32. Cruz
CRUZ
Robin is silent for several minutes.
“What’s on your mind?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me right away.
Her gaze stays on the window. A moment passes. Then, “I meant it when I said I want to help you. I want to use my family’s means to help you. At the very least, as thanks for getting me out of that place.”
I rub my jaw. It’s so tight and sore from constantly clenching it. “I’m also the one who put you in that place.”
She twists her lips. “Trust me, I know. I can’t erase the fact that you were my captor.”
I sigh. “I don’t expect you to.”
She shakes her head. “I know you don’t. But you did get me out of there, and I’m not taking that away from you. You risked your life. You brought me here. But before that, you were still part of what happened to me.”
“Yes.”
“I need to know,” she says.
“What?”
“Everything.”
What?
I look at the sofa, the table, the faded yellow walls, the place where my mother once sat with Senora V, laughing over coffee. I think about all the truths I’ve buried because silence kept me breathing. Because Vega rewarded men who knew when not to speak.
Robin draws in a breath. “You need to lay out your whole life for me right now.”
“My whole life?”
“As much as matters.”
“That could take a while.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The bitterness of that nearly makes me laugh.
No, she’s not going anywhere. Not yet. But we do need to move quickly.
“I need to know what you’ve done, Cruz.”
I look at her.
“I need to know if the scales really balance out from your one good deed.”
I scratch at the back of my head. An accounting? That’s what she wants? To determine if my good deeds outweigh my bad?
How many sins equal one rescue? How much blood can be washed away by one act of defiance?
I used to think I knew the answer.
I don’t anymore.
“The scales don’t balance,” I say.
“At least you’re honest,” she says. “But I’ll judge whether they do.”
“They never do,” I say. “Not in the way you want them to.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.” I exhale slowly. “It’s a warning.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t need a warning. I need the truth.”
The truth.
Fine. I can give her pieces of it. Enough to condemn me. Maybe enough to make her stop looking at me like there’s anything in me worth saving.
I continue massaging my aching jaw. “I was in Texas for several weeks before you and I came back to Colombia.”
She scoffs. “You make it sound like we’re on a vacation. You and I didn’t come anywhere. You brought me here.”
She’s right, of course. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me, and don’t sugarcoat a goddamned thing.”
“Fine.” I exhale. “I was in Texas for several weeks before I took you. Does that work?”
“Yes. What were you doing there?”
“Working for Vega.”
“I assumed that.”
“There were duties. Various things.”
“That’s vague.”
“I know.”
“Don’t do that.”
I glance away but then force myself to look back at her. I have to own what I’ve done. I owe her that much. “One of those duties was you. The last one. Abducting you.”
Robin stares at me. “You…” Her voice catches. She swallows. “Wait. You brought me here? As in, only you?”
“Yes. I thought you knew that.”
“Maybe I did.” She rubs at her forehead.
“I guess I haven’t put it all together in my head yet.
I’ve had other shit on my mind. I mean, I knew you were my captor.
I knew you were guarding me. I knew you were working for them.
I knew you were part of it. But I didn’t know it was all you, with no one helping.
” She gazes at me. “So you were the one who drugged me at that house.”
“It was all me,” I say, still determined to own it.
She sinks into the couch. “Okay. What were you doing before that?”
“One of my first assignments was to retrieve something for Vega.”
“What?”
“A body.”
Robin freezes. “A body,” she repeats.
“Yes.”
“Where did you dig him up?”
I hold her gaze. “An old barn on Bellamy Ranch.”
She swallows. “You exhumed a body from my family’s ranch.”
“Yes.”
Her hand drops from her throat. “How?”
“With shovels and a lot of muscle. How do you think?”
Her jaw flexes.
“The body had been buried beneath or near the old barn. Vega requested it back specifically. Not as evidence to destroy. Not as a loose end to erase. He wanted the body returned.”
“To him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was just following orders.”
“Please.” She scoffs. “Do not say that. I was just”—air quotes—“following orders.”
“Well…I was.”
“So were the people who worked for Hitler.” She tents her fingers in front of her face. “Fuck, Cruz.”
She’s not wrong. But what the hell does she think? That I’m some saint dressed in criminal’s clothing? “You asked, Robin. You wanted the truth. This is me. I’m owning it. Am I proud of it? Fuck, no. But this is me.”
She crosses her arms. “Cruz.”
“I’m telling you what you want to know. If you can’t handle it, tell me now.”
She swallows. “I can handle it.”
“I believe you can. And yes, I had my orders. This is the life I led until… Well, until yesterday.”
She nods. “I understand. Go on.”
“I arranged transport. Vega had a mortician in Austin on his payroll. The body was kept at a morgue for the last few weeks while other matters were handled.”
“Other matters,” she repeats.
“You. Adriana. The transfer back here.” I lower my voice. “When we returned to Colombia, the body came too.”
Robin furrows her brow.
“Do you know who it was?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “My brothers thought they knew who it was.”
“Which brothers?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It might.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Robin—”
“They were wrong.”
I wait.
She gives me nothing else.
No name. No explanation. No hint of what that body means to her family or why it would matter enough for Vega to risk recovering it.
I could push.
I want to push.
Not because I need to know for myself, but because anything tied to Vega, Bellamy Ranch, and a secret body in an old barn may be the difference between getting Robin out alive and walking her straight into another trap.
But I’m the reason she’s here, in danger. I don’t have the right to demand her secrets five seconds after giving her a handful of my own.
She pulls her robe tight around her. “Do you know why Vega was interested in that particular body?”
“I—”
A knock cracks through the house.
Three blows against the front door.
Every muscle in my body locks.
Robin’s eyes go wide.
The knock comes again.
My blood turns cold.
In the distance, Senora Valentina’s voice rises from the foyer.
“I’ll get it.”
No.
The word tears through me before I can speak it.
I feel it first.
That animal instinct I learned in Vega’s world surges up my spine.
We aren’t safe.
Why the hell did I spend this time talking to Robin, making plans? Telling her my damned life story? I knew better. I knew we needed to get out of here.
“Hide,” I say to Robin.
“What?”
“Hide. Now.”
“Cruz—”
“Now,” I say through gritted teeth.
Something in my voice must reach her because she moves. She steps back, scanning the room, and then darts toward the narrow space behind an old cabinet near the corner. It’s not enough.
“Take the back stairwell,” I hiss. “Go to one of the girls’ rooms.”
Then I move. Leave the room, head to the foyer.
Senora V is smoothing her dress as she reaches for the door.
“Wait!” I call.
She turns her head.
Her eyes meet mine.
For a moment, I see her as she was when I was fifteen. Strong. Beautiful. Untouchable. The woman who told me I was hers now to take care of.
She reaches for the knob.
“No!” I shout.
Too late.
The door opens.
A gunshot rings out. The sound is so loud in the foyer that it blanks everything out.
Senora Valentina jerks backward.
Not far.
Just a small, horrible movement.
Her hand flies to her chest. Her mouth opens. No sound comes out.
Then she collapses.
She falls onto the marble tile.
Time stops.
I see everything.
The red spreading across the front of her dress.
The way her dark hair loosens from its pins.
The tiny gold cross at her throat.
Her eyes, open and confused, as if even now she can’t believe what just happened.
My grandmother.
Not by blood.
Blood is nothing.
Less than nothing.
This woman fed me. Scolded me. Held my hand while my mother’s coffin was lowered into the earth. Called me mijo even when I didn’t deserve it.
And now she lies bleeding on the floor because of me.
Because I came back.
Because I brought Robin here.
A figure stands in the doorway.
Zabala.
Gun in hand, his face twisted with satisfaction and something worse. Triumph. He looks past Senora V’s body and smiles when he sees me.
“Moreno,” he says.
Red washes over my vision.
I don’t think about the gun he holds that could take my life as quickly as it took Senora’s.
I launch myself at him.
He lifts the gun, but I hit him before he can fire.
We crash backward through the open doorway and onto the front step. The gun goes off again, the shot cracking past my ear, close enough that I feel the heat. Pain flares along the side of my head, but I don’t care.
We hit the ground hard.
The gun skitters across the porch, clattering against the brick.
Zabala grunts beneath me and drives his fist into my ribs.
Once.
Twice.
Pain explodes through my side.
I slam my forearm across his throat.
“You killed her,” I snarl.
He bares his teeth. “You should have stayed loyal.”
I drive my fist into his face.
His head snaps to the side, blood spraying from his mouth.
He laughs. The sound is wet and ugly.
“Vega knew you’d come here,” he says.
I hit him again.
“Of course you would,” he spits. “Little whorehouse orphan.”
Something animal tears through me. I grab Zabala’s collar and slam his head against the porch.
Once.
Twice.
He bucks beneath me, stronger than I expect, twisting his hips and driving a knee into my stomach. Air leaves my lungs. He rolls, throwing me sideways.
My shoulder hits the floorboards.
He’s on me fast.
Zabala is as strong as he is cruel. I’ve seen him beat men for sport and smile while doing it. He doesn’t fight fair.
He goes for my eyes first.
I jerk my head back.
The punch lands on my throat.
I choke, vision flashing.
He stretches, trying to reach for the gun.
No.
I grab his ankle and yank.
He falls hard, chin cracking against the porch. The gun is three feet away. Maybe less. Too close.
I crawl over him, try to pin him down.
He twists, elbow slamming into my jaw.
Stars burst behind my eyes. For half a second, the world tilts.
Zabala gets a hand around my throat. “You were always soft,” he growls. “Adriana said it. Vega didn’t want to believe her.”
I grip his wrist with both hands, trying to pry him off.
Pressure builds in my skull.
“You liked pretending you were better than us,” he says. “But you were never better.”
My lungs burn.
His face hovers inches from mine, blood on his teeth, eyes dark with hate. “You just needed the right girl to make you stupid.”
Robin.
Her name slices through the red.
She’s still inside. Hiding.
Still alive.
The thought gives me the strength I need.
I slam my knee upward into Zabala’s ribs. He grunts but doesn’t release me. I do it again, harder, catching him lower. This time, his grip loosens.
I wrench my head sideways and suck in air, grappling for something, anything.
My hand finds something just inside the doorway.
Not the gun.
A broken piece of tile? No.
Holy shit. It’s a knife!
The small blade Senora V keeps hidden beneath the front table.
The table near the door had a loose underside.
It’s one of many places Senora V kept weapons for use in moments like these.
Typically they’re for when the girls’ clients get unruly.
When I was a boy, she showed me where some of them were, not because she wanted me to use them, but because she wanted me to know that women who live among dangerous men learn where to hide things they might someday need.
She reminded me of that when I first brought Robin here.
Even from the grave, she’s still offering me assistance.
The knife must have dislodged when Senora fell.
I close my fingers around the handle.
Zabala sees it too late. He lunges for my wrist.
I turn with him, using his momentum, and drive the blade upward.
Into his throat.
A gurgling sound leaves him that I’ll hear for the rest of my life.
His eyes go wide.
His hands fly to his neck, but the knife is already buried deep. Blood pulses between his fingers.
I shove him off me.
He collapses onto his side, choking.
I stagger backward on my hands, chest heaving, throat burning, jaw throbbing.
Zabala reaches for me.
Or maybe for the gun.
Or maybe for nothing at all.
His legs kick once. Twice.
Blood spreads across the porch.
His eyes are wide. His mouth moves.
No words.
Just blood.
Then he’s gone.
Blood.
Blood on my hands.
Not a little.
Not someone else’s splatter from a beating.
This is mine.
I killed him.
The thought arrives muddled.
Not because I don’t understand what happened.
I’ve hurt men before. Badly. I’ve delivered prisoners to people who will hurt them worse. I’ve stood guard while others screamed. I’ve followed orders that made me complicit in things decent men would spend their lives trying to forget.
But I’ve always kept one line untouched.
Never have I killed a man with my own hands.
Until now.
Zabala’s blood moves toward the edge of the porch in a dark stream.
I look back through the open doorway.
Senora Valentina lies where she fell.
Everything inside me caves in.
I scramble to her, slipping once on blood, mine or his or hers, I don’t know. I drop to my knees beside her.
“Senora,” I say.
I press my hands to her chest, to the wound, as if pressure can undo what’s already done.
“No. No, no, no.” I lean over her. “Stay with me.”
Her eyes are half-open.
Not seeing me.
“Please,” I whisper.
The word feels childish.
Please don’t leave.
Please wake up.
Please be stronger than bullets.
She’s gone.
But at least Zabala’s gone too.
I killed one of Vega’s men. Vega will hear. Adriana will hear. If they were hunting me before, now they’ll burn the world to find me.
This is the final nail.
My coffin closing.
And somewhere in the house, Robin is hiding. What will she see when she looks at me now? Knowing that I’ve killed? Knowing that my actions directly led to Senora Valentina’s death?
Will she still want to help me?
Because if she doesn’t, I’m a dead man walking.