Page 14 of City of Salvation

“Ernesto, get your ass out here and watch the front. I’ve got a meeting,” she called out, moving toward the small office tucked in the back corner of her shop. I swore she had a sixth sense because I hadn’t even told her I needed her help, yet she somehow knew this wasn’t a social call.

We passed the rows of liquor bottles, all locked behind white caged doors. Val sold all sorts of things, including items you wouldn’t find on shelves. Those sales happened back here.

“What brings you in here,mija?” she asked, sitting in an office chair held together by duct tape and prayers. I’d tried to get her a new one, but she’d swatted me away, saying my generation was addicted to buying shit. She had accepted the new shoes I’d gifted her after she’d complained about her back for the millionth time.

The click of the door behind me felt like an omen.

I’d gotten comfortable here. Too comfortable. When I’d landed in the States, I’d planned to move every few monthsand stay out of the major cities—especially New York. I’d stuck to that until I met Ryan. Told myself that being in cartel territory would protect me, but the truth was, I’d looked for any excuse to stay after clicking with her. I’d seen some of myself in her and her fucked up relationship with Mario. I couldn’t leave until I knew his hold on her was broken. Now, it was.

“Can you get me a burner phone?” I asked with a heavy sigh, finally pushing off my hood. The stifling heat of her office wasn’t helping my already frayed nerves. She leaned back in her chair. I waited for it to collapse under her weight, but the thing held.

“Stop giving my chair those dirty looks and explain why you’re coming tometo get a burner when I know damn well youpersonallyknow La Brujita.”

I knew she’d ask that. It was the obvious question. I’d hoped my rapport with her would’ve earned me ano questionsdeal, but Val was too smart for that. Information was the real bargaining chip in the underbelly of the streets.

Pushing off the old door, I slid into the metal chair in front of the folding table turned desk. Stacks of paperwork and God only knew what else teetered on the edges. Val didn’t have any ties with the cartel, but she had her own little world she was in charge of. Los Muertos didn’t give a second thought to the smaller organizations that operated in Tucson. They could do whatever they liked as long as they never crossed Los Muertos’s boundary lines or took any of their business.

My elbows dug into my knees as I leaned closer to the old woman, careful to keep my voice low. The walls in here were paper-thin, and someone was always listening.

“Alright, I’ll cut to the chase here. My feet hurt, I’m hungry, and my life is slightly fucked. So, pretty please, willyou tell me what the fuck you’ve heard lately?” I asked, ignoring her questions, hoping my pouting bottom lip would earn me some sympathy.

It was doubtful though.

She steepled her aged fingers while her shrewd gaze picked me apart. Behind the wrinkled skin and graying hair, Val was a predator watching for the weak spot to strike. When stripping, a mile wide smile that was borderline painful was my go-to mask, but that wouldn’t work with Val. The pout clearly wasn’t doing it. I blanked my face, keeping my body relaxed. Then I leaned back, kicking a leg over the other like I was at a fucking Sunday brunch.

She might be fond of me, but there was still a price for her intel. If she sensed how desperate I was for what she knew, that price would take a steep turn upward.

Finally, she broke the silence. “You’re not very good at this,mija. You want any ol’ information I have or you wanna know something specific?” She didn’t give me a chance to answer. “I assume you mean what I’ve heard about you? Consider this a warning to get the fuck out of town. Because someone wants that cute white ass of yours.”

My heart kicked up in my chest. It wasn’t anything I didn’t know, but the confirmation from some else moved it firmly from the category ofyou’re paranoidtoyou’re fucked.

She opened the top drawer of her filing cabinet and sent a phone skittering across the top. “Few months ago, some anonymous person started asking about dancers at Lotería. Specifically, this one.” Vic paused to pull something else out of the metal drawer. This time, it was a pack of cigarettes and a piece of printer paper with a grainy image, an image I knew far too well. I stiffened in my seat.

Fuck. I shouldn’t have come.

She lit up a cigarette, taking a long drag and quirking aneyebrow at me as if to say,“Who the fuck did you piss off?”But I kept quiet and didn’t make a move for either of the things she’d pushed across the desk toward me.

It was a lesson I’d learned as a child. Nothing was ever a gift unless you were expressly told, and I didn’t want to be indebted to anyone without knowing the price. The corner of Val’s mouth inched up ever so slightly around the dangling cigarette. The lines on my face had apparently revealed my thoughts.

Tension built as smoke wafted between us, creating a hazy filter as we stared at one another.

“Picture is shit, but I’d recognize that determined look anywhere,” she said, the crepey skin around her eyes wrinkling further as she narrowed them.

The tiny room felt like it was growing smaller by the second. The weight of my past threatened to crush me, yet I didn’t let any of my fears surface, keeping them tucked down deep. I shoved my hands under my thighs, preventing myself from gnawing on my cuticles. A bad habit my ballet professor, Katya, never managed to break me of.

“You give them a name?” I asked, shifting my weight to my toes in case I needed to dash for the door behind me.

She ashed the white stick on the plastic top, filling the room with the foul scent. “I’m not a fucking disloyal narc.” Her words were harsh—offended. “Though, I should’ve given you up if that’s what you think of me.” Her tone was hurt, and I gave her a sheepish, apologetic look.

“Sorry. I had someone come into Lotería with a note for me and I am trying to figure out who sent the messenger.” I pulled my gaze away to study the aged newspaper clippings that adorned her walls. Yellowed and curling at the corners, a collage of Tucson’s history, and her own, no doubt. I already knew who’d sent him, but there was a small delusional part ofme that was hoping it could be someone else. Someone like Katya or a person from my past that wondered what happened to me when I never showed up in New York as planned.

But I knew that wouldn’t be the case.

“You’ve been burned before.” It wasn’t a question, yet I knew she was looking for confirmation. She sighed when I didn’t respond, continuing to study the black-and-white text until she continued on. “No. I didn’t say shit.”

Something in the way she said it told me it was the truth.

“Anything else you can tell me?” I asked.

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