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I splash water on my face and twist my hair up in a topknot. I throw on a matching white sweat suit that’s soft and comforting. I don’t bother with my skin routine or anything other than the bare minimum. I just need to survive now. Get through this and somehow get out of it.
I make my way down to the kitchen and find Mark there, fixing something. I stop when I see him, because he’s wearing a tight workout shirt. Much more fitted than anything I’ve seen him in before. The sleeves are short and his biceps bulge out, showing more of his scarred skin than ever before.
My immediate urge is to comfort him. To touch the markings and tell him how sorry I am. But then, is that what he wants? Is this just a way to manipulate me? To pull on my heart so I’ll agree to what he wants?
“Good morning,” he says before he can see me. Then he turns and freezes.“Jodeme, te ves como un ángel.” Fuck me, you look like an angel.There’s that perfect Spanish again. I look at his arms from the front now, noticing that all the markings end almost right at his elbow. Mark clears his throat. “Sorry, I’ll go change. I came straight here from the gym.”
I look away from his arms, but I don’t know what to say so I just stand there.
He pushes a plate across the bar to me. “We can’t cook right now since the house should be empty but there were some bagels and fruit.”
“Thanks.” I sit at the barstool.
“I’ll be right back,” He leaves me with the food. In just a minute, he’s back and headed into the pantry. Covered from head to toe, in another loose long sleeve tee, but wearing gray sweatpants. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in those. I don’t know exactly why I’m even noticing it. I hear the whirring of one of his fancy machines. In a minute, he’s back with two coffees. “You need to eat, Eleanna.”
I look down at my plate. I haven’t so much as picked up my fork. “Hard to find my appetite, I guess.”
He leans onto his arms across the bar from me. “I’ll talk, you eat. The more you understand, the better you’ll feel.” I raise my eyebrows making him add, “Probably.” I nod and let him start talking. “First, I want you to know this was never the plan. I never meant to hurt you or put you in this position. Use you, yes. But I told you that from the start.” I huff at him and the way he says that as if he’s oh so magnanimous. “If you get cheeky with me, it will be difficult to focus, wife.” That shuts me right up. He takes a sip of coffee and studies me over the cup.
He moves back and leans against the far counter, settling in. “So you know my story. Burned alive, left for dead. There are many more like me. Orphans, widows, widowers, survivors. O found us, helped us. And gave us an outlet for revenge. I’ve been training to get close to your uncle since I was five. The parents who adopted me, the schools I went to, people I’ve been seen with or connected to, all of the politics, the Senate. It all led to Delgado. To marrying you.” He pauses. “Ellie, baby, you have to eat.”
I take a bite of my bagel.
He goes on, “We wanted to get close to see how he is bringing in billions of dollars worth of weapons and drugs. So many drugs. It would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen some of your uncle’s plans for myself. But it’s not just that. We can track his vehicles now, which we thought would lead us to his warehouses. But your uncle is a smart man. He has hundreds of decoy vehicles and decoy buildings. We still don’t know where he is keeping the actual product. Or why, exactly, he’s so secretive. It’s not like the Feds are anywhere close to taking him down, he’s powerful way beyond them, so why all the smoke and mirrors?”
He moves forward and leans toward me again. “There is something much bigger going on with his imports. He is making way more money than he should for the drugs that we know about. Which means he has secret product coming in. Could be sex slaves, could be children. Could be a new kind of weapon we don’t know about yet. We don’t what it is, we just know there’s a missing piece. And we need to find it.”
I straighten. “There’s no way it’s children or sex slaves. My family respects women.”
“Like my mamá and abuela? Like my little sister they let scream?” He pushes off the counter, frustrated. “Your arm, think of how it ached. That was a flash of flame, just a second. My family burned alive, they felt—“ He stops himself. His eyes are misty, mine are wet. I can’t imagine it. I can’t believe it.
“How do you know for sure it was my tío? My Abuelo?”
He sniffs. “O presented me with evidence to explain how the coffee shop worked at cleaning the money. But I did a lot of digging on my own later, as a teen, then again when I started to gain money of my own, political power, desperate to confirm the truth. To find out anything I could about my family. People in the neighborhood loved my Papá and his shop. I was able to get a lot of information. All the same. That he was a wonderful man who fell into the wrong line of work. I also have contacts withinla familia. Within all the syndicates. We have spies everywhere. They all said the same thing. Delgado senior gave the order, and junior lit the match himself.”
“And myPapá?” I croak.
“He is a lot younger than your uncle. He wasn’t there. But he’s beenthereplenty in the last two decades.” I shake my head but he talks faster. “I know. I know it’s difficult to hear, but at the same time, you knew this already. We live in the underworld, Eleanna. We’re children of hell. We didn’t choose this, but it’s the lot God gave us, for some reason.”
“You believe in God?” I find myself asking.
“I do.”
“But you didn’t want to get married in the church?”
His face twists with disgust. “Because it’s fucking blasphemy. The men who do the devil’s work, with pride, showing up at Mass every Sunday, pretending to have some shred of faith or a single stitch of moral fiber.” I’m surprised by this, and he sees it on my face. “This world is a cesspool. I’ve seen the depths of our depravity. And yet, there is still somehow good here. No thanks to us. In spite of us. There’s love, light, grace.” He looks up at me. “Like you.”
I sigh, trying not to be affected by his words. “Stop. Stop that. Just tell me, what is it you want from me?”
After what feels like an eternity, he stops staring at me. He goes back to his coffee. “First, we have to convince them that the Italians took me. Then, once you’re back inside, we need you to find some information for us.”
“You want me to spy? To spy for you?” My voice shoots up along with my eyebrows.
“Not for me. For my sister, my mamá. For all the innocents left to die in the shadows. For whoever is being exploited and hurt right now in this grand scheme. It’s much bigger than your uncle. His web connects to all the other syndicates, other cities and countries, maybe even up into our own fucking government.”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“You can, Eleanna. You are the picture of strength under pressure. You’ve been with me step for step, one fake-ass smile at a time.”
