climaxed. How I caught a split-second glimpse of the woman in red on the sidewalk. She isn’t like any other drug I’ve ever known. She’s an elixir for all the dead and useless parts of me.
“Give me an update on the women,” he says, losing patience. In the background I can hear a baby crying. It’s drags me back to a time when I had a baby crying in my life too.
“I’m closing in on them.” The engine roars into life.
“Have you seen her?”
“Anna?”
“No, the other one.”
“Yes, I’ve seen her.” What the hell is up with him and this woman? “She’s a pain in the ass, like you said.”
“Starting all this shit is the least of it… What did she look like?”
“Colombian.” I’m bored of the conversation already. I drop the clutch and ease the car out of the parking bay.
“Are you trying to make me lose my shit on purpose?”
Go fuck yourself, Dante. I have a serious case of blue balls, I haven't had a shower in two days and I need a goddamn drink. “Why don’t you stop dicking around and tell me what’s really going on?”
There’s silence on the line. “Did you take a look at her eyes?”
“Her eyes?” The unthinkable slips into my path like landfall, and I slam my foot down on the brake. “I swear to God, Santiago… If you have some secret woman down here in Colombia I will hunt you down for Eve myself.”
He blows out a harsh breath. “Grayson, the day I look at another woman will be the same day I find religion staring down the barrel of my own fucking gun. Call my question a curiosity.”
“I’ll call it something else if you don’t start talking to me.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t recognize her yourself.”
This stops me in my tracks. I knew I’d seen her before.
Dragging my mind back, I replay the action by the outdoor vending machine, with my hand pressed tight over her mouth as those two fireballs tried to knock me on my ass.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter, as the dots connect, depicting a face I’d never thought about or had any goddamn desire to see again. “Did you know he had a daughter?”
“I heard a rumor. Figured it was hearsay. Figured the truth was all twisted up like the inside of his fucking head. The man was screwing half the whores in Colombia and busy slitting the throats of the rest. So I ignored it. Hoped it would go away. Then I took a phone call yesterday, and now my ass has bite marks all over it. She’s not a fan of me, as you can imagine,” he adds dryly.
“Who else knows about her?” Unease has paced my voice to a slow drawl. I sound like a fucking Bond villain.
“Us, and one other.”
“You planning on terminating her?”
“That's the idea.”
I hang up without saying goodbye. All I can think about is Anna driving off into a soon-to-be sunrise with the spawn of a second devil, riding shotgun.
I let her go.
I fucking let her go.
Without hesitating, I tap a code into my cell and bring up the tracking device stats from Gomez’s car. She’s heading south, with nearly a half hour of driving time on me.
I chuck my cell onto the dash and hit the gas, eating up the same route like I’m a Pac-Man chasing down the bad guys. Correction. One bad girl, and another with the propensity to fuck all our shit up. There’s giving Anna freedom, and then there’s giving her enough rope to wrap around her delicate white throat and hang herself from the rafters.
I nudge the car to top speed with one thought ripping up my insides. If Anna gets brave and spills about our connection to her new BFF, there’s not a single phase of the moon that will save her from decades of bad blood.
She’ll be leaving Colombia in a body bag.
21
Anna
“Did you see it? Did you fucking see it?”
“See what?”
Vi’s acting wild and crazy. She keeps swiping her hair behind her ears and dragging the back of her hand across her mouth.
“The scorpion. Hijueputa! I never ever wanted to see that scorpion back in this country again.”
I go blank for a minute, and then I remember the tattoo on Joseph’s bicep. “You mean—”
“Yes!”
She overtakes a rusty pickup, and then swerves to miss an oncoming delivery truck. The skyline is a gradient of blue and black. It’s the last trick of night before dawn shows us her big reveal. I can see the sloping