This is the right question to ask, it seems, as Luis resumes his casual pacing. “I’m sure my friends and I could come up with a few things.”
Maybe I can just keep him talking.
“I’m worth more to you alive.”
Luis steps forward, very purposefully stepping into my space. “Oh, don’t you worry. I very much intend on keeping you alive.”
I remember thinking once that Luis was quite handsome. But here, up close and personal, he is truly the most ugly thing I’ve ever seen. He has malicious eyes that feed off every expression of fear he can rip from me.
I wonder, awfully, if this is the last face I’ll see.
If it is, I vow to take those terrible eyes with me.
I flex my fingers again. My nails are sharp as claws. Yes. I can do it. I can get at least one good shot in before…well.
The others are closing in around us now. The patrons by the door abandon their posts to get a closer look. The men at the bar are jeering at Luis’ shoulders, half whispering obscenities into his ear.
Will I have a chance to claw at them, too? Or will they watch me brutalize their leader and decide it’s safer to keep my hands restrained?
If they have any foresight at all, they’ll do that first.
“You know, I really thought the cartel was smarter than this,” I say stubbornly. “You think the casino is all my brother intends to burn? You lay one finger on me, and your ships will sink to the bottom of the bay.”
Luis very pointedly lifts a single finger and runs it down my cheek. The touch burns in a festering kind of way as if he’s smudged acid across my skin.
“Your brother barely has enough manpower to take on the Guild. He wouldn’t get within ten blocks of our docks before we destroyed that fanciful ego of his.”
His finger withdraws, and I let out a small gasp of relief.
How could I have been welcoming death only a few hours ago?
When here, right now, everything inside of me is begging for me to live. Tolive,damn it.
Because this man doesn’t get to kill me.
That honor goes to the only man I’ve ever truly loved.
And it's horribly cruel that this realization hits me right now. Because if I’d figured it out sooner, if I’d juststayedthere in the bunker, safe and sound, I could have prevented all of this.
I could have told him. I could have begged him to kill me instead of facing oblivion without him.
Because death would be sweet if his was the last face I saw.
But the thing about death is it’s never quite so predictable. You don’t get to choose or know when you might face it.
And the cartel, well.
They’re certainly not expecting it to visit today.
But the door to the bar opens anyway, and death walks in.
And all I can do is laugh at the bitter, gorgeous irony of it all.
“Oh, you’re all fucked now.”
23
TEO
