Rath pulled up to the abandoned factory. The surrounding area was fairly wide open, which was good, but the building still offered plenty of places bad guys could hide. He thought he saw movement on the roof, but the sun coming from behind it blinded him a bit. But that didn’t matter.
“I’m getting a hairection. We’re out of here. Stay low.”
She was looking, too, but she trusted him enough to duck down as he tore out of the parking lot. “A what?”
“Hairs on the back of my neck are standing up.”
Her phone made a ding sound. “Someone’s emailing.” She wrangled it out of her pocket and opened the email. “It’s from my father. Oh my God, he says it’s a trap. And he wants me to go to an address. That must be the something important he asked for my help with. How did he get hold of a computer?”
“Or a phone. But the important thing is, he tried to save us.”
Rath kept an eye on the road behind them. If someone was waiting for them at the building, they’d follow.
She took a screenshot from the sound of it. “I’m deleting the mail, just in case. Angel did set us up. You were right to be suspicious. He…betrayed me again.”
He heard the grief in her voice. “It appears so.”
“I just keep trusting the wrong people.”
She didn’t look at him, but he wondered if he fell into that category. He reached out and touched her shoulder. “Angel’s life depends on him being trustworthy to his boss.”
“Are you defending him?”
“No, just giving you…motivation.”
She did not appreciate his turning her counseling back at her, from the way her lips tightened. She twisted in her seat to look back. “I’ll watch behind us.”
See you in the rearview mirror.
A few cars came from the other direction, and he made sure none of them made a U-turn to follow.
“I see a truck way back there.”
“Take mental measure of how far back it is and if they’re gaining ground.”
She nodded, her expression grave. Of course, she’d just lost the opportunity to save her father. Or realized that there may never have been one. It probably made it worse in a way, knowing that her father was alive and yet, out of reach.
She opened her phone to the screenshot. “What if this is a trap, too?”
“I don’t think so. Back there seemed like a good place to take us out. Why send us elsewhere?”
“True. But what’s here that’s important to my father?”
“Evidence from his work here? Maybe even proving that El Martillo is, after all, a cartel? It was Angel who confirmed that it was legit.”
“You’re right. God, this is such an emotional rollercoaster.”
He wanted to pull over and hold her, but they needed to press on.
A few miles down the road, she said, “The truck is slowly gaining ground. I still can’t see the driver clearly. Not that it would matter, since we don’t know what these men look like.”
“Assume everyone is dangerous.”
“In other words, trust no one.”
He reached over and rubbed the back of her neck. “You can trust me, Neesa.” He couldn’t have said that a day earlier, but now she knew more about him than anyone else.
She closed her eyes briefly, leaning into his touch. “I do trust you, Rath. I know you’ll keep me safe.”
But she wouldn’t trust him with her heart. Somehow he heard the specificity of the words…and what wasn’t said. That was his own doing, of course. But he had nothing to offer her, really. He would be taking care of his younger brother, doing this one mission for Justiss, and then…who knew?
The town was a forty-minute drive away, a blip on the highway. The property looked like a citrus farm, a gated entrance right off the road.
“There’s no speaker box,” she said. “How do we—”
He started wailing on the horn. Eventually a man with bowed legs and a rifle came down the driveway. As he approached the other side of the closed gate, Neesa got out of the truck and, arms raised, told him, “Dan Federson sent me. I’m his daughter.”
The man’s wary expression changed to a more open one. “Your name?”
“Neesa.”
“Si, si, come in.” He unlocked the gate and opened it, then closed it after they passed through. He waved for them to drive up to the house.
Rath took a position slightly in front of Neesa after they got out and waited for the man, who was probably in his sixties. He held the rifle pointed downward, but Rath knew to be ready for anything. He’d already visually swept the area, with rows of trees all around the ranch-style house and going on for acres. His hand hovered over his weapon, keeping his eye on the man and also the windows of the house. It’s why he positioned them on the other side of the truck.
“Hello,” the man greeted, his hand outstretched. “I’m Luis. You’ve come just in time.”
Rath traded a look with Neesa, sort of a visual shrug. They’d play along for now. They followed the man into the house, Rath going before her to gauge the safety. It looked like a normal home, with warm peach tile floors and lots of windows to allow in light. A woman shelled green beans at the colorfully-tiled countertop. She looked up and gave them a somber smile before returning to her work. Regret at seeing someone right before they were obliterated? Her body language didn’t seem to indicate that, but Rath couldn’t relax at that assumption. Every time they turned a corner, it could be his chance to die…and leave Neesa to the wolves.
Neesa saw Rath’s military readiness as they wove through the chopped-up house. Her chest felt tight even as nothing here indicated a trap. Then again, that’s how traps worked. She was so glad that Rath was with her. Would she have come this far if she’d been on her own still? Probably.
The man leading them to one of the rooms seemed earnest, glancing back to make sure they were following. He stopped at a closed wooden door and tapped on it. “Maria, she’s here, at last. With a friend.”
Or whatever they were. She couldn’t think about that right now, not with this door between her and something her father wanted her help to protect. Given Rath’s tensed body, he must be imagining armed men with guns aimed at them inside, but a woman called out for them to come in, and Luis opened the door. A frail woman sat up in a double bed, an IV drip pole nearby, a boy of about seven sitting next to her.
“The people in the photos,” Neesa whispered to Rath. Luis also, now that she had more context.
Maria smiled in relief, though weakly. The boy shrank closer to her, staring at them with trepidation. She held out her hand to beckon them closer. “Neesa,” she said, drawing out her name. “You came. I was…afraid you wouldn’t make it in time.”
When Neesa moved forward, the woman clasped her bony fingers around her own, studying Neesa’s face. “I see your father in you. His eyes.” She turned to the boy, a loving smile for him. “The same.”
Neesa inhaled sharply as she realized what the woman was saying. “The boy is…”
“You didn’t know?” she asked. “Yes, Pedro is Dan’s son. Your half-brother. Pedro, this is Neesa. Your sister.”
Neesa’s heart tumbled. “He’s the important thing,” she said to Rath. But he had already figured that out by his deep nod. How much more important could anything be than a child? Neesa turned back to Maria, her hand still enclosed in the woman’s as though she were a lifeline. And she realized in that moment that she was…for Pedro. Just in time…
“I haven’t heard from Dan in so long,” Maria said, asking the question with her brown eyes.
“He is being held by El Martillo, has been for the last six months.”
“Oh, no.” All of the grief and strain of whatever was clearly claiming her life essence doubled. “He said he would come get Pedro after he set things right. There is no one else to take him. Luis and his wife cannot.”
“Is dangerous here,” Luis said from the doorway. “Cartels come to tax us. Protection fee,” he said, using finger quotes, the words taking on a bitter edge. “I’m afraid that if we can’t pay, they will…” He flicked a glance toward the boy. “Take it another way.”
She knew the prospect a boy like him would have in this area, within a cartel. Look what Angel had been reduced to doing. And El Gato. She pictured that board with all of the photos, many Xd out. Most of these men were boys who struggled and scrabbled out an existence, watching their parents and grandparents having done the same. Then they were offered a way out of the struggle. And she got it, deep down in her heart. While it was harder to forgive people like José and Miguel, who led violent organizations, she understood why these people did the terrible things they did. And with this lovely, dying woman in front of her and the boy who needed saving from the desperate cycle of violence, Neesa felt that forgiveness wrap around her heart.
Maria squeezed her hand. “I’m afraid to send him off with smugglers. We know how treacherous the journey is. He has dual citizenship, and we got him a passport and Certificate of Citizenship so Dan could take him to America. There, in the drawer.” She pointed to a drawer in the nightstand. “Dan said if he couldn’t come, he would send you. You would see to his safety, find him a home in the United States.”
Neesa came closer to the bed, having to lean against the side of it for support. “Yes. Of course,” were the words that came out of her mouth. The relief on Maria’s face was palpable and worth making an unimaginable commitment. Neesa turned to the boy now, who clung tighter to his mother. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you. To your mamá. Please, don’t be afraid of me.” She turned to Rath briefly. “Of us. We will get you out of here.” She reached her other hand to him. “I’m your sister. We’re…well, we might be strangers, but we’re family.”
His fear softened, and he tentatively reached toward her hand so that the three of them were linked.
Maria closed her eyes and made the sign of the cross. It seemed to take some effort to open them again, and her relief was equal to her pain. “You must leave as soon as possible.”
The boy turned to her. “No!” The grief in his wail tore through Neesa’s heart.
Maria put her hands on his cheeks. “I love you so much, my heart. But I do not have long here, and I don’t want you to see me suffer anymore.”
“No, I don’t care. Where’s Papa? Why isn’t he here?”
“You know he does important work to help our country. He will come when he can.”
“No, Mamá, I don’t want to leave you! You need me.”
Neesa turned away to give him privacy, though their hands were still linked. She met Rath’s eyes, saw his resolve to get them all out. And she knew that probably meant leaving her father behind for good. Because if she took Pedro to Arizona, she couldn’t leave him there in a foreign land—and with whom?—to return here.
The final line in his hurried email imprinted itself on her brain, and her heart: I got myself into this mess. I don’t want anyone else hurt because of it. Get the thing and get out. Rath nodded, knowing what the email conveyed, too. She had made the decision to abort if things looked off, and now her father was giving her his blessing—his order—to do so as well. They now had another reason to abort, leaving her father to probably die there. Rath’s expression was tense, carefully controlled and yet, grief leaked out.
Oh, God. This would remind him of losing his mother. She gave him a compassionate frown, but he turned away. Too much, she thought, finding a paradoxical comfort in the fact that Rath felt.
Maria was talking softly to the boy, telling him to be brave. But he cried, pulling from her grasp to curl up against his mother. Neesa felt his sense of loss to the bone. And Pedro was so young. To go off with a stranger, even if she was family, and not have his mother and very possibly his father…a tear slid from Neesa’s cheek, and she quickly brushed it away. But Maria likely saw it, as she tightened her hold on Neesa’s hand and gestured for her to sit on the side of the bed.
When his sobs quieted down, she said, “I’m sorry this is a surprise to you. Dan said he hadn’t told anyone, but he was going to tell you when my illness became terminal. He said he would wrap up his business and bring Pedro to America to live with him. He’d find a better, more stable job. And then he went missing.”
Her father’s vengeance now rippled out even further than her own life. He had a son. A son. “What about you? Can you come, too?”
“No. The doctor says three days at the most for me. And I am in too much pain to travel even to the bathroom.” She gave a faint smile. “Morphine gets me through. And Luis and his wife will take care of me through the end. It’s Pedro I’m worried about. He needs to go…now.”
The words were difficult for her, though Neesa didn’t know if it was the pain or the heartache. “Can you tell me how you and my father met? If it’s too much…”
Maria’s wistful smile indicated that it would be worth the effort. “I had a café here, and Dan spent a week in town on business. I didn’t ask what exactly. But I see his face, the sadness. I had just lost my father to a narco raid, and I recognized it. We began talking. And we fell in love. He wanted to take me away, but my mother was ill…like me. She did not want to leave her home country. Then I found out I was pregnant, and it gave her life again. And Dan came whenever he could, and he took care of us. He was thrilled to have a son, since he said his first wife was not able to have more children.”
Neesa nodded. “After me, she had many miscarriages and almost died.” She stroked the boy’s shoulder. “He always wanted a boy. One of each, he’d say. For balance.”
“I know I’m asking a lot.”
The boy was listening to them, but his crying had stilled. She let her hand rest on his shoulder, an unintrusive way to establish a connection. “I know his pain. And…he’s family.”
“Bless you,” Maria said, laying her hand on top of Neesa’s, again linking them. She looked up and mouthed, Thank you, Father. Then she turned back to her son. “Family, Pedro. Do you hear? And Papa will come when he can.” Maria looked at Neesa, conveying the understanding that she knew he might not.
Neesa wasn’t sure whether to tell her what was going on. No, she would leave Maria with hope in these final days.
“Thank you, Neesa. For everything. I can see that my son will be in the best of hands.”
Neesa felt compelled to get Pedro’s papers now and put them in the bag she’d brought in. She then pulled out the photos. “He kept these in his apartment. I can see that he loves you both very much.”
Pedro reached out and took the family photo from when he was just a toddler. He looked tired, spent from tears and likely fear about his future. But the photo brought him visible comfort. She could see her father in his features, in his eyes, and she found comfort from him, too. She brushed his hair, dark-brown and wavy like his mother’s, and he looked at her. And smiled. Just for a moment, but it was a start. She’d get him into therapy to help him cope with his grief. It had helped her and been the inspiration for going into therapy herself. If she would have confided her guilt, well, maybe she’d have healed more. Better.
She looked at Maria. “He’s going to be okay.”
It hit her then, how her life was about to change. While she was his sister, she would be acting as his guardian. He would eventually look to her as a mother—not his real mother, of course, but a mother substitute. She lived adjacent to the retreat property, and the area would be safe and comforting, as well as giving him room to explore as he grew older. God, she knew nothing about raising a boy. But she would learn.
She realized they’d been speaking English this whole time. Speaking in Spanish had become so natural to her these last two months that she hadn’t even noticed. “You’ve been teaching him English,” she said to Maria.
“Yes, and his father did, too. Always the plan to take us to America. For a better life. For a future.” She ruffled his hair.
Pedro still looked sad and terrified. Understandable. They would stay in the area for a few days, let him get to know them. Well, her. She had no idea how Rath fit into her future. The sad truth was, he probably wouldn’t. He had his job in Miami and Carlton. She had her retreat in Sedona and Pedro. This kid, she could trust him. But Rath…he’d already lied to her. And the thought of trusting him with her heart again, well, it terrified her. “Pedro, it will be sad and scary to leave your mamá, and your home here. But I promise I will keep you safe and try to make you as happy as possible.”
Rath had left the room during the last few minutes and was talking to Luis. He leaned into the open door. “We have company.”
And by the ominous tone in his voice and on his face, it wasn’t good.
He looked at Pedro and pointed to the bed. “Get under there and don’t come out no matter what happens.”
He shook his head, clinging even more fervently to his mother, but she pushed him back and ordered him to get under the bed. He scrambled off, and Neesa helped him to crawl beneath the frame. Rath was already back out in the living area.
It sounded like someone had crashed through the front door. She heard gunshots, shouts, and scuffling. Maria whispered to Pedro to stay put. Footsteps pounded across the earth, and Neesa looked out the window but couldn’t see the front of the house. Her insides were tight with fear and adrenaline. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave Maria and Pedro. She pulled out the knife from her waistband, then held it close to her thigh. If she had worried about not having the fortitude to stab a man for her own safety, she knew she’d do it for theirs.
Someone was running to the door while glass broke elsewhere in the house. A strange man came in, a gun at his side. His eyes locked on her, shifted to Maria, then back at her…his target. He pointed the gun at Neesa and simultaneously pulled out zip ties. “You come with me. Run, and I shoot your legs.”
If she tried to throw the knife, he’d shoot her before she even got it into position. She heard more glass breaking in the house, the thump of bodies slamming against a wall.
This man advanced, and suddenly the sound of a gunshot made Neesa flinch. No pain. She felt no pain, but the shock quickly shifted to the sight of the man collapsing to the floor, a clean bullet hole in his forehead. Then Neesa traced the trajectory to Maria, holding a rifle, her face drained of color.
“It’s okay,” she said to Pedro, whimpering beneath the bed. “Stay. We’re okay.”
A second man rushed in, rifle ready, and as Maria pulled the trigger again, he did the same. They both jerked backward in opposite directions, the man falling near his comrade. Maria collapsed on the bed, bleeding from the forehead.
Rath, breathless, staggered to the open doorway, putting eyes on her and sagging in relief before taking in the dead man on the floor. He saw Maria then, and Neesa going to her side and calling her name.
She was gone, so gone.
Pedro knew what had happened, knew it from Neesa calling her name. “Noooo!” He climbed up on the bed and threw his body over hers. His heartrending sobs tore through her, but she knew there was nothing that would salve his pain. Knew it deeply.
“We gotta get out of here,” Rath said.
Neesa nodded, touched Pedro’s back and said it directly to him. He cried even louder, clung harder. She turned to Rath again. “He needs time to absorb what happened.”
“I’m sure he does, Neesa, but more of these people are probably coming.”
She moved closer, leaning close and whispering that they had to leave, that she was already gone. “But she’s still here in spirit. You can talk to her from anywhere.” He probably couldn’t even hear her over his sobs. Rath stepped forward and scooped up the boy, apologizing in Spanish, and when they turned to the door, they met five men holding weapons on them.
“Drop your weapon, or we kill the kid,” one of the men said.
Rath set his gun aside, and another man grabbed it up. One man didn’t have a weapon raised at him, and she knew he was the leader.
He smiled, perfectly comfortable in this scenario apparently, with the boy trying to lean all of his weight toward his mother from within Rath’s hold. The smile dimmed though when he took note of his two men on the floor, blood pooling around them.
His eyes grew fiercer when he looked at them again. “I am José, leader of El Martillo. You are Neesa, daughter to Dan Federson.” He shifted his attention to Rath. “Who are you?”
Rath released Pedro to go to his mother. “She hired me to help find her father,” he said in a business-like voice that she knew was meant to protect her. José would use any feelings they might have against them.
One man kept his gun aimed at the boy. José nodded toward one of his men, who patted Rath down and pulled out his wallet. “Carlton Braithwaite,” the man read from his driver’s license.
“Ex-military?” José asked.
“Long time ago.”
“Your services are no longer needed. Neesa will soon see her father.” He turned to the two men on his right. “Take him out.”
The two men grabbed Rath and pushed him out the door. Neesa knew they didn’t mean just take him out of the room. “Stop! He’s just someone I hired. Let him go.”
José smiled. “Not a chance. He knew what he was getting into. And by killing my men, he knew we’d show him no mercy. That’s how war is. Now, as for you…” But he paused, looking at the woman and now the boy. “Who are these people? The ones who own this house?”
She had never been so afraid for so many people at once. Luis and his wife, Pedro, Rath…and herself. She calculated how quickly she could get her knife from the sheath, and whether she could take out José before his men stopped her. “The woman knew my father. He wanted her to know what he’d done that made him disappear. If there was more, I’ll never know.” She glanced at the dead woman. “Just take me. These people had nothing to do with what my father did.”
I can do this. To save my life, and Pedro’s. I could kill a man. She eyed José’s throat, the most vulnerable, exposed part of him. There. That’s where she’d aim.
José reached into his pocket, and she stiffened. He took out a phone and snapped pictures of Maria and the boy on the bed. And then of Neesa. “Your father is very worried about you. I’m sending some pictures so my associate can show him that you are right here with me.” He grinned, showing a gold tooth. “Safe and sound.”
Pedro’s head lifted. No. Stay down! His face was smeared with tears, but he said, “You have my papá?”
José shoved her toward the man at his left and walked closer to the boy. “Who is your papá, boy? Maybe I can help you find him.”
“No,” Neesa said, as the word burst out of her head. “Let’s just go.”
José was flipping through photos on his phone, and he showed the last one to Pedro. “Is this your father?”
“Si! You have him! Let him go!”
Pedro came at José, and the man on his other side lunged at the boy with a fist. Neesa pulled the knife and swung at José. Though he’d been watching the boy, he reacted in an instant, grabbing for the knife. The blade missed its target and sliced his arm. He growled in pain, distracting the man who’d been about to hit Pedro. The other man punched her, and the pain blacked her out for a few seconds. Pedro’s scream pulled her back, and through bleary vision she found him fighting with the other man. “Noooo! Leave her alone!”
She tried to reach toward him, but her hands were linked together by zip ties. One man held Pedro while the other looped the ties over Pedro’s wriggling wrists and then linked them to hers.
“Let him go!” she shouted. “He just lost his mother.”
José took in the rifle lying on the bed, then his two men. “She was a good shot, too.” He’d tied a scrap of fabric over the slash as though he’d done it many times, then looked at Pedro. “I’m going to take you to your father. You see, I’m your friend.”
The boy quieted, too much anger on his face for a child so young. He clearly knew no friend would clasp him like this. Or punch a woman.
Neesa’s nose throbbed, and blood gushed over her mouth and chin. But that was nothing compared to what was happening here. What was going on with Rath? He was good; he could take care of himself. She had to believe that.
Two shots outside shuddered through her body. Rath! He wasn’t bulletproof. No, no, no.
José and his men hadn’t even flinched. God, they were so cold. Cold enough to kill her and a boy just to make another man suffer. And Rath, she’d brought him here when he could have just left once he’d gotten his answers. Now…now he was gone. Because as much as she wanted to believe he could extricate himself from any situation, he was one unarmed man against two armed ones.
She staggered, unable to hold her own weight. The two men grabbed her and Pedro and hauled them out like cargo. With about as much roughness, too. But she was so numb, so in shock, that she didn’t care. How had this gone so very wrong?
“Just take me,” she said. “He’s only a boy!”
José seemed to regard Pedro. “You are right. Maybe I don’t kill him. Maybe I use him. Train him to be a soldier for me.”
That was only a little less terrifying. “Better if Dan thinks he died, though. A two-for-one, as Americans say.” He grinned at that, as though it bonded them somehow. “A BOGO.”
They formed a tight group walking out to the driveway. There was a produce truck with dancing fruit painted on the side, probably the truck she’d spotted on the drive here. And a large black truck with dark windows parked near it.
“Put them in the van,” José said, then turned toward the right and called out, “Leave his body here! Let’s go.”
“Sir, look!” One of the men pointed at the two flat tires on the truck.
José’s gaze darted all around. “Stay close! If there’s anyone else here, they won’t shoot at us with the woman and boy at risk. Put them in my truck. We go now.”
She saw movement, the men who had killed Rath…except it was Rath, peeking over the top of the produce truck. Relief overwhelmed her so much that she couldn’t stop the gasp coming from her mouth. Which made José glance at her and then quickly to where she’d been looking. She took advantage of their attention being elsewhere to throw herself into the group, knocking them into one another like bowling pins. Giving Rath space to take a shot. She rolled away from them, Pedro automatically coming along, and wrapped herself around him at the explosion of shots. She heard the gruesome thud of bullets hitting flesh, but relief followed that Rath had hit his targets, that this would be over.
José rolled, coming to a crouch and fired back, puncturing the metal of the truck’s roof where Rath had just been. A second man, bleeding from his side, fired too as they both ran to the black truck. Neesa kept rolling them over and over, farther away from the melee. They were too busy firing on each other for either man to think about them. And as José’s truck came to life, they’d rolled beneath one of the ranch vehicles. Safe. Maybe.
Dirt and stones kicked out from the truck’s tires flew at them, but she protected Pedro as best she could within the confines of the space beneath the chassis. He was shivering, hopefully just from emotional shock and not an injury. She couldn’t check just yet. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispered next to his ear.
José was leaving. Rath kept firing at the truck, but he deftly swerved, using avoidance tactics and tore through the open gates. She saw boots tearing across the ground toward her, and behind Rath the body of one of the two men who’d come with José.
“Rath!” she screamed, letting all of her relief out now.
He set an AK-47 style weapon on the ground facing away from them, crouching down and helping her as she tried to wriggle out tethered as she was. He reached into some other hidden pocket in his pants and pulled out a small knife, cutting the ties on both of them.
Pedro wasn’t bleeding, thank God. They both checked him over first, then as she pulled him close, she and Rath looked over each other. He brushed at the blood that had finally slowed down.
“I think he broke my nose, but I’m okay,” she assured him, seeing the horror on his face.
“We gotta go.”
“Wait.” She hugged him hard, just for a second. “I thought you were dead.”
“Me? Nah. I got the better of them, no problem.”
But he’d been hit, a deep red bruise on his cheek and over his eye. He helped her gather Pedro up. He didn’t argue or resist. He was in shock, and while she hated that for him, it helped get him to the truck.
“Tuck him in the back,” she said. “I have to grab my bag with his ID and papers.”
She raced into the house, back into the bedroom where Maria lay so still. “I’ve got him,” she whispered to the woman, then vaguely to the air around them. “I’ve got him now, Mamá. You can go on.” She grabbed her bag and a blanket and ran back to the truck to help Rath tuck the boy into the back area behind the seats.
“I want you to drive, Neesa. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed the AK-47 and another gun and set them on the floorboard as he got in. “I’ll watch for an ambush coming out the gate. Let’s go. And drive fast.”
She gripped the steering wheel in an attempt to still her shaking hands and roared through the entrance, Rath armed and ready. Their plan was to get to the Brownsville crossing, and she took a left and headed north.
With every car they passed coming the other way, Rath tightened his hold on the weapon. And she talked to Pedro, soothing words, a steady stream of verbal comfort when neither of them could physically do so.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“As much as I can be. But I found a surprising moment of peace back there, seeing Pedro and thinking about what would have happened if we hadn’t gotten him out. These narcos… Most of these men were boys who struggled and scrabbled out an existence, watching their parents and grandparents having done the same. And then something happened and they were offered a way out of the struggle. I think about El Gato and the pain I saw on his face at his loss. I think of Angel and what he’d done for his father. And I understand. I mean, it’s terrible and sad and tragic, but I finally understand why they’re here. They get numbed to the violence and fear after a while. Like you said about war, they get used to the violence.”
She turned to him. “You know, I thought I’d forgiven them, but what I feel now, I know that I’d just convinced myself I had for my own peace of mind. Now I know real peace.”
He took her hand in his. “I get what you mean. Forgiving my father gave me the same feeling.”
She gave him a big smile. “Go, us.”
He gave her a nod. “Yeah.”
As they neared civilization, Rath reached into the glove box and grabbed some napkins and a bottle of water, and he gently washed the blood from her face. “You don’t want to go through like this. You should change your shirt, too.”
“I didn’t even think about that.”
The parking lot where they’d left her car was only thirty minutes away, and they reached it without incident. Pedro was asleep, so they left him with his blanket in his grip while Rath stepped out, and she changed.
Then she got out and hugged him again, finally able to let herself really breathe in relief. There were too many authorities here for José to stage any kind of action. Rath held her just as tight, until it finally felt like it was time to step apart.
“Give me your knives. I’m going to need to dump all of these before I cross through.”
She handed him her set from her bags, and then they went over Pedro’s papers to ensure all was there to allow her to take him through.
They reached silence again, looking at each other. “Rath…I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been here. Thank you for everything.”
“I can go after your father, Neesa.”
Those words struck her, hope and fear and gratitude all at once, tugging at her, pushing a yes up her throat. She swallowed it down. She knew what she had to say, as painful as it was. “When I thought you were dead, because of me and my father, it gutted me. I now see my own obsession with finding him. Through what you said about my courage—and yes, stupidity—and how I feel about you putting yourself in danger, I see myself from an objective point of view. No more people dying because of my father’s decision. He doesn’t want that either. I…” She braced his face with her hands. “I love that you’d do that.”
“I want you to believe in people. In men, in love. Not with me; I know I’ve already screwed that up.”
“Just you offering to go, that helps. But honestly, I can’t even think about relationships, romance, none of that right now. You go home to Carlton and get on with your life. I have a whole new life to figure out. We’re both going to be very busy for a while.”
He wrapped his hands on either side of her waist. “Let me know how you and Pedro are doing, okay?”
She nodded. “You, too. With Carlton.”
He nodded, then kissed her softly. So tenderly that it took all she had not to break down. No, she’d been working so hard this whole time to stay strong until he left. He gathered her in his arms for a hug, and it just killed her. Then he stepped back. “I’ll stay here until I see your car go through. Then I’ll ditch these.”
She nodded.
“Call when you’re home.”
“You, too.”
He carried Pedro to her car, where he roused a little from his trauma-induced exhaustion. “It’s okay,” she said, touching his arm. “We’re going to the United States. That will be your home now. Sleep.” She got into her car and joined the line of cars waiting to cross.
And then she let the sobs come.