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Hating herself.
“What was your husband in for?” Diego didn’t let up. He could sense she was close to opening up. There was something here, he thought. Something in her that wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Something angry but alluring, tragic but tempting, dark but delicate. “Tell me, Mercy. I am in no position to judge another. Not every man in prison is evil. Surely there was something good about him if you married him.”
“He wasnotmy husband!” A vicious frown cut a V down the pleasant contours of her face. She blinked several times, then swallowed hard. “I did not even know him.” Mercy shot a quick glance towards where Cari was curled up on the sofa. She cursed under her breath, closed her eyes tight, kept them closed for a long moment, then flicked those delicate eyelids open and stared dead ahead, focused on some distant spot past Diego. “He was in prison for rape.”
Diego stared at her blank expression, her dead eyes, thought of that quick glance towards her daughter.
And suddenly he understood.
His entire body seized as the realization tore through him like a thousand splinters.
Mercy saw the realization in his eyes, shrugged, then took a resigned breath and stared past him again into nothing. “I wanted to kill the child before it came out of me. It was tainted, evil, born out of violence and darkness, sin and sickness.” Mercy’s voice was barely a whisper, her eyes dark pits focused on some far-off spot beyond Diego. Then she blinked, snapped back into focus, flicked her gaze towards him. “But one day it occurred to me that how can the child be all those things before it is even born? A newborn child is the purest form of innocence, arrives untainted into the world. Therefore any labels of evil and sin come from my own dark heart, not the innocent soul of the unborn child.” She sighed, a trembling smile showing on her lips, glassy wetness glimmering in her eyes. “Still, every day was a struggle to not end the pregnancy, to not remove that child of rape from my swollen belly. Finally one day I came to understand that it is all a choice—mychoice, that I had the power to either claim that child as mine or reject it as his. And I decided the child isminenot his. Cari ismine, not his, wasneverhis, willneverbe his.” She blinked twice, her eyes widening with a flash of panic, like she’d only just remembered that Diego was basically a stranger to whom she was confessing her sins like he was herpadre.
It took a moment for the red-hot rage to settle enough for Diego to speak. “I swear bySanta Muerte,he is lucky to already be dead,” he managed to growl, the words coming from deep in his throat, his eyes narrowing to slits. “How did it happen? How did he die?”
Mercy hesitated, studying his face like she was desperately trying to decide whether to go forth or step back, trust this man or turn him away. Diego waited silently, unable to speak because of the suffocatingly heavy sense of being drawn to this place, to this woman, to this broken little half-family that had been created in darkness and was desperately clinging to some dream of light.
Mercy stayed silent for a long time as well. Then, like she’d suddenly made her choice, she started speaking, the words coming fast, tumbling out of her just like Diego felt them both tumbling down some hole that had already been dug for them by fate, designed for them by destiny. “After my testimony, a woman approached me outside the courthouse. White woman. She was in a black skirt-suit, very elegant and well-spoken.”
Diego grunted. “Lawyer?”
Mercy nodded. “From some Philadelphia law firm. She invited me to lunch. I thought she was going to offer some kind of pro-bono representation to sue the man in civil court after his criminal conviction.” Mercy looked away for a flash, hugging herself again, but this time without fidgeting with her fingers. “But instead she offered me justice. More justice than the criminal conviction. A different kind of justice, she said. Old-world justice.”
Diego’s eyebrows moved up and stayed up. “She arranged a hit inside prison? Who was she? What did she ask for in return?”
Mercy shook her head. “Didn’t give me her name or the name of her firm. And she asked for nothing. She said she had many powerful clients, some with connections to prison gangs, that they owed her more favors than she could possibly call in, that this was her way of dispensing a little bit ofrealjustice.” Mercy frowned briefly, touching her hair and shifting in her chair. “There was something strange about her. It scared me, to be honest. Like perhaps there was a part of her that . . . thatenjoyedhaving that kind of power.” She shrugged, glancing down at her lap, then up into Diego’s eyes. “Or maybe what scared me was how this woman mademefeel about having that kind of power . . . power over life and death.”
“Tell me how it felt to you.” Diego squeezed her hand, then sat back and ran his palms over his hair, which he’d carefully pulled back into a tight pony-tail before this dinner-date. He’d considered trimming his beard, but it had taken months to grow and did a good job of obscuring his features. Facial hair was a key part of changing your appearance—especially because you couldn’t change your eyes. The eyes always gave you away. “Having that sort of power can be addictive, you know.”
Mercy’s gaze narrowed. Diego could see the wheels turning back there once again, like she could see there was more to this maintenance-man than a knack for fixing faucets, like she could sense Diego himself had wielded that dark power over life and death, was addicted to it like that anonymous lawyer had been, hungered for that power which Mercy herself had tasted, maybe even enjoyed.
“Who are you?” she whispered now, tilting her head slightly to the left, her gaze penetrating him like she could see the shadow hidden behind his eyes, was reaching for that shadow, drawing it out in a way that could be dangerous, could drag her into the darkness before she ever got a chance of pulling Diego into the light. “Who are you, really?”
“Diego Vargas,” came the answer.
But it didn’t come from Diego.
Diego froze where he sat.
Someone had crept up behind him.
“Move and you die,” came the man’s bloodcurdlingly smooth Southern drawl from above Diego’s head, stopping his heart for a moment, chilling his blood for a flash. “Good. Now relax, Diego. If I wanted you dead this would already be over. We’re just going to have a little chat.”
Diego felt the cold barrel of a handgun press against the back of his head, and now his heart raced with rage, his blood boiled with anger, his eyes closed as he cursed himself for not paying attention to the front door gently opening then silently being locked, the OPEN sign going dead because someone had flipped the switch off before creeping quietly across the empty store, sneaking up undetected on the admittedly distracted Diego but still with stealth that revealed decades of practice.
The guy was a ghost.
Diego knew it in his bones.
A damn spook.
How did they find him?
Then Diego realized there was nothey.
The guy was alone, which meant maybe hedidwant to talk, cut some kind of deal.
Either way, Diego had no choice but to listen. The spook had a locked and loaded gun against Diego’s skull, gloved finger on the trigger, his coldly sneering voice oozing with the telltale sign that this man knew the taste of that darkly addictive power over life and death,was very much exercising that power over Diego’s life and death right now.
