Mercy
SHE’S CRYING FOR me to help her. Not in a language I understand, but the sound of begging is universal. I look down, her body prostrate, arms outstretched, and notice the contrast of her dark hands against my pale feet.
I mumble words I don’t know, syllables and letters strung together that have no meaning and yet mean so much to the woman. Papa pulls me back gently. I stumble when the woman grips my ankles.
Darkness fades in and out of my vision. I want to fight to free myself from her grasp but don’t have the will or the energy.
My head is foggy with a pressing need to escape, however my limbs refuse to comply. I want—
“Mercy.”
I jerk awake and light pierces my eyes.
No longer in a dark room filled with thick air and pungent scents, I blink and take in familiar surroundings. I’m in Milo’s El Camino. Milo cups my face as he squats to look into my eyes.
Worry flashes in his expression, but he quickly covers it with a smile. “Hey. We’re home.”
I sit up taller and realize we’re parked in the underground garage at the compound. “I fell asleep.”
His smile is small and fleeting. “I know. I’m glad you did after all the tossing and turning you did last night.” He takes my hand to help me out of the car. “Bad dreams?”
I peer up at him and frown. “More like memories.”
His brows pop high on his forehead. “Really? You’re having flashbacks?”
“I don’t know, I think so. It’s hard to tell if it really happened or if it’s something I made up in my head.” I explain the dream about the woman from the restaurant, her hands on my feet and me being pulled away at her refusal to let go.
He seems disappointed. I think he’s hoping I’ll have a memory that might give way to an address, but I was never taken from the four walls of that room or the sanctuary—at least not that I remember.
He grabs our bags out of the back and takes my hand to lead me inside. “Huh, yeah, it’s probably having new information and your mind is piecing it together and attempting to fill in the blanks.”
We head through the kitchen, and Maria startles from behind the griddle as she roasts peppers. She says something in Spanish.
Milo is quick to respond with a short phrase that sounds something like, “Don’t worry about it.” When I look at him, he shrugs. “She was wondering why we were home early, that’s all.”
As much as I wanted to stay for another night, I knew when I woke up and saw Milo had packed our bags that he was going to make us leave. The woman from last night could have friends who know about me, and what if they found out where I am? It was time to end the fantasy and head back to the safety of the compound.
Milo takes me to our room, and I stop in the doorway for a moment. Bed, table, windows . . . it’s not all that different from the room I was held in for most of my life. Except this one carries the illusion of freedom.
That’s all it is. An illusion.
I’m no freer now than I was back then.
Milo drops our bags in the closet. “Mercy.”
Huh? He’s watching me from across the room. For how long, I don’t know.
“I’m okay.” I move through the doorway toward the bathroom.
He follows me. “It’s okay that you’re not.”
He sets my toiletry bag on the counter in front of me, and we lock eyes in the mirror.
“Would you have killed her?”
I expect my question to throw him back a step, but he doesn’t even flinch. “I wouldn’t have had to.”
I turn to face him. “You threated to kill her. Would you have done it? If she hadn’t talked, would you have followed through?”
He drops his chin and shakes his head. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”
I recoil and slam my backside against the sink’s edge. “Milo—”
“I have to go,” he says, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Let me guess, Esteban calls.” I hate the tone in my voice. I hate the anger stirring in my chest. I hate that I hate at all.
“Don’t—”
“Do you kill for him? Is that where the blood comes from?”
His body becomes a statue in the bathroom doorway, his back facing me.
“Is that what I’ve done to you? Have I made you into . . .” I choke on the emotion that clogs my throat. I swallow it back and sniff back tears. “Have I made you a murderer?”
He braces his weight on the doorway with one long, powerful arm. “I’ll have Maria bring you up some food—”
“Stop it!”
He spins around to face me, eyes wide with shock.
“You think I don’t notice how you avoid my questions and your attempts to distract me?”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“By making me a prisoner!”
He lifts his hands to reach for me, but I shake my head. He drops his arms. “For your protection, it’s better that you don’t know.”
“Then that makes you no better than them.” I shove past him and out of the room.
“Where are you going?” he calls after me, but I don’t answer.
He knows anywhere I run will be within the walls of the compound. I jog down the steps and out the front doors into the sun. I’m momentarily blinded and blink before darting toward the smattering of citrus trees. My pulse slams in my chest and I feel the burn of tears, but I refuse to cry.
He’s been hiding things from me, and I don’t know how to forgive him for that. All I want is to be free to stand on my own feet, but how can I do that when he insists on treating me as if I’m incapable and incompetent? I sag against the trunk of a limóne tree to catch my breath and try to shove back the fear and fury that boils beneath my skin.
I can’t live like this.
I have no purpose. Milo is out there doing—I can’t even imagine, and I’m here, going about my life as clueless as he’s kept me. He may think he loves me, but this isn’t love; this is fealty. He’s sworn an oath to protect me and he’s a man of his word. In reality, he’s just another one of my captors.
When I was a child, I had no choice but to submit to the wishes of those who held me. Now I know enough to put an end to this imprisoned existence and begin a life as a free woman. I don’t have to live a life dictated by someone else. I no longer need a savior. I can save myself.
Milo
DON’T CHASE HER. Give her space. She needs room to breathe.
I chant the words over and over in my head, but they do nothing to slow me as I chase her down.
I whirl around the ornate banister and jump down three stairs at a time. The front door is wide open, giving me a hint to which direction she took. My stomach sours when I think of what must be going through her head. I have to make this right without telling her everything. She’d only worry—
“Emilio, ven aquí!”
Esteban’s command comes from the room behind the stairs, his office—if a man who deals in the illegal trade of guns and drugs needs an office. I suppose that’s why it’s located beneath the stairs. A secret location that can be easily hidden if the Federales raid the estate.
I’m in a tug-o-war between going after Mercy and turning back to him when the words filter through my head again. Give her space. Let her breathe. After last night, she needs some time to process. Besides, she’s safe here. There’s no way she can get away without someone seeing her.
I spin on my heel and duck through the open doorway to Esteban’s office. Although the door is small, once inside, the space opens up with high ceilings, dark wood beams against white paint, and a masculine iron chandelier the size of a Buick hanging from the center.
“What?”
He lifts a brow and motions for me to take a seat in one of the two overstuffed, worn leather chairs. “Looks like the romantic getaway didn’t pan out. You look worse than you did when you left.”
“I’m fine.” I spit the words through my clenched teeth, which only confirms his observation. I loosen my jaw.
“You need to get laid, ese.” He leans back in his chair.
“What do you want?” Get to the point so I can get the fuck out of here.
“I got some information for you.”
A humorless laugh bursts from my lips. “Is that right? Because I called you last night and you seemed completely clueless.”
He shrugs, scratches his jaw, then frowns. “I don’t give information for free. You know that.”
“So you have something now. What do you want for it?”
He leans in with his forearms braced on the dark wood desk that looks as though it weighs a thousand pounds. “You have a delivery tonight. Your contact should be able to answer whatever questions you have.”
“Where at?” He rattles off an address, and I quickly record it to memory. “He got a name?”
“Tomás. Sancho will have the van loaded and waiting. Midnight. Sharp. Don’t be late.”
Whatever. I push to stand, feeling heavy with the stink of criminal on my skin. Mercy was right. I’ve sacrificed a lot to ensure her safety. It’s worth it. I thought up until now that I’d do it again if given the choice. But I have to wonder, in doing so, am I no longer the man she fell in love with? Have I given up the best parts of myself, the parts she saw a future with? Could she ever learn to love the person I had to become to keep her?
“Oh, and Emilio!”
I don’t stop on my way to the exit.
“Have Tomás hook you up with some pussy while you’re there. Tell him it’s on me.”
His chuckle follows me out from under the stairs where I mutter a fierce, “I hate you.”
FROM THE OUTSIDE, El Paraiso looks like any other Mexican nightclub—the neon sign shaped like a palm tree, solid rectangle structure with no windows, and techno music thumping out of the single door. Sancho nudges me forward, and I barely restrain telling him to fuck off.
I stride inside only to get stopped by a big fucking guy wearing too much cologne and sunglasses at night.
“I’m here to see Tomás. Esteban sent me.”
The guy steps aside and motions to a red velvet curtain off to the right that looks as though it’s being guarded by this guy’s twin. I head over, weaving through a few clusters of people drinking and dancing.
Frankentwin has his finger pressed to his ear, and when I get close, he sweeps the curtain aside and says, “He’s expecting you,” in Spanish.
Behind the velvet partition is a narrow stairwell lit only in black light. The bass from the club below throbs all around me, and as I reach the top of the stairs, it slows into something more sultry. I step through another set of curtains into a bar. This one is a much classier version of the nightclub below, like a VIP section. The dark wood bar isn’t overcrowded, so I push up to it and flag down the bartender. He’s dressed nicer than the staff downstairs, in a black button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
“Where can I find Tomás?”
The bartender flicks his fingers into the air, and seconds later, a woman pushes up beside me. She brushes her breasts against my arm, which would’ve seemed accidental if it were crowded. But with only a couple dozen people filling the space, it was very purposeful. I glare at her and step away to put some distance between us.
“I can take you to Tomás,” she says in Spanish and motions for me to follow.
I trail behind her across the dark room, and I realize she’s wearing a long, fitted dress that’s all netting in the back and she isn’t wearing anything underneath. Everything clicks into place.
This is what Esteban is giving me.
He’s giving me face-to-face time with someone in the prostitution game.
My eagerness wars with annoyance. As interested as I am talking to the guy, I hate that it’s happening in some kind of high-end whorehouse. Being here makes me feel like a scumbag. But then, most of what I do for Esteban does.
The woman takes me up a few steps to a hallway lined with doors. At the last door, she knocks twice then opens it into some kind of super-VIP space the size of an average bedroom. Three of the walls are painted a deep red. The fourth is a floor-to-ceiling one-way window facing the interior of the club. I’m assuming it’s there so whoever is inside can pick their companion for the night while remaining anonymous and stay hidden while they receive the services they pay for.
Overstuffed leather couches sit in the middle of the room with a bar on one wall and a flat-screen TV on the other. An older Hispanic man is lounging on one couch between two girls who look young enough to be his granddaughters. He doesn’t make a move to stand or greet me in any way other than to watch me like a hawk as I cross to sit on the couch opposite him.
“Tomás.”
He nods, and when he does, the white hair plastered to his head doesn’t move, as if it were made of plastic. “Emilio Vega. You look like your father.”
I recoil but hope I recover quickly enough for him not to notice. He’s speaking English, which must mean he doesn’t want the woman in the room to understand our conversation. “He asked me to drop off a gift to you.”
“Bring it around to the back and I’ll have my men take that off your hands.” He strokes the thigh of the woman on his left. She doesn’t even seem to feel it, her eyelids low and her head lolling to one side. “You’re welcome to help yourself to . . .” He grins at the woman who escorted me in here and then at each of the girls on his sides. “Anything you like while you’re here.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that. There is something I’m interested in.”
The first woman sits down next to me and leans her weight into my side. My instinct is to shove her away, but I don’t want to give away a weakness, so I pretend she doesn’t exist.
“I’ll have Yolanda show you to a room—”
“No need.” I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “What I want you don’t have here on site.”
He chuckles, and his smile slips a little. Just as I thought, his weakness is his pride. “I assure you, whatever your tastes, I can provide it.”
I was hoping he’d say that. I lock eyes on him, ready to search for any tell that what I’m about to say means something. Anything. “I’m looking for an Ángel.”
His eyes flare so minutely, I would’ve missed it if I hadn’t been looking for it.
“You know where I can find one?”
His shoulders slump in what looks like an act of forced nonchalance. “Call them whatever you want, they won’t mind—”
“A healer. One who can bring luck, success, money—”
“If it’s innocence you’re looking for, I have plenty of young—”
“Pale skin, eyes, hair. A Ghostgirl.”
He blinks slowly.
“Only a man like you could find something so rare, am I right?”
He clears his throat and dismisses all the women in Spanish. When his couch mates don’t move fast enough, he barks, “Lárguense!”
They all scurry to the door.
Once it clicks closed, his eyes narrow on me. “What you’re asking for isn’t too hard to find. White women are not rare—”
“Don’t bullshit me. I have the money. Name your price, point me in the right direction, and we’re done here.”
He stands and I rise along with him, standing directly in front of him so he can feel our foot-plus height difference.
“All the talk of an Ángel who is capable of the kinds of things you speak are rumors. That’s all,” he says.
“So you’ve heard them. If she does exist, you know where I can find her.”
“I have heard rumors. That’s it.”
“If they’re only rumors, then you’ll have no problem sharing them with me.” Rumors aren’t much to go on, but they’re a start.
His gaze darts to the tattoo on my neck. “Are you a religious man?” I don’t answer him, but he clearly didn’t expect me to as he continues. “There are rumors that these healings are the work of black magic veiled in Catholic symbols.” He crosses to the bar and pops the lid off a bottle of what I’m assuming is tequila. After pouring himself a short glass, he takes a mouthful. “If you search out this kind of magic, you may very well get more than you bargained for.”
Riddles. All of it. I shake my head, and my hands fist in irritation. “Do you have a location?”
“Rumors have placed it in just about every gentlemen’s club in Baja.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, praying to the Blessed Mother that she’d knuckle-thump this guy on the back of the head and get him to spit up what he knows. “And what do you think?”
“I’d check Zona Norte.”
I blink and shake my head. Zona Norte is the red light district in Tijuana. “Isn’t that a little too . . . obvious?”
He steps close, and his face is remote, emotionless. “If anyone asks me if we had this conversation, I will tell them it never happened.”
“Fine with me.”
“Good night then. And please tell Esteban to go fuck himself for me.” And with that, he walks out of the room, leaving the door open.
The three women saunter back inside, but I don’t give them the chance to proposition me again. I push past them to the door, down the hallway, stairs, and back out into the cool night air.
Sancho flicks his cigarette and pushes up from his lean against the van. “El Jefe will be happy to know you took your time in there. Tomás has the sweetest bitches, eh, ese—”
I shove him back against the van with my forearm to his neck. “Shut the fuck up. I didn’t touch any of those women.”
I would never do that to Mercy. I would never do that to myself. Prostitution is too sad to be sexy.
His gravelly laugh morphs into a smoker’s cough, and he raises his arms in surrender. I shove off him and circle around to the driver’s seat. I crank the ignition and lay my foot a little too heavy on the gas, peeling out of the parking lot to circle around to the cargo entrance at the back of the club. I hope this shit doesn’t take long. I always crave Mercy’s arms after these nights, but there’s somewhere I need to go before I go home. And I need to get rid of Sancho before I do it.
Thankfully, Tomás’s place has plenty of distractions.