Fractured Freedom(80)

There were three dots. Then they stopped. Then they started again.

“You writing a novel over there?” he sneered. “Let me see that phone.”

My heart was in my throat as I responded, “Fuck off,” and slid it into my pants.

I had to hope my demeanor matched my sister’s. I’d lived with her. I knew how she’d been when she hung with groups like this. But I didn’t know how she was with him.

There was a beat of silence before he chuckled. “Maybe that’s why Iago likes you so much. That fire in you is a turn-on.”

“Want me to tell him you said so?”

His eyes cut to mine as we drove slowly down the darkened cobblestone streets of Old San Juan.

Men and women laughed beyond the car windows, danced right outside the club, enjoying the beautiful night air and the beat of the music that poured from the bar onto the street.

In this car, though, there was nothing beautiful. The push and pull of power, the coiled, unhinged anger in this man, was unpredictable.

“I should fuck you and see if you tell him,” he muttered.

“What? You think I’d like it and just not tell Iago? I haven’t slept with him either.” I hoped that was true.

“Yeah, well according to him, you’re saving it for after this shipment, huh? You think your pussy is that good?”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed, but my palms were sweating, my pulse was going a mile a minute, and the bile rose in my throat. Jesus, these men had been near her all this time. She’d subjected herself to—at the very least—so much sexual harassment in the past years that I couldn’t imagine what secrets she held on to.

He flicked a piece of lint off the dark slacks that were much too baggy for him. He probably used to have more weight on him, but drugs would do that to a person. “Maybe to him. You ain’t worth the work to me. I don’t like the fight like he does. You do put up a good one, though.” He smacked his knee and laughed like he was recalling a specific time. “Damn, when you got Iago in the balls after he grabbed your ass and tried to get your shirt off that one time …” He cackled and cackled as I turned my face toward the window to try to hide how my throat seemed to close, how pulling in air felt impossible.

What Izzy and I had squabbled over just hours before felt so small. Heartbreak, miscarriages, jail time … none of it seemed relevant if my sister was a shell of a human because a man was planning to assault her or had been trying to for years.

Unwanted attention could wreck a soul just like drugs.

She had to know that.

She had to know she couldn’t keep going undercover if this was what the work entailed.

When he sobered from his laughing fit, he pulled a pipe from his pocket, held a lighter to the bowl, and sucked in the smoke. “Want a hit?”

The driver, who had a dark beard and round face, turned around, “Fuck, man, we’re almost there. You show up high, smelling like that, and we’re all going to be in trouble. We got to be on the ball with this one. It’s the biggest one we’ve done in a year.”

“Oh, fuck off. I’m just as Albanian as any of them. They couldn't get rid of me if they tried. Plus, we got this in the bag. It’s supposed to start raining in a minute, and we’ll be hidden from cameras too.”

I tried to keep breathing in and out. Seven breaths, seven times, over and over.

I’d count to seven seven million times if it kept me calm enough to live through this.

As the rain started to fall on the SUV, the driver turned our headlights off, and we crept down an alley, the vehicle rising and falling over each cobblestone. “Ship’s just down the street. We ditch the car here.”

We filed out, and it seemed silently agreed upon that we’d walk quietly down the street. Neither of the men made eye contact with anyone, and we swerved around a couple talking animatedly on the sidewalk. She held her partner’s hand and rejoiced over the deal she’d got at the store up the street.

They looked as happy as I had a few days ago with Dante, and I found myself holding back tears, holding back fear.

Would I die in a crop top and shorts that I now knew had probably contributed to this guy thinking I was Izzy?

Would Izzy and Dante get here in time? Would they know how to find me?

The cruise ship was larger than life. I’d seen them out on the water from the beach and knew they were grand, magnificent in the way they seemed to glide over the waves.

This ship was no less magnificent inside. Chandeliers hung from the lobby ceiling, sparkling and greeting us like we were on vacation.

The two men I was with nodded to the captain and concierge. No greetings were exchanged, no questioning of our identities or tickets. This was a planned operation.

“I want to get down to see that everything’s there.”

The driver shook his head and kept walking toward an elevator. “We go to Iago’s room. We stick to the plan.”

“Fuck the plan,” he grumbled but followed us.

One foot in front of the other. I didn’t scream out to the other passengers, didn’t even look at them. I walked to what would be my death or my sister’s salvation.

I’d find a way to make that man pay, and then I’d drag her out of this profession kicking and screaming.

She’d done this to prove a point, and maybe I’d done the same. Maybe I’d flown to Puerto Rico and made a stupid list to prove the point to myself that I could be happy, that I could live outside the frame everybody had set for me.