Page 76 of Reckless Woman
Did I know her?
Was it a lie?
I stick to the beaches as much as I can, slicing my hands open when I slip on the wet rocks. The faces of all the girls I was enslaved with during those terrible years keep flashing before my eyes.
I did my homework before I arrived on this island. I know the ordinances of it by heart, the same way that I know there are fewer cameras down here than along the main tracks. There are only two ways on and off, and one of them requires swimming in currents that would drown me in minutes. The other is on one of the aircraft down by the hanger on the south side of the island.
No one said this shit was going to be easy.
I take cover in the undergrowth by the hanger for a night and most of the next day, plotting and preparing for my chance.
I watch the same jet depart and return a couple of hours later, my heart skipping to an offbeat when I see Anna’s tall, slender frame disembarking behind that seemingly indestructible monster,El Asesino.The fact that he’s evaded death again is another strike against me. I need to get back to Miami at all costs and plead my apologies to Papá.
I never wanted Anna to get hurt in any of this. I was only ever trying to protect her. That aircraft had to blow—El Asesinohad to die—so I made sure that she was in Miami when it did. More attempts will be made on her life in the future, but I’ll always keep her safe.I’ll never stop keeping her safe.She showed me something precious in Colombia, and I’ve sheltered it like a naked flame since then. Whatever happens, I’ll never let Vindicta snuff that out.
The pilots disembark last. I watch them drift into the hanger for a group smoke, and then I’m running as fast as I can, up the open steps and into the cabin. Heading straight for the luxury ensuite off the private bedroom, I find a spare razor in one of the cabinets. Freeing the blade from the plastic casing, I set to work on the screws around the air conditioning grate above the basin. Once I’ve worked it free, I clamber up into the small space, and then I wait.
* * *
Five days later,a taxi is dropping me off outside Papá’s waterside mansion in Bal Harbour, Miami. It’s been a violent and bruising journey to reach this destination. Exhaustion is a dirty outfit, and I’m wearing it from head to toe.
My plan worked. I found myself in New York that same evening. From there, I hitched my way across several states, picking the worst cabs to ride in, which meant I was constantly fending off truck drivers’ advances. My lip is still bloody where one of them punched me in the face when I stopped him grabbing my breast. The back of my neck aches where another tried to force me to blow him.
They’re both dead and lying in shallow roadside graves—one in North Carolina and the other in the South—but their disgusting intentions still cling to my white Tee. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for close to a week now, and the thought of a hot shower is more tempting than food.
“Welcome back, señorita.”
Igor Bukov, my father’s head of security, waves me inside the Mediterranean-influenced property, with its high terracotta stone walls to protect Papá’s true identity. Before he bought this place, they held parties here that were attended by politicians, presidents and royalty. Girls were provided as their entertainment, ruined girls, like I used to be—conditioned to provide pleasure and take pain without tears or questions.
Only I wasn’t really a girl when I worked this circuit of hell…
I was a child.
I finally escaped, but the parties continued elsewhere. I heard the whispers from my father’s men. I wept in private at their boastful roars. These days, they take place in more secluded corners of the world, where the true cost of sex trafficking can never be counted in the darkness.
Curling his lip at my disheveled appearance, Bukov leads me out into a large open courtyard, and then down a wide, terracotta stone hallway and into my father’s study. It’s a light space that mitigates the worst of his darkness. It smells strongly of sandalwood to combat the stench of illness that follows him around everywhere. Papá loves the smell. He embraces it. He calls it his two-finger salute at a life that’s incarcerated him in a useless body.
“Stay here,” Bukov orders, his thick accent clotting up his words. “Your father is on his way.”
While I wait, I wander along the lines of books he’ll never read, aching to touch them and open them. There was a moment in time when I was seventeen or eighteen when I tried to escape my past. I grew. I changed. I studied hard and found myself enrolled at an American college. Then Santiago crushed it, like he’s crushed every other sliver of goodness in my life.
“Viviana.” The note of steel in my father’s voice makes me turn. “Mi vida,” he adds nastily, making it sound like an insult, not an endearment.
He’s confined to a wheelchair now—his body hunched over and broken, with his reptile-like facial scars and thin, patchy wisps of black hair. Despite this, he still has a presence that makes you pay attention. His nurse, Teresa, is his constant companion, but there’s nothing saintly about the oldputa.She’s a bleak-faced woman in her fifties with black and white streaked hair. She sees everything and says nothing, like a mean-eyed magpie hoarding dirty secrets.
She’s hovering behind him, fussing about with his oxygen chamber, and ignoring me like she always does. She’s in this for the money, but Papá won’t be leaving her a dime.
“Papá,” I greet, stepping forward, hiding my fear well. I’ve never failed him before, but like every other member of my family, he’s not known for his forgiveness.
“You made it back from his island, I see.”
Mierda.Shit.He sounds really angry, in between his frantic gasps for air.
“My cover—”
“Was blown. Yes, we know. We also know that Joseph Grayson survived the plane crash and evaded death in a motel room outside Orlando.” He stops to gasp and splutter some more.
I’m sensing the winds of change, but I don’t know how strong they are until Benni Morozov strides into the room behind him.