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‘You still with me?’ Guillermo asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I nodded. The sorrow inside me splintered, became two halves of something that birthed something new.
Rage. The sort of quiet rage that turns men into monsters. I felt it crack apart the grief in my chest and travel like vine tendrils, down my veins, until my fingertips and my toes and my cheeks hummed with a hot fury that felt like a fever.
I vowed to kill Emilio Ross if it was the last thing I ever did.
CHAPTER FIVE
MARIANA
‘Where are we going?’ I asked Guillermo as we drove.
‘Home,’ he replied firmly.
Home. I’d had a home, once upon a time.
The small cardboard box on my lap weighed barely a pound, but its weight on my existence was unbearable. This child would never have a home, unless you counted the ground where I would finally bury his remains.
Guillermo handled the car silently and with purpose, occasionally turning his head ever so slightly to look at me. To check on me? I didn’t return his gaze; I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything except think about the dead baby who had now been reduced to ash and dust and poured into a small box as if he had never existed.
The freeway traffic was heavy, and it took us a long time to go across town to Santa Monica. By the time I’d walked into my apartment I was seething. I was rage personified.
‘Hey, we gotta talk about this shit. We’re due to see the big man. Where do you think you’re going?’
I didn’t bother to stop to acknowledge his question. I was on a mission. I stormed into my room, hot tears threatening to roll down my cheeks. I hadn’t let myself think about Emilio while I watched the baby burn, because it had seemed disrespectful to be considering my problems when a child was decomposing into ash in front of my very eyes.
Guillermo followed me into my bedroom, and that pissed me off. I couldn’t even indulge my rage in private, it seemed. I turned on him, pushing my palms against his broad shoulders.
‘Give me five fucking minutes, Guillermo,’ I muttered, pointing to the door. He didn’t move.
‘Get out!’ I yelled. ‘Just go.’ I was going to cry. I was going to cry, and once I started, I wasn’t sure if or when I could stop. It was like there was a tidal wave of fear and rage and sorrow that had been building up inside me for ten years, and it had reached tsunami proportions. I was about to lose my shit, and I was about to lose it in a massive way.
But Guillermo didn’t just go. I pushed him again, hard, and he grabbed my wrists, shaking me. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he breathed, his eyes narrowed to slits.
I couldn’t see his face anymore. All I could see was rage. And in my rage, I saw Emilio in my mind’s eye, dead on the ground, blood leaking from the hole in his head, the hole that I was about to put there.
‘I’m going to kill that motherfucker,’ I raged, the answer to all of my problems so simple, yet so profound, it was almost like an epiphany. Guillermo’s face fell, his grip around my wrists lessened, and I pulled myself from him, running into the bathroom. I slammed the door behind me, locking it loudly for effect. It had been six months or more, and every time I was alone in this bathroom all I could think of were two things: Christopher Murphy’s blood circling down my shower drain, and John Portland’s feverish hands as he cupped my face and guided his lips to mine.
I looked at myself in the mirror as Guillermo pounded his fist on the door. I looked fucking terrible. I’d done my make-up extra special this morning, being that it was my birthday and all. But now, my mascara was plastered over my cheeks, my normally bronze skin was pale and blotchy, and the whites of my eyes were so fucking bloodshot, it was like someone had taken a scouring pad to them.
‘Mariana,’ Guillermo called, ‘you’re not killing anybody today.’
I ignored him, turning on the cold faucet and splashing my face with water to try and snap myself out of my stupor. That image, that singular image of Emilio with blood pumping out of his head, just the same way Murphy’s blood had pumped out of his head, filled me with some kind of renewed hope. I had always wanted to kill him, but I had never really believed that I could.
Now, I knew that it was the only possible thing left for me to do.
The cold water didn’t work. It didn’t dissipate my rage; indeed, it only grew. Maybe it was because now I was actually a killer. I’d racked up two kills to my name, and ending Emilio would solve every problem that I had in my life. If he was dead, I would be free. If he was dead, I could have my son back.
If he was dead, I could finally get out of this fucking place.
I dried my face with a towel, taking one last look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t bother reapplying my make-up. I didn’t give a shit what I would look like, because either way, Emilio Ross was going down. It was hardly a fucking fashion parade, shooting somebody square in the face.
I opened the bathroom door, fully expecting to see Guillermo standing outside, waiting for me. But he wasn’t there. I heard a soft beeping noise, and suspicion grew in the pit of my stomach. I stormed through my bedroom, the closest room to the front door, to see him tapping something into the security keypad on the wall. He looked up as I approached, guilt written all over his face, as if I had caught him in the middle of something he didn’t want me to know about.
My handbag was sitting on the hall table. Inside was my gun. I snatched up the bag, rummaging through it, almost sighing in bitter relief when my fingers touched cold metal. I drew my piece and aimed it at his head.
‘Tell me you didn’t just change the fucking security code to try and keep me in here,’ I said.
