Chapter Eight
Mari Belle
Two Weeks Later
Things had been so good lately. For the last two weeks Javi and I had fallen into a routine together. Since I was out of school and trying to set up my online courses for college, I was home most of the time. He went to work all hours of the day and night, but not without making sure to give me a kiss and sometimes more. I knew sex felt good. The girls always talked, but sex with Javi was something I couldn’t get enough of. It made me feel empowered that he seemed to be the same about me. We were building something between us, something that would last a lifetime, I felt it in my soul.
“Pack your shit,” Maricio screamed rushing through the front door directly at me.
His eyes were wild never landing on a single thing or me. It was like he was in a rush and couldn’t stop to even take in the space. Something was off and in a big way. Panic assaulted me. Why was my brother here and not in the States? Where was Javi? Was he hurt? Did something go wrong at work? Why did I need to pack? Too many questions raced through my mind as the fear climbed higher and higher with ever passing second.
“Estella is sleeping, lower your voice.” I replied as my heart-rate picked up. I was trying to remain calm. As each second ticked by I fought to sort out what was really going on.
Maricio’s eyes rolled around like they were broken if that was possible. Was he on something? I didn’t have much experience with drug users, but in Juarez it was a common issue. I knew he had tried some. I had overheard Javi chastise him for using in the past, but I had never seen him like this.
The drugs were everywhere, here though, it was hard to escape it. You name it you could find it on these streets. Hell, knowing what my brother was tied to, he had access like few had. It made getting his fix easy. There were a few times Javi argued with Maricio to stay clean and keep his head in the game. Was that what happened today?
Maricio’s face was grief stricken and full of shock. There was a sheen of sweat covering his skin and the tips of his short hair glistened in it. He kept licking his lips as if his mouth was dry. Taking him in, I halted moving when I saw his hands were covered in blood.
“Maricio, what have you done?” This couldn’t be good. In fact, this felt like the whole world was crashing around me. My brother was always the flighty one. Javi was the rock to this family. Maricio was always reactive to whatever life threw at us. Javi always had a plan and would get Maricio back on the straight and narrow. Except right now my brother was an absolute mess and Javi was no where to be found. I had to be the one to talk him off the ledge.
“What have I done?” he wailed angrily. His voice cracked and strained with emotion. Then as if he flipped some switch the anger set it. The air tensed as his energy pulsed around us. “What has your man done? He betrayed us, Mari.” His eyes grew dark, pitch black, as the hatred filled them. Whatever had happened this was war between brothers. “He set me up.”
His words were clipped, full of passion, and definitely something he believed in. The more conviction he had the more I struggled to hold onto the reality of the Javi I knew in my heart. Maricio was certain he had been stabbed in the back. In our culture to say a man, a brother betrayed you that was a fate that sealed your death. What he was saying, if it were true, would mean Javi earned retribution. It meant Maricio would be expected to kill Javi.
“No!” I yelled shaking my head back and forth in a frenzy. “No fucking way.” It was all too much. There was no way. I didn’t care that Estella was sleeping now. I wanted her to wake up. I wanted her to come out and tell Maricio he was wrong. There was no way Javi would set him up. There was no way Javi would do this to our family. The confliction inside me was too much. What was my brother talking about? What had happened? What were both of the men I cared about caught up in? What had the cartel mixed them up in?
Javier and I had this life we were building together. I believed in our love. My entire future was wrapped up in being with Javi. He even talked about getting married and soon. We were going to skip the big wedding. A simple ceremony, I had even gone dress shopping with Estella. I was over the top happy for the first time in my life. It felt like all the pain from losing my mother was going to be the only pain I felt because I had this future with Javi. A future full of promise and happy times. I knew things were going at warp speed between us, but I felt like the love we shared was something all-consuming like that. We just knew this was our future, being together. There was no need to wait. I couldn’t believe that Javi would fight with my brother.
I couldn’t believe my brother would want me to leave Javi. After all he was the one who left us and went to America. How could he trust Javi so much one minute and want us to run from him the next? What had gone down? Maricio paced around me intensifying the situation. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as my mind struggled to process what was happening.
Maricio closed the space between us. I wasn’t prepared to have him so close. His hand raised up and came back to hit my face swiftly. The sharp pricks crept in under my skin immediately.
“Bitch, I told you to pack a fucking bag. You wanna go without your clothes? Fucking fine by me, but we leave here today!” I blinked as I fought back the tears. The pain was intense, but what I saw next would forever be engrained in my soul.
Maricio lifted the other hand with a smile the size of Texas spread across his face. He held his hand out flat, on it was a blood covered glob. My stomach revolted and I lurched in a dry heave. “An eye for an eye, Mari. I have his eye.” His tone was cold and full of malice. “What does that tell you? What does that show you? I told you he betrayed me, he betrayed us. I did this for you Mari! Now, if you want to live and you want me—your own blood, your only family—to live, then you will do what the fuck I say.” He paused like it was just registering to him that he hit me. His eyes softened only slightly. The remorse I craved was still missing. More so it was like his stare went from rage to vacant. I wasn’t talking the Maricio I knew. He continued pressing his point to me. “This is the only way to stay together, Mari. Mom would want us to be together. Don’t disappoint her as she watches over us.” The words cut me deep. How would Mamá feel if I stayed with Javi? I still didn’t even know what Javi had done. But Mamá would want me to be with Maricio I knew that. I just couldn’t shake that something more was happening here.
“And if I don’t?” I countered, angry that he had put his hands on me. Angry that he was saying all these things about Javi. “You want me to believe Javier betrayed you. You want me to believe you. Yet, you tell me nothing. Maricio, you have his eye! His fucking eye, Maricio!” I was hysterical. “You want me to leave the only family we have because you’ve fucked up somehow.”
“Swear to fuck, Mari, you will leave. I will carry you out of here.” The determination in his glare told me he spoke the truth. He would make me leave. No longer was this about giving me a choice. No he was ordering me to leave the man I loved and the only home I knew. “He doesn’t get to keep you!”
Rage filled me. That’s what this was about, not letting Javi have something over him. “I’m no fucking possession.” I was a pawn in some game Maricio was playing with Javi.
He laughed a crazy maniacal laugh that hit me deep in my belly. “Yes you are. You belong to the Silvia Cartel. If you don’t come with me, that’s what you are.”
“Fuck you,” I shrieked reaching to slap him across the face. “I’m no cartel bitch. I’m no man’s bitch!” I yelled at the top of my lungs making my declaration firm. “And don’t you or anyone else think otherwise, ever!”
This time he didn’t backhand me. Instead, his fist came down and connected with my face. I heard the bones in my nose crack before I was aware of the pain as it radiated through my face. Blood gushed out. I held my hand to it trying to stop the flow while the tears hit. Rage consumed me. I teetered trying to keep my balance from the blow and the shock that it even happened.
He hit me. This man who proclaimed to love me, cherish me, just hit me. He spoke of Javi betraying him, but what about how he just betrayed me?
“Go to hell, Maricio!” I shouted with venom in my veins.
“Damn it, Mari, you wanna be the dumb cunt to stay with the man who is fucking you on an order, then be it. You say you aren’t a man’s bitch, but you’re more than Javier Almanza’s bitch, you’re the Silvia Cartel’s bitch if you stay here.”
His words cut me deep. How could he say such things?
Panic, dread, anguish, and terror built as my brother looked me in the eye and delivered his final blow.
“That’s right Mari, he fucked you on an order. He proposed on an order.” He reached in his back pocket pulling out a paper. “Here is the proof. A marriage license with a date. Your expiration date. Javi had to marry you on the order of Miguel Silvia. He had thirty days from your eighteenth birthday.”
“No! Miguel is dead everyone knows it,” I countered desperate to find Maricio was lying. The paper taunted me like it was laughing in my face. Everything I believed in, everything I was hoping for was ruined by this one little paper.
“The order was delivered before then, Mari. Paco says if Javi doesn’t step up and make it be, then you will be sold. Javi’s willing to let you be sold, Mari. I’m here to protect you. I fought him to save you. Now, listen to your brother and get packed.”
My heart shattered into a million pieces on the bamboo floor where I dropped to my knees as Maricio flung the paper at me. There it was plain as day, a marriage license with my name, Javi’s, and a date. “How? How could this happen?”
“I don’t know the details Mari. I just found out. It’s why I came home. Javi didn’t deny it. We fought. I told him he betrayed my family, our familia. Now, we have to go because I disobeyed my orders. Pack a bag, Mari.”
Numbness washed over me. I guess it was survival instinct that took over because with blood still running out of my nose, I stood and began to pack a bag.
Maricio went to his room I assumed to do the same.
The pain was too much too process, or to think about. I had to keep moving forward.
Javier Almanza played me. I was the fool. I believed in his lies. I believed in chasing a dream with him. I was not the sky, not so untouchable after all. He touched me, he tainted me. It was all a lie.
The pain of his betrayal was overwhelming. It hurt more than anything that would physically ever touch me. Pure agony. How could he have done this? How could I be naïve enough to believe in him?
The day my brother and Javier took their first run for the Silvia Cartel was the day I lost them both. Only I didn’t know it back then.
I damn sure knew it now.
I would leave here today with my head held high. I would let Maricio take me to America. From there, I would build my life and one day, one day I would be free from them both.
More so, I would be free from the Cartel that stole them from me. It would take some time. First, I needed to heal my broken heart. Then step by step, little by little, I would make a plan.
A plan where I came out on top.