“And me,” I said. “Do you know what happens to me? Sanchez is in the desert somewhere, right?”
“Yes,” he said simply. He didn’t care that he was the one informing me. Perhaps because Diego didn’t fear Javier. Diego certainly worked for him — for us — and was a man to be trusted, but Diego was at least twenty years his senior and had more experience in the cartels and in life, more than Javier had.
And Javier needed him.
He went on. “You will have to check with your husband about the details. But if I were you, it should wait.”
“It can’t wait. Juanito just said they are leaving tomorrow. You’re going too?’
His lips came together in a thin line and he didn’t answer, so I knocked on the door instead.
“Jesus Christ, Diego,” Javier swore from the other side. “What part of fuck and off do you not understand?”
I knew that Diego was giving me an “it’s your funeral” look under those glasses but I didn’t care. I put my hand on the knob and opened the door.
I stormed into the room, slamming the door behind me.
Javier wasn’t with another woman, not at the moment. He had just been standing at the window and staring out at the jungle and the craggy hills that rose above it in the distance, barely visible now in the dusk. An open bottle of tequila and a full highball glass were on the table.
He whirled around, ready to rage, his amber eyes flashing, but when he saw it was me, he stopped, stunned.
“Luisa,” he said. Just the sound of his voice made me realize that I hadn’t come to find him in a long time.
But I wasn’t there to make nice, not now. He might have been mad over some dumb mistake one of our men had made, but I was even more so.
“Why didn’t you tell me!?” I yelled at him, marching right over to the window.
He swallowed and took his time before he answered. “About what?”
I gestured to the room. “Everything. You already got the federale?”
He swallowed then raised his chin to look down on me. “What’s your point?”
“My point?” I repeated, flabbergasted. I could feel my throat getting thick, my face growing hot. I prayed I wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t be weak. “My point is … is … Javier, I’m sick and tired of you pushing me away like this. Not telling me anything. We used to be a team.”
His eyes didn’t change. His face became expressionless, like stone. “There was a place for that. Things are different now.”
“But I am still your wife!”
“And you knew what you were marrying when you agreed to become my wife,” he said, an edge now in his voice. “And sometimes, you have to accept that. Accept this.”
“Accept that you kidnapped a federale without telling me about it, and are now holding him in the desert somewhere, where you are going tomorrow, all while I’m supposed to stay here?!”
He raised a brow ever so slightly. “It is no place for a lady.”
“Oh, we both know I am not and never will be a lady,” I said, almost sneering. “You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
“So what if I am?”
I froze, caught off-guard. He’d said that far too easily. “Just like that … I’m suddenly someone to be thrown away. You used to love me!” I pressed my hand hard into his chest where his heart should have been.
With a slight narrowing of his eyes, he said, “This is for your own good. Don’t try and twist it around with some feminine woe-is-me bullshit.”
“Woe is me?” I repeated incredulously.
“There are bigger things going on here than just your feelings,” he said, stepping back and away from my hand, like he couldn’t stand for me to touch him at all. “Things that affect us all.”
“Well how the fuck am I supposed to know that when you don’t tell me anything?!”
He turned around, chewing on his lip briefly. “You want to know what’s going on?” he asked, his smooth tone suggesting I shouldn’t even be informed. “Our sicarios took Evaristo right out of his apartment outside Tijuana. He’s now at one of our fincas, outside the shithole town of La Perla, where he will stay until he gives us the information we need. When I get that information, I will take control over the Tijuana plaza.”
“It’s too risky,” I said.
“And that’s why I never asked for your opinion,” he stated. “Because I knew that’s what you’d say.”
“Kidnapping a federale, Javier …”
“It’s already been done,” he snapped. “And he will talk. And we will get what we want.”
“But I won’t get what I want.” I let my words hang in the air. I wanted him to snap at them. He didn’t, though. Because he knew.
He looked away. “Is that it?” he said softly. “You wanted to yell at me because I’m trying to keep you safe?”
“How is keeping me here safe? You think because Artur and some of the guards will protect me? The only person who can really protect me is you.” And what I didn’t want to say was that I was afraid that if he left me here, he’d leave me to die. That it could all be part of some plan to get rid of me. Not the best thing to think about your husband, but I couldn’t help it. I felt lost with rage and rejection, and everything seemed like a threat.
“The federales could come for Evaristo. They may track us. You would be safer here.”