“TALK TO ME, LULU. WHAT HAPPENED?” Noelle asked as she burst through the door.
“I tried to call and tell you,” Lucero bit her lip. “None of my calls would go through.”
“I didn’t get anything,” Noelle frowned.
“I think we know why…”
“You think Sergio is behind this?” Noelle’s eyes widened.
“If not him, who else would have the authority to move Rafaelo to another facility?”
“But the drug facility?” She uttered in an anguished voice. “And now they won’t even let me inside. I’m in charge of that damn facility and they won’t let me enter,” she gritted out, her fists clenched in anger.
“What do you mean?” Lucero blinked in surprise.
“I tried going in and they said I wasn’t allowed to anymore,” Noelle explained.
The moment she’d realized Rafaelo was missing from his cell, she’d gone through all of the footage in an effort to see where he could have gone. That’s when she’d seen the guards taking Raf out of his cell and moving him to the drug testing facility.
“If El Señor did this, then he is expecting you to lose your calm over it,” Lucero added thoughtfully. “You can’t play his game.”
“But that means Raf is there… And they’re feeding him God knows what drugs…”
Lucero sported a grim expression on her face.
“This is just my guess, but…” she paused, swallowing uncertainty. “If they were afraid to let him out because he’d cause problems with the other slaves, then maybe this is the best outcome. It would have been either this or killing him.”
Noelle stopped, pivoting to look at Lucero.
She opened her mouth to speak only to close it as she ruminated over what her friend said.
Lucero was right. She should have considered this earlier—as soon as she’d realized they weren’t going to let him out of the isolation cell. If they didn’t have any use for him, why keep him? Except now they did find another use for him, and it was one that rattled her more than anything, because she’d seen how people were treated in that facility.
Since she’d taken over the reins and helped develop more drugs for Sergio, she’d had a first-hand look into what went on in there. Although she’d tried to militate for a better treatment of the test subjects, the reality was that whether she liked it or not, some simply… died. Either by overdose or as side effects of the drugs.
The worse alternative was that some of them lost their minds, becoming trapped within their own bodies as they slowly went crazy. She’d seen that happen more times than she could count, yet she hadn’t been able to intervene.
Despite being in charge of the drug facility, she was only allowed to work on the business side—the development of drug formulas and their subsequent marketing after they’d been thoroughly tested. The testing itself was left to the second-hand doctors that Sergio had hired at the facility.
Yet before now, she’d had full access to everything. She could demand the progress of patients and she would receive periodical reports about everything that went on.
Even as she’d become fully embroiled with Raf and her mind had become consumed with their secret meetings, she had still done her duty and overseen the facility, knowing she had to maintain not only her image, but the results she’d worked so hard to create. Hell, it was why she’d felt it necessary to leave the country for this latest meeting.
She’d done everything in her power to not have even one whit of doubt shadowing over her. And this was how she got repaid? With being iced out of the entire facility?
“I’m going to talk to Sergio,” she declared.
“Noelle… Maybe cool down first. You can’t make any mistakes or he’ll know.”
“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t mention Raf. I will only demand my rights. We had an agreement after all, damn it.”
Lucero hovered around her, trying to persuade her to wait a little longer before she went barging into Sergio’s apartments. But Noelle wasn’t deterred.
She only spent some time to change out of her travel clothes and put on a black suit with her favorite pair of deadly heels before she stormed out of the room.
Lucero followed closely behind her, still trying to talk some sense into her.
Too late for that.
There were four guards stationed outside of Sergio’s apartment, all giving her a nasty look as they barred her from entering.
“Move,” Noelle said in a low voice, her patience wearing thin.
“El Señor is busy. He won’t receive anyone tonight.”
“He will receive me,” Noelle said, leveling them with her stare.
Still, they didn’t seem to budge, remaining steadfast in their refusal to keep her out of his apartment.
“Move,” Noelle said as she took a step forward.
When they only stared her down, presumably seeking to intimidate her, she lost the calm Lucero had tried so hard to foster into her.
Her lips tipped up in a sinister smile as she lowered her hands to her shoes, dislodging the heels. Her palms felt the cool metal of the guns, and before the guards realized what she meant to do, she brought both hands up, her fingers on the triggers.
Squeeze. Squeeze.
One round fired, the bullets making their home into the two men’s skulls.
The other two guards were immediately on their positions, withdrawing their own weapons and getting ready to shoot.
“Take cover,” she yelled to Lucero before she pushed her elbow into one man’s gut, slapping the gun from his hand and using her other one to aim at the man opposite him.
Just as the other man pressed his trigger, Noelle moved to the right, using the guard’s body as a shield as she fired her own gun, hitting her intended target.
With no other pressing threat, she let the last guard go. He slumped to the ground, groaning in pain since the bullet had only hit him in his side.
“See, you should have just let me pass,” she murmured with a smile on her face.
Turning, she pressed her shoe into his face, walking all over his body and pushing her foot into his injury, causing him more pain.
Lucero was trembling by the sidelines, huddled behind a pillar as she looked at the carnage surrounding her with horror in her eyes.
“Coming?” Noelle stopped to ask.
Lucero gave her a brief nod, following Noelle as she pushed the doors open to the apartment.
As they walked the narrow hallway that led directly to the main room, loud noises permeated the air.
Noelle’s lip curled in distaste as she entered the living room. The image before her was not something she’d wished to see, but she supposed this was the only way Sergio could still amuse himself.
There he was, in the center of the couch, a glass of alcohol in his hand and a cigarette in the other as he stared at the spectacle in front of him.
In the middle of the room there were four girls, all naked and in the process of fucking each other and moaning louder than pornstars. If he couldn’t participate, he could still watch.
Noelle wondered if she should take his eyes next, since he was starting to piss her off too much. She knew he was watching her, waiting for her to slip, so that he could swoop in and end her.
She didn’t fool herself for one moment that the status she’d gained was forever. He only needed to find a weakness and exploit it and… She was afraid he might have found it.
“What an entrance, querida,” Sergio noted dryly, taking a drag from his cigarette, his droopy eyes still on the fuckshow in front of him.
She pursed her lips.
He was halfway intoxicated judging by the size of his pupils, but that wasn’t something new. Sergio was a regular partaker of drugs, especially during his fucked-up rituals. But as he’d stated, only of the natural variety. The synthetic ones were for the plebes, and he considered himself above that.
“You took my access to the drug facility,” Noelle said in an icy tone.
The naked women scrambled, breaking their formation and running for their clothes, leaving only Noelle and Sergio in the room, with Lucero trailing somewhere behind.
Noelle didn’t mind that. She knew her friend was supportive. It was just that she didn’t have the stomach for most of the things Noelle did. She had no idea how Lucero could have lived for so long at the hacienda and remained so damn innocent—in such a way that Noelle didn’t think she’d ever been in her entire life.
Despite everything she’d been through, one would think Lucero would have gotten used to the violence of life, but instead she always shied away from such things.
Noelle directed her attention to Sergio, narrowing her eyes at him and wishing she could wipe the smirk off of his face.
“You had your time to prove yourself and you’ve failed.”
“What do you mean?” Noelle frowned. That was news to her.
“The drug got rejected. My local dealers have informed me that it’s been an epic failure.”
“When? Why wasn’t I informed of this?” she demanded, trying to keep her anger at bay.
“A few days ago while you were gone.” He smiled knowingly.
Suddenly, it dawned on Noelle why he’d sent her on that trip. He’d needed her away from the hacienda so that he could change things around.
“That’s impossible. The recipe was foolproof,” she continued.
“No. It wasn’t. It was too…” His eyes glinted, “safe.”
“Too safe?” Noelle asked in outrage. “What the hell do you mean?”
“We depend on return customers, Noelle. Your recipe was simply not up to scratch on the streets.”
“You mean it didn’t cause enough addiction,” she added, studying him.
“Bingo. That means it’s an utter failure. So much so that I’ve had to get rid of batches of product which have costed us far too much,” he said on a serious note. “I need to recoup my losses. And fast. Which is why I’ve decided to return to the previous recipe.”
Noelle frowned. Previous recipe…
But then her eyes widened as she realized what he meant.
“You can’t do that, Sergio! It’s not safe,” she muttered. “You know our rate of fatalities with that drug. If it reaches the streets, you won’t have any return customers because they will all be dead.”
“Not if we improve it,” he said with a smirk. “Keep the addictive properties, but make it easier on the body. I’ve already instructed our chemists to go on with it. In fact, I’ve prepared several variations of it that will help us recoup the costs even if we don’t sell it on the street.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not for you to know yet.” He waved his hand dismissively.
“That still doesn’t explain why I’ve been barred from the facility.”
“Because you’re no longer in charge of it, of course.”
“We had a deal, Sergio. The drug facility was mine.”
“So it was. But only because your drug ideas worked. Now they no longer do.”
“It was still me who invented this recipe. You can’t just throw me aside.”
“Can’t I? Try me.” He winked.
Noelle clenched her fists as she took a deep breath. Panic threatened to suffocate her, the implications swimming in her mind.
She’d gotten rid of the other drug because it had been too powerful—too addictive, but also too deadly. They’d only had one subject who’d survived the testing, and he’d suffered grave mental issues from prolonged use. If Sergio was trying it again… If he was trying it on Raf…
No, he couldn’t do that.
“No. You try me,” she told him, staring at him unflinchingly. Raising her gun, she pointed it towards him.
“You can’t kill me, remember?”
“No, but I can maim you.” She smiled. Before he could reply, she aimed right next to his head. The bullet whizzed past his ear, close enough that it scraped his flesh.
His eyes widened in shock as his hand went to his ear, feeling the blood pour down his neck.
“Reinstate my privileges, Sergio. I’ll get your damn drug done.”
“You’re playing with fire, Noelle. One of these days you could simply disappear and your family wouldn’t be able to say I did anything.”
“Really? You think I’m that easy to take down?” She scoffed. “Just like you, I have contingencies in place. If anything happens to me, there’s an entire file with everything that goes on at the hacienda that’s going straight to the Mexican authorities.”
“As if that could scare me,” he laughed.
“I didn’t say there’s only one copy,” she raised a brow. “The FBI will receive one as well. I happen to know you’ve been in their sights for years, but they haven’t had anything to convict you with.”
At that, Sergio finally shut up. His face contorted in anger and she had no doubt his first instinct was to strike out.
“As you wish,” he gritted out. “But you will leave your moralistic views at the door and you will continue with the drug I’ve chosen. Is that clear.”
“Perfectly” Noelle rolled her eyes. “Now inform the staff I’m to be given full access.”
She didn’t wait for him to reply as she signaled Lucero to leave. Turning, they both headed out of Sergio’s apartment and back to Noelle’s.
“That was… I don’t know if it was brave or foolish,” Lucero mentioned once it was just the two of them.
“Me neither,” Noelle sighed. “But you heard him. He’s using the other drug. If they administered it to Raf…” she trailed off, swallowing hard as pure fear enveloped her.
“You’ll be able to check it out for yourself. Don’t lose hope.”
“It’s not about hope, Lulu. You haven’t seen what that drug does.” Noelle shook her head. “Mortality rate is over ninety percent because the body can’t metabolize it after a certain period of time. It’s so addictive, you need to get more and more until your heart stops.”
Lucero grimaced.
“What about this new version El Señor was talking about?”
“I’m not sure. He probably wants to change some of the formula so it’s lighter. But even so. It’s still the most addictive drug I’ve ever seen. Even taken once and you start craving it like your life depends on it.”
