Flee (14 page)

He paused, running his free hand through his wet hair. I realized I was holding my breath and let it out slowly. Nervous tension was building in me. What was he about to say? I didn't care what it was as long as it didn't interfere with my ability to be with him, to love him and be loved by him. He looked so serious and concerned it was scaring me. I squeezed his hand tighter.

“I'll do anything to keep you safe. Even if that means distancing myself from you.” There it was.

I stopped breathing and shook my head no furiously
. I can't be safe without you
.
I can't be anything without you
.

Mateo grabbed my chin, stopping its rapid back and forth motion. “You haven't even heard what I have to say yet. Hold your reaction until you know everything.” He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

“What is there to keep me safe from?” I whispered. My voice was strained, high-pitched. I sounded like a little girl.

“My parents met here in Austin, at UT. My mom is from Dallas. My dad is from Mexico, near Cabo San Lucas. He came here to study business. My paternal grandfather built a thriving family business.” Mateo's voice took on a hard edge, and he sounded angry, sarcastic.

“There's a family winery, an import/export business, and an investment firm.”

He spat this last word, and the look that crossed his face for a minute scared me.

“My father, his name is Juan, was to take over the import/export branch. He had been, as the story goes, practically engaged to a local girl when he left for college, but then he met and fell hard for my mother. You can see why. She's amazing. They eloped at the end of their junior year, and apparently both families were less than thrilled. My dad was temporarily cut off, both financially and physically, from his family. My mom always says that first year together, when they lived in married student housing and struggled to pay their bills with part-time jobs and finish school and graduate, was their happiest year ever. How I wish they had just stayed in Texas after graduation.” Mateo paused and looked at me, a small tight smile playing on his lips. “Hindsight's twenty-twenty.”

“After they got their degrees, Dad was offered a job here, but by then my mother was expecting Juan Carlos. Family is everything in our culture. The prospect of a grandchild brought forgiveness, and Dad was welcomed back home with open arms. I never knew until recently how hard that move was on Mom. A new country, a new language, a new culture and traditions, a new family who had at first rejected her… she's a determined and brave woman. As Dad tells it, by the end of the first year, she had my grandparents practically eating out of her hand. And she and Dad made a deal. She would live and raise her boys in Mexico, but in the house she would speak English and treat us like little Texans and introduce U.S. culture so that we could comfortably operate in either country. I'm thankful now for her foresight, although neither of us ever imagined it coming into play the way it has.”

“The import/export business flourished, and my brothers and I had an ideal, if not traditional, childhood. We lived in a beautiful house, but it was also a protected compound. We were privately tutored at home, and every time we left the gates of our estate, we had a bodyguard or security detail with us. Dad always said it was because we were wealthy and a target. There's a lot of poverty in my country, and sometimes desperate people do desperate things. But I think he sensed, if not knew, something was amiss.

"I grew up thinking always having security in tow was normal. I also didn't question my unorthodox education, which included lessons in boxing, martial arts, weaponry, and military strategy. We were a family of boys. We were interested in these things. Why shouldn't we study them?

“As you know, I played soccer. The better I got at it, the more freedom I was allowed. I joined local teams and got to leave the estate, with Hector to guard me, and interact with my teammates and the village. It was a good life.

“And then, two years ago, everything changed. My brother Juan Carlos' fiancée was killed on the night of their engagement party. My Uncle Eduardo, my father's brother who ran the most lucrative side of the family business, was also killed a few weeks later as he sought retribution. It turns out Uncle Eduardo was not the brilliant investor my mother and brothers and I had always thought. Or maybe he was. I guess it depends on your point of view.”

Mateo sighed. I waited patiently for him to continue.

“In the eighties he took a huge chunk of family money and bought into the illegal drug market. His timing was impeccable. As the Columbian cartels began to fall apart, the Mexican cartels took over and today my uncle's cartel is the second biggest in Mexico.”

He stopped talking and looked at me searchingly, gauging my reaction. I stayed still and kept my expression neutral, not wanting to scare him away. This was his family, not him. I knew in my heart that he was good.

“The cartels have been waging a war against each other for several years. You've probably heard or read about it. About the time Juan Carlos' fiancée Monica was killed, it got personal. Never before had one cartel attacked or killed the family of another. It changed all the rules. No one is safe anymore. When Eduardo was killed, my Dad took over his role as head of the cartel, with Juan Carlos as his second. It's not about drugs for Dad. It's about family. We've been attacked. Two of us have been murdered. My brother Thomas was almost killed in January. Dad will do whatever he can to keep his family safe. He's beyond seeing reason right now. Goodness knows Mom and Thomas and I have tried.”

Mateo stopped talking. There were tears in his eyes. I moved to sit next to him, placing my arm around his waist and laying my head on his shoulder.

“I'm sorry.”

“Thanks,” he whispered back. We sat in silence for a minute, and then he continued.

“For the past two years we've practically lived under house arrest. I've been out more than the others due to
fútbol
. My team was good.
Fútbol
is a huge part of Latino culture. We were playing teams from other countries, representing the youth of Mexico in tournaments in Central and South America. The other cartels wouldn't touch me and harm our team's chance of winning national pride and bragging rights as the best youth team in our conference. It gave me an outlet of sorts. Things seemed to calm down for a while. Mom was busy here overseeing the building of this house. Thomas was allowed to return to college, with protection of course. Dad promised us he was going to find a way out of things, that he was just as horrified by it as we were. We knew he had to tread carefully or we could all be killed, and that it would take time. And then Thomas' jeep was forced off of the road last January and he almost died, and Dad flipped out. He hasn't been the same since. Mom and I decided to leave, hoping they would leave with us, but Dad and JC see us as traitors. They haven't talked to us since we moved here.”

“What about Thomas?” Every time Mateo mentioned his name, I could sense his love for him. What had happened to this favorite brother?

“Thomas has a brilliant financial mind. He stayed because he is going over all of the books, trying to find a solution that will allow our family to cut all ties with the drug cartels without getting any of us killed. Dad and JC don't know that's his motivation. He might lose some of their trust if they did. I honestly don't recognize my father anymore, nor does my mother. But she misses him. She cries herself to sleep a lot at night. We, Reynas, love deeply and forever, no matter what. Mom still loves him as much as she did the day they married, even if she doesn't understand him anymore. And he loves her. I can't believe he's stayed away from her for this long. And Juan Carlos has never been the same since Monica was killed. I think his heart died with her.”

I pondered all that he had said. It was a lot to take in but it did not change anything for me. It only made me love him more. His desire to provide for and protect his mother, his joy and compassion in life despite hard circumstances, his horror at the family
business
all pointed to his good heart.

“What about this Reyna, sitting here in front of me? Do you love deeply and forever no matter what?”

He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. “Absolutely.” He caressed my face with the side of his hand. “I'm beginning to understand Juan Carlos' reaction. If something happened to you, my heart would die also.”

“Nothing's going to happen to me. Surely my family has endured more than our quota of tragedy.” I said this really wishing it to be true.
Please, let it end. Don't let there be a curse on my family
. I wanted the happily ever after. It finally felt within reach.

“Nothing is going to happen to you because I'm not going to let anything happen to you,” Mateo replied, his voice determined. Commanding. “Blake, I need to assign a security team to you.”

“What?” My shocked, high-pitched shriek disturbed Doodles. He stood and barked, advancing toward us, looking around to discover the source of the commotion. “Don't be ridiculous. Why do I need…” Remembering their reaction to my story last night caused me to stop: Meg's horror, Mateo's anger, and Hector's determination when I had shared how my parents had been positioned.

“You know something, don't you?”

Mateo nodded but didn't speak.

My heart was racing, but I wanted to know what he knew. I needed answers. “Please tell me.” Surprisingly he heard the voice I could barely add volume to.

“The largest cartel in Mexico is known as Las Lunas. They control a good portion of the trade routes that smuggle drugs from South America and various other places up through Mexico and into the states. They're large and brutal. A few years ago they formed their own paramilitary, an army of sorts to protect them and their interests. It's made up of ex-military soldiers, some of whom were pretty high up and well-trained, who defected and joined the Lunas for better pay and opportunity. Not to sound like a comic book, but they are my family's arch-enemy. And they have a signature kill, several actually, but sometimes they like to mark their kills by positioning the arms of the victims to look like…”

“Two Ls,” I finished for him. “Las Lunas.”

This couldn't be happening. Why? What? It didn't make sense. My family had no connection to any of this. Why had they killed my parents? Squeezing my eyes closed, I tried to force myself to calm down and stop hyperventilating. Instead, I saw a flash from the scene of that night. Something was there, hovering in the back of my mind, some detail teasing me but refusing to come to the surface. I focused on it, concentrating on the movement by the back door. Was this what I had been trying to remember? Something my mind had shut out in horror. Something that filled me with stone cold fear. What was it? I squeezed my eyes tightly, willing my brain to remember what my subconscious wanted to block out
.

I had rounded the corner from the hall into the living room. The alarm was blaring, but I could hear the soft music from the stereo, see the half-emptied wine glasses on the coffee table. My parents' bodies were lying on the ground
.
I remembered seeing them and trying to figure out what it meant that they were like that, not moving. Then, there was movement at the back door. Yes, it had been open, cold wind whipping in from outside, but something had caused me to look at it. It was
…

“Blake! It's okay. I'm here. You're okay.” Mateo was shaking me gently, and for good reason. I was screaming and shaking in fear. Shutting my mouth, I looked up at Mateo and was surprised to see two men standing behind him, their guns drawn and their eyes scanning for threats. The pool house door opened, and Hector emerged, trying to run and pull on pants at the same time. The scene would have been funny if I hadn't been so freaked out. I answered Mateo's unspoken question before he could ask.

“There was someone there, Mateo, I saw him. I saw my parents' killer! He was standing at the open back door, and he looked right at me, right into my eyes and he…” I began to gasp. It was hard to speak but I had to get all of it out, to speak it before my mind shut it out again. I had to remember everything I could.

“He grinned.” I shuddered at the memory but went on. “He grinned and then he blew me a kiss and said,
'Later.'
”

This was the memory I had been suppressing? Why had I not remembered this before? Now that I had, I was completely freaked out. I curled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, trying to get small and invisible. Mateo's arms were around me, and I could hear Spanish being spoken rapid-fire back and forth between him and Hector and one of the guards.
Later
. What did that mean? Was he coming back? Why hadn't he killed me then? Did he want to kill me now? Why?

“Blake, it's okay. I won't let anything happen to you. Please don't be so scared. I can't stand to see you like this. Please know you are safe here.” These words were whispered so softly into my ear that I was sure I was the only one who could hear them. I clung to them, concentrated on them and on the man soothing me with them. The words switched to Spanish, and I could no longer understand them, but they calmed me. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I opened my eyes and was rewarded with Mateo's beautiful blues staring back at me. I attempted a half smile.

“Sorry.” I was clinging to his arm so hard my nails were biting into his skin. I relaxed my grip, but only a little. “I didn't mean to lose it like that.”

“It's okay,” he returned. “Are you calm enough now for us to ask you a few questions? We can wait if you need us to…”

“No, it's okay.” I looked at Hector and the two guards. Mateo was right. I was safe here. I had always been safe around him. Maybe I'd subconsciously realized this all along. Maybe that was why I could sleep around him and relax and let my guard down. “What do you want to know?”