Chapter 41 Genesis
Genesis
Ihaven’t left this house in over a month.
This wasn’t the longest time Raquel had restricted me from going out, but this was the first time I’d finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
The only problem was that the tunnel I had to crawl through was full of demons whispering in my ear and driving me mad.
I had escaped this demon before. I could do it again.
For now, I just needed to play his game.
Let him think he’d won me over. Throwing my bag over my shoulder, I walk up the stairs, the creak of each step guiding me to the freedom that awaits me.
I take one last look around the house, walking slowly through each room and giving the space a long goodbye.
One final passing of the home where I’d grown up.
I stop to look at the pictures on the wall of me, my younger brother Naz, and the baby, Kamila.
My two reasons for staying as long as I did.
I love them more than I love myself, but I don’t want to keep putting them in danger because of the invisible scars inside me that refuse to heal.
The parasite created out of my depression is gnawing at the remaining pieces of my soul. I can’t hurt them anymore.
“Goodbye,” I whisper out to the open space, hoping they’ll feel the love I have for them when they return and find me gone.
Walking out the front door, I look out beyond our property to the sunflower fields. That’s where this had begun, and if I was lucky, where it would finally end. Starting the long walk down the gravel road, I’m prepared to run into security, but there’s no one in sight.
The closer I get to the end of the road, the more bodies I find sprawled across the pavement, blood leaking out and painting the ground a dark red around them. It’s a deep mahogany. I take a mental picture, curious about which medium I would choose to recreate the scene. Oil? Pastel? Maybe acrylic.
Dead bodies didn’t seem to bring remorse for me the way they would for someone living a normal life. These men had signed up to be pawns, and karma finally met them face-to-face, just as it had met me all those years ago.
Karma is six foot two, with death infused green eyes and rough hands. He is heaven and hell mixed in one. My savior and my torturer. Karma has a name, Cassiel Ontiveros.
For a moment, I forget he’s the devil I made a deal with. I pass through the gates. Somehow, it’s like I can feel him watching me, waiting to chase after me. My steps quicken instinctively.
Suddenly, I’m a little girl again, sprinting barefoot toward the sunflower fields, the sun beating down on my shoulders, and the air sharp in my lungs.
My long hair flows behind me, and my legs stretch in front of me with long strides.
I don’t stop until the towering flowers rise in front of me like a wall of gold. Then I slip inside the maze.
The large stalks brush against my shoulders, welcoming me home.
I listen for any indication of him, a crackle of a leaf or the faint sound of his breathing.
I’ve gotten better at catching him before he catches me.
Cassiel never waits in the open. He lives to hunt from the shadows, and even on a day like today, I don’t put it past him to hide.
I push deeper into the field, my fingers trailing over the coarse stems. A knot forms in my throat from the anticipation, and I ignore the way that fear feels like longing. A hand clasps around my mouth, and I stand frozen in place.
“You’re late,” he growls into my ear, and my body does the same bullshit it always does.
It craves him. The monster inside of me craves the one in him. I can’t contain it, much less fight it. His rough hands feel over the front of my body.
“No hidden weapons this time?” he asks, and I shake my head.
Releasing me, he circles to the front, and I gasp when I see the blood splattered on his shirt.
His cold eyes and the large scar running down his face make him look dangerous, but the golden hour glow of the fading sun behind him makes him look like a god.
Like Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of the sun and war.
“Let’s go,” he commands. I follow him to the truck.
He opens the door and helps me in, strapping the seatbelt over me before taking his place.
“So what now? You’re back to being my knight in shining armour?” I say sarcastically.
“Nah. I’m no one’s hero. Menos el tuyo.” He pulls out a pack of Marlboro Reds and holds it up to me.
Smoking has been a pastime of mine. More like that of the parasite inside me that romanticizes the idea of death. But the coward inside me can’t follow through, so things like smoking feel like a slow form of suicide. I shake my head, and he arches a brow.
“What’s the plan?” I ask coldly.
“Patience, sunshine. Patience.”
I turn my gaze to the passenger side window and look up at the layers of graffiti painted to a wall.
Old names, symbols, and colors all mixed together, each a different story blending into one.
My fingers itch for my sketch pad, but I don’t take it out.
My art is personal to me, a diary of sorts, and I don’t want Cassiel to see the disturbing images of my life.
Or even the odd sketches I’ve drawn of him.
“Why were you late today?” I ask him.
“You know I’m not the best person to ask for help, right?”
Of course. I know that better than anyone. The ways he’s hurt me are beyond what even he could have planned. We are a natural disaster waiting to happen.
“You know I’ll ask for something in return,” he says, observing me.
“And what the fuck do you want?”
My heart? I don’t have one of those. The truck is silent for a moment. When he clears his voice, his words come out dark and hollow.
“One day, Genesis, I’m going to crush every one of my enemies, and you’ll be there to watch it. You’ll stand next to me when I take over the empire that belongs to me.”
I let out a small laugh. He can’t be serious. I see myself with a small notebook tallying the deaths and sketching the destruction, but the look on his face is serious.
“You want me to be your witness to success?” I ask mockingly.
He shrugs, and I can’t help but feel there’s more to this plan he’s conjured. Knowing Cassiel, the price will be more than the reward, but that is my cost for freedom.
“Slow the fuck down,” I say harshly. Cassiel turns to me, laughing.
“You ask me for help, and now you want to dictate how I drive?”
“I asked you to take me to the Biondini brothers, not fucking kill me on the way there.”
Cassiel and I have this toxic way of arguing every time we have to be in each other’s presence.
I’ll be the first to admit it’s addicting.
Maybe my love language is violence. Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos, my dad once told me.
Maybe I find comfort in fighting with Cassiel.
Maybe it’s the safest place I can be myself because he’s also on the same level of insanity.
There’s no denying we’re both mentally insane.
I have the diagnosis, the court ordered conservatorship, and the scar running down his face to prove it.
The same scar that he ironically wears with pride like a soldier wears a battle wound.
He knows I’ll snap any minute—that I am prone to it.
And yet he still agreed to take me to the Biondini brothers.
To figure out what they had on my father so I could blackmail him into dropping the conservatorship Raquel placed on me.
Cassiel drives through the city and turns into the alley of La Verdis Italian Ristorante. I sigh in relief. I’m one step closer than I’ve ever been. Cassiel grabs a large AK-47 from the back of the truck and slings it over his shoulder.
“Oh, but I can’t bring any weapons.” I groan.
“The last time I gave you a weapon, sweetheart, you pointed it at my dick.”
“The last time I pointed a weapon at your dick, you were running your mouth, Cassiel. Just tell me where I’m going, and I can take care of myself.”
Cassiel doesn’t bother answering. He moves toward the metal staircase that drops to the basement door, and the closer I follow, the clearer the voices behind it become.
“Ignacio impregnated both women.”
My stomach flips. Is this one of the brothers?
I look at Cassiel. His jaw is tight, and his expression is unreadable. I press my ear to the door. Another voice rises, one I know instantly.
“I didn’t know she was pregnant,” my father says. His voice fades.
“And when you did find out? Tell her that part.” The voice continues, “Tell her about the night she went missing, how you didn’t see a tragedy, you saw an opportunity. You went to my grandfather, you pleaded your case, and you took Genesis away from us.”
My breathing stops at the words. I look to Cassiel before something snaps inside me, a bold blend of fear, anger, betrayal, all tangled into a burning knot.
I shove the door open, and three faces turn toward me.
The first is Cesidio Biondini, who stands in a green suit, a gun in his hand, and his eyes wild with fury.
“Genesis,” he says my name softly, and I look him over.
My gaze turns to the second pair of eyes and the blood coating his thigh. Rushing to him, I drop to my knees and rip off the brown flannel I’d worn and fold it into a thick pad.
“Pa. Hold still,” I say, pressing the fabric to the entry wound.
“Mija, you’re okay?” he asks, and I swallow back the emotions.
“Am I okay? Pa, you’re bleeding.” I choke back the emotions rising in my throat.
I wanted a way out of his grip, but not like this.
Not if it means him dying. I wrap the sleeves of my flannel around his thigh, loop them under, and yank hard.
He lets out a strangled groan that makes my stomach twist, but the bleeding slows instantly.
I double-knot it, pull again to make sure it won’t slip, then tuck the excess fabric under.
My brain is still trying to catch up to everything going on around me.
I stop when I catch sight of Alma in my peripheral vision.
“What the fuck did you do?” I ask Alma, and she shakes her head.
Charging toward her, I pull my hand back and strike her across the face. Her head snaps to the side, and a cry falls out.
“Hija,” my father warns. “Don’t. She’s pregnant.”
Pregnant? The words hit me, and anger curls like a snake through my body. Emotions catch in my throat and clog any words that want to come out.
“You,” I spit out, my head spinning back around to Cesidio. “What the hell is all this? What are you talking about? What do you mean he took me?”
Cesidio’s jaw ticks. A muscle jumps in his temple.
I stand there half shaking, half ready to kill, waiting for an answer that could shatter everything I thought I knew.
But I don’t get the chance. The cold metal of a gun presses against my temple, and a strong arm pulls me back into his solid chest.
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” Cassiel warns, another gun in his opposite hand aimed at Cesidio.
“You son of a bitch!” Cesidio growls. “Fucking snake. You told us if we brought you them, you’d give us Genesis.”
“I told you nothing. You just fucking assumed I would.” Cassiel pushes the gun harder into my temple. “Ignacio, you have a choice to make. I told you once already, Genesis will be my wife.”
“You’re what?!” I fight against his grip.
“You motherfucker!” Cesidio moves toward us.
Cassiel cocks the gun at my temple, and Cesidio retreats.
“You have a choice, Ignacio. You say no, and I kill both of your daughters, or you sign over your rights of conservatorship to me, and they both live.”
“With you! She’ll be forced to live with you, and in that case, she’s better off fucking dead!” Cesidio barks.
The truth is, I already feel dead inside. Both daughters? Everyone in this room knows something I don’t. There’s a brief moment of silence, and tears swell in the back of my eyes. The pressure from Cassiel’s arm around my throat makes it difficult to fight back the moisture.
Lifting my eyes, I see Alma, whose eyes are red like mine, as she stares down at my father.
It feels like a million knives stabbing into me when I recognize her resemblance to Kamila.
Something shifts inside me. I look from her to my father, and I hate that this is true.
I hate that the man behind me has known this all along and played me. Again.
“This was your plan all along?” Cesidio sighs, shaking his head before falling into an empty chair behind him.
“Fuck you, puto.” My father says, lifting himself to move but failing.
“Pa. Don’t move,” I plead.
“Make your decision, Ignacio,” Cassiel demands. “Give me Genesis, and both your daughters live. Or pick one and watch the other die in her place.”