23. Luna
23
LUNA
H e takes me to the house in Tulum. Back to the house of horrors. My body tenses and locks as soon as the car comes to a stop outside the soaring walls of the fortress. It’s near impenetrable, its sandstone walls towering high above the cliffs overlooking the Caribbean Sea. If not for the nightmares I had of this place, I’d otherwise describe it as idyllic. All things considered, it is anything but.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask, my voice small and weak. I can’t take my eyes off the house that holds so many of my childhood memories. I turn my face to look at my father. I can’t interpret his expression as he stares straight through me, his eyes hard, devoid of all emotion.
“Not sure why you wouldn’t want to be back where it all started,” he says, his voice reaching me as though from far away. “This is the house you were born in.”
My face blanches as heat envelopes me, starting from my head and moving through my body. There’s no escaping the meaning of his words. I was born in this house, and I would probably die in this house.
“I don’t want to be here,” I tell him.
“That’s not up to you to decide,” he hisses. “You will do as you’re told.”
“Where are my brothers?” I ask, desperately grasping at something. Anything that could save me from the fate that awaits me. My father does not have good intentions when it comes to me.
“Shut up and get out of the car,” he orders, digging his gun into my side. I turn my face away from him, but not before I catch a glimpse of the driver watching in the rear view mirror, his eyes hard as he watches the interaction. It’s the same driver from before; the one who narrowly escaped my father’s bullet.
“I don’t want to be here,” I gasp, as I fling the door open and step out.
I start to run.
I run as fast as I can, heading for the cliff. There’s nowhere else to go, but if I have to throw myself off the cliff to my death, then that’s what I’ll do. But I won’t let him destroy me again. I run, and I don’t stop until a shot rings out, stopping me in my tracks. I skid to a halt when his voice rings out and turn to face him, my arms raised in surrender.
“Take one more step perra , and I will not hesitate to put a bullet in your back and feed you to the hyenas. I will deprive you even of a burial. Then I will do the same to your beloved brothers.”
“You vile, evil man,” I spit out.
“If you die, it will be at my hands, and my hands alone. I. OWN. YOU .”
* * *
Nothing about the house has changed. The halls are still cold and dark and I know that ghosts rest within each crevice. Just like they did when I was younger. I may have been gone for years, but the ghosts still live here. I can feel them in the very marrow of my bones.
“Why have you brought me here?” I ask, when what I really want to know is what his intentions are. What does he plan to do to me? Any delusions I have that the tracker will work and that TJ and Attila will make the trek to Mexico to rescue me from my own father are quickly dashed as he directs me down the long hallways and down the steps that lead into the dungeons. I couldn’t bring myself to even play here when I was a child. The chill alone, which carried with it the scent of dead, tortured bodies was enough to keep me away.
My father leads me into a cell and pushes me in when I linger a little too long at the door. He tells me to make myself comfortable then locks the door and walks away without another look back. I push away from the bars and fall onto the wooden plank that serves as a bench, folding my hands between my knees.
I’d had three years of freedom, living away from his tyrannical hold over me. Granted, I’d always had to look over my shoulder, but they were three wondrous years, nonetheless. I’d been a normal girl, studying and working and basically just living without the constraints of a father who only sought to control me. And the added bonus, I wasn’t being pimped off to a man much older than myself who had struck a financial deal with my father.
I allow my mind to cast back a few days to when I met Attila and TJ. Something is niggling at the back of my mind. No one stalks a woman, rescues her at the most opportune time, then puts their life on the line with guns and bullets trying to protect her. Then gives the woman a tracker so they can rescue here yet again. Unless… what did they actually want? And why had they come into my life? If they wanted to hurt me, surely they would have done so when they had the chance? No, this was something more, and I had to find out what it was.
I continued to let my mind think up wild theories. I didn’t have anything they wanted, or they would’ve taken it. But obviously, they wanted to know where I was because I could lead them to something or someone. My mind thought up all sorts of exaggerated theories, not least of which was that they’d needed me to lead them to Nadia. But that didn’t make any sense, because they would’ve seen her at the club that night, and they would’ve acted on that scenario then. It had to be something else.
“Think, Luna, think ,” I urge myself.
What were the chances that they would track me here? And if they did, what would they find? Would the thing they wanted be found wherever I was? What would they find if they came here to Tulum? Me. My father. A host…
I stop thinking. I clear my mind and retrace my steps.
My father.
Of course.
That was it.
But why?
Granted, he had more enemies than the President, but how did they even know him? What were their ties, if any, to him? And where the fuck were my brothers?