I didn’t know how long we drove. I wrestled with the tape on my wrists. A sawing motion loosened it. I was sweating, and my wrists burned with the friction by the time I managed to slip it off, but bringing my arms around my front was worth it.
I pushed the bag off my head. Lucy was lying on her side, her eyes wild and desperate. I crawled to her over the van floor, being as quiet as I could. I reached Lucy and gently pulled the tape off her mouth, holding a finger to my lips to signal for her to be quiet.
Loud Spanish conversation crowded the air from the cab. The dialogue was rapid, but I could make out the gist of what they were saying. They were taking us somewhere to switch vehicles, and from there, they’d split us up to make it harder for Renato to keep up.
Terror beat through me at the thought of being separated from Lucy and having no way of finding her. My husband would have no way of finding her. I couldn’t just let that happen.
Renato hadn’t put another tracker in me, as far as I knew. But he was always three steps ahead, always strategizing. Had he really let me wander around without a backup plan? It didn’t seem like him at all.
“Shh, don’t scream. We need time to think,” I whispered to my little sister.
She held on to me and nodded. I stared down at my bleeding wrists, racking my brain for a plan of some kind, and my ring caught a strand of light through a crack in the newspaper taped over the window.
Renato’s ring. The family heirloom. The one his paranoid nonno had given his nonna. The one Renato had warned me to never take off.
“Shh, just listen,” I whispered to her harshly, dragging my ring off. I peered at the intricate pattern of interlocking diamonds and rubies.
This ring is the only thing keeping you safe and alive.
“Don’t take this off, no matter what,” I breathed and took her hand and then paused, rethinking it. The ring would be obvious on Lucy’s finger. The Castillos knew that she hadn’t married Renato.
“Open up,” I demanded.
She frowned at me but opened her mouth and let me put the ring on her tongue.
“Try not to swallow it, but keep it in there. There must be some waterproofing to a degree,” I muttered furiously. Not stomach acid-proof, though. “Don’t swallow it unless it’s a last resort. They might not even take the tape off again, and it’ll be fine. If they do, hide it like you used to hide gum in your mouth from the teacher. You were so good at it.” I smoothed Lucy’s hair back from her sweating, tearstained cheeks.
She obediently tucked the ring into her cheek, her hands gripping me like she never wanted to let me go.
“Okay, we don’t have time,” I muttered and lifted the edge of the tape over her lip.
“Wait,” she whispered urgently. Her dark-eyed gaze scanned my face. “I love you. I know you probably hate me now, I ruined everything, I’m sorry. You’re everything to me. All I have. The only one who never left.”
I enveloped her in a fierce hug.
Lucy’s hand grabbed me when I tried to shuffle back to my seat. Awkwardly, with her bound hands, she pressed Da’s rosary into my palm. She’d taken to carrying it around lately. I took it and wrapped it around my wrist, a little strengthened by the treasured object.
“I’m pretty sure the ring has a tracker in it. Renato will be using it to look for us. He’ll come wherever it is and he’ll find you.”
Lucy’s eyes questioned me.
“In case we’re split up. I need him to find you,” I explained.
Lucy’s eyes filled with tears, and they streamed down her cheeks. Full apple cheeks of youth.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine. He’ll find me next,” I told her.
“How?” she wondered.
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I just pressed a kiss to her forehead. “This isn’t goodbye forever. It’s goodbye for now.”
“How do you know he’ll come?”
I didn’t know how to explain to my sister what had passed between me and the man who’d stolen our lives and given us new ones. I didn’t know how to sum up in words the complicated and foreign things we’d shared, and how those weren’t feelings that were easily set aside. How could you explain taking the measure of another person’s soul?
“He’ll come. He’s a man of his word.” A man of his own, twisted kind of honor. A man I respect, now, at the end of it all.
“Promise?” Lucy’s voice wobbled.
Yes, I just hope it’s in time. Instead of sharing that morbid thought, I nodded and attempted a smile, taping her mouth shut so they wouldn’t suspect we’d done anything.
The truck came to an abrupt stop a few minutes later. I was calm. Lucy was still crying, her face twisted in torment. I could only hope her distress would make the men less likely to free her mouth, in case she screamed a lot. I’d found a crowbar beneath the mess in the back. They really didn’t think much of our ability to defend ourselves, seeing as they’d left an actual weapon with us.
I waited by the side of the door, poised to do any kind of damage I could. I had no illusions about being able to take more than one man, and I already knew there were several. But one, I could handle, and maybe with the weapon and the element of surprise on my side, I could even knock him out. It was against my nature not to go down swinging — literally, in this case.
The back of the truck opened. I swung as soon as a head came into view. The crowbar hit the back of the man’s head with a meaty thwack. There was a shout, and he slumped down. Men jumped into the back, grabbing at me and getting too close for me to swing again. I fought as hard as I could. I was a wild animal protecting her young. I scratched and bit, screamed my throat raw.
They pulled me out of the back of the truck. The man I’d hit was lying on the ground, bleeding from the head. He was still. My eyes caught on the sight, and my brain stalled. A fist connected with my face, and the last thing I saw was Lucy being dragged from the truck.
Then it was lights out.
