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5
With tears burning her eyes, Laila jerked away from Victor’s mouth on her neck and groped for the empty bottle of tequila. Thanking God the glass was thick, she bonked him on the head.
She didn’t hit him hard enough. Instead of passing out, he stiffened, lifted his head, and glared, eyes narrow with rage.
Fear flared through Laila as she dropped the phone on the nightstand and prepared to fight for her life. Yes, she knew Victor’s tricks. It helped that she was more nimble and clever. But when he was this drunk, he usually passed out. Why hadn’t he this time?
Panic gripped her. She’d already made the agonizing choice to hurt Trees—and stab herself in the heart—to save him. She still had to make her sister and her nephew safe. Whatever that took—even if she had to scheme, lie, cheat, steal, or kill—she would do it so that neither Victor nor Montilla threatened her loved ones again.
First, she had to get Victor off of her.
He had other ideas. After he wrapped his fingers around her neck with a growl, he squeezed until he cut off her air. “You want to play rough, bitch?”
She choked, unable to answer—not that he would care if she spoke. He’d often threatened her, but in the past few years, she’d stopped believing he would actually kill her. The way he strangled her now had her changing her mind. Terror soaked her veins. She clawed at his hands and kicked for freedom. Victor didn’t budge.
Black spots danced in her vision. Her lungs burned. But she couldn’t lie still and hope he found mercy. He had none.
With her head swimming, she smacked his head with the bottle harder, praying it wouldn’t shatter. This time, he collapsed on top of her, now deadweight.
As his hands fell away from her throat, Laila coughed and gasped in precious air, despite being trapped under his unmoving body.
Dios, had she killed him? A part of her celebrated that idea, but that was her selfish desire. Victor’s death would mean the loss of her pawn. That wouldn’t keep her loved ones safe.
A quick touch to Victor’s carotid proved his black heart beat on.
With a shudder of disgust, Laila shoved him off of her. He lay unmoving, facedown across the mattress, with his pale backside in the air and his boxers halfway to his knees.
“Cabrón.” She spit, then backed away, trying not to hyperventilate. “I hate you. You will never touch me again. Never!”
She forced herself to think. What next? Send the video to Trees?
Yes, but did she need to if she could simply escape and return to the man she loved?
That notion filled Laila with relief as she reached for the phone with shaking hands, stopped recording, then disabled the device’s password. Happiness pinged to every corner of her body—until she realized that Victor would only come after her—and he would start by hunting down Trees, who would try to kill Victor on her behalf. After his injuries, she couldn’t take a chance Trees would lose that fight. And she had her family to think about, too. They would never be safe as long as Montilla lived, and since Laila could never hope to kill him alone, she still needed Victor to at least weaken him.
So escaping this hellhole and Victor wasn’t a possibility.
On the other hand, if she stayed, Victor might actually kill her. Then she’d be unable to help her family at all.
Panic encroached again. Laila tried to breathe and think of some solution. Absently, she groped around for clothes, but her white skirt and blouse were ruined, stiff and stained with Trees’s blood. Even if she could leave Victor, those garments would draw too much attention. She would have to make do with something of his.
Wincing, she yanked off his boxers and donned them. Then she grabbed his shirt off the nearby chair, where he’d tossed his discarded clothes. It was musky and it smelled like him. The stench made her want to vomit, but she couldn’t waste time recoiling. She had to sort through the jumble of her thoughts and decide what to do.
As Laila slipped on the shirt, her thoughts drifted back to Trees. She didn’t want to send him the horrible video of her “passion” with Victor, but she couldn’t risk him coming to rescue her and running head on into this dangerous vendetta when he should be healing. Eventually, he would find a nice girl without baggage and a nightmarish past, like Madison. She would make him happy.
That reality made Laila cry.
She swiped at her tears angrily and retrieved Victor’s phone, then forced herself to buck up and ask Valeria for Trees’s email address. While she waited for the information, she edited the video to remove all the footage that would prove she’d staged the scene. As she saved that version, her sister sent Trees’s email address.
Taking a deep breath, Laila drafted the man she loved a wrenching lie. She sobbed as she bled each word from her heart. Trees had undoubtedly given the address in trust, hoping it would somehow help him rescue her. Certainly, he hadn’t imagined she would use it to tear them apart.
When she finished typing, she reread it, tears flowing. She raised her finger above the button to send it…but she hesitated. She would give anything not to press Send. It was unforgivable. It would murder whatever he felt for her. Yes, she’d been over all the reasons she must. But…maybe there was some other way to keep Trees from coming to her rescue.
What?
Suddenly, she remembered the informant feeding Victor information. What if she worked with him herself and found another way to bring Montilla down? Maybe she could escape Victor and return to Trees after all—without ever hurting him—while still keeping her family safe.
Excitedly, Laila set the phone aside and dug the keys to the truck from Victor’s pants pocket. Beside them, a giant wad of cash all but fell into her palm. It was more money than she had ever seen in her life. Drug money, no doubt. Payment he had taken for selling poison chemicals to gringos looking to escape the monotony of their boring, “stressful” lives.
In her brother-in-law’s compound, they had offered her narcotics regularly. Once, shortly after the first rape, she had accepted. But the drugs had made her feel sick and less in control. She’d hated the high. It had also made her more of a target for the ruthless men Emilo had employed. Never again.
