Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
ANNA
Si desaparecieran el fundamento de tu vida, ?habría algo por lo que valiera la pena vivir?
If the foundation of your life were gone, was anything worth living for?
The pressure in my chest was suffocating. For nearly four years, I hadn’t taken a breath of relief. Without grief. Without responsibility.
In the warmly lit hallway with the soft, white walls and the woven cream runner, it should have been the vroom of the industrial vacuum cleaner beating in my eardrums. Instead, only silence kept me company under my noise-canceling headphones.
Neither the vacuum nor the jazz beats floating from the speakers could rock the small axis of my emotional stability.
At least the part I showed to the outside world.
Behind the facade, I was a quivering mess, like an old, unmaintained building crumbling.
Papá robbed me of everything when he died.
My foundation, my happiness, my memories.
His death had yanked at my insides and left me hollow.
Void of any emotion. Day in and day out.
I couldn’t even bring myself to rejoice in music without losing my sanity. To think Papá had called me strong. If strength was blocking the past and refusing to live for the future, then I had it.
I imagined a noise I was too terrified to hear.
Vroom. Vroom. In my mind, it was softer.
A bite-sized imitation that made it possible to experience.
In reality, the volume of the industrial vacuum cleaner sounded like gunshots.
Something was wrong with the fan, they’d said.
But they hadn’t bothered to fix it. I was too much of a coward to tell them the noise was a disaster for me.
Panic attacks and sedation the ultimate result. All the things I needed to avoid.
I bit my tongue because I needed the job. The money that came with it, more. Two people relied on me to bring that home. I couldn’t let a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner stop that.
So, with headphones on, I vacuumed. An intricate hexagonal pattern with olive-green lines gave way to the light wooden planks that touched the skirting, which ran the length of the walls. The pattern only stopped at the doors, where the room numbers hung in bold gold figures.
Everything about that hotel oozed subtle luxury.
When the rich were so rich they wanted to hide their money rather than display it.
Transactions under the table, secret meetings in the bedrooms, discreet suitcases switching gloved hands.
On the exterior, Marbella bathed in glamor and glitz.
Its interior, though, was darkened by drugs and black money.
Beyond it, if you dug deep, looked past the dark corners and peeped beneath the clogged drains underneath the sidewalk, you’d see people like me drowning in our own misery.
As if my thought needed proof, the door in front of me pulled open.
A woman in a red negligee stepped out with a breakfast tray.
I swiftly pulled my headphones down to my neck.
If someone reported me to management, they’d fire my ass faster than the next drug exchange.
But she didn’t pay me any attention. I doubted if she even noticed me.
Housekeepers faded more into the background than the pretty cream carpet they stepped on while walking to their suites.
Even to the expensive hookers who catered to the rich.
A clipped voice called out from behind her.
Something in it made my heart pick up speed.
A hazy memory. Déjà vu. She bent to set the tray down, but halfway through, a hairy set of arms wrapped around her waist, and she was yanked back into the room.
The tray clattered onto the spotless carpet I’d just vacuumed.
The door swung shut behind them, swallowing her giggles, as fake as the view of her plastic boobs and dollar-store colored blonde hair.
I tried to shake off the unease coiled in my body.
It was just another rich criminal and his whore of the day.
All they had done was give me extra work.
Egg yolk and coffee ran like an ant trail on the carpet.
Just my luck to be on the same floor as some womanizer who couldn’t give his latest entertainment the time to put the damn tray down.
I hadn’t complained when they had moved me to the top floor.
The guests were filthy rich. They forgot things.
Left behind pretty little shampoo bottles or the odd euro bill wedged between the mattresses.
Being a witness to their odd entertainment was part of the package because filthy rich people did some dirty shit.
Drugs, money, whores. On my first day, it was insinuated that should there be any strange, unnatural deaths, it was the hotel staff’s duty to turn a blind eye.
Unplugging the vacuum I returned it to the storeroom.
Taking out the stains was going to be a bitch.
Picking up some cleaning solutions, I returned to the mess and dropped to my knees.
It was going to take forever to get rid of it.
First soak. Don’t rub. Soak. Don’t rub. My hands bumped against black, polished shoes.
How the hell did those appear? I looked up to find a human armor next to the door.
Black suit, beefy body, and beady eyes. My skin crawled with a distant memory. My movements slowed.
“It’s clean enough.”
I dropped my gaze to the carpet. Unless he was colorblind and couldn’t follow a pattern, it wasn’t clean enough.
A shriek broke free from behind the door, and my opinion on cleanliness froze in my mouth.
How many of them were in there? The next instant, the door swung open, and one of the room service girls stumbled out, followed by the vile stench of thick cigarette smoke.
Without much thought, my head flipped past her to the room beyond.
A man stood in his bulky boxer shorts. Hairy chest and definitely the owner of the hairy hands.
Chunks of gold chains wrapped around his neck and wrists.
Thick rings on each finger as he blew clouds of smoke inside a non-smoking room.
Something about him made a chill erupt at the base of my spine.
“I’ll trap you later, bella.” His voice slid down my back like a cold knife.
A million puzzle pieces shifted in my brain. Fragments of memories flooded my mind.
“You’re a fucking thief.”
“You should beg, at least.”
“It’s a fucking order. Now!”
“Who the fuck is here?”
“Move it,” the weaponized voice next to the doorway snapped.
My feet were moving. Heavy as if I were trudging through fresh concrete.
When I made it to the service elevator, my hands trembled as I weakly reached out for the mirrored wall to hold me upright.
The man in the boxer shorts walked out into the hall.
The doors took forever to close. He looked straight at me.
The distant sound of our home alarm rang.
It mixed with someone’s hollow screaming.
The memory sucked the breath out of me. I stumbled back as if I’d taken a direct hit.
The door closed, and the elevator moved. But the shrill noise of the alarm and the screaming stayed with me.
Am I turning into Mamá?
I shook my head, dislodging the noises to the dark corners of my memory. It was only the sound of jazz inside the elevator. It weakened me, but it didn’t sound like death itself.
But he was looking at me.
“I wish.”
I stared at my hands. They’d put a storm to shame with how they trembled. They were also empty. I’d left the tray behind. I’d have to go back. I groped for my headphones around my neck and came up empty. They must have fallen off. A wave of frustration gathered in my chest.
“I wish he’d find someone else.”
I blinked.
“I wish he’d choke on a pineapple and die.”
I hate shiny black shoes.
I’d much rather… Pineapple?
The room service girl was in the lift. “Pineapple?” I croaked. My elevator companion was beautiful. Straight brown hair twisted into a bun, crimson cheeks, and two buttons she was busy trying to pop back into place while holding the tray with an empty glass.
“The bastard’s apparently allergic to it.”
I took her tray so she could button herself up. “To pineapple?”
“Yes! I told you that already.” She looked at me as if she expected to see air between my ears.
“He sends two of his men to the kitchen when they prepare his food. Daniela delivers that. I don’t know how she puts up with him.
” She finished buttoning her blouse. “Now he’s taken a liking to Tinto de Verano…
or me. Whatever it is, I have to bring it up to him, and every time, he’s fucking touchy.
He has his whore. A new one every single day.
What does he want with me?” A liquid drop clung to the edge of her eye, which she quickly wiped away with a frown directed at me.
“I got away this time because the girl of the day was jealous.”
“You need to report him to management.”
“?En serio?” She didn’t look impressed.
“Sí. He shouldn’t get away with it, and—”
“How long have you been working here?”
“Six months.”
She shook her head. “And on the top floor?”
“I started last week.”
“You don’t know who he is, do you?”
“Well, he’s not clean if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Not clean?” She laughed. “He runs the underworld, sweetie. He’s the fucking Mafia Don in New York.”
Mafia Don? The unease coiling in my body thickened into doom.
“You don’t report the fucking Don. He’ll kill you for cleaning his toilet wrong, and believe me, no one will hear you scream when he comes for you.”
No one will hear you scream when he comes for you.