Silvana’s heartless laughter drowns out everything but the roar of my pulse in my ears.
Across the clearing, Indiana stands. He can see that something is wrong, but I shake my head, telling him to stay back. I don’t want him to hear any of this.
Drug trafficker.
My father quit working for Moreno nine months ago.
Uncle David died nine months ago.
There are no coincidences.
My voice is an angry whisper. “Did my dad stop working for you because you killed his brother, or was it the other way around?”
“Brother . . . ?” Silvana laughs again, but this time the humor doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s not going to answer my question. No one wants to talk about what happened to my uncle.
“Sit, princesa.” She pulls me down onto the stump again, and my bag hits the dirt at my feet. “You want to talk to your daddy? Vale, I’m going to give you ten seconds to convince your father to ship Sebastián’s product,” she says as she takes the clunky satellite phone from her pocket.
Her watch reads two thirty. My dad still has thirty minutes left until the deadline, but she clearly thinks he needs a nudge.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m not going to ask him to help you kill people. That’s not going to solve the world’s problems.”
Silvana grabs my chin, and I pretend her grip doesn’t hurt. “Don’t mistake me for one of Sebastián’s bleeding hearts, niña. I don’t give a shit about Colombia’s problems. I’m here to collect ransoms and secure distribution, so you can talk your father into cooperating, or we can let him listen over the phone while Álvaro takes you apart piece by piece.”
She lets me go, and my focus strays to Álvaro, who’s sharpening his machete with a large rock.
The stump I’m sitting on suddenly feels unsteady. All I can hear is the metallic scrape of that rock across Álvaro’s blade. All I can see is sunlight glinting off the sharp edge.
I fight to slow my breathing and when I tear my gaze from the machete, it’s drawn to Indiana. He’s leaning against a tree on the edge of the clearing, watching me. Ready to step in at the first sign that I need help, in spite of the personal risk.
If I tell my dad not to help Sebastián, I’ll be sacrificing Indiana and all the other hostages, along with myself. I have no right to do that. I don’t want to do that. But I can’t—
Silvana autodials a number, and my heart races while the phone rings. Once. Twice. “If you try to tell your papi where you are, I will slit your boyfriend’s throat right in front of you.”
“Hello?” my father says, and a sob explodes from my throat. “Silvana?”
She hands me the phone, and I grip it like a drowning man clutching a life raft. “Papi?”
“Genesis.” He sounds so relieved. “Are you okay? Have they hurt you?”
“I . . .” The words freeze on my tongue.
“Listen, princesa, don’t talk to them. Don’t listen to them. Don’t even look at them. Just sit tight and be smart. I’m going to get you out—”
“Don’t do it, Dad.” I swallow a sob and clear my throat. Then I suck in another breath and say the worst thing I’ve ever said to my father. The only thing that will work. “If you help them hurt those people, I swear to God, I’ll slit my own throat right here in the jungle.”
Silvana snatches the phone from me and slaps me across the face so hard that I land on the ground, two feet from the stump I was sitting on.
“Genesis!” my father shouts over the line.
Indiana lurches into motion, then freezes when Silvana points her pistol at him. But his focus stays glued to me.
“We both know your princesa won’t do that,” she spits into the phone as I bring my hand to my burning left cheek. “Álvaro’s here, Hernán, and he’s itching to show Genesis what you’ve been shielding her from, up in that ivory tower.”
This is why my father is so paranoid and protective. This is why I had to take Krav Maga and learn to shoot. This is why he wouldn’t let me come to Colombia.
Why my uncle was murdered. Why I was kidnapped. Why Ryan was shot.
And my mom . . . ?
I hear a thud, and my mother makes a strange sound. A hurting sound. Tears leak from the corners of my closed eyes. There’s another thud, and she gasps. My whole body shakes.
The thuds go on, and she stops making noises. But I keep my eyes squeezed shut.
I am a good girl.
“This is your daddy’s fault,” the man says as his footsteps thump closer.
My father shouts from the other end of the line, making threats I can’t understand, with my heart hammering in my ears.
“I’m going to give you one more chance,” Silvana says into the phone. “If I don’t hear from you by midnight with the coordinates of your closest ship, you know what we’ll do to her, Hernán.” Silvana hangs the phone up and slides it into her pocket.
My father’s furious shouting echoes in my head as she picks up her bottle and leaves me shaking on the ground, in the ruins of the delusion I’ve been living my whole life.