Page 4 of Possession

My chariot awaits to deliver me to hell on earth.

My new reality.

I’m forced to swallow down the taste of bile that bubbles in my throat. I don’t say goodbye to my parents.

“Sit in the middle,” the man demands before lifting me with no issue and pushing me into the icebox of an SUV. He shoves the train of my dress at my feet and slams the door.

My blood pulses, echoing in my ears.

This is it.

Another man sits behind the wheel. He’s also dressed for my demise in a crisp black suit.

And now I wonder if everyone is wearing black but me. Even my mother is donning a black dress.

Fitting, I guess. This might as well be my funeral.

The driver doesn’t acknowledge me, but he does turn to his partner who climbs in the passenger seat. “We’re late, Boz.”

Boz.

What a name.

Boz produces a handgun from inside his suit jacket and rests it on his thick thigh. He doesn’t mince words around me. “Shit show in there. Alba looks like he might crap his pants at any minute. His wife is a fucking mess.”

My weight is pulled back into the smooth leather as the SUV takes off. I’m not sure if it’s instinct or purely a reason to keep my hands busy, but I pull the seatbelt across me and click it. My new prison guards don’t do the same as we exit the resort property and enter the streets of Tijuana.

Growing up in San Diego, I’ve been here more times than I can count. It’s packed and colorful, just like it always is. People are carrying on about their day as we speed through the streets in a caravan. I’ve never been here when the traffic wasn’t congested and bumper to bumper.

I wonder if my fiancé had the streets closed for us.

Only a government official or cartel could make that happen.

Boz and the driver don’t speak as the world flies by. I wonder where we’re going and how long it will take to get there, but I don’t dare ask. I’m afraid to open my mouth for fear of what will come out.

I also wonder how badly it would hurt if I opened my door and threw myself from the moving car. Surely Damian Marino wouldn’t want to sayI doto a bloody bride standing before him covered in road rash.

Maybe I wouldn’t survive.

I can think of worse things.

Like marrying the evil son of a cartel leader who will take over the helm someday.

Damn.

I should never have hooked my seatbelt.

I’m rocked to the side when the driver takes a sharp turn. We’re leaving the touristy area and moving off the beaten track. The roads are narrow and bumpy. These are areas my friends and I never ventured in all those times when we’d come for the day and think we were brave and daring, getting drunk on tequila because no one cared how old we were. When we were here, we were out from under the control and protection of our parents.

That thought is laughable now. The protection of my parents is a joke.

If I only knew what my future held back then.

I should’ve run for the hills.

Or Canada.

The farther we move out of the city and from the Pacific, real-life Mexico appears. I will time to stand still, but as the days and hours have turned into precious minutes, very little is on my side, least of all time.

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