Chapter Six

Mari Belle

 

How was it that one person could still smell the same after all this time?

He had just left the room and his scent lingered. It had been two days since I shared my memories of Yesnia with him. Yesterday, he left me alone except to bring me food. Carla, the housekeeper, checked in on me, but barely spoke other than to ask if I needed anything. I wanted to tell her I needed my daughter. I needed my freedom. Instead, I said nothing. She worked for Javi, so she wasn’t an ally I could trust.

The biggest problem was the more I was forced to be around Javi, the harder it was to keep the memories at bay. The longer things dragged on with me confined here, the more my emotions got tangled into everything.

I could feel his pain.

I could also understand his confliction. Having me so close messed with him as much as it did me.

The more time I had alone, the more my mind wandered. Carla came in with fresh towels and a vase of flowers.

It was a sympathy bouquet. All white roses and white hydrangea blooms with small doves on top adorning the arrangement.

Flowers were something I hadn’t received since Javier and I were together.

It took me back to when I wanted to start dating. I was sixteen or seventeen when Maricio started joking one day before dinner about a boy coming to take me out. I, of course, wanted Javi to be my date, but he wouldn’t cross that line before I was eighteen. I could picture it like it was yesterday.

“Mari, who was the chavalo following you home?”

I gasped at Maricio for calling Diego a punk kid. “He’s a friend from school named Diego,” I answered just as Javi stepped into the living room.

“Who’s Diego?” he asked, looking at me and then to Maricio.

Maricio smirked. “The cabrón that wants to get in Mari’s pants.”

Javi’s face turned sinister. “Mari, is this a boy you wish to give your time to?”

I shook my head.

“You want to go out, I’ll take you out. Get ready,” Javi ordered and Maricio laughed.

“Someone’s showing his cards,” Maricio taunted Javi.

“No, I’m gonna show her how a man treats a woman so these cabrós don’t twist her head.”

And that was it, he was simply teaching me. I left the living room to get dressed deflated. Javi was taking me out, but only to show me how a man should behave. It was frustrating to have all of these feelings for him and always be around him, yet never have him as my own.

I took my time getting ready since I wasn’t nearly as excited to go out anymore. My hair was down in soft waves all the way to my butt. My makeup was my usual. Just eyeliner, some eye shadow that was a little darker than my natural skin color, and red lipstick. I didn’t bother with caking on foundation or blushes like most girls I knew. It just wasn’t me.

Javi came to the bedroom door after I had been tucked away for an hour. He wore fresh jeans and a button-up shirt. With his favorite aviator sunglasses in place covering his eyes, he whistled at me in appreciation.

“Fuckin’ gorgeous.”

I felt my cheeks heat. He extended his arms to me; in his hands were the biggest bunch of roses I had ever seen.

“For you,” he offered the flowers.

I took them, lifting the petals to my nose. I inhaled their sweet scent. “Thank you.”

“Never let a man take you out without first bringing you a gift.”

And there it was. I swallowed back my disappointment that the night would indeed be filled with lesson after lesson.

“Is that so?” I tried to seem interested.

“You are a gift to the world, Mari. Any man worth anything will see that. Therefore, he should shower you with gifts to show his appreciation in the present he gives. You are a gift to his world. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

In my mind, I let myself feel for a moment that Javi meant those words for me as my man. I would hold onto the special way he made me feel by saying I was a gift to the world.

We left his mother’s house with my hand in his. At the car, he opened my door, waited for me to get seated and buckled before closing it and rounding the car to get in his seat.

“A man always drives, Mari, for a man always leads.”

“That’s a bit chauvinistic,” I challenged.

“Any man who is worthy to have you, Mari, will want to lead for he would want to be the one to walk into any situation first, securing a path and safety for you. It’s not about control. It’s about protection.” He reached over to me and traced his thumb across my jaw, keeping my face turned to his. “You are a gift, Mari.”

For a moment he paused and we sat in his car with our gazes locked together sharing something unspoken and unbreakable.

“Javi,” I whispered his name.

“When the time comes, if I’m the man you want, you need to know there’ll be no going back, Mari.”

He released my face, put the car in gear, and pulled away without another word. We had a night of food and dancing that ended with him walking me inside, tucking me away, and leaving to go out with Maricio.

I learned a lot that night. I knew I was in love with Javier before then, but I learned that night he was everything I wanted in a man and so much more. He was honest to a fault, intense, passionate, and protective. While it hurt to not have him right then, looking back, I think it made having him later mean that much more.

Honestly, he set an example for how a woman should be treated that no other man would ever live up to, even if I had the freedom to date. When I was eighteen and we took things further, he never once took me on a date without bringing me flowers. He also never let me open a single door. He always led us and always put my safety first. He always put me first.

He knew I was all in, and I knew he was too.

So how did it get so mixed up? Where did it all go so wrong? How did Maricio get in both our heads?

The bedroom door opened and Javi entered with a tray of food. His eye met mine and the cold look was back.

For a moment, I tensed. Javier Almanza aged like he was a superhero. In all this time all he had done was broadened in the shoulders and bulked up. He wore a pair of loose sweats and a white tank-top that clung to his skin. Across his chest I could see ink, but I couldn’t make out the actual design. His forearm had the dagger tattoo Paco once showed Maricio stating everyone in the Almanza Cartel had the signature ink. He moved to the dresser where he set the tray down and I took in the tribal design tattooed across his shoulder blades. Under the shirt I could make out his last name inked under the tribal. It was all so fitting and only enhanced his muscular physique.

He turned around and his scarred face met mine.

“With you I will love, beside you I will fight, and should you suffer, I will suffer also,” I rambled the words he told me the night before Maricio took me away.

His face tightened and then relaxed. “For with you I am unbreakable and without you I’m fuckin’ lost,” he finished the statement. “There is a risk in the life I lead. You are my reward.”

Tears filled my eyes at the memory.

“How could you not believe in me, believe in us?” he abruptly roared, closing the space between us. He towered over me.

I shook my head. “You weren’t there. I was young. I didn’t know what to think,” I spouted back at him.

“I laid in a bed with you. That morning, I gave you my cock. I gave you my fuckin’ future. You left with him all because you were told I was marryin’ you on an order. Mari, what the fuck did that matter as long as we were married? You wanted it, didn’t you?”

He was inches from my face. Every word he spoke blew hot air on me. I backed up seeking space. He pressed closer. Reaching the wall, I couldn’t go any farther. He closed the space. My breasts hit his rib area with every breath I took.

“Go ahead, tell me you didn’t.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do this right now.”

My head was hurting, I was dizzy, and I couldn’t think clearly anytime he came around.

“Too fuckin’ bad.”

He crowded me and it was obvious he wasn’t letting up.

“Tell me, Mari, tell me how he got you to leave.”

I dropped my head in shame. He lifted my chin with a finger. His eye was locked to mine. I hated seeing the scar down his face and his missing eye. I wished I could turn back time. When he wore his sunglasses, I could at least forget for the moment that my brother did so much damage to us both.

“Tell me. I need to know how he got you to go with him. My mother, she slept in the other room.” His face softened. “Mari, she felt so much guilt. Days, she would just cry. Months, she barely ate. For years she asked me if I found you. She believed in you. She believed in us. She swore with the love you had for me, you’d never leave me on your own. So tell me, Mari. Tell me how he won while my mother lost, I lost, and ultimately our daughter even lost.”

I ran my hand over his cheek. “Your pain is my pain,” I whispered words we once shared.

It was an intense moment full of hate, love, and so much pain.

“Tell me,” he coaxed.

“He hit me. The more I questioned him about you, the angrier he became. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think he was going to take me out of Mexico. I thought he would calm down from whatever he was on and we would come home. Except we didn’t.”

Javi studied me. I waited for the backlash. I waited for the anger.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t home. I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I’m sorry for so much, Mari.”

I barely heard him, but the words and the emotion behind them were there.

“I should’ve fought to get away. I should’ve done more,” I admitted softly.

“What’s done is done, we can’t take it back.” He finally backed up and gave me space. “I wish I could, but I can’t. Now we have to find Maricio. Is there anywhere you think he would go?”

I shook my head. “He let me raise my daughter. What I needed he provided, but my brother and I weren’t close. We didn’t talk. Other than the updates from Paco, I didn’t know anyone he worked with, worked for, or what he did.”

“I’ve got word on the street. I have people tracking him. He hasn’t stayed in one place more than a few hours. He scores drugs and a little bit of sleep then moves on. I can’t figure out a pattern.”

Javi was frustrated. I could tell. I was frustrated, too. The only thing keeping me going was the fact that Maricio was still loose. I wanted him to pay. I wanted him dead.

I would do whatever necessary to make sure my brother felt the pain Yesnia endured. I wanted him dead for what he did to my daughter.

With each passing day, though, I wasn’t so sure what I wanted for Javi anymore. Sometimes I found myself hoping he could find peace.