Milo
“EMILIO, YOU NEED to eat and keep up your strength.” Maria places a tray of food on the table by my room’s balcony doors.
Three days have gone by since I left Arturo’s office, and I have had no luck finding Mercy or the men who took her. I walked the streets of Zona Norte and showed Mercy’s photo to anyone who would look. Searching for a Jose and Julio in Mexico has turned up a million different men and none of them are the ones who took Mercy. I’ve left my phone number with what seems like hundreds of different people, promising them compensation for any tip, and had nothing but dead ends and fake information.
Exhaustion proved to be the biggest asshole and had me passing out in the car on the city streets. Esteban himself showed up and forced me home, probably afraid I’d make his organization seem weak by walking around like a zombie with a broken fucking heart.
Maria says I need my sleep, but fuck sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, I only see her.
Mercy.
Mi alma.
Every day that passes, I feel less and less confident I’ll ever see her again.
I remember the day my mom went missing. I remember the pain and sickness at not knowing if she was dead or alive. I especially remember the gut feeling that told me she had been murdered. I hoped to never feel that way again.
Yet here I am with my heart in my stomach again. How many broken hearts can a man live through before the loss steals his life from him?
“Did you hear me?” Maria bends to meet me eye-to-eye where I lie like a corpse on my bed, wearing the same clothes I’ve been wearing for three days. “Eat. For Mercy.”
The sound of her name jerks me from my comatose state, but only enough to blink and roll to my side. “Not hungry.”
“What if you get that call and you don’t have the energy to go after those men? What if you have a fight and they kill you because you’re weak and tired? What if—”
“Okay. Fine. I’ll try.”
I push myself up to sit, and the room spins around me. I grip the bed at my sides and hold on until it stops. Shit, maybe Maria is right. I’m dehydrated, weak, and sleep deprived.
After a few seconds, I’m able to stand and cross to the table. I drop down in a chair and stare at the meal. My brain registers that the food should smell amazing, yet the scent makes my stomach turn. I start with the bottle of water and swallow small sips, fearing I won’t be able to keep that down. When I do, I grab the fork.
“Emilio.”
I pinch my eyes closed at the sound of Esteban’s voice.
“Maria.”
With my face to my food, I don’t know what silent demand he gave her, but the sound of her shoes shuffling toward the doorway tells me he sent her a non-verbal “get lost.”
I fork a bite of flaky white fish into my mouth just to avoid having to look at Esteban. Looking at him would mean acknowledging his presence, and I’d rather shove this fork into my own fucking eye than do that.
“I need you and Sancho to go to . . .”
Yeah, he can fuck right off if he thinks I’ll lift a finger for him now. The worst thing he can do is kill me for insubordination, and at this point, I’d gladly take his bullet.
“Emilio!”
I fork more fish into my mouth, finding it odd that the blackened seasoning tastes like nothing.
“How long will you be moping about this woman? Hell, you want a replacement, I’ll get you one. I’ll even find you a white girl—”
“Stop.” I manage to shove the word through my clenched teeth.
“You can have your pick of a dozen.”
“I said . . .” I look at him now and hope to God he sees the warning in my eyes. “Stop. Not another word.”
He huffs out a breath and drops to the end of the bed. I want to tell him to get the fuck off my and Mercy’s bed. I want him to know that she will always mean more to me than he ever did.
“I’ll give you one more day to be a pussy, and that’s being generous. Tomorrow you get back to work. Sancho is . . .”
I go back to my food and try to shove down forkfuls of rice. Even just the few bites I’ve taken, combined with the water, have me feeling more alert.
“Am I understood?”
“Yeah, whatever.” I didn’t hear a word he said and have no plans to do anything but look for Mercy. Once I find her, I’m taking her home, back to Los Angeles, and Esteban will have to kill me to stop me.
My shoulder muscles relax a little when I hear him cross the room and leave. After a few minutes of silence and a few more bites of food, my mind becomes a little clearer. I could go back to Tomás. He’s in the business of buying women. A woman as unique as Mercy would come at a high price. Juan and Julio were nothing but a couple of street thugs. They aren’t in it for the long haul; they’re in it for the quick snag and sell.
If I can find out who Mercy was sold to, I might be able to get her back.
That is, if she’s still alive.
Mercy
I’VE BEEN STUCK in the dark for so long, I’ve lost track of time. Days have passed, that I’m sure of. Weeks even. Time slows down here. It feels like an eternity since I last saw the world bathed in the sun’s rays.
I close my eyes and imagine I’m at the beach. The sun is blinding off the ocean, and its warmth soaks through me. Milo’s arm is thrown over my shoulder, and I smell the spicy scent of his neck as it carries on the warm breeze.
In these moments, we never speak. Not about the past or the future. We just sit in a space where time never moves. I smile, and my dry lips crack and burn, reminding me where I am.
Instantly the beach dissolves away. I open my eyes to the cold, dark space, my only company a small bucket to use as my toilet and the occasional cup of water. Time creeps by at a maddening pace. I’ve been given little food, and I can feel my ribs protrude more with each passing day.
I suppose eventually I’ll starve to death, but how long will that take? Months? A year? My mind won’t survive that long. I already feel my thoughts slipping.
My head rocks against the concrete in a rhythmic roll that grounds me when I begin to lose myself. It soothes me and reminds me I’m not dead yet. There is still hope as long as I’m breathing.
Once I’ve calmed, I close my eyes and go back to the beach in my head. The crash of the waves, the laughter of children, the sound of Milo breathing, it all plays in stereo, and I slip away to a world that no longer exists for me.
I’m thrown from my daydream by a powerful kick to my thigh. My eyelids fly open to find the man with the mustache standing over me. My captor’s English is limited, but they know basic commands and hurl them at me when they can.
“Up!”
I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to give them the illusion of control over me when I can slip away at any time and leave behind my disgusting reality.
He kicks me again, this time harder. I curl onto my side, grip my thigh, and moan.
“Up! I say up!”
“No—”
He kicks my ribs and murmurs something in Spanish. I crawl to get away from him, but he snags my sweatshirt and tosses me to the other side of the small room, where the bucket is.
Tendrils of anger thread through my body and coil in my chest.
“Up!”
Still trying to catch my breath and pushing through the cramps in my legs, I push up to my knees. I use the wall to help me stand only to have him kick my legs out from under me.
I drop hard to my side amid the sound of his laughter. He only wants me to stand so he can toy with me. This is a sick game to him.
“Up!” he says through a cackle of ugly laughter.
“Okay.” I nod. “Up. Okay.”
I struggle again to get my footing, but with renewed passion, I’m able to get into a crouch. I grab the bucket of my urine and stand so quickly he doesn’t see me upending the bucket toward his face until it’s too late.
He sputters and stumbles away, dripping in putrid liquid as it saturates his mustache. Maniacal laughter bubbles up from my chest, and I fall back against the wall as it overtakes me, so powerful it hardly makes any sound. Tears pour from my eyes as he struggles frantically to wipe his face clean.
When he focuses on me, I know I’m about to face a pain worse than death. I can see my demise in the fiery hell of his eyes, and rather than fear it, I welcome it.
He prowls toward me and pulls me up off the floor to slam me against the wall so hard it hurts my teeth. I gag and retch at the smell of his face as he rubs it against mine, speaking foul words into my ear. I try to push him away, but I’m too weak to do more than press my palms to his stomach. He spins me around and presses my face into the wall.
The sound of his belt buckle being undone floods my veins with adrenaline. I struggle more, but it’s useless. He pins me to the wall with his hips and rips at my jeans. They fall easily around my ankles.
“No! Please, stop!”
He leverages his weight with his forearm at the back of my neck as he tugs and fumbles with my underwear. An unholy roar comes from my lungs as I cry for rescue, but it doesn’t deter him from pawing at my body.
Oh, Mother merciful, please. Save me from this. I beg you!
The heat of his body presses against my bare back one second, and the next, it’s gone. The pressure of him holding me in place completely disappears.
I drop to the floor and scamper away, pulling up my panties and jeans and crying uncontrollably. Two other men are in the room. One of them is my captor, but the other holds the man with the mustache by his neck. His feet struggle for footing with his pants down around his thighs.
The air in the room is tight with authority as Mustache gasps for breath. A choking sound comes from his mouth, followed by a gurgling, before his body goes limp. Only then does the bigger man drop his body into a heap on the floor. My other captor puts up his hands and mumbles something in Spanish that, judging by his body language, I have to assume is an apology.
The larger man in the long black coat turns toward me, and I close my eyes and cower, turning into the wall and wishing it would swallow me up and take me away from here. Shuffling footsteps grow closer and stop at what sounds like mere inches from me. There’s a rustling of clothes, then the feeling of heavy, comforting fabric is thrown over my shoulders. I open my eyes to see the man has covered me in his jacket.
“Oh, what have they done to you, my Angel.”
My gaze snaps to his as a single word tears from my throat on a sob. “Papa?”
Without thought or reason, I launch myself at Papa, and he catches me. On every level, I know this is wrong. He’s the one who held me captive for all my life, he lied to me, but in this moment, I’ll accept and forgive his lies and deceit if only to feel safe again.
He pulls me to his chest, and the familiar scent of him washes over me and makes me feel protected. Cherished. “My beautiful Angel.”
I can’t get my mouth to form words, so I squeeze him tighter. He lifts me off the floor and cradles me in his arms.
“Largate de mi puto vista,” Papa says, which has the other man scurrying to let us pass.
I can’t keep a hold on my emotions as they rise to the surface all at once.
“Shh, it’s all right,” he mumbles against my head. “You’re safe now. Finally going home where you belong.”