It’s minutes before we fly by a sign and the only thing I can see are the words: Del Rizo. Oh shit! That’s on the border of Mexico! But we haven’t gone through customs yet, which thankfully means we haven’t crossed the border.
I close my eyes, trying not to think about how much I need to use a bathroom and how the fear I’m feeling is turning my stomach into a mess of knots. With the darkness behind my eyelids, I can only see the look on Jags’s face this morning when he leaned over to kiss me softly before whispering about being back quickly with breakfast and coffee. How did I go from that to this?
Cali, Tango, and Tyler went away for the weekend to celebrate Tango’s clean bill of health after receiving all of his test results back, so it was the first time since we’ve been together that everyone was so happy. Everything was so perfect. It was like all parts of everyone’s messy lives were somehow falling into place and into harmony. Tango believed Landon was “handled” but sadly, he was wrong.
To make this worse, it was the first time Jags and I have had a chance to be completely alone since we started being us a couple of weeks ago. With both Jags and I looking for new places to live, we’ve been at the mercy of Cali and Tango. We appreciate their hospitality; nonetheless, it’s been hard sneaking around to avoid their jittering eyebrows and knowing looks every time we walk in a room. I’m not sure Jags has cared as much as I have, but I was looking forward to this weekend of privacy.
I don’t know how Landon got into Cali and Tango’s house, but this man is capable of more than any of us have given him credit for.
Despite my effort to stay awake, the motion of the car lulled me to sleep for a bit, but I’m startled awake when the car jerks to the side of the road. I try to snap myself out of a haze when the door beside me whips open, but reality hits quickly when I’m pulled from my seat. Landon drags me by some trees and roughly tears my pants down to my ankles, his fingernails scraping against my legs along the way. “Go,” he demands.
I want to tell him I’m not going to the bathroom in front of him, but I have to go so badly I don’t care. I squat, careful not to fall backward with my hands still clasped together behind me, and I do my best to ignore his staring eyes.
“All those times you made such a big deal about closing the bathroom door when you needed private time,” he mocks me. “See, it’s not so bad having everything out in the open, right?”
How could this man I had once been so attracted to be such a jerk? Such a horrible person. I have no form of defense. I have no way to protect myself from him. I’m at the mercy of his strength, and I pray for a hint of his weakness to show through, but I’m doubtful he has any mercy for me at all now.
As I stand back up, waiting for him to pull my pants back up over my hips, he tears the duct tape from my mouth and smashes his lips against mine. The taste of rotten breath mixed with a mint gum nauseates my already upset and starved stomach. I used to kiss this man for pleasure, and now he feels like a burning poison against my mouth. As he pulls away and my eyes dare to peel open, he utters, “I missed my girl, Sasha. We were a team. We are a team. We were always in this thing together, so what made you switch teams?”
“Switch teams?” I question with confusion. I was never on his team. I didn’t know what he was up to, so how could I be? I thought he was simply a chef at a restaurant. Come to find out, he’s doing dirty jobs to earn money on the side.
“You know what I mean,” he grunts while pulling me back to the car by the links between the cuffs. The pain from the metal rubbing against my bone is nearly unbearable, and I want to kick him and do to him what he’s done to me, but I’m worried I don’t have the strength to