28. Cruz
CRUZ
For the first time since Robin and I escaped, I breathe.
Really breathe.
Not the kind of breath a man takes when he’s counting exits. Not the shallow drag of air that comes while listening for footsteps outside a locked door or calculating how many seconds it’ll take to get a gun out from under a jacket.
This is different.
This is warm.
The room smells like cinnamon, beans, old wood, and perfume that has soaked into the walls over years and years of women passing through it. Not expensive perfume. Not the sharp kind Adriana wears.
This is softer.
Powder. Soap. Vanilla. Roses past their bloom.
Home.
Esmeralda keeps smiling into her coffee as if she knows something I don’t. Mercedes is chatting with Robin. Senora V sits at the head of the table like the queen of a very strange monarchy, her dark eyes moving from face to face, missing nothing.
I sit here with these four women.
One who raised me when my mother couldn’t. Two who remind me of those who fussed over me and slipped me sweets when Senora wasn’t looking. And one who has been under my skin from the second I saw her in Adriana’s house in Texas.
Robin.
She’s bewitched me.
I don’t like that word. It sounds ridiculous. Weak. Like something a boy would say about a woman he has no business wanting.
But it’s the only word that fits.
I noticed her before I meant to. I wanted to hear her voice before I should have cared if she spoke. I wanted to know what she was thinking, even when it was probably how to claw my eyes out and run.
Now she sits next to me, her skin still too pale, her eyes still too sharp. The robe is too big on her. It slips off one shoulder every few minutes, and every time it does, she jerks it back into place.
She doesn’t belong here.
But somehow, at this table, she fits.
Not because this place is safe. It’s safer than Vega’s world, but safety is always temporary. Especially here. He knows this is the first place I’ll go, which means we need to move quickly.
Robin knows it too. She watches the windows when she thinks no one notices. And she still looks at me with distrust.
I don’t blame her.
I wouldn’t trust me either.
I take a sip of coffee, and the warmth spreads through my chest.
Only then do I realize how cold I’ve been.
Not from the night. Not from the drive. Not from the fear of getting caught with Vega’s prisoner.
Before that.
Long before that.
I’ve been on edge from the moment I entered Vega’s employ.
I just didn’t know it. It became the air I breathed.
The way I learned never to enjoy any moment because the next one might require violence.
Vega’s world put monsters in tailored suits and taught boys like me that loyalty was all that mattered.
I thought I was used to it.
I thought the constant tension was just part of life.
But sitting here, listening to Mercedes and Esmeralda tell Robin their stories, I remember a different life.
A life full of women who knew how to laugh even when their bodies were used up.
Prostitutes aren’t respected. I learned long ago that people—even the men who came to the brothel—spit the word out with contempt.
My mother never said it that way.
“Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’s most loyal followers,” she told me once. “Do you know that, mi corazón?”
I shook my head.
“She was a woman men judged,” Mamá said. “But Jesus accepted her. The poor. The meek. The broken. The women men threw away. He accepted them all.” She took my face in her hands. “We are all God’s children, Cruz. Don’t ever let anyone make you believe different.”
I was never particularly religious.
Not like Mamá. Not like Senora V, who still lights candles in the corner and mutters prayers under her breath when she thinks no one hears.
But I remembered that.
I still do.
Maybe because I needed to believe it.
Maybe because a boy growing up in a brothel needs someone to tell him he wasn’t born dirty.
The women here cared for me. Fed me. Nursed me when I had fevers. Cheered when I learned a lesson well.
What they did behind closed doors for money didn’t matter to me.
It never did.
They were my mother’s friends.
They were my family.
I grew up much more comfortable with women than with men. After all, men wanted something from me. Loyalty. Obedience. Violence.
Yes, women made me feel at ease.
Except for the one woman who put more fear into me than even Diego Vega himself.
I’m fifteen. A week has passed since we buried my mother.
One week since the cemetery dirt hit her coffin with soft, horrible thuds. One week since Senora V stood beside me in black, her hand clamped around mine so hard my fingers went numb.
One week since I looked at the hole in the ground and understood that Esperanza Moreno was not coming back.
Everyone says her death was quick.
The car veered off the road into a ditch. That’s what the police told us. She was out with a client. A man I never met. A man whose name I still don’t know.
The road was wet. Maybe he was speeding. Maybe he swerved. Maybe the tires lost traction.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Maybe.
The car went off the road, and by the time anyone found them, my mother was gone.
I’m in my room above the back hallway, sitting on the edge of my bed with my elbows on my knees.
The house is quieter than usual. The women have been careful around me since the funeral.
Too careful. They stop talking when I enter rooms. They bring food I don’t ask for.
They touch my shoulder and then pull away.
Senora Valentina has made it clear I can stay.
“You’re mine now,” she told me after the funeral. “You stay here until you’re eighteen, but you’ll have to go to regular school now. You get good grades. Then you go somewhere better. You live the life Esperanza wanted for you.”
Eighteen is three years away. That feels like a life sentence when your mother has just been lowered into the ground. And school?
“Why can’t you and the ladies continue to teach me?” I asked.
Senora hugged me. “You’ve outgrown us, Cruzito. We have nothing more to teach you. At school, the teachers are trained. They’ll teach you history, mathematics, literature. Things the ladies and I know nothing about.”
I know she’s right, but how am I supposed to go there? I’ll have no friends, and the others will whisper about where I live.
I look around my room.
The narrow bed. The small dresser.
Too many memories. Too many ghosts. Maybe I don’t want to stay here. But where would I go?
I’m fifteen. I have no father. No money. No family besides the women in this house and my mother lying under fresh dirt.
My throat tightens until I can barely swallow.
“Mamá,” I say into the empty room. “Mamá, you weren’t supposed to go.”
I hate it. I hate myself for sounding weak and helpless.
So I leave the room. Anything is better than sitting here. As I walk down the stairs, a knock sounds on the front door.
For a second, I think I imagined it. Grief does strange things.
Then the knock comes again.
Senora V is out. She went to speak with someone about funeral expenses. Most of the other women are sleeping or working.
I wipe my face with the heel of my hand, furious to find it wet, and head downstairs.
I sniff back my sadness. “I’m coming,” I call.
I reach the foyer, unlock the door, and open it.
A woman stands there. She’s tall. Taller than most women I know. Her hair is dark and smooth, pulled back from a face that would be beautiful if any warmth came from her. Instead, it’s like looking at ice.
“Cruz Moreno?” she asks.
I straighten. “Yes.”
She takes me in from my bare feet to my face, and something about the way she looks at me makes my skin crawl.
“My name is Adriana de la Fuente,” she says. “May I come in?”
I want to say no, but I was raised by women who would slap me for being rude to a caller. Especially a lady. I step aside, and she enters.
I close the door. “What do you want?”
“I came to offer my sympathies,” she says. “I heard about your mother. Esperanza, yes?”
Hearing Mamá’s name from her red mouth makes my stomach twist.
“Yes.”
“A terrible loss.”
I say nothing.
“I understand you’re alone now.”
“I’m not alone.”
“No?” She glances around the front room. “Senora Valentina is not your mother.”
“She might as well be.”
“You are loyal,” Adriana says. “That’s good. Loyalty is a useful trait in a young man.”
A useful trait? Who is this person?
“I have family here,” I say.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She looks toward the staircase, up to the hallway that branches into the rooms where the women work. She knows what goes on here. “A collection of whores is hardly a family, Cruz.”
I’m fifteen. Tall already. Strong for my age. Strong enough to lift crates and carry sacks of flour for Senora V.
Not strong enough to hit a woman.
Not stupid enough either.
But I want to. I’d really like to crack this woman’s skull for insulting my family.
“Don’t call them that.”
Adriana smiles. Sort of. “You’re protective,” she says.
“They raised me.”
“They serviced men while you slept down the hall.”
Heat floods my face. “You don’t know anything about them.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I know enough.”
“No,” I say. “You don’t.”
“I didn’t come here to insult you,” she says.
“You did anyway.”
Another smile. “You’re grieving. I’ll forgive the tone.”
“I don’t need you to forgive anything.”
“Maybe not.” She steps closer. “But you need what I’m offering.”
I should ask her to leave. I’m about to, when—
“You’ve captured the interest of my employer.”
“Your employer?”
“Senor Vega.”
I’ve heard the name from Senora V. From others. But I play dumb.
“Who’s that?”
“A very powerful man. A very wealthy man.” She looks around again. “A man who can offer you a future beyond this place.”
“I already have a future.”
“Do you?” she asks. “Senor Vega has helped many orphaned boys. Boys with no fathers. Boys with no direction. Boys who might otherwise be swallowed by poverty or bad choices.”
I stare at her.
“He takes them in,” she says. “Educates them. Trains them. Gives them purpose. Protection. Money.”
“What does he want?” The question comes out before I can stop it.
“Service,” she says.
“What kind of service?”
She looks me up and down. “That depends on your talents.”
“I don’t have talents.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“I’m not leaving with you,” I say.
She steps even closer, close enough that I can see the faint line of red at her mouth, the perfect arch of her brows, the way her earrings catch the light.
“You’re fifteen,” she says. “In three years, you’ll be a man. Men need opportunity. Think about it, Cruz Moreno. Think about what your mother wanted for you.”
I turn away from her. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
She lays a hand on my shoulder. Her fingernails are long and painted dark purple. “She wanted better for you, didn’t she? She wanted you educated. Safe. Respected.”
“Yes.”
She turns me around, slides her fingers over my cheek.
A chill ices through me.
I’ve been touched by women all my life. Kissed on the forehead. Hugged. Pulled into laps when I was small. Swatted when I was rude. Held when I cried.
But this touch isn’t motherly. It isn’t comforting. It’s not even friendly.
My breath catches.
“There is a world beyond this house,” she whispers. “A world where men make themselves useful and are rewarded for it.”
Then she hands me a business card, turns, and walks to the door.
I stand in the front room for a long time after that.
I want to know more about her. About this powerful man who knows my name.
Maybe there is more for me out there.
I don’t want to go to school. There’s nothing I’d learn there that I’d need to know in real life.
This woman might hold the key to the life I’ve always wanted to lead.
A week later, I call her.
A week after that, I leave the brothel.