Dirty Angels

CHAPTER FIVE

Luisa

“You look nervous,” the makeup artist said to me as she dusted a light coating of glimmering blush across my cheekbones. “Don’t be. You look beautiful.”

She had a singsong quality to her voice that would have soothed any bride-to-be, but there was no soothing me. If I got up and looked out the window, I would have seen the plaza below absolutely filled with people here to see me and Salvador get married. I would have also felt, though not seen, the countless snipers that were lined up to take out anyone who might have … interfered. That should have made me feel better, safer, but it didn’t. I felt I was only safe until the moment I said “I do.” After that, I was just a rat scurrying through the desert, the hawk biding its time from above.

“And you said your parents are here,” she went on, her voice quicker now, trying to get me to talk, to say something. I’d been more or less silent the whole time. Perhaps she was nervous too. She knew who I was marrying, after all.

“Yes, they are here,” I said, my throat feeling strangely raw.

“They must be so proud,” she said, tilting my chin up with her fingers in order to line my lips with precision.

“They don’t normally travel,” I said by way of explanation, barely moving my lips. My parents weren’t so much proud as they were scared out of their minds. My father hadn’t been himself for days now, and it was only by luck that he was calm and under control. Luck, or perhaps some medication my mother borrowed from a friend of hers. My mother herself was rigid and unyielding, trying hard to be happy for me but failing at it. For the first time in my life, I could hardly stand to be around her. She only reminded me of what I was giving up and giving in to.

“Where do they live?” she asked.

“In San Jose del Cabo,” I said.

“They won’t be joining you with your husband?”

I shook my head and then smiled apologetically when I realized it messed up her work. “They wanted to stay where their friends were. It’s too … inconvenient for them to be living with me and Salvador.” Not to mention that with Salvador’s help, I was able to buy them a beautiful new home close to a retirement center and hospital. Both my parents had a full-time caregiver now, a tough but lovely woman named Penelope, and they had their activities and their friends. It happened fast, and we were all still adjusting to the change. I did what I could to ease the guilt since I couldn’t live with them anymore, but it was so much better than them risking their lives to live with us in Culiacán. Though they were out of my reach, I felt they were much safer in the Baja.

“Well, perhaps that is for the best,” she said, giving me a quiet smile. “Nothing ruins a marriage like in-laws.”

I returned the look, and to my relief, she finished up my face in silence.

The wedding ceremony itself went a lot smoother than I thought. The three glasses of champagne I nicked off a waiter certainly helped. It was quite elaborate with the priest and our vows and the endless sea of people watching our every move. But I did my part, acted in the play, and did my best to pretend I was the blushing bride eager to be wedded to her powerful husband. I could only hope that my face would not betray me and show the world just how terrified I was.

The moment he slipped the ring on my finger—a big, blinding diamond that cost more than most people would earn in their life—and we said our vows, I knew I should have wept with power. I was the wife of the jackal, nearly the most powerful man in the country. But while others would see power resting on my shoulders, I knew deep down the cape was an illusion.

And it didn’t take very long to find out how fake it was.

For our honeymoon, Salvador and I headed to the coast to a quiet little village that was completely under his jurisdiction, where he had a massive beachfront property. I barely had any time to say goodbye to my mother and father, my hands still clasping theirs, holding on for dear life, as I was ushered away from the ceremony, flowers in my hair, and into the waiting limousine.

It was bulletproof. But I was not.

Salvador and I sat in the back, the only inhabitants, while I craned my neck around and watched as my parents disappeared from sight, two frail frames against the relentless sun.

“That was rude of me,” I said, even though I knew it was best to keep my mouth shut. I wished my voice wasn’t shaking. “To just leave them like that.” It was more than rude; it frightened me more than anything else to have them out of my reach, so fast and so soon.

Salvador turned in his seat to face me. He looked almost handsome in his tuxedo, his hair slicked back, his mustache trimmed. His eyes though, they always betrayed him. They were frazzled, sparking, like bad wiring.

“You’re my wife now,” he said with a grin that was far too wicked to be genuine. “You no longer answer to your parents, you answer to me.”

I swallowed uneasily, trying to decide on whether to wear defiance or pleading compliance on my face. It was a split-second decision and defiance won out.

It got me a smack across the face.

I took a few moments, my newly ringed hand on my cheek, trying to soothe the throbbing. I stared at Salvador in dumb shock. I knew that everything had been for show so far, I just had no idea it would turn to the truth so fast.

“You answer to me,” he repeated, his eyes growing thinner and hard as steel. “That means no talking back.”

I opened my mouth and he immediately backhanded me again, harder this time, enough that I saw lights flashing behind my eyes, my teeth biting down on my tongue as the back of my head hit the seat rest. I tried not to panic, tried my hardest to remain composed all while wanting to cry out from the pain. The fear was greater than I’d ever known.

After a moment, I straightened up in my seat, inching away from him. He only leered at me, as if the whole thing was one giant joke. Perhaps it was.

“When I say no talking back,” he said, running his fingers over his mustache, “I mean it, like I mean everything I say. We can have a nice, happy marriage if you learn to behave. I will still give you the world and you will want for nothing. But there are rules that you will have to follow. Nothing is free in this life, do you understand?”

I nodded, not daring to speak.

Suddenly he shot forward and was in my face, a vein throbbing at his temple. “I said, do you understand!?” he screamed, spittle flying onto me.

I shut my eyes tight, as if it would make him go away. I felt like the life was being drained out of me with every second that I spent in that limo, that this was the start of a slow and painful death. And I had willingly walked into it.

You’re doing this for your parents, I told myself, trying to draw myself inward to where it was dark, warm, and safe. Remember that. Remember whose happiness you are buying.

“Look at me,” Salvador said, his voice quiet now, though I could feel his hot breath on my skin. “You have to look at me when I’m talking to you. That is one of the rules.” He grabbed my chin and squeezed hard enough to make my eyes flutter open. I stared at him blankly, not wanting to really see him. My husband.

“The other rule,” he went on, softer now, “is that you will not talk back. You will also be loyal and you will not stray. You will not even look at other men. For your own protection, you will not be allowed to have any friends that I do not choose for you. You will not be able to leave the house on your own. You will always stay thin and beautiful, with a big smile for everyone you meet. And you will not deny me my rights as a husband.” He licked his lips as he said that. “Now. Do. You. Under. Stand?”

I did understand. The life of Luisa Chavez was really and truly over.

There was only Luisa Reyes now.

And she was about to live a life of pain.

Salvador took my virginity in the back of that limo, minutes before we even reached the beach house. It happened quickly, and for that I was glad. It didn’t lessen the pain—the horrible, ripping pain—but it meant I didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of my first time for too long.

He wasn’t kind, he wasn’t gentle, he wasn’t generous. If that’s what sex was, I wondered how anyone could enjoy it. He treated my body like a piece of meat, a slice of property. I had no claim to it, and that’s what he wanted to show me, again and again and again. I had no say, no rights. I was his, whether I wanted to be or not, and he would have me anytime he wanted. My own feelings and desires didn’t matter.

I didn’t want to the second time. I was sore, oh so sore, and trying to sleep in, afraid to face him and my first morning as his wife. But Salvador didn’t believe in the word no. It didn’t matter how many times I said it, if I struggled … in fact, he liked it when I did. He’d strip his bloated, ugly body naked and force himself on me and into me with a grin on his face that not even his mother could love.

If he even had a mother. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever raising him. When I tried to picture him as a young boy, I knew there would have been no innocence in his heart. He’d have been the one to put firecrackers in dogs’ mouths, to take the fights in the playground too far, to spit in his grandmother’s food. I tried to think about these things, trying to figure out how one becomes such a vile, hateful thing, while he violated me from the inside out.

It wasn’t enough that I was clearly in pain and vulnerable while this happened—if I struggled in the least, he would assert his dominance in other ways.

“Mrs. Reyes,” the housekeeper called out from the balcony behind me. I was sitting on the beach, the warm Pacific lapping at my feet and soaking the ends of my dress. I’d been sitting there for hours, and I knew she was calling me in for lunch. But I couldn’t eat even if I tried.

I ignored her and stared down at my arms, at the marks and bruises up and down them, ugly purples and yellows from the last few days, so bright in the daylight. For a split second there was so much terror filling up my chest like ice water that I thought about running straight into the ocean and trying to swim until I drowned.

But that would be nearly impossible. To the left of me, standing half-hidden in the palms, was one set of guards, watching the property and watching me. I couldn’t see who was to my right, further down the beach, but I did know that they wouldn’t let me drown.

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.