Rosa had gone upstairs to check on Ariana for the fifth time since they got back from the station. Wanda had insisted they stay in a spare room upstairs. Doc had come and gone, sewing up the gash on Grant’s head with a shaky hand. Nate and Angel had finally gone back to bed, and Wanda had heated up every leftover she could find and set a feast out on the dining room table before going back upstairs to shower. Grant sat wrapped up in the blanket that Rosa insisted he put around his shoulders after he took off his bloody shirt and he was anxiously waiting for her to come back downstairs and fill him in on exactly what the hell tonight was all about. She was stalling and it was beginning to frustrate him.
He reached into his pocket and took out the note that Rosa had left on the sketchpad. It was a heartfelt plea to her friends to take care of Ariana and an even stronger plea for Ariana to forgive her, but there weren’t any details about who was chasing her or why. The man Grant fought at the station had been wearing a three-thousand-dollar suit and Italian leather boots. He had on a gold Rolex and smelled like expensive cologne. He wasn’t your usual hitman. Grant wondered if he was her husband, but as well kept and groomed as he was, it was obvious he was a lot older than her. He had a million questions in his head and if she didn’t come downstairs and answer them soon, he would go upstairs and find her.
He aimlessly flipped the page of the sketchpad that Rosa had brought from her house along with a few of Ariana’s toys and crayons, and suddenly, he was looking at a picture of a house. It was a huge, beautiful house with rolling hills in the front yard and a giant rose garden and mountains that framed the landscape in the background. The impressive thing about it was that the picture had been drawn by hand with a pencil, but the detail was as sharp as that of a photograph. The drawing was better than any of the artwork hanging in the mansion that Grant had grown up in back in Boston. He was fascinated as he turned the page and saw that the next sketch looked like Ariana playing on the grounds of that house. The only difference between the girl in the picture and Ariana was that this girl had long, straight hair.
“Hey,” Rosa’s voice startled him and he dropped the sketchpad down onto the desk. “What are you doing?”
“Did you do these sketches?” he asked her, looking up at her. She looked at the sketchpad with a slightly embarrassed look and nodded. “They’re amazing, Rosa. They look professional.”
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s just a hobby. I’ve never had any formal training.”
“It doesn’t look to me like you need any. Is Ariana okay?”
“She’s still sleeping like an angel.” Her eyes went to the bandage on Grant’s head. “You should try and rest. Doc said it was okay as long as we just kept an eye on your breathing. I’ll stay up…”
“Rosa, sit down. Please.” He could see that her hands were shaking as she came over and took the seat next to him on the couch. “I’m not one to tell a person that they have to share their personal life with others. But you have to admit that in this case your personal life found us. Don’t you think we have a right to know what’s going on?”
She was staring down at her hands as she nodded. When she looked up at him, her eyes glistened with tears. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt because of me.”
“I know that, and this is a Band-Aid cut for me, Rosa, so please stop worrying about it. I would like to know the rest, however, so we can figure out where to go from here.”
Rosa got up again. She looked like she wanted to run, and Grant was ready to tackle her if she did. At last she said, “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want some? Are you sure that you wouldn’t rather wait until after you’ve gotten some rest to talk?”
“No. I’d rather do it now,” he said, looking at her pointedly.
She nodded and sighed. “I’ll be right back.”
He watched her go into the kitchen and gave her just enough time to pour a cup of coffee and get back before he started to get up and go after her. As soon as he got to his feet, he felt dizzy. He reached out for the back of the couch and almost went down. Rosa appeared at his side, setting her cup down on the table and grabbing his arm. She helped guide him back down to the couch. “Thanks.”
“What were you doing? You shouldn’t be trying to get up on your own.”
“I was making sure you weren’t taking off.”
She made a face and picked up her cup. “I guess I deserve that.” She took a sip of her coffee and sat back down on the couch.
“I’m not trying to be mean, Rosa, but you can’t blame me for being worried. I want to help you, but I can’t if I don’t know what’s going on. Talk to me, please. Do you have a stalker? An ex-boyfriend or husband?”
“No and yes, but it’s more complicated than that, Grant.”
Grant knew it was stupid because obviously she wasn’t in a healthy relationship, but the idea of her being married made his stomach clench.
She breathed in and out and said, “I’ll do my best to explain it.” She didn’t wait for him to respond. She took another sip of her coffee, curled her legs up, and tucked her feet underneath her bottom, and she finally started talking,
“I was born in Sinaloa, Mexico,” Rosa began, her voice quiet. “I lived there with my father until I was six years old. I’m not sure when, but my mother died before that. It was a few days after my sixth birthday when my father’s house was attacked. I was taken away and that was the last I ever saw of home or anyone familiar to me.”
Grant pulled his brows together as he listened. When she didn’t go on he said, “You were taken—as in kidnapped?”
She nodded. He waited again and when his patience was wearing thin he spoke up again. “So where were you taken, Rosa, and by whom?” He imagined an innocent six-year-old Rosa and shuddered, thinking about how horrible and frightening that must have been for her.
“I’m trying to start at the beginning, Grant, and tell you everything I remember. But it’s a long story, my whole life. Please don’t interrupt. Let me tell it the way I remember it, okay?”
“Sorry, yes, of course.”
“During the attack at my father’s house, many people were killed. I was told that my father was one of them. I never saw him again. He never came for me, so I have to assume that was true. I was injured that day and by the time I came around I was in a new house and a new country with people I didn’t know. I was told what to do and when to do it, but most of the time I was just alone. I wasn’t treated like part of the family. I wasn’t allowed to go outside. I wasn’t sent to school. There were always guards around me, but they weren’t allowed to talk to me unless it was to give me an order.” Grant’s heart hurt just listening to her words. He knew what it was to be lonely, but not completely alone. “I came to appreciate the time I was alone as opposed to the time I spent with the man that had taken me. He was…” She looked like she was searching for the right words. “Just pure evil. There’s no other way to describe it.”
“He hurt you?” Grant didn’t catch himself until the words were out of his mouth. She didn’t chastise him or flinch.
“Not physically. He never touched me. He didn’t allow anyone to touch me, not even in an affectionate way, for many years. But he was a powerful man and he enjoyed having the power to decide if someone lived or died. He enjoyed letting people know that he had that power and it seemed he enjoyed having me as an audience especially when he didn’t have one of their loved ones to make watch. I watched him kill people in front of my eyes, right at the dining room table sometimes. He’d look at me afterwards and smile and then we’d go back to eating our dinner, or sometimes breakfast.”
“God, Rosa, I’m so sorry.” He had a few more choice words he didn’t want to say aloud in front of her.
She smiled at him sadly. “Yeah, me too. I’m sorry for all the people he killed and the families he ruined. I’m most especially sorry for ones later in life that were killed because of their kindness to me. When Manuel caught up with us in Oklahoma, he couldn’t wait to tell me what he’d done to them. It was horrible. I was so sick, most especially because he told me that he was going to do the same thing to me while he made Ana watch, and then he was going to take her back home with him and she would grow up the way I had.”
Grant dreaded the answer to his next question. “Is he…is he Ariana’s father?”
“No,” she shook her head, but glanced down. “He’s her grandfather. He took me for two reasons. One was to make a point. Manuel is the leader of a very powerful drug cartel. He tells me my father was his rival and that he wiped out his entire operation and killed everyone except me. He claimed that everyone in Mexico and Honduras knew who I was and that when I grew up to be his son’s wife and the mother of his son’s children, it would prove to them that he owned everyone and everything, and that nothing and no one was untouchable.”
“His son…was he…?”
Her hands began to shake so hard that she had to put her cup down. With a tremble in her voice she said, “Hector was worse—even more sadistic than his father, as hard as that is to believe. He was away at school when I was growing up, so I didn’t meet him until I was in my late teens. At first I was so happy to have someone my own age around…and then I found out that what Hector lived for was to torture and hurt me. It wasn’t long after my twentieth birthday when I realized that I was pregnant. I became depressed. There was no way I could bring a child into the world with him as its father. I tried to kill myself, but I was caught by the guard and severely punished by Hector. Later, I tried to starve myself and the baby, but they brought in a doctor and put in an IV and threatened to put in a feeding tube, which I’m sure they would have done. I thought that I was finally resigned to my fate, but one day when Manuel was out of the country and it was just Hector and me at the house, something inside of me snapped. We were having dinner and I looked over at the steak knife he was using to cut his meat. They never gave me one. I hadn’t touched a knife in over fourteen years. I watched him set it down and then he turned to say something to the maid as she poured him another glass of wine. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just reached over and grabbed it. It was like one fluid motion. I picked it up and stabbed it into the side of his neck. His eyes were wide open with shock and he was bleeding all over the table. The guard that was in the room wrenched the knife from my hand and the maid began to scream. It was like things were happening around me, but I wasn’t there. I heard the guard tell her to let him bleed; he asked her if she liked having him come into her room whenever he felt like it. He asked if she wanted to have his evil spawn someday the way I was.” Rosa shuddered a bit and Grant wanted to hold her, but he stayed still, his rage burning through his core.
She continued her story. “The guard said to me, ‘I watch him violate you every night. I learned how to block it out and that makes me a horrible person, but I found out recently that he was doing the same thing to my daughter.’ He looked back over at the maid and she was crying and shaking. I never knew she was his daughter. I also didn’t know Hector was hurting other women.”
Grant felt like he was going to be sick. What she’d been through was unimaginable and yet here she was, the sweetest and most gentle person he’d ever met. He was shocked that she was even still standing.
“That guard told me to come with him and he led me down to a tunnel under the house and after a tense conversation, he gave me to another soldier. That man took me through the tunnel to an airplane. He flew me to a place in Kentucky where I stayed with a nice lady until Ana was born.” Tears began to flow down her cheeks as she said, “They found me somehow. One day I was rushed out of the house just as the men descended on it. The man that had taken me there hid Ariana and I in the fields until morning. We could see the farm burning throughout the night. They killed everyone. I’ve been running ever since. Don’t you see though, Grant? You can’t help me. Everyone that has tried is dead. When Manuel caught up to me in Oklahoma he told me what he did to those men that helped me. It was horrifying. I can’t put anyone else in that position, especially my daughter.”
“So what are you suggesting, Rosa? I should just walk away and leave you to him?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, “it’s the only way to save Ariana the fate of watching him kill me.”
“Like hell I am. You can’t tell me all of this and expect me to just let you handle this on your own.”
“You can’t help me, Grant. You can’t fix this.”
“I was a Navy SEAL, Rosa. I dealt with criminals like that son of a bitch on a daily basis. I can help you. You have to at least let me try.”
“I can’t be responsible for you getting hurt, Grant, or anyone on your team,” Rosa said, her large, tear-filled eyes gazing at him pleadingly.
“I’m not going to get hurt, Rosa. We’re not going to get hurt and we’re not going to let anything happen to you either. You have no idea what I’m capable of.”