years we spent inseparable, and he’d never led me wrong. Something inside me knew this wasn’t right and the memory of my little sister was haunting me to make better choices.
“I’ll tell him I won’t work her anymore.” I finally said out loud, “If he wants to keep breaking her, he’s going to have to do it himself. I’m not going to be responsible for this.”
Santos clapped me on the shoulder like he was proud of my decision and nodded his head in approval. I knew he could see what was haunting me, but he never pushed and I never wanted to talk.
“He’s so wrapped up in his revenge and what he lost that he doesn’t see the truth. And he won’t until it’s too late,” he said to me.
“And what is that?” I asked.
“She’s protecting him from something. I think she always was,” he said, and his words brought clarity to my mind that opened my eyes to a possibility I had never even considered.
“That’s why she didn’t steal the money when she left,” I said as I pieced together the pieces of the puzzle I knew, and he nodded at me.