So Diego lifted his foot and very slowly I began to saw off his pinky toe.
Evaristo still didn’t talk, despite the excruciating time I took to cut through the gristle and bone, and we had to inject him with adrenaline to keep him alert and conscious.
Finally — finally — as his toe rested on the ground in front of him, severed from his foot, and after Diego had taken off his own shirt to soak with gasoline, Evaristo muttered, “Please …”
I motioned for Diego to pause and pulled Evaristo back by the hair. “Please what?” I asked, staring down at his face, puffy, black and blue. He’d aged centuries at my hands, and I was shocked to find that the need to hurt, maim, and destroy was still inside me.
He opened his eyes and stared right at me. They were red, all his blood vessels having burst at some point. “You’re worse than they say you are,” he said slowly, painfully.
I tried not to smile. “Then you’ll talk? Or do you want more?” My eyes slid to Diego and back.
Evaristo breathed in and out, thinking. I nodded at Diego who slapped the shirt down on his raw back.
I kept my fist in his hair as he cried out, screaming again. “No, no more. No more, please! Don’t light it. Don’t light it! I’ll talk.” He shut his eyes, and for a moment I thought he might cry, but when he opened them again he said, “If you keep your promise.”
“That I let you go?” I asked. “I gave you my word and that’s the truth.” If Evaristo ended up dying in the desert, food for vultures, I didn’t really care. But I would let him go.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I want water.”
“You’ll get water after you talk. In fact, I’ll have my wife take good care of you.” That was one reason why I brought Luisa along — she was very good at tending to captives after they’d been tortured. It made them feel safe. Sometimes I had her do it during the whole process, as a way of playing good cop and bad cop. She probably didn’t want to do it, but I knew she would. Her heart was too good to let someone suffer.
Evaristo slowly nodded and tried to breathe through what was left of his pain. Then he opened his mouth and began talking.
Half an hour later I had all the information I needed to successfully destroy Angel Hernandez, to do the things that Evaristo’s very own agency wouldn’t come right out and do because of bureaucratic tape and involvement in the DEA. He still didn’t believe we were doing his organization a favor. In fact, he didn’t seem to have much faith in them at all.
I couldn’t blame him.
“Well,” I said to him as Diego finished writing up everything in his notebook. “I’ll go get Luisa and some water.” I started to walk away but paused, looking at him over my shoulder. His eyes were drooping shut and I had an odd twinge of respect for the young man.
“Evaristo,” I called out. He lifted his head and stared at me. “You proved yourself today, what you’re made of. Your agency is lucky to have you. And you are far too smart and valuable to be a federale. If you ever want to fight for the other team, you have a place here. Just keep that in mind when you return. You may think you’ll be in their good graces, but they will shun you. They will wonder what you told me and call you a snitch. And sooner or later, you’ll be working a desk job in some office in Mexico City, because they won’t trust you after everything you were put through. They won’t show you any respect. All this pain will be for nothing. But you have my respect.”
He watched me for a moment. Then he said, “Fuck you,” and closed his eyes.
I shrugged. “As you wish.”
I left the tunnel and went upstairs. I had totally lost track of time. I had lost track of days. It was almost dark outside, the light fading to a bruise, the color of Evaristo’s cheek.
I found Luisa in the kitchen, sitting at the table with a cup of tea in front of her. She was alone.
I stopped in the doorframe and watched her for a moment. I couldn’t tell if she was lost in her head or ignoring me. Her hair fell across her face as she stared out the windows at the darkening desert.
Something beat inside me quietly. And for once it wasn’t rage.
It was regret.
“Luisa,” I said softly.
She looked up at me, so startled that she spilled some of her tea on the table. Her eyes held something dangerous in them. It was fear of me. I couldn’t blame her.
“Sorry,” I apologized. I came over and sat down beside her. She seemed so small all of a sudden. I felt like I hadn’t laid eyes on her for a week and that might have been true. “Are you okay?”
Now the fear changed into something that looked like guilt. I didn’t like that look. It made my chest feel hollow. It made me feel like a million things were about to go very wrong.
She nodded and picked up a napkin from the middle of the country table, dabbing at the tea. I reached out and put my hand over hers. I half-expected her to snatch hers away but she held it there as if frozen. In fact, it appeared she was holding her breath.
“I mean here, on the ranch,” I said, clearing my throat. “How have you been doing?”
She watched me for a few moments as if trying to gauge my sincerity.
“I’m fine,” she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper. I licked my lips as I watched hers, so full and soft.
“Where is everyone else?” I asked.
She shrugged and slowly moved her hand out from under mine. “They went into La Perla. Evelyn is with the horses.”
“She runs a tight ship around here. She’s a good woman,” I said. “So are you.”
She flinched as if I’d hit her again. “Luisa,” I said carefully. “Has something happened?”
She rubbed her lips together then looked me dead in the eye. “Why do you care about me all of a sudden?”
Now it was my turn to act like I’d been backhanded. But I couldn’t get mad, even though I wanted to, because she had a right to say that. She had a right to say anything she wanted.
“Because you’re my wife,” I told her, wishing that meant something to her. “So, has something happened?”
She shook her head. “There is nothing.”
She let that word hang in the air. Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Nothing between us.
The wave of shame came over me like a tidal wave. At one point she had been everything to me, and now, now I was realizing how close I’d come to losing her, if I hadn’t already.
I had pushed her away and away and away, but I didn’t want to do that anymore.
I just didn’t think I could get her back.
The look in her eyes told me that she hated me. She was hard now, like a woman carved from stone, and I was afraid that no matter what I said or did, I could never bring her back to the way she had been before. I had broken her in too many pieces, and what had been pieced back together had no room for me.
“Are you happy?” I asked her despite myself. It was a stupid question.
She gave me a sharp look. “What do you think?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded. “I’m sorry.”
But she didn’t seem to understand that I was sincere or appreciate how sorry I was. I knew sorry meant nothing anymore. In fact, the words that came out of my mouth made her tense up even more.
Annoyed, she brushed her hair back from her face and looked down at her cup of tea before taking a sip.
Her neck was covered in small bruises.
My heart stilled but I made sure concern wasn’t showing on my face. I stared at them for a moment, memorizing the shape, before she could catch me looking.
They looked like fucking hickeys. Or bite marks. They looked like what I used to do with her when I was feeling particularly bloodthirsty and crazed with lust.
My mind raced, trying to come up with an explanation. She also had bite marks on the backs of her hands, so it’s possible something in the desert air had been biting her.
It was possible.
But unlikely.
I pushed it
aside for now.
“I have good news,” I said. She didn’t look at me but I went on. “Evaristo talked. We’ll keep him for a few more days.” I paused. “I need a favor from you.”
“Oh?” she said.
“He’s pretty beat up,” I explained. “It wasn’t pretty, what I had to do down there.”
“But I bet you enjoyed it,” she muttered quickly.
I appraised her, the sharpness of her words, the burning in her eyes. “Yes, I did,” I admitted slowly. “Does that still surprise you even now?”
She looked right at me. “He never did anything to you. He didn’t deserve it, what you did. He was an innocent bystander. That used to be something you believed in.”
“I used to believe in a lot of things, Luisa. Myself, included.”
“That makes two of us.”
Ouch. I managed a smile, as if it didn’t sting. “Back to the favor though … can you tend to Evaristo?”
She rolled her eyes. “Play nurse again?”
My expression grew grim. “This isn’t a game, Luisa. You know that. I’m not asking you to put on a nurse’s uniform and give him a pity fuck.” My eyes narrowed as I watched her freeze up again. “That’s not something you’re willing to do, is it?”
She got out of her chair abruptly, nearly spilling her tea again. “Of course not,” she said, taking the cup to the sink. Her actions were entirely deflective.
“Good,” I said, rising up. “Now you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but I thought it might appeal to your good side that there’s a wounded, innocent man down there who needs your help.”
“My good side?” she repeated, keeping her back to me.
“We both know you’ve got bad in you as well.”
But just how much bad has come out to play lately? I wondered. And with whom? I had an idea.
“Fine,” she said, turning around and walking past me. “I’ll go help him.”
I reached out and grabbed her arm. Her eyes widened as I pulled her close to me.
“You look different these days,” I told her.
She held her ground. “Maybe it’s the dry air.”
I smirked at her. “Maybe it is. Maybe it’s a lot of things.”
Our eyes were locked intensely, another game to see who would look away first.
I chickened out first.
I leaned down and kissed her, hard and flush on the lips, my grip still firm on her arm. I’d forgotten how well my lips knew her. I realized how long it had been since I’d last kissed her. I realized how damn much I missed her.
She barely kissed me back. She made a sound of surprise and pulled back, and when she looked up at me, she looked more scared — and confused — than ever.
All she saw was a monster.
She swallowed, her eyebrows coming together, trying to process it. You’d think she had just been doused in acid.
“Don’t worry,” I told her gruffly. “I won’t ask anything more of you.”
I let go of her and she stepped back, still looking shocked, as if it hadn’t been her husband at all that had kissed her. It took all of me to not feel even remotely humiliated.
With her head down, she slowly turned away, as if to run.
“Oh,” I said lightly before she could leave the kitchen. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to Esteban about the interrogation process.”
“Why … why Esteban?” she asked, slowly turning around, hand at her chest.
I frowned, not liking her reaction. “Because I know you two are close. And I also know he thinks he has a right to know my business. Our business. He doesn’t. So as far as you know now, I’m still interrogating Evaristo and he hasn’t said anything. Can you do that? Can you lie?”
I swear I saw relief wash over her. She nodded quickly and left the room, leaving me alone.
Of course she could lie. I knew she was lying to me already.
I just didn’t know about what.
But I knew I’d get it out of her.
And that it was going to hurt.
CHAPTER TEN
Esteban
That night, Luisa didn’t come out to see Esteban. He sat on the fencepost for a while, then thinking perhaps he was being too bold, he headed along the rails until they dipped over the hill. He waited in the wash, at the base of the acacia. He went over the ridge and waited on the boulders until the moon was halfway across the night sky.
She never came.
This didn’t worry him. It angered him. How fucking dare she stand up their tryst already, leaving him hanging out to dry? If Javier weren’t around, he’d give her a black eye to teach her a lesson, and that would be getting off easily. Hell, he thought he should give her a black eye anyway. How would she explain it? That Esteban hit her for no reason? Not damn likely.
It didn’t really matter now. Tomorrow he was making the call. Tomorrow he would set everything in motion and things would change, for the better. For him and Luisa, at first. And then just for him.
He dusted his hands off on his shorts and headed back to the house. Maybe he could sneak into her room and have a quick fuck there before escaping out the door to the patio. Maybe that’s what she was waiting for.
He had to admit, he was starting to look forward to their escapades. Sure, she didn’t respond in the same way that Juanito did. She didn’t have that fear of him. She didn’t mind pain so much. But he knew she would in time, and just picturing that was enough to get him going.
Besides, Luisa really was beautiful. In any other life and at any other time, he could imagine himself being with her. Not forever. Not really for any length of time. And he certainly wouldn’t love her because he could never feel that emotion, let alone be that selfless.
But he would have a good time with her. She would fulfill his needs. She was stunning to look at, beautiful to feel, and he’d enjoyed corrupting her once pure soul bit by bit. He would have shown Luisa proudly on his arm to anyone who looked his way, and he would feel like the king of the world to have such a rare creature in his possession — smart, funny, gorgeous. She was beautiful and yet he hated it at the same time.
And then in the end, he would say goodbye and move on. He probably wouldn’t even kill her. He’d just let her leave and that would be the end of it. It was almost noble of him in this imaginary future.
But that’s not the way his world worked, and it wasn’t the hand he had been dealt. This Luisa wasn’t really his. She didn’t really care for him at all — he was just a cock and an excuse to exact her own brand of revenge on Javier. He didn’t care one way or another what her feelings were because the damage had already been done.
Soon Javier would find out, when Esteban allowed it. The day after tomorrow. When everything else in the patron’s life went to shit. He would know and Esteban would become king.
Smiling to himself, he walked down the hallway and stopped at Luisa’s door, about to knock.
“What are you doing?” Javier asked, voice cold as steel in the dark.
Esteban turned to see Javier at the end. He had blended in with the shadows a little too well, the light from the kitchen failing to illuminate him until he walked forward and stopped just as the light hit his eyes.
God, his eyes were some scary ass shit at times, Esteban thought. Like a snake’s.
“I was seeing if Luisa was awake,” Esteban said, knowing it would only make Javier suspicious if he tried to cover it up.
“Why?” Javier’s eyes locked on him in that very hawk-like way. They burned amber under his black brows while the shadows played up his high cheekbones and wide mouth.
Esteban shrugged and gave him his trademark stupid grin. “Bored, I guess. You’re not around much.”
Javier’s jaw tensed. “I’ve been busy.”
“Has the fed talked yet?”
He shook his head. “Soon though.”
It better not be until the day after tomorrow, Esteban thought. I need Evaristo here.
??
?And what’s the plan after that?” he asked, just to keep him talking, to get him to forget that he was ever about to knock on Luisa’s door because he was “bored.”
“You’ll see,” Javier said. He eyed his wife’s door and said, “If I were you, I’d let her sleep. She’s had a long day. Goodnight.”
As Javier turned around and disappeared into the dark hall, Esteban frowned. Had Javier been with Luisa today? When? And why?
Had she talked?
He was tempted now more than ever to go inside and wake her up, if she was asleep at all, but he had a feeling Javier would be watching.
Always watching.
Esteban would just have to be a bit more careful.
One more day, he told himself as he strolled toward his room.
One more day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Luisa
Despite my better judgement, I couldn’t help but be captivated by Evaristo Sanchez. Of course, it was my first time laying eyes on him in the flesh, and I knew there was a handsome man beneath the bruises and blood. Javier and Diego had really worked him over.
But he still had this quiet charm and tenacity you rarely found in these situations. When I first introduced myself, he looked at me through slits for eyes and said, “You must be an angel. I must be dead.”
I told him if I was an angel, I was a dirty one and he certainly wasn’t in heaven. He said he wasn’t in hell anymore, and we agreed he was in a kind of limbo, that though the torture was over, it didn’t change the fact that his back had been brutally burned and he was missing his pinky toe.
I had played nurse before so I did what I could without acting too squeamish about it. I anointed his wounds with antiseptic and wrapped his toe and foot. I gave him antibiotics that were always lying around, along with a small dose of morphine for the pain.
Evaristo didn’t do or say much else, but he watched me closely. There was a cot set up in the basement so Borrero and I helped him squeeze past the hot water heater and into the room.
“Your husband is an interesting man,” Evaristo said as he eased himself down onto the cot. His blue eyes were bloodshot and glazed from the drugs, and I knew he wasn’t feeling any agony at this point. I’m not sure if I’d be so stoic after a week-long torture session, especially if I didn’t have my toe by the end of it.