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A glint of silver at the driver’s hip caught my eye as we passed under a bright series of streetlights and I blinked, trying to decide what it was.
Yes. It was a pistol, silver and sleek. My hands were tied in front of me, and if I could just distract Emilio long enough to grab the gun, I could shoot them both and hope that the car didn’t crash too violently.
It was worth the risk. We had just made a sharp turn into the road that marked the small town I lived in, and we were less than ten minutes from my house.
Less than ten minutes from death.
But Emilio was shrewd, and as I glanced sidelong at him, I could see that he had already anticipated my plan.
‘Don’t,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I can make your death very painful, cholita. I can take that very gun and rape your mother with it. While you watch. Would you like that?’
Damn it! He could hurt my father if he wanted to and I’d say the bastard deserved it, but my mother? No. I would not let my mother suffer for me.
‘No,’ I replied sadly, deflated. ‘I would not.’
‘Well then,’ Emilio said. ‘Let’s just get there in one piece, shall we? Who knows what could happen once we get there. Maybe your father has finally won the lottery.’ He laughed, unfolding a newspaper and turning to the business section.
The seconds dragged on painfully as terror bloomed thick and fierce in my chest. It curled around my heart like vine tendrils, squeezing until I thought I was having a heart attack.
Focus. Get him to feel sorry for you. Do something! The voice inside my head screamed at me to take some kind of action. Get him onside. What did men like Emilio Ross want as currency?
Money, of course. I had none of that. Drugs? I didn’t have any of those, either.
Sex?
I shuddered inwardly at the thought of offering my body to the man who was about to execute my entire family. I wasn’t sexually inhibited — I’d started experimenting when I was way too young and now that I was back home, Este and I had been pretty adventurous in the bedroom. And the car. And back up against an alley wall before the fireworks only a few hours before.
Este. I pictured the way his eyes had blanked out after he was shot. How he was there with me one moment, and dead on the ground the very next, leaving me alone and adrift in this madness.
It made me want to die with him. But I wasn’t dead. I was here, with this horrid man, and I needed to find a way to survive his wrath before he reached over and snapped my neck.
Yeah. He looked entirely capable of that.
I glanced down at his lap and reached out my bound hands tentatively, licking my lips. ‘Surely there’s some way I can change your mind. I could —’
He just glared at me, a scathing stare that made me wither inside. He didn’t even need to say no.
I averted my eyes and settled back into the leather seat, donning my resisting-bitch face. I might’ve been terrified inside, but I’d be damned if I would show him.
‘You bitches are all the same,’ he said stonily. ‘You think you’ve got a golden pussy, cholita? You think I don’t have access to pretty Colombian chocho?’ He grinned. ‘You think if I wanted yours, that I’d wait for you to offer? No. If I wanted to fuck you, you’d be on your back screaming my name. If I wanted you to suck my dick? You’d be choking on it right now. If I wanted to kill you in this car? You’d be dead already.’
I stopped myself from reeling off a snappy comeback.
And his last comment made me wonder. How many people had he killed? How much blood was on his hands?
As I wiped my own bloody palms on my dress again, I decided I didn’t really want to know.
The unsealed road closer to my family’s home was corrugated and rough, hundreds of small stones flicking out and flying back at the expensive car, creating a constant metallic dinging noise. Good. I hoped it scraped the paint off the car and made it look like shit.
Ten minutes could have been ten years, the way it was dragging on. My palms were sweaty and I continued to rub them nervously on my black sundress.
‘You’re a long way from Italy,’ I said finally, my curiosity getting the better of me. ‘Colombia? Really?’
He chuckled, returning to his newspaper. ‘I like the humidity.’
‘I bet it helps the coca plants grow nice and tall,’ I replied, suddenly irritated at his casual manner.
‘Yes,’ he answered slowly, not moving his eyes from the newspaper. ‘The coca plants that paid for your private schooling, cholita. The coca plants your father gambled with. My coca plants, cholita.’
