Dirty Souls by Karina Halle
They disappeared below deck. It was a big yacht, about fifty feet. Comfortable and breezy.
They explored the main cabin first where the couple slept. Beatriz took a necklace that probably wasn’t worth much. Javier found some American cash.
Then they went to one of the back cabins beside the galley, underneath the cockpit, and started rummaging there. It was mainly extra bedding, towels, some trinkets, extra food. Javier found a chocolate bar and ate half of it, giving the other half to Beatriz.
Then there was the sound of a motor.
The couple had returned early.
Javier and Beatriz froze, looking at each other with wide, shining eyes. They were going to get caught.
Javier quickly closed the door to the cabin. There was nowhere to go in this tiny space except the closet, and even that would barely fit both of them. But they had no choice.
They got in and latched the door.
And spent most of the evening and night in there.
It wasn’t until Javier was certain that the couple had to be asleep—he could hear someone snoring—that he nudged Beatriz and they carefully left the closet, then the cabin, then crawled out onto the deck.
After being stuffed in that closet, the sea air and the view of La Cruz from the boat, fair lights twinkling in the middle of the night, was something else.
For the first time in his life, Javier Bernal felt two things:
One was fear.
In that closet with his sister, he experienced pure terror for the first (and definitely not the last) time. For the hours they were trapped in there, he imagined the couple finding them both. Suddenly they were no longer wealthy Canadian snowbirds exploring the shores of Mexico. They were villains, ready to hurt and maim. Javier was afraid they’d cut him open, and even more than that, he was afraid they’d hurt his dear sister.
The other thing he felt was that he liked the fear.
Maybe not in the closet, imagining their slow and torturous demise (he already had quite the wicked imagination), but afterward, as he stood on that boat and realized he escaped.
He’d never felt so alive.
And from that moment onward, he knew he’d try and make fear his friend.
That suited him well for most of his life.
Except now.
As he stands in his office, trying to ignore the needle that Barrera keeps piercing into his skin, makeshift stitches, fear doesn’t feel like a friend anymore.
It’s not that Javier isn’t afraid.
It’s that he’s afraid of something—someone—he never thought he’d be.
His own fucking son.
Try as he might, he can’t pretend this is business as usual.
He can’t pretend that the fact that Vicente actually stabbed him with a knife wasn’t like being stabbed in the back.
Javier could drown in his bitterness right now.
The terrible frustration.
The fact that no matter what, Vicente doesn’t understand what he’s trying to do.
Then again, if Javier had a few moments alone to think, he might realize he doesn’t really know what he’s trying to do.
Not anymore.
All he’s doing now is waiting.
“Are you done yet?” Javier asks, leaning against the desk, eyes pinching shut at the thread tightening.
“Almost,” Barrera says, sliding the needle through. “You’re lucky.”
“Lucky,” Javier scoffs but that alone makes his side burn. “What the fuck is lucky about my own son trying to kill me?”
“He wasn’t trying to kill you,” Barrera says patiently.
“Well he wasn’t fucking hugging me.”
Barrera looks up at him as he pulls the final stitch through. “It’s a clean cut. It will heal nicely. Vicente was only trying to hurt you, not kill you. If he wanted to kill you, you would be dead.”
Javier knows that but it doesn’t make this any better.
“What happened in there?” Barrera asks.
Javier gives him a withering stare. “Now you’re asking questions? That’s not your style.”
Barrera doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I warned you.”
Javier ignores him. The humiliation burns deep.
If only Parada hadn’t woken him up.
If only he stayed in bed with his wife, drifting away with her arms around him.
Tricking himself into thinking that everything was going to be all right.
But when Parada came, he assumed it was because of someone else.
Not his son.
Still. He grabbed his gun.
Because yes, Barrera did warn him.
And Javier thought maybe Vicente would try something.
But he didn’t expect this.
I should probably be proud of him, Javier thinks. And fuck it, he is.
His son was more ruthless than he could have imagined.
But that’s only because of her.
Javier had assumed that Vicente took up with Violet because he enjoyed fucking her, getting caught up with having his dick sucked every night. She wasn’t the same old putas he could hire here. She was something new and exquisite. Forbidden.
Javier knew himself how easy it was to fall head over heels for someone when your hormones are at an all-time high, how interchangeable love and lust were.
Because he fell for Ellie quickly.
Days, really.
And his son has done the same with Violet.
He sees it now. Knows it.
With every breath he takes, he bleeds it.
And he’ll pay for it.
It will be the last time he underestimates his son.
“What do you want me to do with them?” Barrera asks.
Javier grabs his shirt off the desk, slides it on carefully over the stitches.
“I don’t know. Keep them there for now.”
“Vicente has his gun still.”
Javier nods. Wonders what will happen now that Vicente will see what’s happened to Violet. He was lucky to escape when he did, while Vicente was stunned, before he saw the extent of the damage.
Javier remembers what it was like to rescue Luisa from the brink of death. To see his love so ravaged and ruined. He’s never forgotten the way it broke him, then the anger that repaired him. His sworn vengeance against the men that wronged her. How good it felt to kill them.
He doesn’t expect Vicente to feel any different.
Perhaps he won’t be broken after all.
At that thought, Javier lapses into silence. Outside, the crickets chirp. The bottle of tequila calls him. It’s either that or go back to bed to Luisa, but she’ll know what’s wrong, see he’s injured. He’ll have to tell her what happened. And that’s the last thing he wants right now, for Luisa to feel torn between husband and son. He knows he’s already put her in that position.
Javier sighs and wonders where it all started to go wrong.
Whose fault is all of this?
He’s about to say something to Barrera, question, out loud, if any of this was worth it.
But there’s a knock at the door.
“What?” Javier barks, pained and irritable.
Parada pokes his head in. “Patron? Something’s happened. A situation.”
“Situation?”
“There’s a woman at the front gate. A gringa.”
And just like that, every doubt Javier had slips away, discarded like a snake shedding its skin.
“Who is it?” he asks, trying to hide the excitement from his voice but failing.
Even Barrera is eying him curiously, not expecting this at all.
“I don’t know, I just saw her on the security monitor,” he says. “Pablo says she’s here to see you. Do you want her escorted in?”
A grin slowly spreads across Javier’s face. “No, no. Keep the guns on her. And around her. She’s probably not alone. But let us go out and meet her.”
Parada nods and leaves.
Barrera
“You don’t have to know everything,” Javier says, almost gleefully.
Fuck, it is glee.
He’s been waiting a long time for this.
Twenty-odd years.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ellie
“I’m here to see Javier Bernal,” Ellie says outside the gate to the faceless men barking at her in Spanish.
The spotlight fixes on her.
She can only blink at it, trying not to blind herself.
Her hands are up over her head.
She doesn’t have a gun or any weapon on her.
She knew there was no point.
Getting to the compound wasn’t easy. After they left Camden, Gus, and El Segundo, they had to trek most of the day and evening through the jungle, Ben reading their location through the GPS.
When they were a mile outside of the compound, Ben and her split up.
That was the worst part.
She could tell Ben didn’t want to let her go on her own, but it was as far as he could go and not be spotted by their sensors.
And she didn’t want to leave Ben, just in case something happened to him.
Or her, for that matter.
Like with Camden and Gus, she was acutely aware that she might fail. That she might not make it back, let alone with Violet.
It was best not to dwell on it.
She told Ben she loved him.
He told her he loved her.
And that he forgave her for everything.
That he understood.
That she was his mother, the best mother anyone could have.
It took everything not to cry.
Ellie coated her heart with an inch of steel.
It was the only way she could continue.
She went on through the jungle alone, just following Ben’s directions.
Eventually, she was spotted by a drone flying overhead, its light on her.
It didn’t shoot though, just observed for a moment before flying off, perhaps to look for the rest of her party and she kept walking, now along a dirt road, the very road Ben said would take her to the gates.
And it did.
She approached the gates slowly.
Guns were drawn. Orders were barked.
And now she’s waiting.
There are two men behind her, AKs aimed at her head.
On the other side of the fence there’s a spotlight, illuminating her.
And two shadowy figures passing in front of it, providing short relief from the intense glare.
The gate opens smoothly.
A tall, lanky man with wide-shoulders appears, comes over to her.
Ellie looks up at him. Thinks he’s interesting looking, the slinky way he moves, the quiet way he looks her over. He’s got a calming presence, which she knows isn’t a good thing.
“Senora,” The man says and his voice is raspy, low. “What is your name, por favor?”
“Ellie McQueen.”
“Mmmm,” he muses, rubbing his goatee, like her answer is something to ponder. In the darkness, his eyes glint like a predator’s.
Ellie wishes she felt empowered.
She fakes it.
Throws her shoulders back, raises her chin, keeps her eyes on him.
“Were you expecting someone else?”
She swears she can see a hint of smile across his face before it’s quickly swallowed up by the shadows. “I suppose not. Please keep your hands where I can see them. I must search you.”
He comes forward, his height dwarfing her, but she doesn’t shrink. She holds her ground. Plays by the rules. Keeps her hands up.
He runs his hands softly around her neck, lifting up her hair, then over her bare arms, down the sides of her dirty tank top, over her shorts, between her legs. Ellie tenses, expecting funny business but he works quickly, his palms hot.
He does pause, though, over her scars on her leg. In fact, he does more than pause. He peers at the tattoo and the scarring in the stark spotlight and almost recoils.
No, Ellie thinks. He’s not disgusted. He recognizes this.
The look is very faint in those squinting eyes of his, but it’s there for a moment and then gone.
He straightens up and yells over his shoulder toward the spotlight. “She’s all clear. She has nothing.”
The other shadowed figure she saw earlier, the one to the side of the light, comes forward.
Now she tenses.
Now she freezes.
A doe in a literal headlight.
All this time and she still recognizes that walk anywhere.
An animal, all coiled power and predatory elegance.
Only it’s changed.
Slightly off-balance, though still smooth and confident.
He’s injured, Ellie thinks to herself. She hopes Violet did it to him, but she knows that Violet would have to suffer the consequences if that were the case (if she hasn’t already).
And there he stops.
Close enough to Ellie that she can make out his features in the shadows, backlit from behind.
The air may be hot and muggy.
But her blood runs cold as she stares at his face.
Very cold.
His face may have wrinkles, perhaps more so because of the shadows, his hair a bit shorter, streaked with grey. He’s the same height, same build, managed to keep off the paunch that descends on men in their middle age.
But the eyes are the same, she thinks.
Or almost. There’s something different in them too. Something she can’t quite read.
Still, the fact that Javier Bernal is standing in front of her, very much looking the way he did back then, is completely jarring. Disorienting. Him, combined with the spotlight and the night’s humidity, it almost feels like a wicked dream.
A nightmare come to life.
It doesn’t help that he’s dressed down like she rarely saw him, in grey sweatpants and a t-shirt. A big, fresh bloodstain at his side, making everything extra bizarre.
“Ellie McQueen,” Javier says with reverence, extra emphasis on her new, to him, last name. “This is what you’re calling yourself now? Always having to change things.” He pauses. “I was wondering when you might show up.”
He says this like she was supposed to come over for dinner earlier and was running a bit late.
Ellie isn’t fooled. She stopped being fooled by him a long time ago.
She says nothing, just stares at him, feeling pulled back into the past.
This is a man she never thought she’d see again. Hoped she’d never see.
And yet here she is, on his turf. Defenseless except for the determination to get her child back. That counts for more than one would think.
“I have to say, I admire you greatly,” he says, stepping forward.
One, two, three steps.
Until he’s just a foot away.
He smells like antiseptic, and she’s not sure if that’s from drinking or whatever wound he has in his to cause him to bleed like that.
Again, she’s hoping Violet had some role in this.
“I often wondered what you would be like as a mother,” he says, tilting his head as he glances her over. “I figured you would be fierce and protective. A lioness with her cubs. I counted on it, in fact. I didn’t know you’d shelter her though. I thought you would have raised her to become more like you.”
Finally, Ellie speaks. She can’t help it. “And what is that?” Her voice shakes slightly.
He smiles softly, reaches out and catches the bottom of her chin with his fingers, lifting it. His fingertips are rough, calloused, and she thinks about the Javier she used to know, who rarely got his hands dirty.
“I thought you would have raised her to have no shame. To take pride in what you are. What you always have been.” He pauses, his hand dropping away. “Which is no good.”
His assumptions don’t bother her. Nothing he can say can bother her, though she knows he’
Anyway, she doesn’t have to explain anything.
She presses her lips shut in defiance.
He winks at her.
Then turns to wave at his men. “You can turn the light off now. Barrera and I will escort her inside.”
“Do you have my daughter?” Ellie asks before he tries to take her. “Violet? Do you have her? Is she alive?”
He watches her for a moment and then nods. “Yes to all of those.” He glances at Barrera who comes over. “She deserves something nice. Let’s take her to the hut.”
The hut? Ellie thinks.
“Can I see her? Is that where you’re taking me?”
Javier grabs her bicep, his grip stronger than it needs to be. “We’ll deal with the questions later. You’ve obviously had a long day. You need to rest, Ellie.” He smiles at her, a sight that contrasts with his pinching grip on her arm. “How funny it is to call you that again.”
He leads her through the gate, Barrera on her other side. He doesn’t even have a gun pulled. Ellie supposes there is no point. There are a million aimed at her head from all directions.
“So where are your friends?” Javier asks, pulling her along as they walk down a long, tiled driveway. “Your husband? Our darling Camden.”
“Not here,” she says.
“I have a hard time believing he would let you off on your own. Figured he loved you more than that, to just let you waltz off to visit your ex-boyfriend.”
Ellie doesn’t say anything.
“In fact, I have a hard time believing you don’t have a posse of middle-aged renegades somewhere out there in the jungle.” He looks her up and down as they cross over a grassy lawn, mowed impeccably short. “Then again, you’ve always been a one-woman show.”
While the main house is large and lavish, done up in typical Hacienda style, Javier and Barrera lead Ellie to one of the outlying building nestled under a canopy of palms, the motion sensor lights coming on as they walk. In any other circumstance, this could look like a resort, with the huts the upgraded accommodation for space and privacy.
But Ellie knows that the huts are distant from the main house for a reason. The perfect place to put guests. You couldn’t smell them if they were left to rot and die.