Dirty Angels

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Luisa

At first I thought it was the end of the world. I heard the deep rumble slice through the air, felt it quaking in my bones, shaking the floor of the bathroom I was lying on.

I welcomed the end of the world with open arms. In fact, I think I smiled knowing that death was finally on its way. It had ignored my pleas for far too long.

But then, when I didn’t die and the world didn’t burn and crash around me, I realized that the sound I was hearing was helicopters. I tried to raise my heavy head to look through the narrow window above the shower. It was glassless now, as was the mirror. Salvador had taken them out after I had stabbed him in the forearm one day with a slice I broke off. It cut my hands up pretty bad and I received a round of electric shock torture for my disobedience, but damn had it felt good.

Through the window I saw a black helicopter fly past, heading right over the house and the sound built up, growing deeper. Then I saw another helicopter and another.

Something was going on. I should have been happy, just having a disruption to the daily monotony. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been kept in the bathroom, perhaps ten days, perhaps two weeks? It was hard to remember. My brain wasn’t functioning anymore since he stopped feeding me several days ago. I still had water coming out of the bath and the taps and the toilet, just to ensure I wouldn’t totally die. If I was dead, how on earth could he torture me? How would he hear me scream?

Salvador hadn’t even raped me aside from the first day or two that I had arrived back. I felt like that was purely to assert his dominance, especially after he saw Javier’s brand on my back. He wanted to make sure that I belonged to him again. But to my surprise, the sexual attacks stopped soon after.

It was nothing to be relieved about. Salvador’s big thing now was to torture me in other ways. I was no longer his wife that he could have every which way he wanted. He no longer wanted me. So I was treated like an informant, like a spy, like a hostage. I was locked up in the bathroom somewhere in his house and he would visit me … sometimes once a day, sometimes twice, sometimes once every couple of days, all his ways of keeping me in suspense.

Too bad I had become too numb inside to even care anymore.

The first week, he removed the nails from my pinky toes. While one of his men held me down, he slowly ripped the toenails straight out. I prided myself on not passing out, but boy did I scream. It was just what he wanted. After that, I did my best not to make a sound. I was able to make it through the Tasers, being the old pro that I was already, but when it came to the hot irons he applied against my stomach, well that I could never keep inside.

And while I was able to take the beatings quite well, the other day he took a hammer to my finger. He seemed extra angry, muttering something about my choice in hired help, and I was punished accordingly. I screamed more after he left, when I attempted to bandage my broken index finger to my middle one using a toilet paper roll and strips of the shower curtain I had painstakingly ripped off.

Now I was lying on the cold tiles of the floor, wondering if the end was coming or if the helicopters were only going to bring me more pain. I didn’t even have the strength to crawl over to the door and see if I could hear anything.

Not that I needed to. Soon the air was filled with the sound of gunfire coming in all directions. People were no doubt dying. I wanted to smile at that. I wanted the whole world to burn.

I closed my eyes again and lay down my head, envisioning the madness that was going on outside, pretending that the good guys had come—whoever they were—and that Salvador would be caught in the crossfire. I hoped he’d die feeling like a fool.

Minutes passed and more helicopters sounded. More gunfire followed. I wondered what would happen if someone found me. Would they mistake me for being part of the cartel and shoot me on sight? Would they show me mercy? Or did the world hold worse things for me? It didn’t seem possible.

Eventually I heard quiet footsteps on the floor outside, and when I opened my eyes, I could see a pair of boots underneath the doorframe, waiting on the other side.

I started smiling before I even knew why.

The door was suddenly kicked open, narrowly missing my face, and I followed the boots up to see a pair of golden eyes staring down at me. Waves of pain and relief swirled in them with startling clarity.

“Luisa,” Javier whispered, immediately dropping down to his knees. He looked completely beside himself as his eyes searched my body up and down. He touched my face and I closed my eyes, leaning into the warmth of his palm. He was here. He had come. My beautiful, ruthless king.

“Luisa,” he said, gently running his other hand down my side, feeling carefully for anything broken. “Stay with me, darling. I’m getting you out of here. Can you walk?”

I nodded. “I think so,” I said, my voice so painfully raw.

He looked at my broken finger, at my toes, at the wounds in my arms and legs from the Taser, at the bruises on my face. The more he searched me over, the more broken he looked. I couldn’t let him lose it if I hadn’t yet. Now was not the time.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, trying to get to my feet.

He gripped me by my arms and carefully pulled me up. I wobbled a bit on my feet, dizzy from the lack of food, and fell into his chest. He immediately wrapped his arms around me and held me tight. It took everything I had not to break down crying.

He kissed the top of my head. “I should have never let you leave.”

“I never should have left,” I said softly. I had regretted it the moment I stepped into the house, the moment I realized that Salvador would probably have my parents killed anyway. For once, I hated how selfless I had been.

“I’m going to kill him,” he growled, and I could feel the anger and tension starting to roll through him. “I want to kill him more than I’ve ever wanted to kill anyone. I want to do everything he did to you to him, but worse. I want him gone.” He sighed in frustration. “But I made a promise not to.”

That surprised me. “To whom?”

“The DEA,” he said. “They’re the ones who got me in.”

“You made another deal with the Americans?”

He pulled away and stared at me intensely. I had missed his eyes so much, the power inside them, the passion and strength. “I would do anything to get you back. And I did.”

“But your cartel,” I started.

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Only you matter, Luisa, only you.” In the distance, the gunfire reigned. He paused. “But it will all be in vain if I don’t get you out of here. I’d tell you I need you to be strong, but I can tell you already are.”

I managed a smile, refusing to let fear enter my veins anymore. I wouldn’t fear with him by my side. We would make the world pay.

“Give me one of your guns,” I said, holding out my good hand, which was thankfully my right one.

He grinned at me and reached into his boot, pulling out a handgun and placing it in my hand. “Try not to shoot the guys with DEA on their backs. We might get in trouble.”

“Save that for another time?” I said, not really joking either.

He planted a hard kiss on my forehead. “Goddamn it, you’re perfect.”

He led me out of the bathroom and into the adjoining guest bedroom. We were almost out in the hall when one of Salvador’s guards appeared.

Javier pulled me down and shot the man just as another guard appeared. From my position on the ground, I somehow managed to aim the barrel and pull the trigger.

I hit the second man right in the chest, and he stumbled backward against the wall before toppling over on his fallen comrade.

My heart galloped wildly, loudly, and it felt hard to breathe.

I had just killed a man.

Me.

Just like that.

Javier looked down at me in awe before helping me to my feet.

“How did that feel?” he asked in amazement, peering at me closely.

My breathing had returned to normal and the adrenaline was starting to coax through my veins. My flesh tingled all over. I swallowed as I looked at him, sharing his wonder.

“It felt good,” I told him honestly and not feeling the tiniest bit ashamed. “Almost like sex.”

He shook his head, his nostrils flaring. “Stop that,” he said gruffly. “I almost came just from seeing you pull the trigger.”

He brought me to the hall, and after checking both ends, we ran down it, heading away from the gunfire that now sounded like it was coming from the foyer. He darted into the room of David, Salvador’s asshole assistant, and I could see where he’d already come in. The French door and the table on the balcony were already smashed, David’s dead body lying amidst the damage.

I spit on his body as we stepped over the corpse and onto the balcony. In the distance a helicopter was flying and I could see a few of them on the lawn. The grass was littered with bodies, most of them Salvador’s men. Bullets still ripped through the air, though I couldn’t see the combat.

“We’ll go on the roof,” Javier told me, staring up at it. “That way one of the helicopters can pick us up and we’ll be safer. We can see anyone coming from below and we’ll pick them off.”

If we stood on the edge of the balcony’s railing, there was a small overhang that would be easy to climb up on, at least for him. Escape was so near.

“I don’t know if I can pull myself up,” I told him, starting to panic a little. “I don’t have much strength.”

“I’ll pull you up,” he said confidently. He quickly eased himself onto the railing, balanced himself, and then jumped up onto the ledge, needing to pull himself up a few feet.

And while he was doing that, his back to me, I felt a gun press against my temple and an arm hook around my neck. I dropped my gun in surprise and it went skittering over the balcony edge.

Heavy breathing seeped into my ear.

Fear gripped my heart.

Salvador.

By the time Javier found his footing and was turning around to see what caused the clatter, I was completely under Salvador’s control. The look of utter outrage and madness strained Javier’s face. I knew he wanted nothing more than to tear Salvador from limb to limb, but that would never happen now.

Now that he had me. Now that he would kill me in front of Javier.

“Javier, Javier, Javier,” Salvador said, his voice raspy. “Finally we meet in person. You know, you’re a lot smaller than I thought you’d be, even with you way up there.”

His chokehold around me tightened and I tried to pry him off with one good hand, giving me a few more inches of breathing room, but the strength just wasn’t there. I was slowly losing air.

“Let her go,” Javier commanded, his voice steady despite everything. “Do what you want with me, but let her go. You’ve already hurt her enough.”

“Really? I don’t think I have,” Salvador mused. “Tell me, Javier, when you were fucking her, did she scream for mercy like she does with me? Did you make her bleed too? You must have. Nice carving job, by the way. For an amateur.”

Javier swallowed. I could see how hard he was breathing, how difficult it was for him not to whip out his gun and try and shoot Salvador, promise to the DEA or not. But he couldn’t, not when I was a hostage once more.

“Let him kill me.” I managed to get the words out to Javier. “Let him kill me, just make sure you kill him. Make him suffer.”

“Shut up!” Salvador roared in my ear. “I will kill you, but then he’s next. He doesn’t even have his gun out. Fucking pussy.”

The gunfire in the background had started to die down. The helicopter that we had seen in the distance was now long gone. I wondered what side was winning now. I wondered if they’d come and find us only after it was too late. I could only hope that if Javier and I were dead, the DEA would ensure that Salvador suffered, that he would never get out of jail alive, that our deaths wouldn’t be for nothing.

“So what do you want, Salvador?” Javier asked, raising his hands. “Why are you doing this? Just shoot her now if that’s what you want.”

“You’re as fucking crazy as she is,” Salvador said, sneering. “Don’t the two of you have any respect for death? You of all people, Javier, should know the importance of making a show of it. Of making it last. The true torture doesn’t come during death—it comes in the moments before. When you know it’s about to happen, but you don’t quite know when. Just like now.”

Javier’s chest heaved. I could see his wicked brain working on overdrive, trying to come up with a way to at least save me if not himself. I could also see he had no options to go on. For all the fury he was carrying, I caught the sorrow on his brow. I saw the soft way he was coming to terms with the end.

But that didn’t mean I had nothing. Even if it meant us getting shot, I at least had to try for the both of us. I welcomed the end more than he did. I had nothing to lose.

I held Javier’s eyes with mine and then slid my gaze over to the partly-healed gash on Salvador’s forearm where I had driven in the piece of glass last week. I couldn’t reach around with my own arms and touch it, but that didn’t mean I was powerless.

When I saw the nearly invisible hint of recognition in Javier’s eyes, I knew it was time. I drew upon my reserves of anger, of injustice, of pure unadulterated rage that I had coiling deep inside me. I let those feelings, those hot, swirling, pulsing emotions wrap me up into an uncontrollable tornado that had nowhere else to go. Then I gave it permission to fuel me, to become my strength.

I screamed, a raw, brutal sound that ripped out of my gut and my throat, and used all my power to twist Salvador’s forearm toward me. I bit straight into his wound, tasting the blood, loving the blood, relishing the feeling of my teeth plunging in deeper and deeper, tearing through muscle and nerve and causing so much pain.

The next thing I knew Salvador was screaming, caught off-guard by my violence, and Javier took that moment to whip out his gun and shoot.

He aimed for Salvador’s shoulder. He got it.

Salvador spun back, out of my teeth and grasp, but not before he took his own gun and fired it at Javier as he fell.

I thought Salvador’s aim would be off.

But it wasn’t.

He shot Javier right in the head.

I screamed as Javier stumbled slightly then pitched forward off the roof and facedown onto the balcony, the glass bouncing around us from his impact.

With what strength I had, I kicked Salvador’s gun off the balcony, then scampered over to Javier, crying, screaming, feeling like my own heart was bleeding, my breath pulled from me. The pain in my chest was so incredibly great, I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

I fell to my knees beside Javier, afraid to touch, afraid to roll him over. I wouldn’t be able to handle what I so deeply feared to see.

But before I could reach out and touch him, he started to stir.

Alive.

“Javier!” I sobbed, my hands going for his head. I brushed away his hair and saw the wound, a long trail of blood on his temple. His eye opened and fixed on me.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Did he get me?”

I burst into the biggest smile and nearly laughed at the intense amount of relief flowing through me. “Get you? I think you were just shot in the head!”

He reached up and gingerly touched the wound. “Oh.” He smiled weakly. “It just grazed me. How is my hair?”

I wasn’t sure whether to punch him or kiss him.

But before I could do either, I was suddenly picked up by my shoulders from behind and thrown to the side. My head smacked against the floor, making everything spin and swirl nauseatingly, blackness teasing my vision and keeping me down.

I stared helplessly as Salvador launched himself on top of Javier, trying to choke him. Even with his one arm useless, he was a big man, stronger than Javier, and he was able to squeeze his throat tight with just his one hand.

“Look at you,” Salvador sneered at him, saliva dripping down into Javier’s face. Javier gasped for breath, his skin turning white. “A traitor to Mexico. You brought in the Americans just to take this whore back. You’re a pussy. You’re soft over a woman. A girl. You’ll be known as the drug lord who became oh so good for no good reason.”

“I am not good!” Javier managed to roar, the fight coming back in his face. With all he had left, he managed to kick up under Salvador and get his knife free from his boot. He raised the knife above his head, and just as Salvador looked up in surprise, Javier swiftly drove the knife between Salvador’s eyes, plunging it all the way in to the handle. “I am just not as bad as you,” he spat out.

Salvador froze up, the knife stuck into his brain. It instantly killed him, and Javier quickly rolled out from under his crushing body. He rapidly crawled over to me and felt along the side of my head. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice cracking.

I swallowed and tried to talk but couldn’t. I burst into tears instead.

“Shhhh, Luisa,” Javier said soothingly. “I’m alive, you’re alive. The fucker is dead. We’re okay.” He sat down beside me and pulled me into his lap, cradling me while I let everything loose. Anger, pain, shock, sorrow. He let me cry for as long as I needed. And when my tears started to dry, he said something that made me cry more, only from happiness.

“You should know that I have your parents,” he whispered into the top of my head. “They’re safe with my sister in Puerto Vallarta.”

Even though Javier had never told me he loved me, I still had never known such love. I couldn’t thank him enough, couldn’t get over how absolutely selfless he had been, and all for me.

We sat like that together, me gathering strength in his arms, until a few DEA agents burst onto the balcony with their guns blazing. One of them I didn’t even know was a woman until she took off her helmet and shook out her hair. She stared down at Salvador’s body in dismay.

“Honestly, it was self-defense,” Javier protested at her disapproving glare before she could say anything.

“But I bet you still enjoyed every moment of it,” she said.

He smiled. “Of course I did.”

And I did too.

I could tell Javier was nervous though, about what the DEA might do with him since Salvador was dead and he’d broken the one condition. But by the time the medics arrived by helicopter and had treated his head wound and splintered up my broken fingers and applied antibiotic creams to my body, we were told we’d be free to go anyway.

“He may not be alive,” the woman, whom I learned was Lillian Berrellez, said, “but at least we were able to dismantle the Sinaloa Cartel. That’s not too shabby.”

No, it certainly wasn’t. Even though there was a cartel that was ready to take its place: Javier’s.

The DEA knew that, too. But for now, we were shaking hands and agreeing to walk away from each other.

I knew Berrellez would be back though. And if I was still by Javier’s side at that time, I’d be making sure she didn’t get far.

In this business, you didn’t build empires by being good. And though I’d never truly be able to forget the person I was and could never fully eradicate my morals, I was looking forward to being bad.

I was looking forward to getting dirty.

Very, very dirty.