1
ALICIA
What am I supposed to do?
Where do I go from here?
Probably no more than an hour ago, I was about to kiss my husband for the first time. I was dazed and shaken, but I made it through the ceremony—what little ceremony there was. I knew what I had to do to make it out of this alive, even if I was sure the entire time that my supposed father was going to spill the beans and ruin everything.
He did, too. Just not in the way I imagined.
Now, here I am. Locked up again in the same room as when I first got here. The difference is I’m wearing a bloodstained wedding dress. And a band around my ring finger, a symbol of the mockery of a union I’m now a part of.
I’m waiting for my husband to decide what he’s going to do with me.
A heartbroken sob tears itself from my chest before I can fight it back. I don’t understand what happened. Like things weren’t bad enough as they were. Forced into the wedding, having to pretend those people were my parents. I’ve told so many lies and half-truths that I can’t keep track of any of it.
All I know now is that there is no lying my way out of this one. That Alvarez guy told Enzo I’m not who he thinks I am. He’s just as disgusting and cruel as the rest of them.
I thought Enzo was better than that. In fact, deep down, I know he is. I didn’t mean to blurt out my feelings for him, but they’re real. I love him. I was terrified for those brief moments when I didn’t know if he was hit by a bullet. The idea of being without him… Even now, it’s not something I want to imagine. Even though he’s locked me up again. Even when I know there is a high chance he will kill me.
The click of the lock makes my head snap up. My eyes are on the door. My heart starts to race, and a sickening wave of nausea ripples through me. This is it. I honestly didn’t think it would take this long for him to come up here and take his rage out on me. I hold my breath, ready to face my fate, but it isn’t Enzo who comes into the room. I blink, confused for a moment, when I realize it’s a guard instead.
He glares at me for a split second before leaving a tray of food on the floor. I don’t have time to take a breath and ask what’s happening before he closes the door again, clicking the lock into place.
“Please, somebody, talk to me!” I rush from the bed and knock on the door when what I want to do is pound my fists, but I know that won’t get me anywhere. The best thing I can do right now is play it cool. As cool as a person can play it in a situation like this.
I have to settle for picking up the tray covered in food we were supposed to be enjoying as part of our wedding dinner. Yet another symbol of what this day was supposed to be and what it eventually evolved into. It’s kind of cold now, the wine sauce coating the chicken somewhat congealed, but I have no idea the next time someone will think to feed me, so I doubt I should look a gift horse in the mouth. Even though I’m about as far away from hungry as I can remember ever being, I force myself through it, eating potatoes and sauteed vegetables without really tasting much of it.
If it wasn’t all so stressful, I might have to laugh. Could this entire situation be any further from what I would have imagined my wedding to be like one day? All my youthful illusions, gone at once. I’m sitting alone in a locked room with only a tiny window through which to see the outside world. My dress—one I didn’t get to choose for myself—is covered in blood and grass stains. I’m eating cold food from a tray, forcing myself to swallow every bite even though it tastes like sawdust. Waiting for my husband to barge in here and make good on his promise of killing me.
And all the while, my brain is churning. What am I supposed to do here? What should I say? I doubt he’ll believe anything I come up with, but I have to try, don’t I? I can’t roll over and die without at least trying to save myself.
I hate the sense of returning to where we started, especially when it seemed Enzo was starting to come around. He was actually sweet toward me, tender. I’m not fooling myself by remembering the concern etched all over his face and dripping from his voice when he checked me over to make sure I was okay. He could have protected himself alone but threw himself over me instead. That has to mean something.
Can I make that work in my favor now?
One thing is obvious: Josef Alvarez was lying when he said he wasn’t responsible for this shooting. Who else would be?
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if all of this isn’t partly my fault. I could have told him the truth from the beginning or at any point during this whole ordeal. Clearly, all Alvarez ever cared about was the drugs. Now I understand a lot of things I didn’t before. The shooting at the airplane hangar—obviously, he figured they were bringing the drugs to the meeting and wanted them back, no strings attached. Meaning killing the people who brought them back to him.
Meanwhile, Enzo thought it was me he was looking for. I guess it’s easy to look back now and see all the mistakes and all the ways this could have been avoided. At the time, they only thought I was doing my best to survive. I never meant to get anybody killed, not even that wicked old man.
I have no doubt Enzo is going to put that together sooner rather than later. Maybe I can somehow get ahead of him. I’ll tell him the full truth, all of it. I might be able to get through to him, especially if I tell him what Alvarez was really looking for all along. If all he wants is the drugs, it’s a simple matter of returning them.
Or… if Enzo still has the drugs, which I have no doubt he would, maybe he can use them in some other way. If Alvarez is that desperate to get them back, they must be something special. I don’t know anything about that, but I remember Enzo’s reaction when he tested them. He tried to hide it, but when I look back, it’s clear something about them intrigued him. Maybe he could sell them himself or find out how they were manufactured. He could still come out of this having gained something.
No, that won’t bring his grandfather back, but it might put Enzo in a better position to get his revenge. I have no doubt that’s what sits at the forefront of his mind since it’s what I would want if the only father figure I had was suddenly assassinated in front of me. How he’s going to get vengeance for the old man.
Even though he couldn’t have been a very nice man, and he certainly made me feel like a cheap piece of trash. I’ll never forget how pitifully Enzo reacted when he knew there was nothing to be done. That the man who had raised him was gone. Just remembering it now stirs pain in my chest. It’s dangerous to think of him as a lost little boy, but I can’t help it. That’s exactly who he was at that moment.
One thing I know for sure. There’s no way he’s going to be thinking clearly. I know he’ll hate it if I try to talk sense to him, but that’s what I have to do. I have to get through to him somehow. I have to make sure he sees the big picture and doesn’t get lost in his pain and rage. Not even only for my sake but for his own. He was dangerously close to losing it out there. People don’t make smart decisions when they’re in that state of mind.
And even though he’s got me locked in here, I still care. Probably too much. I don’t want to see him hurting any worse than he already is, and I wish there was a way I could take it away. Since I know that’s not possible, all I can do is try to keep things from getting any worse.
I have no idea how much time passes. I only know the light outside the little window changes as the sun moves across the sky and the day progresses. There isn’t even that much noise coming from the rest of the house, which strikes me as odd. I imagine Enzo throwing things around, screaming, threatening to burn the whole place down unless somebody starts giving him the answers he wants. Somehow, the silence is even more frightening than what I just imagined. Too many ugly possibilities exist in that silence.
The lock clicks. My heart is going to explode. My stomach feels like I’m on my way down the first big hill of a roller coaster.