Iron Cage Read online

  “Not forever, then,” I say. “But I need some space, at least for now. I don’t know what happens next, but I know I just… can’t be here tonight. Not with you. Please, you owe me that much.”

  * * *

  My chest feels hollow.

  No, fuck that.

  My entire body, soul, being feels hollow. Dead.

  I don’t know why I did it, opened my mouth and tried to say those three little words she wants to hear so badly. I wouldn’t have meant them, and she would have seen them for what they were. A desperate lie. Still, I wonder if they would have fixed everything nonetheless.

  All I know is that yesterday I was happy, somehow, despite the enemies out to kill us, and now I just feel…

  Hollow.

  I haven’t cried since I was a child, and I don’t feel the need to now. The only instinct running through my veins at the moment is to force Selina to stay with me, chain her to my bed, and lavish her with kisses until she forgets all the darkness between us and can only remember that we belong together, that our horrific history binds us together even when it should tear us apart.

  But under that primitive urge lies the knowledge that pushing Selina too far would only make things worse. In time, she’ll come to terms with the sins of our past and the promises of our future. I can give her time. Not forever, but enough to keep her from hating me even more. And eventually, she’ll come back to me. One way or another.

  She has to.

  She can’t survive without me, and I…

  I don’t need anyone but myself to survive. I’ve suffered worse losses, and come out swinging.

  That’s what I tell myself, because that’s the way it’s always been.

  So why doesn’t that fact comfort me this time? Why does the idea of even one night without my princesa wrapped safely in my arms make me feel like punching a wall? It’s hard to believe I survived decades without Selina, when now just the thought of her absence leaves me breathless. The things she does to me, this woman. If I had known the way she’d sink her teeth into me, poison me with those big eyes and secret edges, maybe I wouldn’t have taken her at all. Or maybe I would have taken her sooner.

  Selina walks stiffly down the stairs with a leather tote over her shoulder, the meager size of which loosens my lungs just a touch. She didn’t pack enough for more than a few days, maybe a week if she deigns to repeat outfits. That has to mean something, right? Or is she just so eager to get away from me that she threw supplies together as fast as she could?

  We walk out of the mansion in silence, Selina sliding delicately into the backseat of the BMW while I hop into the passenger seat. Miel grips the wheel tighter as she eyes us both, brows furrowed deeply, but wisely keeps her mouth shut. Selina’s washed the smudged mascara off her cheeks, but her eyes are still red and swollen. Not to mention, me acquiescing to her leaving the estate at all while she’s still recovering from her wounds, let alone with our enemies still at large, is an obvious sign that something huge has happened. I’ll never tell Miel the truth, though she’s the closest thing I have to a friend. If I told her, she’d say that what I’ve done is unforgivable, like any sane person would. But I refuse to feel guilty for the decision I made that night, whatever kind of monster that makes me. One way or another, that deadly night led me here, gave me Selina Palacios—my wife, my damnation, my salvation.

  My everything.

  She’s the only thing that’s ever been mine, and I refuse to lose her.

  I’ll make her see eventually, no matter what it takes.

  The path here may have been twisted and bloody, but it was the only way.

  She’s the key to my freedom, just as I am hers.

  The only way we survive is together.

  * * *

  Brock meets us at the St. Regis hotel, key cards in hand. As we walk up the empty staff staircase, Javier lets me know in a stiff, measured tone that he checked us in under the del Reys’ name, and paid in cash, so as long as I don’t leave my suite and don’t do anything stupid, my presence should go undetected. What he doesn’t have to say, of course, is that just by leaving the estate I’m jeopardizing my safety. Not that my safety was guaranteed back home. El Sombrerón already tried to kill me once—twice if Javier is to be believed—and I’m guessing he’s the kind of guy who won’t be dissuaded by my stubborn refusal to die the first few times around. Somehow, though, I can’t quite make myself care that a bloodthirsty psychopath wants me dead. The mythical villain I’ve never even seen seems like a distant threat compared to the dangers immediately before me.

  I’ve been sharing a bed with a monster for months. Hell, I’ve felt myself becoming a monster, faster than I would have thought possible. I can’t tell what’s normal anymore, let alone feel it.

  Javier is still going on about how his people will be taking shifts guarding me, but I can barely hear him over the dull buzzing of blood in my ears. My emotions are a tangled mess on repeat, each horrifying realization and spiteful thought resurfacing with the same cutting clarity time and time again. All I want is to sleep. I desperately need those hours of unconsciousness, when I won’t even know who I am. I crave that split second in the morning, when I’ll wake up thinking that everything is still some kind of normal, not remembering that my life is over.

  Again.

  We finally reach the penthouse suite, the burning in my thighs confirming that I won’t be trying to leave—and thus have to return up this infinite staircase—anytime soon. Brock does a sweep of the hallway, then raps on the door in a rhythmic pattern. Three short, one long. Just like Javier’s tattoo. I wonder if my husband chose that code on purpose, or if the mark is carved so deep into his bones that he’s barely aware of it anymore.

  Javier has belonged to El Sombrerón since he was a child. Though he may hate it, there isn’t a cell of him that wasn’t shaped by that man. I wonder, deep in the pit of my stomach, if this pursuit of freedom is a temporary lapse. Is Javier even capable of allegiance to me, or in the end, will he finally pull the trigger, just as the man who raised him ordered?

  One of the hired men opens the door for us, his face as strained as Brock’s and Miel’s are. Javier’s face is stone, though, as unreadable as ever. A constant reminder that though I may think I love this man, I’ll never, ever know him. I follow him blankly into the suite, then continue on into the bedroom as the three thugs pause in the foyer. They let me go. I can hear their hushed tones fade as I crawl onto the bed, not even bothering to kick my Gucci tennis shoes off.

  I’m fading to black before my cheek even hits the silk pillowcase.

  I dream what I dreamt every night of the five years before Javier. What I now know was the five years after him. The dream is clearer than reality was, the visuals not soaked in alcohol and pills, the edges of my trauma crisp in hindsight. My fight with Max, the black SUV screeching to a halt in front of us, the masked figure pulling the gun. But this time, after they pull the trigger and my brother collapses to the oil-slicked asphalt, the shooter looks me dead in the eyes and pulls the mask off over their head.

  But the face I see isn’t Javier’s.

  It’s mine.

  “—up, Selina, it’s just a fucking dream.”

  My teeth clatter against each other, my shoulders aching in a tight hold. When I open my eyes, Miel is right in my face, closer than she’s ever been. Her knees are on either side of my hips, holding my legs tight against the bed, and she’s shaking me by the shoulders. When she sees that I’m awake, she releases me, letting my heavy head fall back against the pillow. She stares down at me for a second, making sure I’m back in my right mind, or whatever’s left of it, then she collapses onto the other side of the bed. We lie in silence for a minute, just the sound of my heavy, uneven breath between us, waiting to see who will address the obvious question first.

  “What happened?” Miel asks finally, cracking open the quiet. “With Javier?”

  For a moment, I contemplate telling her. I think about telling her everyth
ing, about letting the whole truth spill out of me for the very first time.

  But I can’t.

  I know I can’t, and not just because I know Javier wouldn’t want me to. Fuck what he wants.

  I can’t tell her because if I do, she’ll never forgive me for taking Javier back.

  And I will take him back, sooner or later. Not because he will never let me leave him, although that much is certainly true.

  I’ll take him back because I’ll want to. I’ll always want him.

  I know it the same way I know how to breathe.

  “Give me your phone.”

  “What?”

  I roll onto my side and hold my hand out, more demanding than I’ve been in a year. “I want to talk to him.”

  Miel eyes me cautiously in the dark, then jerks to a sitting position, fishing her cell out of her back pocket. I watch her scroll through contacts and select Javi’s number, then she stands and crosses the room while the dial tone rings, as if afraid I’ll snatch the phone out of her hand if she stays too close.

  He picks up fast, and I wonder if he was already awake. I picture him sitting at his desk—my father’s desk—late into the night, unable to sleep. I don’t even know what time it is. It could be ten p.m. or three a.m. for all I know. Both options are equally plausible.

  “She wants to talk to you.” A pause. “Are you sure?” Another brief pause. I think I can hear my husband’s tinny voice through the speakers, small and distant. “Got it.”

  She hands me the phone, and in the dark I can still see the familiar warning in her eyes. No funny business.

  I lift the slim device to my ear slowly, suddenly unsure of my decision. But once I hear his voice, I feel my heavy heart shift just a little, feel my soul inch closer to the place it belongs.

  “Selina.”

  He doesn’t ask me what I want. He just lets me know he’s there, and waits.

  “Tell—” My words jump back down my throat, but I take a deep breath and force them out. “Tell me everything.”

  A pause. “Are you sure, princess?”

  I glance at Miel. She’s leaning against the far wall, trying to give me space, but she’s still too close. I give her a nod to assure her I know my place, then rise off the bed and walk to the window. The sky outside is pollution purple, not a single star visible this deep into the city. All there is to gaze at is the flickering, manmade constellation of planes, hundreds of strangers crossing the night sky in tin cans overhead. You can’t wish on that.

  “I need to know.”

  So he tells me. He tells me everything. He tells me about being born in the dirt of Caracas, about his first memories being of leaving a life behind. He tells me about the crack of his father’s belt breaking the sound barrier in their tiny apartment in Forest Park, about the flame of pain he felt as he watched it mark his mother’s body. He tells me about her blood staining his Iron Man sneakers, about his father’s blood staining his fist as he plunged a jackknife into his stomach too many times to count. He tells me about Miel, and their Tia, and how being recruited by El Sombrerón felt like being needed, valued, for the very first time. He tells me about his new hope turning to ash around him, about watching Miel be hollowed out into a shell right in front of him, and feeling powerless. Feeling complicit. He tells me about the blur of drug running, prison, bullets bursting into blood. He tells me about an endless fight for survival, even when a leashed life didn’t seem worth the struggle.

  Then my husband tells me about killing my brother. He tells me about seeing my face that night, the inexplicable switch my eyes flipped inside him. He tells me about disobeying the king of Atlanta’s underground for the very first time. About pulling the trigger that released the bullet that stole my brother’s life long before it was due. That stole my life in every way but literally. He tells me about walking away as my brother’s blood soaked through my dress, through my skin, through my bones.

  I should hate him. Loathe him. Want him dead.

  But my mouth aches to ask him to come to me, my body demands to be held in the safety of his embrace. Javier is the safest place I’ve ever known, despite what we’ve done to each other. Perhaps because of it.

  Come to me, I beg with all my heart, as if I feel something strongly enough, he’ll feel it too. As if our hearts are as intrinsically entangled as our fucked-up past is. Come.

  But all I say out loud is “thank you,” and then I hang up.

  * * *

  I’m not the type of man who punches walls when he’s upset—I can usually find a nearby person to direct my violence at, if necessary—but after Selina hangs up on me, my fist hits the fucking wall. I bite back a growl at the shock of the impact, dull pain shooting up my radius as patches of red smudge on the white damask wallpaper.

  FUCK.

  I pace around the oversized master bedroom a couple more times, letting my bleeding knuckles drip onto the carpet unabated, before finally collapsing onto the bed. I stare at the ceiling in the dark, trying and failing to stop my mind from playing back memories of lying right here as my wife climbed on top of me, took me into her mouth, curled up in my arms. Whispered that she loved me. I squeeze my eyes shut and fight the urge to hit the wall again. I breathe deeply for a minute, in for three, hold for seven, out for eight, just like she taught me, then I stand up. In the bathroom, I wash my split knuckles, and watch the fading crimson ribbons swirl around in the sink basin.

  Me, in the tub, bleeding from the gunshot in my arm. Her, between my legs, fingers trembling as she fixes me. Us, coming together for the very first time, all hungry hands and sloppy kisses and desperation.

  If Selina were here, she’d insist I bandage my wounds up, at least apply a little ointment, but she’s not, so I don’t. I just pull a pair of gray sweatpants on over my boxers and stomp downstairs. I push open the door to the study and pour myself a generous glass of bourbon before collapsing into the worn leather throne.

  Me, seated at her father’s desk. Her, climbing onto my lap, her disobedience lighting every fuse in my body. Us, our fires feeding off of each other, lips that know where they’re wanted and dirty mouths that don’t need to speak.

  I push the laptop and piles of paperwork to the edges of the large desk, and place only my Glock on the clearing in front of me. Staring at the weapon, I take a long swig of the bourbon.

  I lost sight of it all, my vision blurred by the money, the power, the girl. That’s never what this was all about. At the end of the day, all that matters is that he pays with his life.

  El Sombrerón, the man that stole my childhood and Selina’s, must die. I don’t care what it costs me anymore. I already lost everything that matters, anyway.

  I reach into my pocket and find the old jackknife where it always is. My fingers wrap around the cold metal. It’s a reminder of the first life I took, of the fact that I’m a monster, a killer, but that I’m stronger for it.

  I lay it on the desk, beside the gun.

  One way or another, El Sombrerón won’t live to see the leaves turn.

  * * *

  When his smartphone’s screen lights up with Mateo del Rey’s number, Reggie Andrews picks up with the speed of a teenage girl nursing her first crush.

  “Det—,” he begins, the bites his tongue. “Andrews.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the prick on the other end says, voice clipped. “I’ve got something, maybe.”

  Andrews sits up straighter, hand already on the ignition. “Where are you? I can be there in—”

  “I’m in New York on business right now,” Mateo interrupts. The former detective doesn’t doubt that the publishing prince fled town soon after they made an alliance against Javier Vega and Selina Palacios. All bark and no bite, that one. “But I just got a weird call from a friend at the St. Regis hotel.”

  Yes, of course a renowned philanderer like Mateo del Rey would have contacts at all the best hotels in the city. The kind of discretion that St. Regis is valued for doesn’t exactly come for free.
r />   “And?”

  “Long story short, someone checked in under my name a couple days ago,” he says. “Penthouse suite, indefinite stay.”

  “Are you sure that’s not just your wife?” Andrews asks bluntly. What goes around comes around, after all.

  Mateo just snorts. “No, it’s not her. It’s probably just some horny kids trying to be surreptitious—you know, sneaky,— but you said to keep an eye out for anything fishy, so.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Andrews says, distractedly. He pops open the glove compartment and pulls out his notepad and one of a dozen loose pens, praying this is one of the few that still has ink. “St. Regis penthouse, you said?”

  “Uh-huh.” Now Mateo sounds distracted too, the background hum on his end growing louder.

  “This is good,” Andrews tells him, knowing that men like del Rey need gold stars and praise to keep their attention. “Don’t let anything on to your friend, okay? We don’t want to chase whoever it is away. Not when we have them where we want them.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Mateo mumbles, suddenly impatient to wrap this conversation up.

  “I’ll go check it out and let you know.”

  “Great, man,” he says. “Talk soon.”

  He hangs up on Andrews without waiting for a response. The former detective pulls up his maps app, and searches for the St. Regis. Traffic is heavy right now, making it a twenty minute drive. Fifteen, if he makes use of the shortcuts he learned while on the force.

  He tosses the notepad and pen back into the glove compartment, and turns the ignition.

  * * *

  I don’t know what time it is, or even if it’s day or night. The curtains remain drawn tight, I order from the twenty-four-hour room service menu whenever I get too hungry to ignore, and I have a bottle of wine by my side at all times. HGTV is a monotonous drone in the background, lulling me to sleep and then waking me again in what could be minutes or hours. Sleep means nightmares, and waking without my husband’s arms around me, so I try to avoid letting that happen. I stand in the shower until my fingers prune, just letting the steaming water pour over me, imagining that the scorching heat is peeling back all the layers of me that anguish. Miel is always asking me things, telling me things, threatening things, but I don’t hear her words. But in between fitful sleep, lukewarm pasta, and a new bottle of wine, I’ll find her and hold my hand out for the phone. Javier always picks up. Even though we’ve run out of new ways to say the same things, even when I’m wasted and can only sob into the mouthpiece, even when it must be the middle of the night. He always picks up on the first ring, and he never hangs up until I do. We talk in circles for hours on end, until I begin to resent the knowledge that I’m not calling to hear his explanations or apologies, I’m calling because I can’t go a day without hearing his voice. I crave his touch, I yearn to run my fingertips over his face, tracing the line of his nose, memorizing the tickle of his stubble. How cruel, to need the man you despise. But addiction is never pretty, is it? Pain isn’t poetry until we decide to make it so. And even when you brush the gilded words off of the feeling, underneath you still find the gaping wound.