He waited until I nodded before he continued.
“You don’t keep your mouth shut about everything you see here, I’ll do that to you myself, then fuck you with my knife and turn you inside out. You understand?” His hand squeezed my throat so hard that black dots floated in my vision.
I nodded again, gripping his hand as I fought for air.
He flung me to the ground by my neck, kicking me in the stomach for good measure. “Get the fuck out of here, puta, before I change my mind.”
I scrambled back to my feet, my eyes immediately seeking out my father. He glared at me with disdain. If he was worried about me, he hid it well. I went straight for the door, slamming it behind me and running to my car. My hands shook so badly that it took three attempts to hit the unlock button. I peeled out, driving blindly for ten minutes before I parked in the Costco parking lot and burst into tears.
The man’s soulless eyes and his rank breath dominated my senses, but it was the sight of those women that haunted my soul. All I could think was, that could have been me.
It would be me if I couldn’t find a way to forget what I’d seen.
I cried until my eyes began to burn, then pulled myself together and bought a week’s worth of napkins. By the time I made it back to the restaurant, I had packaged up everything that had happened and locked it away in a box in the back of my mind. I finished the dinner shift, keeping a wide smile on my face all evening.
The one thing I wanted, more than anything, was to crawl into bed that night with Isaac and Averi, but I couldn’t chance running into my dad. I couldn’t face him. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to see his face again. I’d known he was a criminal, but I never dreamed he participated in trafficking women. He was so much more of a monster than I ever could have imagined.
Shame wrapped its greasy fingers around me and saturated every inch of me with its oily residue.
I’d participated in my father’s enterprise. I’d helped launder money that was tainted by the sale of women’s bodies. Who knew how many women I’d facilitated in being trafficked, their bodies sold and abused. Their souls desecrated and lives snuffed out.
There was no word for how wretched I felt.
For weeks, I grappled with how to live with the knowledge of what was happening behind the scenes. Drowned in shame and disappointment in myself for ignoring how my tita had raised me and contributing to my father’s criminal activities. I’d known perfectly well that the club earned its money illegally—what exactly had I thought that entailed? I hadn’t thought. That was the problem. I’d actively stuck my head in the sand and pretended everything was fine. But now that I knew how ugly things were, how was I supposed to continue covering up what Los Zares was doing? How could I pretend it wasn’t happening?
I couldn’t.
But I also needed to stay alive. The self-loathing waged a war inside me, battling daily with self-preservation. I did everything I could to act normal. To continue with my life as if nothing had changed, but it had. Everything had changed.
My father never said a word about what had happened. He never defended himself nor soothed my fears, and I was glad. As long as he didn’t bring it up, I didn’t have to spit in his face and tell him how much I hated him.
One day, about six weeks after the incident, I was at a party with my cousins. I didn’t want to go, but it would be noticeable to others if I suddenly stopped showing up at gatherings. One of my dad’s friends walked in and made a joke to everyone about the narcs out front watching the house.
It was the opportunity I’d needed, and I’d had just enough alcohol to give me the courage it would require.
I had debated about going to the cops ever since the incident, but I couldn’t see how I could walk into a station without word getting around. I would end up dead without a doubt. I wasn’t going to just call 911, so where did that leave me? Los Zares probably had cops on their payroll. How did I know who was good and who was corrupt? There was no way to know, but someone staking out a Zares’ party was a good place to start. I would have to leave the rest up to God and what little luck I might have still had.
Before leaving the house, I wrote my phone number on a piece of paper and slipped it into my pocket. I said my goodbyes and scanned the cars lining the street for the black sedan concealing the officers. As if it was meant to be, they were parked right in front of my car.
As nonchalantly as I could, I walked toward the car and deposited the note into their open window, not pausing to talk. I kept my head forward, so if anyone was watching from the house, I never appeared to register their presence. However, I held the driver’s eyes the whole time I walked toward him, infusing my pleading gaze with sincerity, hoping they wouldn’t take the gesture as meaningless taunting.
Three days later, I met federal agents in a run-down motel room and began to discuss the end of my life as I knew it.
Chapter 21
Tamir
“I told you it was my boyfriend that was in the club because I couldn’t stand to admit that it was me. That I was a part of something so awful.” Emily’s teeth chattered as she talked. I’d managed to coerce her inside as she told me her story, but a chill still saturated her body.
I felt my own bone-deep chill, but it had nothing to do with the weather.
Emily had been lying to me the entire time we’d been together. Considering how well she had fooled me, she was quite the gifted storyteller.
There was no ex-boyfriend.
She was no innocent victim.
Emily had been a part of Los Zares for over five years, laundering their money and doing who knew what else. Then she turned over, not just on the club, but on her family. She’d sent family members to prison. Had it been purely from good intentions, or was she lying again? Perhaps the only reason she’d testified was to escape her own prosecution. How was I supposed to trust anything she said when she changed her story as often as she changed clothes?
A part of me argued that it was understandable to want to hide her association with the Zares. They were a ruthless group of people, and one of the largest, most savage drug trafficking organizations in America. It was hard to picture Emily with her pet cactus, or whatever it was, living among the vicious bikers. That didn’t mean it didn’t happen. She’d been one of them, and not just briefly, but for five fucking years.
It wasn’t the first time in my career that I’d come across a wayward criminal. There was almost always a hit put out on those who turned on a criminal organization and chose to testify rather than face the consequences of their actions in a court of law. As if testifying absolved their guilt for years of criminal activity. Just because a man threw his associates under the bus didn’t mean his hands were clean. Sure, there was something to be said for repenting, but was it enough?
Had Emily’s crimes been remote enough to keep her from being sullied by the darkest sins of Los Zares? Were my feelings for her enough for me to overlook her past and all the lies?
Normally, I had no problem deciding where people stood on the spectrum of good and evil. Whether their lives were more valuable than the bounty on their heads. When it came to Emily, the lines were blurred and foreign. Between the haze of my own emotions and the veil of her lies, I wasn’t sure what to think.
“Did your father go to prison?”