She looked at me as she said, “I want to see it.”
James nodded. “Very well. You’re a grown girl. I’ll respect your decision.” He adjusted his grip on the handle of the gun. “This is for my wife,” he said.
I kept my eyes riveted open. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing any fear in me. I had none to show. I was an outlaw about to die an outlaw’s death. I knew it might come to this, that walking into the lion’s den meant there was a good chance I’d never come out, but I’d come anyway. For her. For Carmen. I didn’t regret it.
“Pull the trigger, James,” I said.
He grimaced. Three shots fired.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Carmen
I heard a howling shriek and saw blood erupt from my father’s leg. To either side of me, his two henchmen collapsed. They were dead before they hit the ground.
I screamed as I fell, cowering into the dirt, shielding my head and eyes and praying I didn’t get shot.
I peeked out between my hands. From across the yard came two massive, shaven-headed men wearing tactical gear with big sniper rifles strapped across their shoulders.
They pushed James onto his back, then one of them reached a hand down to help Ben up. He took it and struggled to my feet.
“Are you okay, friend?” said a voice behind me.
I turned and saw a man walking towards where I stood. He was wearing a tracksuit and looking as casual as could be. But I saw the glimmer in his eyes and knew he was brewing with anger.
“I’m okay,” Ben said.
I didn’t know what was going on, but somehow, I’d made it through unhurt.
The man nodded sagely. “It seems our timing was appropriate. I am glad,” he said with a Russian accent.
“You don’t even know the half of it, Ivan, my brother.” Ben and the man clasped hands, then turned as one to look at James where he was lying in the dirt.
“So this is the motherfucker, eh?” he asked.
“This is him,” Ben replied.
Daddy sat up on his elbows, breathing in heavily through his mouth. His eyes were wild with animal fear.
“That is a nasty wound,” Ivan said, pointing at my father’s leg. “You ought to go to a hospital. You are very likely to bleed out if you do not.”
Dad kept breathing, not saying a word. Off to my right, I saw the crumpled bodies of his henchmen. Each of them bore a clean bullet hole right through the forehead.
“Tell me, James,” he continued, “why did you hurt my friend, Olaf? And your wife? That is a very disgraceful thing to do, friend.”
“I didn’t do shit,” he spat.
Ivan clucked and shook his head. “I know very well what you did. Do you think you are the only one who is friends with the police?” He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, crouched, and waggled it in front of James’s face. “There was video, wasn’t there? You knew this. They had you on camera! Very sloppy, very sloppy, indeed. You are not so good at this job. Perhaps it is best that you do not do it anymore.”
Daddy paled. I felt my stomach drop.
“Let us watch together, shall we?” Ivan announced. He hit play and held the phone so Daddy could see. As each second ticked by, the pallor in my dad’s face whitened further. By the end of it, he looked like a corpse.
The desert was silent when the video ended. Ivan stood up. “Tell your daughter what you did,” he said. His voice was icy cold, barely human. When Daddy stayed silent, he nudged a toe against his ruined leg, eliciting a bone-chilling scream. The howl echoed in the night. “Tell her,” he repeated. “Now.”
Daddy closed his eyes and started to speak, but Ivan interrupted again. “No, you must look at her. Like a man. Explain what you did and why.”
My father looked at me and the whole world shrank down to just his voice. I couldn’t see anything else, hear anything else, couldn’t even breathe as he spoke. His eyes were quivering. “It was me,” he said in a near-whisper. “I did it.”
I shook my head vigorously. “No, you didn’t, Daddy. You couldn’t have.”
“He did it, Carmen,” Ben said softly.
Tears pearled at the corners of my eyes. I heard a hollow, rushing noise, like the blood in my head had begun to stream faster and faster through my veins. My heart in my chest was fluttering at top speed.
“Daddy, why? Why would you kill Mom?”
His face twisted into a violent snarl as he erupted suddenly. “Because she was a fucking whore!” he thundered. “A nasty, cheating slut!”
I shrank in fear at the sudden outburst. Who was this man lying across from me, telling me he’d murdered my mother, calling her a whore, a slut? It was night and day. Just moments ago, I’d felt like I was reunited with him, like I had my father back and everything was falling back into place. But there was one more sudden jerk of the world left in store, it seemed, one more dizzying wrench before I could get a bearing on my life. Just moments ago, he’d seemed so innocent. This didn’t seem possible.