I suck in a sharp breath. “Maybe I prefer to play God with my choices instead of talking to him.” He brakes again, and the seatbelt slices into my chest. “You want to know what happened to me six months ago, asshole? You and your jefe decided to play movie directors with the story of my life. You switched me from lead role to supporting without my permission…” I pause, turning back to the window. “I don't know why I was taken, Joseph. I don’t know why those men did what they did to me. Do you know how much that screws with a person’s head? And now? Now I’m as much in the shadows as you are in this epically fucked-up Santiago show.”
“Anna—”
“We’re toxic! I run—you chase. I mess up. You clean up. Don’t you ever get tired of it?”
He exhales on a curse, but doesn’t comment.
“Why me?”
“One day you’ll remember.”
“What does that even mean?” I say angrily. “And anyway, I have no interest in revisiting any of the sick shit that was done to me.” I’m never going back to that basement again.
I’m tired of this unresolvable, mute beast between us. I’m tired of the fact that I’ll never be able to thank him for saving me, because to do so would be to acknowledge our truth behind his gray-blue walls, and that scares me most of all.
Why won’t he tell me why I was taken?
“I could never love a man like you, Joseph...” I trail off, refusing to give him a justification. What can I say? He inhales secrets and he exhales lies, but he’s also the only person who’s come close to reaching me in the last six months, and I can't have that complication in my life.
“Who says I want your love?”
I glance across at him, failing to disguise my shock. I’ve heard of hate fucks, but guilt fucks?
How stupid of me to think he’d want more. I’m damaged goods. I’m dented and crumpled and bent out of shape.
“Take me back to my apartment.” I slouch down into my seat, exhausted and bitter. My head is aching and I need to wash the night from my skin.
“No. We’re heading straight to rehab.”
“No. I’m going home!” I reach for the door handle, but he’s too quick for me, slamming his palm down on the universal door lock before I have a chance to open it. “I need to change my clothes,” I tell him, dragging a note of calm into my voice. “I can't go back to that place looking like this.”
He knows I’m right. Cursing, he takes the next exit, swerving across three lanes of traffic. He’s oblivious to the beeping horns and the chaos he’s causing, but men like him never care about the devastation in their rearview mirrors.
Ten minutes later, he’s pulling up outside my building. We fester to the tune of the running engine; the space between us crowded with the odor of dead things and all the stuff we can’t say. I watch him run his hand across his jaw, his icy gaze fixed on a point outside the vehicle.
“Joseph…” It’s right there on the tip of my tongue. Thank you.
“Be quick.” He pulls out his cellphone and switches off the locks. “Move. Before I change my mind.”
Without a backward glance I’m gone.
The elevator is out of order. My tears are a gathering storm as I climb the stairs to the third floor. They burst and spill as I’m slotting my key into the lock. By the time the door is shutting behind me, my pain is so great I’m collapsing against the wall to catch my breath.
Through a veil of matted blonde, I see the evidence of my former life all around me—the goofy smiling photos, the college memorabilia; the stupid sombreros that Eve and I bought on a trip to Mexico three years ago.
Llévame de vuelta.
I close my eyes and I’m right back there again, feeling the sunshine on my skin and the reckless joy of an unwritten future. It’s true what they say—youth is wasted on the young. It’s also wasted on the trusting and the naïve, and those who haven’t been touched by evil.
Brushing away my tears, I kick my heels off and scrunch my bare toes into the carpet. I want to be the girl I don’t recognize in those photos. I want to dance and laugh and act wild and crazy under a brave new moon. Most of all, I want to forget.
A weird sensation is creeping up on me as I move into the living area. It’s an old favorite that doesn't fit, but I keep it hanging in the closet of my mind anyway.
Run.
Before I know it, I’m tearing off the remains of my dress and stumbling into the bathroom.
Run.
After a three-minute blast from a hot shower, I’m pulling on skinny jeans and a black sweater over damp skin. Next, I’m throwing a random collection of clothes into an overnighter and ransacking my nightstand for my passport. I have no plan, no destination…just this manic urge to go backward instead of forward, to reset my life without fear and without him.
It has to be without him.
My shadow is the fault line separating my before and my after, and I’m done surviving on his earthquake tremors.
Once I’ve finished packing, I peek through a crack in the curtains to the street below. His SUV is still parked. Driver’s door shut. I know he’s in there, waiting not so patiently for my compliance.
Run.
Flinging my cellphone onto the bed, I throw my bag over my shoulder, yank my pink Chucks on, and let myself out of the apartment. I make it halfway across the threshold, and then I’m leaning back in to grab the Polaroid of Eve and me that I keep tucked into the mirror. Shoving it into my bag, I cross the hallway and rap on my neighbor’s door.
I’m praying she’s up late watching Frasier re-runs again.
I’m also praying she still has fire escape access from her kitchen balcony.
5
Joseph
Rick Sanders’ number is tapped into my cell before Anna is out of the car. The call connects as she’s entering the building.
“Where are you?” I grit out.
Rick laughs, wicked and rough, a sound that would make any outlaw proud. “Balls deep in heaven, if you must know.”
Some woman starts giggling away in the background.
Jesus Christ. “Put your whore to bed. We need to talk.”
“Call me back in an hour. She’s just come all over my cock, and I’d like to return the favor. I offer up the veneer of a gentleman, if not the longevity.”
Motherfucker. Rick’s no more a gentleman than I am. He bleeds Brooklyn swagger and perversion. He’s the biggest distributor of cocaine in New York and Florida. A position that Dante and I just strengthened for him when I fired a bullet into his biggest rival.
“Speak now, or you can deal with Dante’s displeasure. Your choice.” And, let's be honest, neither of us wants to fuck with that.
There’s a pause, and then he’s making a big show of groaning out his irritation.
“Jesus. Fine. Hold on.” There’s the sound of rustling sheets and female squawks of protest. “Okay, I’m listening… Is this a local call or an international one?”
“Local.”
“Thought you were heading back to his island?”
“I had some business to take care of in Miami first.”