Chapter 44
CHAPTER 44
JOSE
A s I bury my head into my daughter’s shoulder, it hardly feels real. For so long, I had been certain I would never get a chance to see her again, but here, now, she’s as real as they day is long. I pull back and gaze into her eyes for a moment, a grin spreading over my face that hasn’t been there for far too long.
She had been the first thing I’d thought of when they had first taken me, throwing a bag over my head as I left the lab one evening, and bundling me into the back of a car. I had been terrified, no idea what was happening or why, and then, when I had finally arrived at their hideout, I’d been met by El Serpiente.
“Listen,” he’d ordered, his dark eyes full of cruelty. “You do as we say, and nothing happens to your family, entiendes?”
My heart dropped in that moment. I couldn’t let anything happen to my family, least of all my Maria. She was all I had, after I’d lost her mother, and I knew my mind couldn’t take it if she was harmed too. I agreed. How could I not? I knew these men were evil, knew what they wanted me to do was going to be sick and twisted, but I had no choice.
They’d chained me to a table in that lab, and had me work there day and night. If I was caught resting, even for a moment, El Serpiente would send his men in to set me right. I’d taken more beatings than I could count, my body growing weaker with every passing day. I didn’t stand a chance against them, I wasn’t a man of violence, couldn’t defend myself without a gun in my hand, and they knew it.
Barely able to keep my eyes open, all I could think about was Maria. Doing everything I could to keep them from going after her. She was in the UK at the time, so I all I could do was pray she wouldn’t come looking for me, but I should have known it would only be a matter of time before she started to search for me, when I missed all of our weekly calls.
I couldn’t come up with the drug they were looking for. Nothing that would work well enough and keep the user alive, at least. Every time I came up with a new compound, El Serpiente would storm in a few days later and throw it back at me.
“They’re dead,” he would tell me. “The junkies who used this are dead! How am I supposed to make money off this if it kills them, huh?”
That alone was enough to make me feel ill. All I had done, my whole life, was work to make the world better, safer, healthier, and now, I was being forced to create a drug that would get people hooked, and, in the process, innocent people were losing their lives. I couldn’t stop thinking about the parents who were losing their children, the kids who were growing up without their mothers and their fathers, because of me. It tore me apart, but I was selfish. I kept working because I couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to Maria, and these men, I knew they would harm her if they wanted to.
So, when they brought her to me, it felt as though everything was tumbling apart on the spot. All the work I had done was for nothing if she wasn’t free. I was hardly able to speak a word to her before they dragged her away from me, to be used as part of their plans; my mind tormented me with ideas of what they might have done and where they might have taken her, but all I could do was keep working, keep my head down, and pray it was enough.
The look on her face when I saw her, is burned onto my memory. The pain, the fear, the heartache, just like when she had lost her mother, but this time, I knew I was responsible for it. If I had just been a little more careful, none of this would have happened. I never imagined I would even be of interest to a group like the cartel, but it seemed like they had ways of twisting everyone’s skills to their cruel ends.
I couldn’t come up with anything. Day after endless day passed, I begged to see my daughter, yelling into the cameras I knew they had up to watch me that I wanted to see her. I would do anything if they just showed her to me, but all I got were beatings and reminders to keep working if I wanted to keep her alive. I began to doubt they were even telling me the truth at all, certain they had already killed her. My addled mind tortured me whenever I closed my eyes for a moment of rest with images of what she must have been through, what they were using her for. I knew all too well what the cartel made use of women for, and if my daughter had to go through that…
I couldn’t even entertain the idea. I threw myself into the work they gave me, losing myself to the familiarity of crafting a new compound. I was getting closer and closer, I could feel it, to creating what they wanted. Hell, by that point, there was a part of me that wanted to take it myself. I had never been tempted by drugs before, probably because they were more work to me than anything else, but now? Now, I wanted some way to switch off my brain, and this was the only route I could see to making that happen.
Around two weeks ago, there had been a batch that worked. I didn’t get the usual visit from El Serpiente to try and motivate me further. No, instead, I heard mutterings from the guard who brought me my meager food that it was on the market, and working well. I wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not about that. Glad I had done what they had asked, and they would surely have to let me go soon, but guilty in ways I couldn’t fathom that I had likely created a whole new batch of addicts who would be consumed by the potent drug I had just helped put out on the streets.
A few days after the success, I was moved again, another bag over my head, forced out to a car, then a plane. I had no idea where we were going. I tried to ask for Maria, but my voice was aching from the weakness that felt like it had taken over my entire body. I had no strength to fight anymore, and I sent out prayers for her with every breath, prayers that she was alive, that she had found some way out of this if she had. She was a smart girl, and I knew she had it in her—if they had let her live long enough to make that happen.
Dragged to a new prison, I was locked away in a room in a large, concrete building. It smelled of rot and damp, and a thin, watery string of daylight crept through a high window that I couldn’t see out of. They didn’t have me working anymore, but I doubted they were done with me yet. My mind was delirious with exhaustion and worry, and I was plagued by dreams of her, dreams of my daughter.
The daughter, I was becoming more and more sure, I was never going to see again.
Until earlier tonight, when I’d heard gunshots cracking in the air, my head snapped up from the uneasy half-sleep I had been in. What was happening? I tried to scramble upright, get a look out of the window, but there was nothing—no way I could reach it. Just darkness outside.
And then, the door that had trapped me flew open. I sprang back, ready to face one of the men who had beaten me black and blue over these last few weeks, but instead, it was someone I hadn’t seen before. A young man. His eyes shining with adrenaline.
“Jose?” he demanded. I nodded, and he grabbed my arm.
“We need to get you out of here,” he told me. “Come on.”
I didn’t have it in me to fight, or even consider whether this was a bad idea or not. I just knew that I was being offered a chance to escape, and I was willing to take whatever I could get. Anything that would give me a chance to get out of here. I followed the man, stumbling on my aching legs, toward the back of the building, where two of the guards were lying dead by the door. I averted my gaze quickly, fighting the wave of nausea that was threatening to overwhelm me. I’d heard about death since I had been here, of course I had, but the reality of being faced with it was more than I could take.
Near-delirious, I let him take me to a motorcycle parked outside. I had always hated motorcycles, sure they were more danger than they were worth, but the smell of the fresh air spurred me on. It had been so long since I had been let out into the real world, I couldn’t pass up the chance. The man handed me a helmet, and I slipped it on, my fingers brushing over my hollow cheeks as I did so. I hardly recognized myself. But still, all I could think of was her. Was Maria here? Was she close? Was this her doing, somehow?
He tore away from my prison, and I clung onto the bike for dear life. I didn’t turn to see what was going on behind me, I didn’t need to. I kept my eyes fixed forward, on the road ahead of me, and told myself, as many times as it took, that I just had to keep going. I had to keep moving forward. It was better than being locked in that cell, forced to work for men who used me to bring harm to the world around me.
I wasn’t sure how long we were on the back of that bike for, but I didn’t care. The road beneath me felt like freedom after so long locked up. Was I just being taken to another cartel, used there, as I had been used by El Serpiente? I knew nothing of this world or how it worked, but it seemed likely. Maybe it would bring me closer to Maria, I didn’t know, but I was willing to find out.
Eventually, he drew the bike to a halt inside another fenced property, this one larger and a little more lived-in, a large house sat in the center with a front porch that overlooked the front of the property.
“Where are we?” I croaked to him, as he helped me to my feet.
“Houston,” he replied. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now.”
“Maria?” I asked him. I didn’t even know if he was aware of who my daughter was.
He didn’t reply, just grinned, and nodded past me.
I turned to see what he was looking at, my heart pounding in my chest, hardly daring to hope. A few more bikes pulled in, each carrying one or two men in leather jackets or vests emblazoned with the same insignia—Ruthless Kings—that’s what the letters declared them to be.
And then, I saw it. A figure I recognized at once, even with the helmet on. My heart slammed into my ribs, the last bit of hope boiling over in my system. No… it couldn’t be… I couldn’t believe it, not after all this time. I couldn’t let myself even begin to believe it.
But then, she pulled the helmet off, and I knew it—it was her. She looked different, not physically, but in the way she carried herself, exhausted, as though she had been wrung dry. I couldn’t call out to her, too shocked she was still alive to get the words out. Slowly, she turned, and her eyes fell on mine. Her hand flew to her mouth, as though she had seen a ghost.
And then, she called out to me. “Papi!”
And she ran into my arms, and I threw them around the daughter I had been sure I was never going to see again.