“Where is Charley?” I demanded to know. “Where is her father? He won’t tolerate this! He will come for you, Diego!”
Diego turned around. “Bennett is dead by my own hand. The kill ordered by your father weeks ago. He was no longer effective as a distributor. We gave another Californian outlet the contract.” I stopped breathing. “And as for your best friend . . . she is long gone.”
“Dead?” I asked, breathlessly.
“No. But she’ll wish she was.” The door slammed and the lock turned. I was left alone. I let the tears flow. I let the choking grief and pain tear me apart, until I shook with hurt and my chest was raw from too many hitched breaths. My face throbbed from Diego’s fists, but I crawled to the tapestry that hid the underground tunnel. When I pulled back the tapestry, nothing but brick wall greeted me.
A dark kind of acceptance settled over me as the last hope of freedom was ripped from my hands. Pulling myself to my feet, I staggered across my room until I reached my bed. The sheets were fresh. Carmen had prepared my room for my return. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I opened my drawer and took out my secret box. I opened it, and warmth filled my empty heart when I brought out the cotton ring Tanner had given me.
As I lay on the bed, I slipped the ring on my finger and pictured his smiling face. Diego could come and take me. He could kill me as slowly and as painfully as he wanted. But I would die with Tanner’s ring on my finger and my promise to him in my heart. So that if we ever met in the afterlife, he would know I’d been with him until the end. Dying with the hope of marrying him still firmly in my heart.
Somehow.
Someday.
I would see him again.
Chapter Thirteen
Tanner
My head ached like I had a hangover. My mind was foggy, too full of a thick mist I couldn’t clear. My mouth was dry; my tongue felt swollen. I moved my legs and arms, but they were numb and lethargic. And the minute I tried to get up, something held me in place. My heart started racing, like it knew what was wrong before my mind could catch up. I opened my eyes, the light from outside slicing through my head like a blade.
“Fuck!” I hissed, my words slurring. My heart was a fucking drum as I fought to push the rest of the fog from my brain. I thrashed against whatever held me trapped. Cable ties. I was tied to a bed . . . my bed . . . in the compound. I fought against the light stabbing my eyes and noticed a needle on the table beside the bed.
A needle . . .
Images started barreling into my brain. I dream that one day, in another life, we might find one another again . . . I dream that we meet each other in some distant future and recognize one another’s souls. And we’ll be found . . .
I felt like a crowbar had been taken to my chest, remembering everything she’d said. Every fucking thing she’d said before she’d left. “Adelita . . .” I rasped, and pulled against the ties. My pulse pounded in my neck. “Adelita!” I hissed as my eyes searched the room. It was empty. I saw the sun again and tried to think if it was light or dark the last time I’d seen her.
I shook my head when I couldn’t piece it together. I pulled harder at the ties. The plastic only tightened, ripping into my flesh. I didn’t give a fuck as the blood ran down my skin. I pulled and pulled, but the fuckers wouldn’t give.
“Adelita!” I shouted, dread cutting me down to my bones. She wouldn’t have gone. She couldn’t have gone. But then I froze as I remembered the tears in her eyes.
It’s a suicide mission . . .
“Adelita!” I boomed out, and gave everything I had to tear these fuckers off the bed posts. “ADELITA!” The cable tie on my right arm gave way. I yanked on my left arm, when someone crashed through the door to my room.
I looked to the doorway. Tank was in his jeans, no shirt, gun in hand. His eyes were bloodshot, like he’d just woken up.