Dirty Angels

Prologue

I was running.

I didn’t know where, all I knew was that I had to keep going, one foot in front of the other. The wet grass brushed against my bare legs and I wished I’d planned my escape a little bit more. After a month of dwelling on it, toying with the idea, then finally committing, you think I would have escaped my husband’s house with something more than shorts, a blouse, and a wallet. At least I was wearing running shoes.

There hadn’t been any time. I was already outside when I saw my husband’s boring guests arrive. I didn’t mean to be. I was supposed to be in my room putting on my dress and making myself look oh so lovely. I’d been looking forward to them coming over for the last few days – they’d break up the daily monotony of a woman captive to her narco husband, a slave to the golden palace.

I’d only gone outside, out the kitchen door, to get flowers for the centerpiece. The maid had brought these expensive blossoms from in town, but I wanted the gardenias that grew at the front fence and created a hedge along the line. When the guest’s Mercedes rolled in through the gates, I froze in place and watched as they parked and strolled up to the door. The night sky was minutes away from engulfing us.

After Salvador answered with that big phony smile of his and ushered them inside, I took in the deepest breath I could. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t chance changing my mind. I needed to act, and act now.

I grabbed a few sparse blossoms off the hedge and walked over to Juan Diego at the front gate. I knocked on the glass of his booth, making him jump in surprise as he’d just started to read his tabloid, and told him I was going outside along the hedge to get more flowers. He was reluctant—he had orders to keep me inside, though Salvador always insisted it was to protect me from everyone else. But there was never anyone to protect me against Salvador.

I waved my flowers at him and put my hand on my hip. I had only been the wife of Salvador for two months, but I was going to use that while I could. I needed to act like I owned authority, even if I didn’t. Juan Diego was a kind man, and he was in no power to deny the wife of Mexico’s largest drug cartel access to her favorite flowers.

The flowers my mama used to put in my hair every Sunday.

He waved me through with a warm smile, and I returned in kind, acting a role, pretending I wasn’t trembling on the inside. I slowly walked along the hedge, plucking the flowers, my hands filled with fragrant white petals. I eyed the cameras that were stationed around the outer edge, knowing I didn’t look suspicious to Rico, the surveillance guy inside, but if Salvador caught sight of me on the cameras, outside the compound, he would lose his shit.

There was no time. It was now or never.

I had to run. I had to try.

So I did.

Where the hedge started to blend in to the surrounding jungle and the clipped front lawn became unruly and unkempt, I dropped the flowers at my feet and ran into the darkness. I had studied our land—his land, it was always his land—time and time again, and all I knew was to avoid the roads. If I headed down behind the house, I’d come across the river that was too deep and wide to cross, and if I went across the road I’d be heading into the backyards of our neighbors who were as guarded as we were. I had to keep running north, through the trees, through the twilight.

I just had to keep running.

I ran for a good twenty minutes straight, my body coasting on adrenaline and the endurance I had built while working out in the home gym every day. I fell a few times, my hands always taking the brunt of the fall before the ground could take out the rest of me. I always got back up. There was no time for pain. I felt it, but it was almost a relief to have. After what Salvador had done to me, I could take a lot.

I ran and ran and ran, tripping over roots, dodging the trees in the weak moonlight that filtered through the trees, until the river suddenly cut across in front of me. I had no idea where I was, and I could see a few more stars than usual without the city lights. Somewhere in the trees a bird called out.

I thought about my parents, the people I was most worried about. Actually, the only people on this earth who mattered to me. I worried about Salvador finding out that I had run, I worried that he would kill them. But as brash as he was, he wouldn’t do anything until he knew the facts. At least, I hoped that would be the case. The plan was for me to call my friend Camila and get her to take care of them – before he could.

Looking around me, I made my way to the river’s edge and contemplated going across. It wasn’t as wide here and didn’t look to be as deep, with the tops of a few boulders poking their way through the current. I wondered if Juan Diego had alerted Salvador about what happened. I wondered if Rico had been watching when I disappeared from the cameras. I wondered how much time I had before they found me.

A branch snapped behind me. Even though that was the only sound I heard, I knew it belonged to a person who was probably wincing very loudly at his mistake. You couldn’t afford to make mistakes in Mexico.

I quickly jumped from the shore and into the river, the cold water coming up to my mid-thighs and catching me by surprise. I gasped loudly and was momentarily frozen from the shock. Then I heard a fervent rustling behind me and knew I had to keep going or I’d die.

Or worse. With Salvador there was always worse.

The current rushing up against me was strong, and my sneakers slid against the sand and pebbles under my feet, but I made myself move, made myself push through the river, the other side so close. I kept going, my legs turning to ice, my eyes focused on the dry land, my arms stretched out as if I could reach it that way.

I heard a splash behind me. I would not turn around. I would not give up.

I cried out in frustration, lunging forward to reach the sand, as if that would save me in the end. But there was no saving me.

Suddenly thick, rough arms went around my waist, lifting me up out of the water. I heard another splash, nearly drowned out by my cries, and everything went black as a bag was placed over my head. My arms were yanked back behind me so fast that I thought they were being pulled out of the sockets. I screamed in pain, my breath hot inside the bag that felt like it was already starting to drown me.

Another pair of hands went for my legs. I started kicking wildly, hoping that the current would catch the person off-balance, but within seconds my legs were wrapped with rope and I was being led out of the river like a pig on a stick, a man holding up either end of me.

“Two minutes,” someone said, a man’s voice that I didn’t recognize. Despite the bag that made everything sound muffled, he sounded like he was from the east coast.

“Are you sure?” asked the other man, his voice low and baritone, and close to my ear, the one who gripped my hands behind my back.

“I’m never wrong, hey.”

“All right, Este. Let’s not go down this path again. We have the bitch, let’s go.”

I swallowed hard, my stomach sick, a swirling pool of knots. This wasn’t Salvador. These weren’t his men. This was someone else, and even though I was running away from him, it was always better with the devil you know.

I was suddenly jerked downward, my back arching, and I cried out again. I cried out for Salvador as a last resort.

“Salvador!” I screamed through the bag, the heat rising up to my cheeks. “Help me!”

A fist came down on my cheekbone, my face exploding in stars of pain.

“Easy now, Franco” said Este, and the fist didn’t come again. My lips throbbed, my mouth filled with blood, and I knew better than to try and cry out once more.

The men, Este and Franco, carried me away, their pace quickening. I only heard their breathing, fast and shallow, and the sound of the earth beneath their quiet feet. I could smell Franco’s greasy breath, so close to my head. Every time I thought I might be able to move out of their hands and make an escape, their grip tightened around me even more.

I was going to die. There was no doubt about that now. Not at the hands of Salvador. In the hands of some unknown fate. These men, they were taking me somewhere. There was a reason I wasn’t dead yet—death was the dessert.

I took in a deep breath, my mind beginning to swim laps in a dark pool. I wished these men had just killed me. My parents had money now because of my marriage. That was the whole point of it all. That was the point of everything—to give them a better life in their ailing years than I ever had growing up. If I died, I would die with peace in my heart knowing they were okay. It was the only thing that made my life worthwhile.

I must have lost consciousness due to lack of air because suddenly my head slammed back against something hard, and I fell over onto a cold slab. An engine whirred, the smell of exhaust seeping through. I was in a car—no, the back of a van—being taken somewhere. That dessert again.

I was in and out for the next while until the van jerked to a stop. I heard the back doors open, and before I could move, there were hands on me again, three pairs this time. They pulled me out of the van so fast that I cracked my head on the door frame. I heard Este apologize under his breath but that was it. Strong fingers seared into my arms and waist, and I was yanked forward across what felt like well-kept grass. For a split second I thought I wrong, and I was actually back at home. For that second I had hope, hope to just keep living, while before I only had the hope to live under my own terms. Now it was all about survival, instinct trumping reality.

The moment I heard a door open and I was shuffled down a staircase, the damp and musty smell permeating my nostrils, I knew I wasn’t back at home. We didn’t have a basement. Salvador had rooms for torture in other houses, but not ours. At least, no rooms that I could ever see.

My mind began to race, flipping through thoughts and images I had been subjected to ever since I married Salvador. Who had taken me? Salvador had the Sinaloa state military and the police at his command, so it wasn’t them. It was another cartel or one of his old associates trying to usurp the boss. He had told me from the beginning that there were men out there who wanted me, who would do anything to have me—to take me, torture me, hold me for ransom, then torture me some more.

The wife of the jackal is the greatest card you can play in this game.

I was thrown down onto a chair, my hands and feet immediately unbound, and then tied back to the arms and legs before I could struggle. I thought about screaming again but the side of my face still throbbed with the violence. Este had warned Franco off, but I knew cartel men; I knew them too well, and I knew that courtesy never extended very far.

I started to shake uncontrollably and my whole body rocking with the spasm while hot tears pooled in my eyes. But I refused to let them fall. I knew what was coming next. The bag would come off my head. The bags would go on theirs. The camera would turn on.

I didn’t want the world to see me afraid. I had been afraid for too long.

“Is everything ready?” Este asked.

“It’s all set up,” I heard someone say, another male voice, heavy footsteps coming toward me. I tensed up, sensing Franco and Este and some other figure on all sides of me, and the other person, the one who had just spoken, who stopped a few feet away. I wondered if there were more than four people in the room and decided there must be. I could almost feel someone else’s eyes, hear their breath, read their silence.

“How drugged is she?” the unknown voice asked.

There was a pause. Then Este said, “Not badly. She’s somewhat coherent.”

“You didn’t gag her?”

“No, but she shut up when she needed to.”

“It’s lucky she was out there.”

“Yes. It was.”

Who were these men? Which cartel? Salvador had so many enemies and so many alliances that harbored grudges, you could never be sure who was looking for some way to ground traction. But even though I knew my fate was most likely death, it all depended on who I was with. Who had me. Some men were more deplorable than others. Now that the famous gringo Travis Raines was dead, Salvador himself was probably the worst of them all.

Though there was one cartel, one man, who I’d been told could give my husband a run for his money. He was famous for slicing the heads, hands, and feet off of people and littering them in streets all over the country.

There was a strange moment of silence and I concentrated hard, trying to hear more than the obvious. They were all waiting. Waiting for the order. Waiting for the man in charge to speak.

He did.

It came from the left of me. His voice was cool, calm, and collected. I didn’t have to see to know who had taken me. The man I’d heard so much about. The man I’d been taught to fear.

“Gentleman,” he said, and I could almost feel his infamous eyes on my body, “remove the bag.”

There was a rustle and my face was immediately met with cool air that seized my lungs and bright lights that blinded me. I scrunched up my face, afraid to look, to see. Now it was all so real and I wanted to stay in the dark.

“Who did this?”

Suddenly, cool hands were at my swollen cheek and I flinched.

“Who did this?” my captor repeated, an edge to his level voice, his cigar-laced breath on my face.

“Sorry,” Franco mumbled. “It was the only way to quiet her.”

A heavy pause filled the room like dead weight. Finally the fingers came away from my skin, and my body relaxed momentarily. The man was in my face, the spicy scent of tea emanating off of him.

“Look at me, Luisa Reyes.”

Chavez, I thought to myself. I will always be Luisa Chavez.

“Darling, aren’t you curious to know where you are?”

“My name is Luisa Chavez,” I said. I opened my eyes to see golden ones staring right back at me. It was like looking at an eagle. “And I know where I am. I know who you are. You are Javier Bernal.”

He raised his brow in amusement and nodded. I’d seen his picture before, on the news. There was only one, and that was his mugshot, but even in that photo his eyes made an impression on you. They saw right into your depths and made you question yourself. He was one of the men that Salvador feared, even though Salvador had more power. He was the one I had been told to watch out for, the supposed reason why I’d always been locked in the compound or escorted by the local police to go shopping.

And yet here I was, tied to a chair in a cold, leaking basement with nothing in it except five cartel members, a video camera, and a knife that lay on top of a stool in front of me.

All of that for nothing. I could escape Salvador but I could never escape the cartels.

I had asked for this fate.

“You know why you’re here,” Javier said with deliberation, straightening up in his sharp black suit. He walked over to the stool, picked up the knife, and glanced at me over his shoulder. “Don’t you?”

I could only breathe. I wanted to look at the others, at Este, at Franco, at the two other mystery men, but I was frozen in his gaze like a deer in headlights.

“What is the knife for?” I asked, my throat painfully dry.

“You’ll find out after,” he said. “It is for your husband. For your Salvador.” He stepped to the side and waved his arm at the camera. “And this is also for him.”

He eyed someone over my shoulder and gave a sharp nod. I heard a rip from behind and a piece of duct tape was placed over my mouth. I squirmed helplessly and the lights in the basement dimmed. The men stepped to the side while Javier went behind the video camera. A white light came off the front of it and bathed me in an eerie glow.

Javier cleared his throat, his face covered in shadow, and said loudly, projecting to the camera, “This is Luisa Reyes, former beauty queen of the Baja State and property of Salvador Reyes. Salvador, we have your wife and we have a long list of demands, demands which I know you can meet. I expect full cooperation in this matter or she dies in the next seven days. If she’s lucky. I’ll give you some time to think about what you’re willing to give up for her. Then we’ll be contacting you. Goodbye.”

The light on the camera switched off, but the rest of the room remained dim.

“I hope your husband checks his emails often. It would be a shame to have to put this on YouTube.”

There was a smirk on his face at that as he slowly walked toward me, the knife glinting in his hand. His eyes burned through the shadows then grew somber.

He held up the knife. “I think it’s only going to hurt the first time.”

My eyes focused on the silver of the blade, but the terror inside me grew too strong, and my urge to breathe through the duct tape became too difficult. My lungs seized in panic, pulsing dots appearing in my vision. I felt a hand on my collarbone, gripping the edge of my blouse, and then everything went black.