Mercy
THE WAY MY heart is pumping and my thoughts spin, it’s no wonder I can’t fall asleep. My bare torso is pressed against Milo’s ribs, and I hope he can’t feel my hammering pulse. I close my eyes and steady my breathing.
I must eventually doze off because I’m jerked awake when he gently untangles my body from his and slips out of bed. He covers me with the bed sheets and kisses my lips before I watch him disappear into the closet. He clicks on the light just before closing the door behind him.
I roll off the side of the bed and scamper to get dressed in the clothes I hid beneath the bed earlier today. I yank on baggy jeans and a bra, setting the black hoodie sweatshirt aside before hurrying to get back under the covers to pretend I’m asleep.
Milo eventually emerges in dark clothes. He stops by the bed, and I hold my breath to keep from giving myself away. Thankfully he doesn’t stay long and turns to leave, closing me inside the room.
I move fast, kicking off the sheets and throwing on the sweatshirt. My palms sweat and my hair sticks to my fingers as I stuff the unruly locks beneath the hood.
I tiptoe to the patio doors and slip outside. My mouth is dry and my limbs shake as I climb over the railing to the iron trellises that line the house’s exterior walls.
I hadn’t noticed the ladder-like structures covered in thick flowering vines until yesterday, while I watched the groundskeeper trim the vines. Why would I have noticed them? I never needed an escape plan until now.
Thorns stab my palms, and I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from whimpering. I only have minutes to get to the garage unnoticed. My foot slips, and I’m pulled down by own weight. I struggle to regain my grip but lose and slide free. I hit the dirt and flowers below with a dull thud and cry out silently. My lungs burn, and it takes a minute to regain my breath. Without time to check for injuries, I crawl along the flowerbeds to get to the service door behind the garage and hope it’s still unlocked.
The benefit of being stuck on property for months is I’ve learned where every door and private entrance is. I’ve walked the grounds and know each employee’s routine, which makes my plan to slip away unnoticed easier than I anticipated.
Voices come from the kitchen window above my head—Milo and another man speaking in Spanish.
I crouch low and race across the lawn to the back of the underground garage. When I turn the handle, I hold my breath and say a silent prayer of thanks when it opens. I dart inside. The stairwell is dark, and I use the handrail to guide me to the lower level.
I stop mid-step at the sound of movement and voices coming from deep inside the garage. Milo couldn’t have beaten me down here. There must be other people in the garage. My back glued to the wall, I strain to listen for a familiar voice. They’re too mumbled for me to pick up on anything specific, so I take my chance and crawl through the doorway before I duck behind a large truck.
I squint in the direction of the voices and see a black van with the back doors open. Men are loading the vehicle with crates filled with something.
Milo must be making a delivery tonight. I need to get in that van to hitch a ride out of here, but there are too many people for me to do it without being seen.
Discouragement that I came this far only to have to turn around and crawl back into bed makes me sag against the rough concrete wall.
A door slams and I startle. I duck low to see the boot-clad feet of two men. Must be Milo and Sancho. Once they pass by, I belly-crawl to the next car then the next, only stopping when Milo’s feet come to a stop at the driver’s side door of the car I’m hiding behind.
Milo barks something in Spanish and slides behind the wheel of the El Camino. He fires up the engine. If I don’t hurry, I’ll miss my chance.
I hop up and over with soft feet and hide in the bed of the El Camino. I tuck my hands into my sleeves and my chin to my chest. My hood slips from my head, but I can’t fix it or I’ll get caught, so I try to make myself as small as possible. Milo steps on the gas, and I have to wedge my body into the corner closest to his back to keep from sliding around the bed.
I mentally calculate where we are—driving out of the garage, through the estate grounds, then we stop for what I assume is the security gate. I hold my breath and pray Milo isn’t feeling chatty. That would give the guards a chance to peek into the back and find me.
I hear the creaking metal of the gate opening and press my body into the corner. The car lurches forward. My head slams against the metal, and my hair gets caught on something. I pull away with a sharp sting on my scalp and a groan rumbles in my throat, but thankfully, the sound is lost to the whipping wind.
After a few adjustments, I tuck my head deep into my hood and find a comfortable enough position by wedging myself between the wheel well and the bed panel.
Whatever secrets Milo is hiding, I’ll find out tonight.
NOT LONG AFTER we left the compound, I stretched out to relieve my aching muscles and watch the stars streak by. I’m unaware of how much time has passed as the gentle rumble of the El Camino lulls me.
Eventually the inky night gives way to street lamps that increase in number. We must be getting close to a city. I tuck back into a ball, making myself as little as possible as I glue myself to the driver’s side corner. The whirring sound of traffic and rhythmic beats of music confirm we’re in a city.
After the stop-and-go goes on for a while, we eventually come to a complete stop. I hold my breath as the engine cuts off and Milo opens the door. My pulse pounds in my ears as I wait for his angry growl, but there’s no sound except for the slam of his door followed by his retreating footsteps.
I count to one hundred before unfolding from my protective spot and sitting up. My vision struggles to adjust to the bright neon sign that stares back at me.
Mirabonita is written in pink lights, and I’m in a dark parking lot.
I jump from the car and hide my face as best I can behind my hood as I scurry toward the door. A man comes out and I dip my face as I pass him. The music from inside becomes louder when I walk through the door.
My feet still when I’m hit with the sounds of what must be hundreds of people all around me. Instinct sends me back a step, but I slam into someone who shoves me forward. I stumble but thankfully don’t fall. The air is thick with the musky scent of human bodies—sweat, perfume, and the sickly sweet stench of alcohol.
I make my way around the space on shaky legs while people talk loudly and laugh even louder. I can’t see where I’m going and end up getting shoved a few times, followed by cursing in Spanish.
This was a mistake. I’ll never find Milo in this crowd and can’t see well enough to find my way out.
I chance a look up and instantly regret it.
Women dressed in nothing but panties and high-heeled shoes dance on tables. Some are with men, allowing them to touch their breasts and kiss them.
My stomach turns painfully, and I long to get out of here. My pulse races and sweat breaks out on my forehead as I search for Milo, all the while getting sick that he’d ever want to come to a place like this.
“Salida,” I say to whoever can hear me. “The exit?”
No response.
I move through a crowd of people to the counter where a man is serving drinks. He passes me several times to serve others, having not noticed me tucked into the safety of my sweatshirt.
“Excuse me.” I wave my hand, but he doesn’t see me.
Bodies press in around me. I wipe sweat from my forehead, and my pulse quickens. My hands shake, and in a panic, I pull off my hood just to get a big breath of air.
“Excuse me!”
The man behind the counter doesn’t respond, but this time when he passes by, he catches sight of me and freezes.
That’s better.
“Salida, por favor.”
He blinks a few times then points at some unknown location over my head.
“Ay, muy bonita.” A man shoves in next to me and paws at my body.
I push away from him and move in the direction the man behind the counter pointed. My skin is clammy as people stare and yell at each other in Spanish.
After getting turned around twice, I finally find the door and push outside, but there’s no parking lot. Only a long corridor, similar to an alleyway, framed with a run-down, one-story structure.
I head away from the big building, trying to regain my composure. I suck in deep breaths of fresh air but find it too is heavy with an unpleasant stench. People mull about, coming and going from the many doors lining the alleyway. Some are closed, but others are open as a woman stands in the doorway, wearing next to nothing.
What the woman said back at the restaurant comes flooding back in. These are prostitutes.
Please know that everything I do is for us. Milo’s words from last night come back to me.
Is this why Milo has come here? Not for sex, but in search of the people who kept me?
My gaze climbs the walls of every building, looking for something familiar from my past—a tall wall that reaches to the heavens, something—but everything is short, dirty, and loud. I would’ve heard the music if I’d been raised nearby. Even my short experience with being outside would have introduced me to the pungent scent of car exhaust, smoke, and garbage.
The women call out to me in Spanish as I continue down the alley. I’m only able to pick up on a few words—bonita, dinero, and me gusta. Men stumble out of rooms, smiling as others pass money to the women before being invited inside. I search as best I can for Milo, but it’s hard to know where to look. I turn back toward the club and wonder if he’s still inside. My heart throbs at the idea of going back in there. What if I never find my way out?
A firm grip latches onto my elbow. “Belleza blanca.”
I whirl around to find a man with a thick black mustache, his calculating gaze skidding over my face and hair.
“Let me go.” I try to pull my hood up over my head with my free hand, but before I can, my arm is wrenched behind me by another who smells like alcohol and smoke.
Mustache man smiles, his teeth crooked and yellow, and his breath makes my stomach turn. “American.” He goes on to say something in Spanish to the man at my back before swinging his gaze back to me. “Usted no pertenece aquí.”
“I don’t understand.” I try to jerk my arms free, but they’re too strong. “My boyfriend, he’s with me. He’ll be here—”
His fingers dig deep into my elbow, and my words dissolve on a whimper. “Yo soy tu novio ahora.” He laughs and drags me forward.
I try to fight him. I dig my feet into the asphalt, but the man at my back shoves me forward and I sag in his grip. I cry out as pain rips through my shoulder. A woman standing in a nearby doorway looks on with pity in her eyes but makes no move to help.
“Please help me!”
With a sharp look from the mustache man, she ducks inside and closes her door. The men talk in clipped Spanish as I desperately search for someone to help, but all the women seem too terrified as I’m dragged down the alley.
“I can pay you! Please!” I offer them money in English and do my best to do the same in Spanish, but the more I plead for my life, the more the men laugh.
We turn a dark corner toward a waiting car with the engine running.
“No no no no . . .” I throw every bit of strength I have left into thrashing.
The man at my back loses his hold. I twist and turn to get my other arm free. The man curses in Spanish, and my arm slips free. I stumble, whirl around—and pain slices through my jaw seconds before the world goes black.
Milo
ARTURO FUENTEZ, A.K.A. El Tiburón.
I’ve spent the last two days with the man, and every time I feel as though I’m getting close to him revealing the information about the mysterious Angel and where she was kept, he freezes up.
Here in his plush office, surrounded by the kind of furnishings that could only be afforded by the man who runs the majority of Zona Norte, I swirl two fingers of Don Julio Real tequila in my glass. My watch says he’s been gone for ten minutes after getting a phone call and politely excusing himself. Since I’m the son of Esteban Vega, he offered me a variety of drugs and his top-quality whores to keep me occupied. What a fucking gentleman.
I turned them all down, saying something about being happy with my drink, but really, I’m crawling out of my skin being this close to what I need.
How long would it take for his security to burst in here and slit my throat if I beat the information out of him? I wonder if he’d take kindly to a good ol’ fashioned threat of bodily harm or if it would be better to cut off his supply of guns and drugs—something I could do with a few simple phone calls—
The door clicks open and in walks the fat fucking prick. From the looks of him, you’d never know he has enough money to buy Baja. He’s wearing a white collared shirt complete with a brown stain on the chest—probably from his dinner. His pudgy legs are shoved into black pants that look a few inches too long, and his thin salt-and-pepper hair looks a month past a wash.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says in Spanish as he crosses to the bar and pours himself a drink. “Something came up.” He sits on the couch across from me. “You understand.” He gulps from his drink.
I feel my hands shaking with barely restrained fury. “Tell me what you know about the angel and I’ll get out of your hair.”
This dick is starting to feel like a dead end, and I don’t like wasting my fucking time.
He frowns, and his eyes become shrewd. “I already told you, I don’t know anything—”
My arm flies, and the glass of tequila hurls over his head to shatter on the wall behind him. “You’re lying!”
The doors burst open as two of Arturo’s personal security come rushing in. Arturo holds them off with a lift of his hand. They step back but stay in the room.
“I know you’re hiding something. I’ve been sitting here playing your fucking games and you’ve given me nothing.”
“How much is this information worth to you?”
I lean forward to rest my elbows on my knees and glare at the tubby asshole. “I already explained. You name your price. It’s yours.”
He sips from his drink, and my jaw tics with the strength it takes to restrain from tackling him. He shrugs. “I don’t have anything for you, but I’ll put the word out that you’re willing to buy information. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”
“This is bullshit,” I mumble.
I’m up and walking out before he finishes his last sentence. I shove past the hired muscle by the door and out into the hallway, down the stairway into a crowded club, and make my way to the door through the throngs of people in various stages of drunk and dirty.
Once outside, I pull out my phone and send a text to Sancho, letting him know I’ll be on time for the exchange tonight. I could’ve stayed home a little longer with Mercy, held her in my arms, made love to her again, but instead I spent an hour chasing my own fucking tail—or rather, Arturo’s. Prick.
I slam my palm on the El Camino’s steering wheel.
I really thought I could do this. I thought I could hunt down her captors and give her closure.
Maybe she doesn’t need to be reunited with them to put this all behind her. Is it possible I could heal her in another way?
Maybe she’s not the one who needs the vindication. Maybe I’m the one who has needed the revenge all along.
THE SKY IS getting light by the time I pull back into the underground parking garage. Exhaustion has me dragging my feet to the stairs that lead from the garage to the kitchen. My knuckles ache after being forced to rough up our buyer tonight—who just happened to be short on the payment he owed us by half. I’m not big on violence, but the mood I was in, I was happy to deliver a beat-down for what ended up being almost four hours before his men showed up with the cash.
It’s quiet in the house. Not even the staff are awake yet.
I jog up the stairs to our room and slowly open the door. My clothes smell like smoke, and my skin is covered in the stick of humidity, seedy establishments, and blood. I head to the bathroom, but not before turning to see Mercy’s delicate frame sleeping soundly beneath a mountain of bedding and pillows.
The tension in my shoulders slides away, and I continue into the shower to get clean so I can crawl into bed with her for however long I have until she wakes up for the day.
This whole time, I’ve been thinking that having her wasn’t enough, that I had to fix things. Fix her nightmares. Get revenge for her past.
I was wrong.
She’s enough.
We’re enough.
First thing tomorrow, I’m going to talk to Esteban about going back to Los Angeles. I miss my brothers. I want our lives back, and even if I have to do LS business while I’m there, it’s got to be better than the smuggling shit I’ve been doing here.
I take a quick, hot shower and stuff my dirty clothes in the closet hamper.
The room is a little lighter now, and as I crawl into bed, I reach out to pull Mercy into my arms.
My fingers clench around pillows.
I scoot closer and throw my arm over her only to find more pillows.
What the fuck?
I sit up and hit the light on the bedside table. I rip the pillows off the bed, throwing them on the floor. She’s gone.
My pulse slams against my neck.
Where the fuck is she?
My muscles twitch, prepping for a rampage, but instead, I suck in a deep breath. “She’s fine.”
She’s probably down in the kitchen with Maria. My shower must’ve woken her. Maybe she’s at the shrine I found her at last night.
I drop back down to my pillow, grabbing hers and putting it over my face. The orange blossom scent of her hair washes over me and dulls my nerves.
When was the last time I slept?
I imagine Mercy on her knees, head bowed and hands in her lap, with Toro at her side as she prays to the Virgin, and my worry falls away.
Esteban won’t be up for a few hours, and I’ll talk to him then about going back to Los Angeles. A few hours of sleep would do me some good. This could be our last few days in Mexico. I can’t wait to tell Mercy.
With images of her smiling face dancing through my head, I fall asleep.