36. Cruz
CRUZ
I stand in the basement with blood on my hands and the taste of Robin’s final kiss still on my mouth, and I can’t move.
I don’t care.
Vega’s men are on their way. They can arrive anytime, and I can’t make my feet fucking move off this concrete floor.
She said her piece. She made her choice. She kissed me goodbye, and then she turned her back on me and left.
I let her.
What else could I do?
I’ve already done enough to her.
I fucked this up.
Not today.
Not when I told her about Eagle, though that was the moment I watched whatever fragile bridge we had built collapse.
Not when I took her from Texas.
Not even when I stood over her brother’s unconscious body and jabbed him with a needle full of drugs.
I fucked this up years ago.
The moment I let Vega take me under his wing.
No. That’s a lie.
The moment I wanted him to.
I was young, though.
Young and stupid.
Young and afraid.
Young enough to believe power was the same thing as safety. Stupid enough to mistake attention for salvation. Afraid enough that when a beautiful woman came to a brothel and told me a wealthy man knew my name, I let curiosity get the best of me.
Does that excuse everything I’ve done?
No.
Nothing excuses it.
Not my mother’s death. Not grief. Not poverty. Not Adriana’s touch on my cheek. Not Vega’s promises. Not the way he found me when I was half boy, half man, and taught me that following his orders made me respectable.
I’ve hurt people.
I’ve followed orders that should have made me run.
I’ve moved bodies, staged crimes, guarded prisoners, held my tongue while better men would have screamed.
But I never killed a man.
Until Zabala.
I look at my hands.
The blood is darker now, drying into the lines of my palms. Zabala’s. Senora V’s. Some of mine too. It all looks the same once it leaves the body.
I killed him.
I rammed a knife into his throat and watched the life leave his eyes.
Would Robin have done anything different?
The question rises before I can stop it, and I hate that I’m wondering.
If she had been in my place, fifteen and grieving, with nowhere to go except a house full of women the world spat on, and a man like Vega opened a door, would she have stepped through?
What if every honest road looked closed and every criminal road came paved with protection?
Would she have done better?
Would anyone?
I’m sixteen now.
My clothes are better. My shoes fit. I eat meat more often than not. I have my own room in one of Vega’s houses, a small one near the back with white walls and a locked drawer in the desk. I’m being educated, not in the way Mamá wanted, but in the way Vega values.
I learn quickly.
Vega likes that.
“You have discipline,” he says one evening after I deliver a message to a man who turns pale before he even opens the envelope. “Discipline matters more than strength. Strength fades. Discipline becomes character.”
I want to feel proud.
Part of me does.
But another part of me—the part that still hears Mamá telling me all men are God’s children, even the broken ones—knows something is wrong.
I know what Vega does.
Not everything, of course. Not yet. But enough. Men disappear. Women cry behind closed doors. Money moves through hands. Drugs, guns, bribes, threats. Favors that aren’t really favors. Debts that can never be repaid because men like Vega prefer it that way.
At first, my duties are small.
Deliver this.
Watch him.
Stand outside that door.
Repeat exactly what you hear.
Tell no one.
Don’t ask questions.
But small duties become larger ones.
The line keeps moving.
After a year of this I’m restless. But what are my options?
Go back to the brothel? To Senora V? To the women who would take me in again but never stop looking at me with questions in their eyes?
Still, I think about it.
And I still believe some adults are safer than others. So I talk to Adriana. She’s the one who introduced me to this world. Maybe she can help.
I find her in her office late one afternoon.
Adriana sits behind a wide desk, reading a file. Her hair is pinned up, exposing the long line of her neck. She wears a black dress that fits her like a second skin. I can’t help but notice. I’m sixteen with a perpetual hard-on.
“Cruz,” she says. “You asked to see me?”
“I did.”
She gestures to the chair across from her. “Sit.”
I sit.
She looks at me. I mean really looks. “Are you unhappy here?”
I blink. “I haven’t said anything.”
She purses her lips. “You didn’t need to.”
“It’s just… I have questions,” I say.
“Most boys do.”
I frown. “I’m not a boy.”
“No,” she says. “You’re becoming something else.”
Heat moves up my neck.
She leans back. “What are your questions?”
I draw in a breath. “I don’t think I’m suited for this work.”
She tilts her head slightly. “What work?”
“The business. This business.”
She clasps her hands over her desk. “There are many parts of the business.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Perhaps. Tell me anyway.”
I shift in the chair. “Some of what Senor Vega asks me to do…”
She waits.
“Some of it seems wrong,” I say finally.
Her brows lift slightly. “Wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Morally?” She sounds amused.
My face warms. “Yes.”
“How interesting.”
“It’s not interesting.”
“No?”
“No.”
She rises from behind the desk.
Slowly.
My body goes alert, though I don’t know why.
She moves around the desk to face me. “I thought you were grateful,” she says.
“I am.”
“Senor Vega has given you a home.”
“I know.”
“Education.”
“Yes.”
“Protection.”
“Yes.”
She narrows her eyes. “Money.”
“I know.”
She crosses her arms. “Yet here you are, speaking of morality.”
“I don’t want to be ungrateful,” I say.
“Then don’t be.”
The words sting.
I look down at my hands. “I think maybe I should leave.”
She steps closer until she’s right in front of me, leaning back against the desk. Her knee brushes mine.
I stop breathing.
“Leave?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“And go where?”
I have no answer.
“To the brothel?” she asks. “Back to the women who raised you?”
“They’re my family.”
She sneers. “They’re prostitutes.”
Anger flashes through me. “Don’t talk about them that way.”
“But that’s what they are.”
I push to my feet. She’s right in front of me. We’re too close. Much too close.
“You wanted to speak to me,” she says. “So speak.”
I swallow. “I want a different life.”
She looks at my mouth. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“Honest.”
She smiles then. “Oh, Cruz.” She shakes her head. “You think honesty is anything special?”
I say nothing.
She lifts a hand and touches my cheek.
Just like she did the first day.
I should step away.
I don’t.
“You are not the boy you were a year ago,” she says.
“I know.”
“He’s gone forever.” She slides her fingers along my jaw.
I feel the touch everywhere. I mean everywhere.
“You’re stronger now,” she whispers. “Useful.” She brushes her thumb over my lower lip.
No woman has ever touched me like this except Adriana.
No woman has wanted me this way.
Or does she want me? I don’t even know.
“You’re confused,” she says.
“I’m not.”
“You are. You think guilt means you should run.” She slides her hand down my chest.
I catch her wrist. “Adriana.”
Her eyes darken. She steps closer, pressing my hand between her wrist and her body. “You want to leave?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Then leave.”
The words shock me. “What?”
“Walk out.” She tilts her head toward the door. “If that’s what you want.”
I look at the door. It’s ten steps away. Maybe twelve. I could leave.
Then she slides her other hand to the back of my neck. “But before you do, tell me something.” Her face is inches from mine. “Have you ever been touched by a woman because she wanted to touch you?”
My mouth goes dry.
I should lie. Sixteen and a virgin? It’s embarrassing.
“No.”
“Then let me give you something honest before you go.”
Then her lips are on mine.
Her kiss is different from what I’ve experienced. I’ve kissed only girls. Adriana is a woman.
She guides my hands to her waist. She murmurs approval when I touch her. She laughs softly when I tremble.
“See?” she whispers against my mouth. “You’re not a boy.”
She brings me to her desk.
Papers scatter. A glass falls somewhere and breaks, but she doesn’t stop. She touches me, undresses me, makes me forget why I came to see her in the first place.
For the next few minutes, I forget the guilt. There’s only Adriana, her hands on my body, making me feel things.
And when she spreads her legs and nods, I plunge into her, letting her swallow me whole.
It doesn’t take long. Three, maybe four, thrusts, until I climax with both pleasure and shame tearing through me.
Adriana strokes my hair afterward.
She lets me rest my forehead against her shoulder while my body shakes. She lets me feel held. Safe.
Then she lifts my chin. “If you enjoyed that,” she says, “there’s more where it came from. But you’ll have to stay.”
It’s time to leave. I look again at my bloodstained hands. I’m wearing the sweatpants Robin found for me in the dryer, but my shoes and shirt are disgusting. At least my shirt is black, which hides the blood.
I stop in the kitchen and turn on the faucet. I soap up my hands and rub them together while pink spirals down the drain. I scrub until my skin burns.
Robin left ten minutes ago.
Maybe more now.
I’m wasting precious time.
Every second I stay here is another second Vega’s men draw closer. If Zabala checked in before arriving, Vega may already know. If he didn’t, they’ll know soon enough when he fails to report.
I need to get out. Figure out where to hide. How to survive without Robin Bellamy’s help.
I could still go to the US and ask for asylum.
And I have a passport.
Zabala got it for me a few years ago as a favor, and I’ve kept it on me ever since.
I step outside the back way.
I can’t do anything for Senora V. I can’t do anything for Robin.
So I walk toward the car I stole and hotwired. The street is quiet for now. Too quiet. Neighbors no doubt hear the shots. They’re staying inside.
Smart.
In my pocket is a wad of 100,000-peso notes.
Fuck. Where’s my gun?
I took it out of my waistband in the basement when I changed into the gray sweats.
I can’t go back now.
No time.
I reach for the car door—
“Leaving without saying goodbye, Cruz?”
The voice is familiar. Familiar as arsenic.
Adriana.