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Luis. I could never kill myself, knowing my son was alive and waiting for me to come to him in Colombia. Never.
I kicked towards the surface with great reluctance.
I felt Guillermo beside me, and then his strong arm was hooked around my chest and under my own arm, pulling me close. I glanced over, seeing that he’d walked into the water, jeans and all. At least he’d taken his shoes off.
‘They say drowning is a peaceful way to go,’ he said, a knowing smile on his face as he dragged me closer to shore, his kick strong. I felt like I was a wet blanket. I wasn’t even strong enough to pull away and slip beneath the water’s surface. I was too much of a coward to even figure out how to drown.
‘Sorry, baby,’ he said, treading water in front of me, holding my head above the surface by cupping his hand below my chin. ‘Today’s not your day.’
I nodded dully, looking at a couple of surfers who were paddling past us, giving me strange glances. I suppose I did look a sight, fully dressed and crying my eyes out while I halfheartedly tried to drown myself in Santa Monica Bay.
Guillermo’s grip eased, and he stood next to me, the water up to his shoulders. He was pretty much the same height as me, and I let my feet drop to the sandy ocean floor.
‘You love him?’
I refocused my gaze on Guillermo as his words pierced my fog. ‘Who?’
‘Prez. John. You never answered me before. Too busy with your pretty little gun. So tell me. You love him?’
I nodded, shivering. I don’t think I’d let myself believe it until that moment. But I did. Oh, how I loved that man. I didn’t want to be here, metaphorically and almost literally drowning. I wanted to be with him. I wanted to be tucked underneath his chin as he told me everything was going to be okay. I wanted to be in a car with him, flying down the freeway, breaking the speed limit as we left every single Gypsy Brother and the Il Sangue Cartel for dust, never to be seen again.
‘You got shitty luck with men, honey,’ Guillermo said, trying to make me smile. ‘Shitty, shitty luck. Remind me never to get involved with you, yeah?’
I smiled a watery smile that matched our surroundings.
‘I’m tired, Guillermo.’
‘I know. Me too.’
I saw the Ferris wheel in the distance, and behind it, my apartment. ‘I miss my family.’I miss my boy.
We stood in the water, as it gently rocked us from side to side.
‘Come on,’ Guillermo said, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘We got things to do.’
I nodded, wading to shore with him.
‘You gonna call John?’ Guillermo asked, as we walked along the sand, headed for the car.
I stopped in my tracks. ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
‘He’ll pull the trigger, Mariana.Think. He’ll do something drastic. Kids are sacred to him. Kids are the one thing you don’t mess with.’
I swallowed thickly.
‘Just make sure you got your shit in a row before you start plotting with him, girl, because he’s going to snap, and you’ll be the one in the firing line when Emilio comes looking for penance.’
‘Hard to keep track of all the lies, isn’t it?’ He gave me a knowing smile.
I nodded.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JOHN
John Portland hated lap dances. Despised strip clubs.
It was an odd fact for a man like him. A biker. A president. A criminal. A murderer. And, ironically, a man who ran a strip club. It was funny, he could stare into the eyes of his victim and pull the trigger, cold as ice, but when a woman lowered her ass into his lap, he suddenly burned up like he had a fever. He didn’t want hands touching him, clammy hands that had touched everybody else. He didn’t even like his wife’s hands when they reached out to him.
