Page 20 of Shameless in Vegas

I followed the unidentifiable body without protest, still bracing, still trying to mentally escape into the memory of my mother’s eyes, such was my only coping mechanism for being handed over to men to have their way with me.

But today, they had a different task for me. Today would mark the beginning of my transition from merely a sex slave to an assassin.

I was shoved to a stop in a room I could tell from the echo of sounds was made of little more than stone. The blindfold was removed, and I was staring up at the weathered face of Don Marco Reyes, the new leader of Los Dolorosos Cartel.

“Pretty little girl,” he said in Spanish, stroking the side of my cheek with thick fingers that felt like old leather, “I’ve seen how diligent you have been with your studies. So, I have brought you a reward.”

I made no reaction. Anything from them that appeared good on the surface had a dark, sinister underbelly.

He snapped his fingers, and one of his men standing off to the side approached to hand him a stack of papers.

“Do you know who this is, little girl?” he asked, lifting the stack and revealing that they were all glossy, black and white photos.

My memories of so early in my childhood were patchy, but I recognized the light shade and shape of her eyes immediately. My young heart squeezed like it was trapped in a vise. Staring at her face catapulted me backward in time to the one moment of light I could remember amidst such darkness.

“Mamá,” I mumbled.

“That’s right.” Don Marco offered a sinister smile. “I’m impressed that you can still recognize her face after so long.” He tilted his head to one side. “Do you miss her?”

The question itself was harmless enough, but everything about these men was paper-thin gold leaf meticulously applied to toxic rot. Nevertheless, I’d been conditioned like a well-trained dog to submit and comply.

I nodded.

“I bet you would like to see her again,” he added.

My heart lurched with the threat of hope, and I nodded again.

“And that is very sad,” he continued with sympathy as thin and transparent as cellophane. “Because someone has taken her from you.”

You took me from her, hissed the corner of my mind still tethered to the world outside these walls.

I said nothing, and he flipped to the next photo.

Despite being shackled, beaten into submission, and surrounded by men who would definitely kill me one day, I took a staggering step backward.

The gore depicted in the photo was beyond comprehension, even after everything I’d lived through. A woman so badly beaten she was barely recognizable as a woman other than full, naked breasts and the motherly curve of hips. A woman who was clearly just a corpse now.

My breath caught, and my heart lurched again.

The death of hope.

Even the miniscule hope that I knew was feeble.

There wasn’t anything left for me outside the walls behind which I knew they’d keep me trapped forever.

“Your mother was raped and murdered,” Don Marco explained, as though it wasn’t obvious in the first photo, nor the subsequent ones he flipped through.

Rather than a fireball of rage surging through me, my heart and veins simply turned to ice, frost creeping up my spine and snaking through my extremities like I was nothing more than flora being kissed by the first cold snap of winter.

“Little girl,” Don Marco said, holding one photo close to my face, “what would you call a person who would do this to your mother?”

The word whispered from my lips on pure reflex. “An enemy.”

A pleased chuckle shook his fleshy shoulders. “Very good. And what have your studies taught you about enemies?”

“They must be conquered,” I deadpanned once again reflexively.

“What a wonderful student you are,” he praised me, reaching to stroke my face again. “And today you have an examination. I trust that you will pass with flying colors.”

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