28. Isabel
28
ISABEL
G raciella?
Who the hell was Graciella?
I hunkered close to Miguel, sticking behind him as though it could make me completely invisible.
We’d been standing here and talking with Rueben when those men showed up. They’d come like they had every right to stop by. Like friends visiting. They’d piled out of the cars, laughing and talking. But the second they realized Rueben already had visitors, they changed their tune.
Shouting. Pulling out guns. Angry and sneering at me .
No other woman was around. It was just me, unless Rueben had a woman in his house. No female exited the cars with them.
It made no sense, but they were looking at me , calling me Graciella.
“Get back.” Miguel immediately went on the defense, holding his gun at the ready and blocking me from them storming up the steps. We circled the approaching men, and he kept me behind him. His arm shot up to ward off the closest man from reaching me, but there was no way we’d win. They outnumbered us, firing shots, fighting Miguel, and all calling me Graciella.
They’d shown up so quickly, so suddenly, that I couldn’t keep track of who was where and what everyone said. Still reeling from what Rueben had said, that Louis was using me in marriage offers I knew nothing about, I struggled not to be swallowed up by the panic of men surrounding us.
All of them seemed to be Cartel members, working as a group. Together they were too many for me to run from, for Miguel to fight back. He’d told me that Rueben wasn’t exactly a friend, but an acquaintance. Even he was no help, as confused as I was.
Reacting to the need to fight or flight—again—I ran. I sprinted off the porch as Miguel shouted at me to back up, get in the car, and hide. But I didn’t get far. Two men grabbed me, and with a flurry of too much motion and speed, I was taken into the second car the men had arrived in.
And I was gone.
Kicking, flailing, and screaming, I resisted them capturing me at all.
None of them struck out at me, but two of them who sat in the back constrained me. My hands were pulled behind me. My wrists were tied. And a nasty strip of cloth was wrapped around my mouth, gagging me and ending my screams and shouts.
I’m not Graciella!
I had no clue who she was. I didn’t care. I didn’t want to know. Apparently, she was the woman in Louis’s life. His femme fatale. It didn’t matter to me. I’d cut my ties with Louis long ago, and I expected it to stay like that. No contact and severing ties meant nothing could pull me back in again.
They spoke on their phones, calling many people with excitement. I couldn’t follow the codes they spoke in, the names they referenced. I couldn’t begin to guess what they were discussing.
Staying observant and waiting to learn something I could use to get away, I lay there and waited.
And waited.
The more I focused on cataloging every detail about what they said and where it seemed like they were driving me, the less I could let my mind wander to that darkness of worrying and being so anxious that I swore my heart would trip and stutter to a stop.
This can’t be it.
This cannot be the end.
It wasn’t fair. It was not right or just or even believable in the throes of panic that this could be happening.
When I found him, just after I found the man who could make me feel complete and ease that aching sensation of being one half or lost, I’d have to lose him?
All the joy and excitement that I’d let into my heart and mind with Miguel seemed too cruel now.
To think that this was it, that I would be lost and separated from him forever.
Dread coiled in my stomach as I waited and tried to breathe as steadily as I could through the stress of this captivity.
None of them addressed me. None of them spoke to me or touched me. I was left to the lonely company of my mind as I circled over and over again through the questions and fears that bombarded me.
As the hours passed by, the tension racking my body and the lull of the car ride tricked me into dozing. I fell asleep, so overwhelmed by the constant attacks of panic and stress. Too weak to remain awake, my body shut down.
I didn’t sleep for long. I had no way to know how long I’d been out, but when I was roused by a man grabbing me by my upper arms to drag me out of the car, I didn’t feel rested at all.
I couldn’t track where I was, but I knew that they only could’ve moved me in that car, with whatever mileage they could afford on that tank of gas. I was still in Mexico, still a drivable distance away from Acapulco.
Still near Miguel, I hoped.
I couldn’t let myself fear for him. I couldn’t give in to the worry that he could’ve been hurt in that fight. We had to be strong together, as partners, even if we weren’t together in time and place.
Partners.
I would find my way back to him. I had to. I’d spent too long dreaming of having someone like him in my life to give up hope now.
The men moved me through a parking garage until we entered an elevator.
All the while, I was tracking and spying, trying to memorize and soak in every detail that I found.
I had no clue where I was, but I would do my best to remember it all. There had to be a way back to my man. To my future. He was supposed to have been the end of me, but it was only the beginning.
They took me up to a floor near the top, and after the door panels slid open to reveal an office suite, they guided me toward an office that was mostly emptied out, like the occupants were moving around.
After they shoved me to the floor and tied my hands to a chair, they left.
“What the fuck?” I asked myself, confused and so pissed off I could scream. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t make any noise and give away my panic. I had to stay cool and collected, to watch and learn and observe.
For a few hours, I sat there in the silence and fighting off the drowsiness that threatened to come back. I had to remain awake and alert. I had to pay attention because if I could be aware of what was happening, there had to be a way for me to find my way back to Miguel.
I nodded, almost dozing off, but the second the doorknob clicked and the wood panel swung in, I jolted awake. My heart hammered fast, triggering me into an instant alerted state.
Him.
Anger filled me at the sight of him .
I hadn’t laid eyes on my father in so long that I almost had to do a double-take and make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, that this tall man with graying hair was him.
Louis Flores.
He looked older, yet not, preserved against aging with his easy access to plastic surgery and cosmetic methods of youthfulness.
On the phone, he smiled and walked into the office, not even sparing me a glance.
“Yes, I know. It’ll work out just fine. Oh. Certainly. Of course it will, Yusef.”
Talking on the phone, he sat and ignored me, tied and gagged, glaring at him from the corner where I’d been sitting for hours.
“No,” he said into the phone. “Why would I care?” He listened in, laughing lightly. “It doesn’t bother me one bit. It shouldn’t. Women are born to be married off, and if you want to pay me two million instead of one million, then you’re proving that you’d make me a much better brother-in-law than Esteban would.”
More chuckles followed as they joked on and on about selling sisters or daughters in marriage.
“Because they are pawns,” Louis said, glancing at me. “Women are pawns.”
I narrowed my eyes, hating him with every fiber of my being. Every cell of my body burned with raging anger directed at him. l detested him before. I cut ties with him as soon as I could and never looked back. Now that I had to be tormented by his presence again, I loathed him with all the scorn I was sure I could ever feel toward a person.
He was evil.
He was the devil himself.
Sinister and selfish to the core.
His smile was wicked, suggesting he was quite proud of how this reunion was coming along—with me tied up and helpless.
“I never realized how handy you could be.”
I narrowed my eyes as he approached, removing the gag from my mouth with a rough jerk down. My head dipped down forcefully, hurting my neck.
“I never thought I’d have to see you again, but this is actually coming together nicely.”
For him to use me? Or to have me killed?
I spat out the threads from the gag that had gotten into my mouth. “I’m not marrying anyone for you.”
He grunted a rude sound like a laugh. “That’s the least of your worries, you little bitch.”
I stared at him, wondering how he could be so evil to his own flesh and blood. If Miguel and I had started a family already, if there was a baby growing in me, I would love him or her and defend their life until my last breath.
“You can just die in your sister’s place instead.” He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels, mighty pleased with himself.
Sister?
I stared at him, trying to understand.
I have a sister?
“You…” I shook my head, too slow to connect the dots. “I have a sister?” I opened and closed my mouth, stunned at this news. It was too ludicrous. Too out there. Too far-fetched for me to believe it for one second. “You mean one of your girlfriends had a child too?”
A half- sister?
He shook his head. “No. You can die in your sister’s place and the witch hunt will be called off for her.”
Shaking my head faster, I tried to understand, to comprehend what he could mean.
“I don’t have a sister.” I would’ve known. I would’ve remembered. Older or younger, I would’ve heard about her or saw her or?—
“You have a twin sister.” He tilted his head to the side as he roved a critical gaze over me. “You’ll never compare to her, never match up to her beauty with how you’ve failed to take care of yourself.” His face contorted in a sneer as he took in my tattoos. “You could’ve done well to watch what you eat over the years.”
Ignoring his jabs, I stared at him and tried to back up. I was stuck on what he’d said. That I had a twin . Not that he preferred her over me. Not that he’d thought I’d ruined my life by getting tattoos or putting on a little weight. But that he’d hidden a twin sister from me my whole life!
“I have a twin sister.” It should’ve been a question. Shock didn’t begin to cut it. I was baffled beyond any stretch of my imagination.
“Yes. She’s always been so much more…” He gestured at me, cringing. “So much better. I knew right away, when you were born. She was able to come home right away, but you had to stay in the hospital for another few days. Already so weak.”
“I can’t… I don’t believe you.”
He rolled his eyes.
“My mother would’ve said something and… and…”
Oh, my God. She had. She had tried to remember this other daughter. She’d asked about where the other girl was, and I assumed she was talking about one of his mistresses or flings. She’d slipped and said daughters, not daughter, and I wondered if she’d lost a baby before me.
She had given birth to twins, and all my life, Louis had conned her into not believing that. He’d spent over twenty years making her believe she was crazy instead.
“I sent her away so she would be raised with a better woman. A team. I couldn’t let her live with your waste of a mother and be too soft or weak.” He shook his head as he looked off to the side, growing absent in his focus. “She was such a waste. And I couldn’t let Graciella be affected by her.”
“You separated me from my twin?” I had to stop looking at this as a question. The shock and confusion was a lot to cut through, but I knew he wasn’t bluffing.
That was who those Cartel members thought I was when they showed up at Rueben’s house.
That was who that one man was talking about when they referenced Louis’s woman and mentioned a femme fatale.
That was who Rueben reported to Miguel about, these cases of Louis promising his daughter in marriage and then reneging.
That’s why… I’ve always felt half. One part of a whole.
I’d been born with a partner, a twin sister. I’d shared a womb with her. And I spent all my life without her.
That strange sense of loss I’d suffered with wasn’t just loneliness. It was the fact that I was missing my twin. A bond my father had severed without telling me.
“I knew Graciella could be the ruler I needed to expand with. I recognized her intelligence from a young age, and that was why I sent her away, to exploit that strength and raise her to be the leader I wanted to count on as I grew my empire and wealth.”
“I can’t believe this…” I didn’t say it out loud to him to express my opinions. He wouldn’t care about my reaction. I just had to speak it to vent the thought out of my mind.
“It’s unfortunate that the Carmello men have to be such sore losers.” He twisted his lips as he rubbed the back of his head. “They just had to be so bitter about losing that idiot she’d gone back to kill.” He shrugged. “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. They just had to get angry and put a hit on me like that. Not that they’d ever win. They’ll never succeed. I’ve got enough morons out there who owe me favors and will tip me off to when I can hide.”
“That’s your problem. This has nothing to do with me .” Anger rose hotter, and I wanted to scream it. “I cut ties with you. This is your problem, not mine. This is… her problem. Not mine!”
All I wanted was to live my life free from his corruption and evil. To start a future with a family of my choosing.
“Do you think I give a fuck about you?” He shook his head and laughed. “I don’t give a shit about you. I never have. I wouldn’t have reached out to you. You just happened to be noticed and those idiots thought you were Graciella. I don’t know, with how you’ve let yourself go, but it’s working out in my favor and I’d be a fool to ignore the opportunity for the Cartel to feel like they can get an eye for an eye from Graciella killing that idiot they call a leader.”
He watched me as I sat there silently. Dread built, and I struggled not to panic.
“Now they can just see ‘her’ get killed. In broad daylight.”
My jaw hung open. “Wait. You put the hit on me?”
He nodded. “Why not? Let them kill you and think they’ve gotten her. Then a few months later and a little plastic surgery, she can slip right back into doing business as usual with me. Then she’ll never be bothered again.”
Blood drained from my face and I felt myself go numb.
He was sacrificing me to spare the twin sister I never knew I had.