Dirty Angels

“I still got the job done. What’s the difference if I get action at the same time?”

I rolled my eyes at his crassness and gave him a slight, dismissive wave. “Go put this all together. And don’t disappoint me.”

“Fu

I got up and walked over to the window. The driveway was wet where Carlos must have watered it down, and the body of Laura was gone, the blood all washed away. It was like nothing ugly ever happened. I took in the mountains, the violently green foliage that stretched beyond the property and melded into the cliffs of The Devil’s Backbone. Sometimes I wondered if there was someone out there plotting something in the way I was plotting for Salvador. I usually decided there was. You didn’t run a cartel without having an army of people out there wanting to kill you. After all, I used to be a solider in that very army. I just never dwelled on it—I moved through each day thinking that I was better off alive, a card that kept the game going.

I also clung to the archaic, and perhaps slightly naïve belief that everything happened for a reason. I hadn’t cheated death so many times, I hadn’t had my heart ripped out, my soul lost, my family murdered, my future trampled all for nothing. I was put away in an American prison for three months, and thanks to the grace of God and friends in high places, I miraculously walked away and back into Mexico where I was able to jump back in to the cartel that had rightfully become mine. All of that, all of those miracles, all of that grace, hadn’t happened for no reason.

My destiny was constantly being rewritten and it would continue to be until it was fulfilled. Until I was at the top of the world and I had everything I’d ever wanted at my feet. Until I could crush everything with none of the mercy that was bestowed upon me.

I went over to the wet bar, and with some pleasure, pushed back the curved top of the old-fashioned globe that revealed the bottles of alcohol beneath. The bar used to be Travis’s, something he had picked up at an antique store in Mississippi where I had worked for him back in the simple times. I’d always admired it, the vintage elegance, of a time when men were really men and when they got up in the morning they showed up for the world.

I poured myself a glass of old Scotch, opting for that instead of my usual tequila, and went back over to the desk. I sat down and gently brought the photographs of Luisa out of the drawer. I felt a foreign pang of indignity as I looked them over again, as if someone was watching me, judging me, for something I shouldn’t have been doing. But I needed to look at her. I needed to study her. I needed to know the exquisite creature I would be bringing into this house. I needed to know the woman I would destroy through and through before I handed her back to Salvador.

I needed to ask her soft, radiant, pixelated face for forgiveness for what I was about to do.

She would soon be sorry she ever married Salvador Reyes.

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.