Redemption Road (Vicious Cycle #2)(33)

I laughed. “I can’t help but wonder how someone like you came from two such horrible people.”

She smiled. “That’s a good question. It’s one I often ask myself as well.”

My amusement was short-lived when I saw we had come upon the border checkpoint. Annabel let out a small squeak of alarm as she shot straight up in her seat. “It’s going to be fine. We can count on the Raiders to make excellent documents. We’ll get right through.”

“Okay,” she replied softly.

“But try not to look suspicious.”

Her eyes widened in horror. “I look suspicious?”

“When you look like you’re going to piss your pants.”

She giggled, and I was glad to ease the tension in the car. “Okay, okay. I’ll be calm. I’ll be the best Mary Jones I can be,” she replied, alluding to the name on her passport.

Slowly, the car inched along in the line. When we reached the inspector, I rolled the window down and handed him our passports. He gazed at our pictures and then back at us. Time seemed to tick by agonizingly slowly. Beads of sweat, both from the heat and from my nerves, began to form on the back of my neck.

The officer handed our passports over to another man. He also took his time eyeing us and the documents. Just as I felt the tension threaten to overwhelm Annabel, the man stamped the passports and handed them back to the first officer.

After he shoved them back at me, he waved us on. The moment the car passed through, I exhaled the breath I had been holding. Once we were out of their sight, I gunned the engine, and like Chulo had instructed me, I began to put as much distance as I could between us and the border.

NINE

Manuel Mendoza peered at the blackened desolation of his once-thriving trafficking camp. With his upper lip curled in disgust, he surveyed the construction workers scrambling around the land. It had been one f*cking week since those cocksuckers had breached what should have been an impenetrable fortress. His first act after the fires were extinguished was to put a bullet in the head of the man in charge of his security.

Once that was done, he’d had his remaining men search the compound for his Roja. Just picturing her beautiful red hair and creamy white skin sent an ache through his groin. He had beaten her within an inch of her life, but he knew he was justified in his actions. The cunt had called out another man’s name when he was f*cking her. After everything he had done for her, for her to betray him like that . . . She deserved the violent beating.

When the search of the compound came up empty, he remembered destroying his bedroom in a rage. He had intended for no other man to ever have her—and now she was in the hands of the people who had stormed his compound.

If she’d lived.

He clung to the hope that she hadn’t. For if she was alive, the moment he learned where she was he was going after her. She was his, and she would die by his hands like she should have before.

“Lo siento for the interruption, boss.” It was the sniveling voice of one of his soldiers.

Mendoza jerked his gaze over his shoulder. “Didn’t I make it perfectly clear that I was not to be disturbed?” he snarled.

The man’s face paled. “Uh, yeah, but, uh, I think this is something you will want to see.”

“What is it?” Mendoza hissed.

With a shaky hand, the man thrust out a few black-and-white pictures. “I have some friends at the border. I had asked them to be on the lookout for any American girls who fit Roja’s description.”

Mendoza snatched the pictures out of his hand.

“I weeded out the ones that couldn’t possibly be her. There’s a few who have potential. Of course, they’re black and white, so that makes it harder to look for her hair.”

After staring at two of the photos, he chucked them to the ground. He had every inch of Roja memorized, so he knew when the breasts were too large or small or the face too round.

He grunted with frustration as he came to the last photograph. When he peered down at it, a mixture of hope and anger filled him. Although the image wasn’t completely clear, he knew without a shadow of a doubt it was his Roja. But as soon as he had identified her, rage coiled through him at the sight of her with a strange man. Was this the one whose name she had called out? “Find out everything you can about this man.”

“But we don’t have anything to go on. Not a license plate, and I’m sure if they were fleeing, they used fake passports.”

Mendoza narrowed his eyes. “I gave you an order.”

The man paled for a second time before he swallowed hard and said, “Yes, sir.”

When Mendoza was once again alone, he gathered his scattered thoughts. He loathed unfinished business. First, he would rebuild his camp. Every day that went by without business was money out of his pocket. Taking care of Roja could wait until he was back on his feet.

In the end, she wasn’t going anywhere. When he didn’t come after her at first, she could have her false sense of security. But then he would track her down.

He would have her tight * around his cock one last time before he cut her beating heart from her chest.

Roja. Was. Fucking. His.

TEN

ANNABEL

After the moments of tense scrutiny of our documents at the border, the adrenaline had left me reeling. When Rev instructed me to climb into the backseat, at first I had wanted to argue like a petulant toddler that I wasn’t tired. But instead, I had happily eased over the seat and into the back, smiling at the evidence of Breakneck’s kindness and concern—the pillow and blanket. Although it was too hot to cover up, I laid the blanket over the worn leather seat and curled up with the pillow. Soon I was lulled into a deep sleep.