The altar lay empty. No sicario visited Santa Muerte at this hour.  

He hadn’t been named a sicario, or assassin, of the Solaro cartel. He’d never fired his weapon against another human being while he’d endured months on the inside of the criminal organization.  

Until now.  

Rain dripped from the brim of his battered tejana, the one remnant from his old life he’d been allowed to keep.  

The callouses on his hands had been built from raising elite thoroughbreds alongside his mother in Guanajuato, not doing Pablo Solaro’s bloody bidding in cartel country.  

That ended today.  

He raised his eyes to the Goddess of Death. She stared back at him from empty eye sockets, her teeth bared in a lipless grin around the fresh cigarette someone had pressed between her teeth. An elaborate headdress crowned her head. She appeared regal and benevalent, despite the bullets scattered among rattles and marigolds at her feet. Offerings from the sicarios who sought her blessing before every assignment.  

His hands didn’t shake as he lit the candles. His voice didn’t so much as tremble as he said the words he’d come to say.  

“Santisima Muerte,” he began quietly. “I ask for your blessing and pray for your forgiveness…” 

He faltered as the face of the man he planned to kill flashed before his eyes. His jaw tensed and he lowered his head, drawing the bullet from his pocket. It was warm. The casing gleamed bright as forge fire in the candlelight. He had not written the name of the man it was intended for, as sicarios traditionally did. Swallowing, he wet his dry throat and lips then continued. “Guide my path. May your steps go before me and behind me. May your figure protect my sides from right to left without evil. So be amen.”  

He set the bullet down at her feet, bowed his head once more before trudging back out into the rain.  

* 

It had taken two days. Two days to get the Americans out of his family’s clutches. First, Sloane, her leg badly broken. Then Pia, who he’d saved from the burning hacienda of his cousin, Jaime Solaro. Finally, Grace.  

Blood had been spilled. Solaros took their blood debts seriously. Javier’s uncle, Pablo, head of the human trafficking organization, no doubt had already put a price on his head. He would do anything to ensure reparation for the death of Alexandro, his son, who had been holding Grace against her will.  

Javier felt the blood on his hands every bit as much as he felt Grace’s stare as he sped across the desert plain.  

She had questions. He wasn’t sure what answers he could give. Why had he saved her and her friends? He’d only just managed to infiltrate the deepest levels of his uncle’s operation. His police handlers had made it clear he was to stay on the inside of the cartel until he’d gathered enough intel to make a solid case against those in charge—Pablo and his lieutenants, Alejandro and Jaime.  

But when Grace, Pia, and Sloane entered the picture…when he’d seen the treatment they’d endured over the last weeks…he’d had no choice. He had to get them out.  

“Who are you,” Grace questioned, her voice down to a murmur with Pia and Sloane resting fitfully in the backseat, “really?” 

He didn’t take his eyes off the road. They flickered between the blacktop under his headlights and the rearview mirror. People didn’t always use headlights on this long stretch of road. They were techincally still in Solaro territory. It wasn’t uncommon for Solaro men to patrol the highway in trucks and body armor, machine guns ready.  

He wouldn’t feel safe until they’d reached the city. Even then, the girls wouldn’t be out of danger until he got them to the embassy.  

What would happen to him at that point? Would the Americans turn him back out onto the streets? In that case, it wouldn’t take long for Pablo’s men to find him, even if he went into hiding. Would the Americans give him over to the Mexican police? He’d gone against their orders. They’d held all the cards – his inheritance in the balance – and he’d made his move against their wishes.  

It was too much to hope for sanctuary across the border. Nothing was certain now. He’d taken his life into his own hands by saving theirs.  

“I told you,” he replied. “My name is Javier.” 

“You’re one of them.”  

She sounded grim. He shook his head firmly. “No.”  

“Then why were you with the Solaros?” 

“It’s difficult to explain,” he said quickly.  

“It’s a long drive to the embassy,” she countered.  

  He chanced a glance at her. In the darkness, he could still see the rogue bruises on her chin, the mark on her cheek Alejandro had put there when she’d tried to free herself. Her arm cradled her ribs. How many men had she been forced to endure before she’d raised hell and made it impossible for Alejandro to traffic her?  

She’d cried when she had been reunited with her friends, Sloane and Pia. Once she’d seen their condition, however, she’d forgotten her own. She’d helped Javier steal the decade-old Jeep Cherokee. She’d ensured that Sloane and Pia were as comfortable as she could make them in the backseat. She hadn’t asked to listen to the radio for news or distraction—not when they needed peace and rest.  

None of them were safe. Not until they reached the embassy. Her spine was straight, her posture wary and her dark eyes piercing. They glittered in the low lights from the dash. Thick, dark curls tangled around her face, but the fight hadn’t left her.  

The fact that she was still standing…still fighting… Her tenacity shook him. He’d expected the three of them to be broken, like so many other Solaro victims, those Pablo saw as little more than property.  

Grace wasn’t broken or shattered. The light shining from her was hard and grim, but it was real.  

She wanted the truth. He’d give it to her.  

“I was never a Solaro,” he said. The brand underneath his sleeve – the Aztec skull all members of the cartel bore – itched. “Not really.”  

“Does Pablo know that?” she asked incisively. 

“Not until yesterday.”  

“So what were you doing with them, Javier?” she asked.  

Trying to win back his freedom. His birthright. “The policia needed someone on the inside of Pablo’s organization. It was too dangerous to send in any of their men.”  

“Why would they send you?” she asked. “You’re a cop?”  

“No,” he said with a quick shake of his head. He hesitated, knowing his answer would make her look at him askance. “I’m Pablo’s nephew.”  

“His nephew,” she said, voice dropping low.  

“Technically.”  

She made a contemplative noise in her throat. “How it is any less dangerous for you than a cop?”  

“It isn’t,” he admitted.  

“Then why do it?”  

“I’m not a Solaro,” he said carefully. “I never have been. My mother… She kept me away from all that. For good reason.” The things he’d seen on the inside of the cartel… They would never leave him. If he hadn’t stepped up, if he hadn’t done something, he’d have lost his soul in his bid for redemption. “The only way the policia would believe that is if I…” 

“…did their dirty work for them?” Grace finished.  

He nodded, knuckling the brim of his hat higher up his brow. “Sí.”  

“And how long did you do their dirty work?” she asked. “How long have you been on the inside?” 

The taste on his tongue changed to something intolerable. It tasted of sickness and regret. “Long enough,” he said grimly.  

“Why us?” she asked. “There were other women you could have rescued. Why did you decide to get the three of us out instead?” 

He didn’t know how to answer that. To do so, he would have to tell her how Sloane’s leg had been broken. He’d have to tell her about her screams and Pia’s desperate cries. He would have to tell Grace how her dark eyes had haunted him these long weeks.  

“Is it because we’re Americans?” she asked. “Because you can exchange us for protection from the Solaros?” 

“No,” he said quickly. “No. That was never my intent.”  

Her frown deepened as she regarded him. Slowly, she turned her attention over her shoulder, checking on Sloane and Pia once more. Her throat moved on a swallow. “Do you still have the gun you used to kill Alejandro?” she asked. 

The pistol he’d been given by his mother, Valentina, before her untimely death lay heavy against his thigh. It still felt hot, as if he’d shot his cousin minutes ago as opposed to hours. He hadn’t yet analyzed how he felt about his first kill. That would come later. “Sí.” 

She shifted in her seat. Pain split her expression into a grimace as her ribs protested the movement. “Is it still loaded?” 

“Sí.”  

“Do you think you’ll need it again…before this is all over?”  

For the first time, her heard the slight tremor under the steel of her voice. “Maybe,” he acknowledged. They’d known each other less than twenty-four hours and already he was unable to give her half-truths.  

Grace remained still for a long time. Then she released a sigh. “I just want to be home. I want to know Pia and Sloane are going to be okay. I don’t ever want to think about Alejandro or Pablo or any of the rest of it again.” 

Including him. His face was among those who were mixed up in her experience with human trafficking. She would sooner forget him than everything else.  

He wished he could forget, too. He would carry the mark of the Solaros on his skin for the rest of his life. There was no forgetting. 

He thought longingly of the stables in Guanajuato where he, his mother, and the hands who had referred to her solely as “jefa,” or boss, had worked every day. He thought of the creak of the saddle underneath him, the feel of the reins between his hands. He thought of the smell of horses…the wind on his face and the pounding of hoofbeats against the earth… 

He wanted to be home, too. Yet he feared there would be no home to return to. Or no way to return at all. Not without losing his life.  

“Where is home for you?” he asked, trying to shift his thoughts elsewhere so the burden of losing everything he and his mother had built together in Guanajuato might ease somewhat.  

She fell into quiet for a moment before speaking again. “New Orleans.” It came out on a near whisper and sounded almost reverent as a result.  

“Is it true what they say about Mardi Gras?” When she turned her head, eyes narrowed in question, he added, “That it’s the greatest party on earth?”  

He thought he saw the ghost of a smile mark the corners of her eyes. “There’s a saying there. ‘We don’t hide the crazy. We parade it down the street.’” 

He felt a chuckle rise to his lips and was surprised to hear it escape his mouth. “When this is all over…when you, Pia, and Sloane are safe at home…maybe I could come to Mardi Gras. See what it’s about.” 

Her eyes grew round as they searched his face.  

“What?” he asked. Had he been too bold to say what he wished? That the four of them had a future beyond this—beyond the cartel and human trafficking and Mexico?  

“You said ‘when,’” she breathed. “Not ‘if.’” 

His heart tugged vigorously in her direction. “Grace…I told you. You will get out. All of you. Prometo.” I promise.  

What had the last few weeks…hell, the last few years… What had it all been for if he couldn’t get Grace and her friends to safety?  

Her mouth parted into an ‘O’ shape. Her lip was split in the center. The bruising under her right eye hung in a low-slung half-moon. Still, he saw something kindle in those big, dark eyes of hers. Something that looked an awful lot like…hope. “I think I might be starting to believe you,” she whispered.  

His pulse rabbited in his ears, and he had to look away from her. He stared hard at the lines in the road, at the flash of oncoming headlights. The worst thing he could do for either of them would be to let himself be distracted or fall into her cavernous eyes and never come back out again. The Solaros would get the jump on him if he let his guard down for even a second.  

But if they got out of this…if somehow everything worked out and they got away from the Solaros and everything else, that hope in her eyes and the feelings it had stirred inside his hardened soul would stay with him long after.   

© Amber Leigh Williams 

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