They wouldn’t let me escape.
We’d been on our honeymoon for one week. I never once got the opportunity to speak to my parents on the phone. I never once got to leave the property, not even if I was escorted. Salvador was only around at night and in the mornings when he would systematically beat me and rape me. One time, he made me perform a lewd act on David, his second in command, and when I didn’t want to do it, he put a gun to my head. Part of me was tempted to keep refusing, just so he could pull the trigger, but I knew he never would. I’d only been his wife for a few days, and there was a lifetime of enjoyment still left for him.
“Mrs. Reyes,” the housekeeper repeated. “Lunch is served. Mr. Reyes would like to eat with you.”
So he was in the house today. Lucky me. It took all of my strength not to yell back at her and tell her that I was Luisa Chavez first and Luisa Reyes second, and that Salvador could go fuck himself. But now I was learning how to play the game. I got punished either way, but the safer I played it, the smaller the punishment I got. I’d learned not to talk back to Salvador after the limo ride, I’d learned not to refuse him the morning after, and I’d learned never to question him after what he made me do to David. I’d learned a lot in such a short time.
The reluctant education of the narco-wife.
I sighed and got to my feet, absently brushing the sand off my dress. My hair billowed around me like a dark scarf, caught in the cool breeze off the ocean. I closed my eyes and imagined, just for one moment, what it would be like not to live in fear. To actually feel happiness and love from a man. My heart practically shuddered from the realization that I’d never, ever have that for as long as Salvador Reyes lived.
As I walked back to the beach house with a heavy heart, I tried to think about my parents and how they were better off. I tried to think about how I was better off, not having to slave every day for someone like Bruno, how I’d never have to worry about how to make ends meet.
The fact was, I wasn’t better off at all, and neither were my parents. I’d take Bruno and his busy hands, the long hours on my feet, the fear of never being able to give my parents what they deserved—I’d take all of that and hang on to it tight if I could. If only I could have realized that what I had wasn’t so bad after all and if I could have gone back in time to take it back, I would. I gave everything I had away, just for a shot to have more.
Of course, there was the fact that I never really had a choice. That I could not have said no to Salvador. But as my mother said, we always have choices. And I was starting to think that in the grand scheme of things, perhaps I had made the wrong one.
The lesser of two evils was actually the greatest.
CHAPTER SIX
Javier
“So finally I meet the Javier Bernal.” The man sat down across from me, a cigarette bobbing out of his lazy mouth. I wasted no time in snapping it out of his lips and breaking it in half, tossing it to the ground beside us.
He stared at me, dumbfounded for only a second, which I appreciated. A man who can get over things quickly is a man you want on your side.
“No smoking,” I said, my eyes boring into his as I jerked my chin at the sign on the wall. The bar couldn’t give two shits if people smoked or not, the sign was only there for legal reasons. But that wasn’t the point. The man needed to know the score. I’d heard a lot about this Juanito, though there was no point in committing his name to memory. I only needed him for his intel, and the less I had to know, the better.
He nodded, that easy smile still there, if not faltering. That was good too. You needed to bounce back, but you also needed to stay afraid of the ones in charge.
He needed to stay afraid of me.
“Can I still drink?” he asked, raising his bottle of beer.
Ah, and he had a sense of humor. This made him easier to deal with, even like—too bad a sense of humor wouldn’t save him in the end. I’ve killed some of the funniest fuckers I’ve ever met. They had me laughing even with their heads on the ground.
“Of course,” I said to him and raised my glass of tequila. “To new beginnings.”
We drank as some ballad from a Mexican pop idol played in the background. This bar was one of the few bars in the area where I could go and relax and not have to worry about watered down booze or uncouth patrons. The owners were paid handsomely by me, as were all law officials in the town and the state of Durango. I had no fear of a rival cartel coming in and blowing my head off, and I had no fear of the Mexican Attorney General coming in and trying to take me away. As much as I hated to admit it, without siphoning Salvador Reyes’ Ephedra shipping lane and adding more routes for opium, cocaine, and marijuana, I really wasn’t the guy they were after. Naturally, with more power and influence came the danger of being public enemy number one. Right now, Salvador Reyes was the most wanted criminal and drug lord in the country. Not that the police or anyone were doing anything to stop him.
As for me, I had more to fear from rivals than from authorities. I wasn’t clean by any means—I couldn’t ever step foot in the United States again, for example. The last time I was there, I was arrested for drug trafficking. It was a minor mix-up, I wasn’t actually trafficking any drugs, just trying to trade a hostage to get ahead, but there was bloodshed and the feds got involved. Apparently they have nothing better to do up there than to worry about us Mexicans.
However, having enough money and knowing enough people who work for the DEA gets you a free ride in the states, so long as you promise to send them information on your enemies from time to time and swear to never set foot in the country again. And so that’s what I did. Paid the right people and made my promises, and I was free to go, three months later.
Those three months though (while Esteban was taking care of my affairs and the cartel I had taken from Travis Raines) had cost me a lot. I should have been on my home soil and expanding; instead I was behind bars. The prisons in America were nothing like the ones in Mexico. It could have been a vacation for some, though perhaps I was treated so well because my dollar went further in the cells. There is so much power and influence in money and drugs that it makes me wonder why anyone would bother going straight. To save face? No, that is ludicrous. Your face never looks better than when you’ve got a gun in your hand and money under your ass.
I suppose I should have been grateful that I was only in prison for such a short time and I walked away unharmed with only a new smoking habit to add to my regrets.