From the pulsating darkness of the prison, Tavio stared through the bars and fixed his unwavering black gaze on the slim girl standing across the street. Not that she noticed or even looked up. Because of Mia Kemble, he was a nobody now.
He clenched the bars, his hands tight as claws. Angelita probably never gave him a thought.
It galled him that she had escaped and he was still locked up, that Chito was hurt, maybe dying. Tavio sweated all the time as if he had a fever. His crack-laced cigarettes and booze were in short supply in this hellhole.
His flesh was burning up. His nerves felt as taut as guitar strings. Surely he’d go mad if he didn’t get out of here.
Because of Angelita, Octavio Morales was the laughingstock of Mexico. She had escaped, and here he was, caged like a wild beast with rats and other vermin. Her friends had broken her out and shot his right-hand man.
Where were his good friends now, those who had taken his money and gold watches and his stolen trucks for so long? Why didn’t any of them visit him in prison? Why didn’t they show respect? His grip tightened on the bars. He could do with a little respect.
“Be patient, Tavio. When things cool down, we help you,” Guillermo had said on the phone yesterday.
Guillermo! That bastard! He was famous in all the newspapers for his surprise raid on the compound. The press was making him out to be a hero.
Little did they know. Guillermo was a corrupt, ball-less bastard who fantasized he was a tough guy. He fed this fantasy by watching gangster movies constantly and by hanging out with Tavio, pretending he was as tough as he was.
Tavio lived for the day he could strangle Guillermo with his bare hands.
Tavio squinted until the girl’s face blurred. He could almost imagine she was Angelita.
He remembered Angelita’s red hair, her long legs, her white creamy skin. She’d felt like warm satin. Dios, he’d wanted her. He should have raped her—again and again. Maybe now he wouldn’t still burn for her. Maybe none of this would have happened.
Fury gripped him in a vise. For more than a minute, his chest was so tight, he couldn’t breathe.
He’d tried so hard to please his father. Then his father had thrown him out like he was so much rotting basura. He’d tried to please Angelita, and what had she done—the same.
Like Guillermo, she deserved to die.
But more slowly.
First he would teach her a lesson she would never forget. When he thought about what he would do to her, he got hard, and his face dripped with even more perspiration.
He would rape her. When he was done, he would give her to Chito, if he survived, and watch while Chito and his men played with her. When they finished, he would personally break every bone in her body, stroking her hair and her face after each bone shattered.
Then he would throw her out in a dirty street like so much basura. He would kiss her one last time and whisper, “Think of me while you die.”
But first he had to get out.