THE BIG MOVE (Miami Hearts Book 2) (17 page)

              “I’m at the bus station,” he said. “I sold the voucher and the groceries, and bought this phone. I couldn’t afford many minutes, but I’ll figure something out.”

              I gritted my teeth with frustration. “Don’t talk to me a second longer,” I begged. “Call someone. Anyone. Get out of sight and stay out of sight. It isn’t safe, Antonio. I wish you would’ve taken the bus to the countryside, to get away.”

              “There were things I needed, Sol,” he said. “Escape will have to wait.”

              “We will be together again,” I said, the words jumbling together in my haste to get them out. He couldn’t be wasting his minutes on my worrying. “I’ve already moved to a smaller apartment. I’m saving money. I’m working more. I will bring you back to Miami.”

              “We’ll talk about it,
amor,
” he said, after a pause. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

              “Be safe,” I said. “I love you.”

              “I love you.”

              It was good to talk to him, good to know that, at least for the moment, he was all right. It was even better to have my plan, to have purpose.

              I thought that nothing could ever be as bad as this, being separated from Antonio, and, in a way, I was relieved. I’d been through the darkest my new life could get, figuring out how to live alone. If I could get through that, nothing worse could befall me.

              That’s what I thought.

              That’s what I thought, and I was dead wrong.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, or what to do with Xander’s saved number in my cell phone, so I just worked and worked. I needed to address one problem at a time, I told myself, and the ransom was number one on my to-do list.

              I danced my heart out at the club, and I made sure to concoct every recipe at the snack shop to the very best of my ability, often going above and beyond to make little tweaks to the offerings that I thought would be especially delicious. Jennet starting hawking my modifications as “Sol Specials,” and those sold out fast.

              “Seriously,” she said, coming in to help man the register during a particularly busy portion of the shift. “I don’t know how you make this crap palatable, but people are eating it up. The obesity epidemic in this country? Your fault entirely.”

              Everyone in hearing distance of Jennet’s regular-volume bellow scowled at her, but if she cared even an inkling of what they thought, she didn’t show it.

              “I don’t know if that’s really a compliment,” I said nervously, squirting nacho cheese directly into a bag of Cheetos and jamming a spoon into the sloppy concoction. I was just trying to have an extra edge in my job, drive my sales — and the opportunity for tips — up as high as I could.

              “Trust me,” Jennet said, grinning as she patted a kid with a corndog in each hand on the head. “It’s a huge compliment. How awesome is our Sol, everyone?” She pointed to me, and I had to flush and laugh at the cheers and applause that filled the tiny snack shop. It was refreshing to be appreciated for something more than my body and dance skills.

              “You should open a restaurant,” Jennet said, scooping a spoonful out of the slow cooker of chili I’d prepared for the hot dogs. “Oh my God, this is sinful. This is beans and liquid crack, isn’t it? You can tell me. What’s your secret?”

              That was even more gratifying. “Do you mean it?” I asked. “Do you really think I could open a restaurant?”

              “Sweetie, this is America,” she said, jamming another spoonful of the chili into her mouth. “Anyone can do anything. That’s the beauty of this country. You’re an amazing cook. You’d be a natural talent running a restaurant. I’d eat there for every meal, and I’d get as fat as that guy over there.”

              Jennet made me believe that wonderful things were possible, opened my eyes to renewed hope and potential, just as often as she horrified and embarrassed me.

              But it was still Parker who enabled me to make the bulk of my money. That was just the truth of the industry. People wanted to fill their bellies, but that didn’t pay as well as people who wanted to fulfill their fantasies.

              I worked long and hard hours, splitting my time between the snack shop and the club. I went home exhausted but happy that I was doing all I could to earn the most money in the quickest amount of time possible.

              I learned new tricks for the pole on the stage, picked popular music to get new fans, lavished attention on even the most poorly dressed customers in the club. A private dance cost the same for everyone, and every dollar was important to me.

              “Don’t waste your time with the riffraff,” one of the dancers admonished me when I darted into the dressing room to hose myself off from all the sweat I’d generated while gyrating behind the curtains for anyone who’d pay me for it.

              “Riffraff still pays the same,” I said, waving the bills at her and laughing. “Don’t ignore the riffraff, would be my advice.”

              “Honey, you know the real money’s in escorting,” she said, giving me a sidelong glance while curling her eyelashes. “You’re getting money here, sure, but you’re working awfully hard for it.”

              “What’s wrong with a little hard work?” I teased her. Escorting reminded me of Xander. I still didn’t know how it stood between us, didn’t know how I wanted it to be between us, and didn’t understand if there even was an “us” or not. But escorting after him still felt like a clear betrayal. I didn’t want to get myself into escorting. I didn’t want to get used to it.

              Finally, though, after months of grueling schedules and a stunning weight loss of fifteen pounds for me, thanks to just how hard I was working, I did it. I finally made the last few dollars of the ransom that had been demanded of me to set Antonio free.

              “What’s that smile for?” Parker asked, suspicious as she passed me sitting at a table, counting my money for the night over and over again and giggling.

              “I reached a goal,” I said. “A goal I’ve been trying to reach for a long time. The reason I’ve been working the long hours.”

              “That’s the thing about goals,” she said, giving me a small smile. “Set them for yourself, and you’ll always get there, one way or another.”

              I jumped up and threw my arms around Parker, my joy overwhelming me. I needed to share it with someone, even if Parker eschewed hugs.

              “It was a very important goal,” I told her. “Very important, and I couldn’t have gotten there without you letting me work so much. You made this goal happen for me.”

              “No one can achieve goals for anyone else, Sol,” Parker said, extricating herself from my arms. “You did this all by yourself.”

              It was an achievement to have that final payment in hand, and I promised myself I could sleep for a whole day in celebration. I never felt like I was getting enough sleep these days, but it was because I’d sensed the light at the end of the tunnel, knew that if I just pushed through, pushed myself a little harder, I could get there.

              I could win Antonio’s freedom.

              I felt as light as a feather with the receipt in my hand, walking away from the money transfer center for what would be the last time. Sure, I’d still be sending money back to Honduras from time to time, but it would be for a much more joyful occasion — getting Antonio back to Miami with me, where he belonged.

              Even as I looked toward that happy day, my gut twisted. What would Antonio say to me having had sex for money — even if it was for the noblest of causes? Both of us had done things we weren’t proud of. He’d never liked the fact that neither of us could get good jobs, even in America, the land where dreams were supposed to come true.

              But sex for money … that was a different thing altogether. I’d never wanted to be unfaithful to Antonio, not after all we’d been through. He’d saved my life, given me the strength to keep going even after he was deported. I loved him … and yet I still had that kernel of doubt, the idea that we were two different people. I’d followed him to America — well, he’d been practically dragging me away from very real threats from the gangs. But prior to that, we’d simply fallen in love together. I’d followed him in all his endeavors from attempting to foment social change in Honduras to standing up to the gangs.

              I’d always been with him, every step of the way, but now that I was on my own, I was wondering just which direction I would choose to go in.

              I couldn’t deny that I had feelings for Xander. What I didn’t know was whether those feelings only felt stronger than the ones I harbored for Antonio solely for the fact that Xander was so much closer to me physically than Antonio. Honduras felt like it was worlds away from Miami.

              When I arrived home at my tiny apartment that night, I checked my cell phone. I’d been fastidious about checking it each day, particularly the days when I made a wire transfer to the gang. The messages they usually sent me weren’t particularly reassuring, but I liked to know they actually received the money. Usually, the texts included a photo of Antonio’s hands, tied together and covered with sores, or the fading bruise on his face. I was thankful, at least, that he wasn’t doing anything to incite further violence against himself.

              But that night, there was no text message. I stared at the vacant screen, thinking hard. I had the receipt in hand. I’d done the math over and over again. I was going to be late on the rent this month, but I’d done it. I’d finally reached the $15,000 they’d wanted in return for my boyfriend’s life.

              Why hadn’t I been notified that Antonio was free from his captors?

              A terrible thought crossed my mind. Now that they knew I was capable of coming up with the cash, would they continue to extort me? How could a gang I’d fled the country from still terrorize me all these miles away? I resented Antonio for getting captured. I resented myself for paying the ransom in the first place.

              Life wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair to me. I couldn’t do this anymore.

              In desperation, I opened up my messages, scrolling down to the last time the gang had contacted me. They’d sent me a photo of Antonio secured to a tree somewhere in the forest with the message
“Don’t get lazy on the home stretch. Your boyfriend still needs you to save his life.”
Antonio looked skinny but defiant, staring right into the camera lens. He looked like a stranger to me, like I’d never known him before seeing him in the picture.

              I hesitated only a moment more before thumbing in a message of my own.

             
“You have all the money you required of me,”
I typed.
“I hope that you have released Antonio safely by now.”
Before I could consider the possible ramifications of sending such a demand of the gangs I’d always been so afraid of, I pressed send.

              I waited, more than aware that the message had to first travel to a satellite orbiting in outer space before finding its way through the switchbacks and foliage of the mountainous forests of my country, or wherever the gang was hiding him.

              But the swiftness of the reply shocked me, making me nearly drop my phone as the device buzzed in my hands. I’d been prepared to wait as patiently as I could, but there was apparently no need.

              The message, though, made my blood run cold.

              “Don’t text this number again, bitch.”

              How could such a short declaration send my mind reeling? Was this Antonio? Did he hate me? Or had the gangs simply discarded Antonio once they’d squeezed every penny out of me they could?

              Could he be dead?

              I could’ve thought all day about whether Antonio and I should be together in the first place, but the thought of him being dead was the worst thing in the world. The phone fell out of my grasp, my fingers limp, and clattered across the cheap flooring.

              Had they just disposed of him like a piece of garbage after they were done with him? Should I have worked to earn the money harder, to get it quicker? Had I missed some deadline I hadn’t been aware of?

              I stared at the phone. Part of me wanted to text Antonio’s number again, demand to know who was on the other end of the line, dig out answers as to the whereabouts of my boyfriend. But if it would cost him anymore than he had already paid, I wanted to avoid it. It was torture to sit and wonder whether someone I loved so much was all right.

              The night stretched long, and the next day, I didn’t have the strength to report to either the snack shop or the club. I hadn’t slept at all, staring at the phone, willing it to give me the answers until its battery died. I felt like whatever battery inside me that had kept me going this whole time was dead, too.

             
God, please let Antonio be all right.
I repeated the litany again and again in my head, willing it to become more than a prayer — to become fact.

              Jennet had texted.
“Missed you at the snack shop. Know you’re probably busy. Hope you’re okay!”

              I didn’t know how to respond, so I let the quick bursts of caring go unanswered. How could life be going on around me even at the possibility that Antonio was no longer in it? He hadn’t been in it for a long time, but I’d known he was there — thousands of miles away, perhaps, but still alive.

              I scrolled back through my useless phone, back to the last message I’d gotten with a picture of Antonio attached. He’d lost so much weight, and looked much older than the boy I’d grown up with and fallen in love with. That had been just a month ago. Could he perhaps have been dead for an entire month? Had I been striving toward and worrying over something that just hadn’t existed this whole time?

              My phone vibrated. It was a call from the club’s number — probably Parker wondering why I hadn’t shown up for the morning setup crew. I usually beat her to the front doors of the club so often that she’d had a copy of the key made and gifted it to me. It had made me feel proud to be trusted with such responsibility, but I could only watch the display on my phone dully, let the buzzing of the device finally fall silent. The voicemail icon lit up, but I didn’t check it. What could it possibly remedy in my life?

              Maybe an hour later, when the club had already opened, I got another call. It was Parker again, but this time, on her personal cell phone. She distributed this number to only the girls who’d been there the longest, and stipulated that it was only for emergencies. Was there some kind of emergency at the club? My interest was finally piqued enough to consider answering, but my hands remained still, only holding the phone as it shuddered and shuddered.