Page 46 of Cartel Viper
I let the silence envelop us; this time in no rush for her to continue. I’m happy to give her time to process everything. I take her hand and lead her over to the bed. We both kick off our shoes before climbing on. I sit propped against the headboard and lift her onto my lap. She sits sideways at first, but then doesn’t like it, moving to straddle me, making it easier for us to see each other.
“Javi, I have a lot of his money tucked away. Far more than I’m certain he suspects. But I also hid more than half of his last shipment that he wanted me to run across the border.”
“Do you use it?” I don’t want to ask that question, so the words are slow to come out.
“No, never. I’m a nurse. I know what that shit does to you. I kept it as security. It’s hidden somewhere he’ll never find.”
“Maddy, you need to tell me exactly where it is.”
She bites her bottom lip, and I know she wants to shake her head. I don’t think it’s because she doesn’t trust me enough. I think she fears how I’ll react.
“Little one, I can’t help you if I don’t know.”
She takes a deep inhale, and I watch her chest cave as she exhales.
“I promise you it’s the one place none of them would think to look. You’re going to believe I’m the worst kind of person for this. But it was the only place I felt certain was safe.”
I want to tell her to hurry up and spit it out, but I’m not interrogating some guy I’m getting bored with and just want to kill to be done with it. This is my terrified girlfriend.
“You’re going to think I’m the worst kind of Catholic.”
All I do is cock an eyebrow to that, considering I’m about as lapsed a Catholic as there can be. All the members of the Four Families have complicated relationships with God andtheir faiths. Three families are Roman Catholic, and one’s East Orthodox. We all grew up being altar servers as kids. I sang in the children’s choir at my church in Bogotá. But it’s difficult to do the things we do and believe confession is enough for absolution when we know we’re going to commit the same sins repeatedly. Willingly.
“He thought I wasn’t back yet after my last run. So, one night, I visited the cemetery where they buried his grandparents. They cremated his maternal ones, so they’re in a mausoleum, but his paternal ones have plots next to each other. It was almost too dark to see what I was doing, but I made it work.”
From the way she watches me, I know she wants me to deduce what she means rather than having to confess it.
“You buried his drugs with his grandparents.”
She bites her bottom lip again before she raises her gaze to meet mine. Her shoulders go back, and her chin comes up.
“I did.” The note of defiance in her voice is a tremendous relief.
“Good. You’re right. That’s the last place they would think to look.”
“You don’t think I’ll burn in hell for disrupting someone’s eternal resting place?”
“No. His grandmother wasn’t too bad, but his grandfather was a piece of shit. A complete douche. It’s not surprising Drew turned out the way he did.”
“Did you know his grandfather?”
“No. All four of his grandparents died before I moved to America, but I’ve certainly heard enough about them. I’ve seen video and heard recordings of his grandfathers along with stories that would’ve been better left untold. Where’s the money you took from him?”
“Some of it’s in the secret bank account I opened under an alias. Some of it is with me, but most of it is with the drugs. Javi, what I said to him—it—wasn’t an empty threat.”
“I didn’t get the feeling it was. Have you killed before?”
“Yes.”
Her gaze is unwavering as she answers. I don’t know if she’s really as brave as she looks, but she’s certainly doing her best to convince me. I know she has to be pretty fucking brave to have endured what I’m figuring out she already has. She’s only giving me a hint of what the entire story is. I sense it’s all she’ll give me for now.
She’s kept her secrets for so long, it won’t be overnight that she divulges all of them. I know it’s not a matter of not trusting me. She’s terrified and has been for years. She still thinks she needs to hide the truth to survive. It’s on me to show her she isn’t misplacing her trust after the disaster she discovered the last time she trusted a man.
“Chica, you’re safe here with me. That hasn’t changed just because you spoke to him. I know your burner doesn’t have GPS, but I’ll still dispose of it. You must have had your calls forwarded to that one. You can check your messages from my phone, and you can tell anyone you need to call back that you lost or broke it. The house has jammers, VPNs, and spoofers. No one is tracking you here.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
She watches me for a long moment before shifting her gaze to her lap. She moves only enough to breathe. She’s not any more relaxed now than she was while we stood beside the bed. I press her against me and kiss the crown of her head.
