Queen of Nothing

My Papá’s visit came and went almost as quickly as ever this time. The difference was the feeling of finality that came with the promise of my Tio’s head. Once he was eliminated, we were free to live our lives the way we always were meant to. Maybe I could be Célia Flóres again, even though I wasn’t actually quite sure who she was anymore anyway.

Ronan was still brushing off the mess that had been the dinner he so eagerly asked for. My Papá wasn’t a kind man when it came to his daughters, and he made it well known to anyone who wanted to divert me from the path he had chosen – even Mamá. But Papáhad set off a ticking time bomb into my relationship and expected Ronan to act like a man about it. The truth was he had broken my heart too that night, but as his daughter, I was expected to understand that it was all for my good.

Ronan questioned years before why my Papá always came with multiple cars and a plethora of armed men at his side, or why we holed ourselves inside of my Tia’sfortress until he was gone. It was pretty easy to dismiss it all as government work and that my Papá was high up in the chain as well, and it hadn’t been a complete lie. He was the chain. There was a fine line between gang life and government life and when it was all you grew up knowing that fine line faded quite easily. The number of times my Papá had lunch with the Presidenteof Mexico every year was more annoying than I could count. My Papá definitely made more money than him too.

Cézar was packing up the cars and loading my Papá’s belongings into the Mercedes Benz the two of them would be taking on their trip back. The rest of his men loaded their bags and weapons into the obscenity that was the armored Land Rover. Cézar headed back into the house for the rest of the bags as we began to say our goodbyes to Papá, this time it could be a few months until we would meet again. He was so sure he was too close to catch Ignácio and couldn’t risk anything bringing him back to us and compromising our safety again.

TiaLarissa stood at the top of the driveway as Mamá, Carolina, and I created a perfect queue on Papá’s side of the car to say our farewells. Mamá was already dramatically crying that she couldn’t keep doing this even though at this point it was all we knew. As cold as she was to me, my heart still hurt for her. I thought about the weekends when I was forced to be away from Ronan for my training, and how hard it was to focus on anything else. My admiration for my Mamá grew a bit as I was reminded, she continued on all of this time without my Papá near her. Her love, her trust, and her belief in him never wavered, and this allowed her to continue to care for her daughters on her own.

The fifteen-foot-tall glass double door slammed on his foot as Cézar dropped a bag, ”carajo!” He cursed at no one but himself, and I ran to the door to keep it open for him so he could get by with the bags. “Gracias princesita,” he thanked me, placing a kiss on my forehead. Before he made it out of the door the loud backfiring of a hundred cars rang out and Cézar threw me inside and crushed me under his weight. He was screaming something I couldn’t make out, but the familiar feeling of not being able to breathe had me instantly spinning out of control.

Cézar was still on top of me but I could hear his gun going off as he shouted to someone, but I didn’t know who. He pushed me further into the house and carried me into the coat closet then shut the door.

“Are you hit Princesa?” he shouted from outside of the closet, but I didn’t know what he meant.

I was sure I was screaming but I couldn’t be certain that any of the noise was actually coming out of me. I could hear the scraping of something large across my Tia’s marble floors and the heavy slam of it against the closet door let me know I was barricaded in there. “Tell me what’s happening Cézar!” I pounded on the door and sobbed as the darkness closed in around me, taking me back to the nightmare I dreaded. Except there was no heat or smoke this time, only the deafening ringing in my ears.

“I have to go check on Rafael Princesa, don’t move!” I heard his fist on the wall and wrapped my arms around my knees and tucked my head in to make myself small. There was a sharp pain coming from my shoulder where Cézar took me down, but I ignored the pain and hoped that we would all make it out of this one together again. I knew it was that cobarde hijo de puta Ignácio and his son Carlito, I just didn’t know what it was they had done yet.

I could hear Cézar’s shouting and cursing and guns firing but I couldn’t hear any other voices and terror began closing in around me again as the closet walls got closer and closer until I could feel them practically crushing me. I heard the sound of the Benz starting up, and a heavy quiet, draped over me as I slipped into the darkness. I was vaguely aware of someone picking me up and getting placed into the small trunk compartment before the void embraced me completely.

It was the antagonizing sound of the hospital machinery next to me beeping like a perfect metronome that woke me up. The pounding in my head and the soreness throughout the rest of my body reminded me that I had just recently been tackled by a six foot-two brick wall. I could hear my heart rate spike as I slowly came out of the fog and I was reminded of the attack in our driveway.

”¿Quechingados?” I groaned, my throat raspy and desperately in need of water.

“Finally, you’re awake. Stay calm Cecilia, I have a lot to tell you.” Each word came out more gently and quietly than I thought possible from Cézar.

I tried to turn toward him in the corner of the hospital room, but my shoulder burned, and I screamed at the pain.

“Don’t move too much, you just had surgery to remove the bullet in your shoulder. You got pretty lucky there princesa,” he muttered, “I did too.”

“How did he hit us?” I asked, my voice void of any emotion as I tried to calculate the possible damage. I already knew what happened, but I need to know how bad it was.

“It was a drive-by, but they wouldn’t stop coming. There were so many cars, one after the other. Everything happened so fast,” he buried his hands in his hair as he slumped down in the chair with his elbows on his knees.

“Who’s left?” I asked, the hospital light flickering in sync with my voice.

“I tried to go back outside but every time I opened the door those hijos de putaswere blasting through us like we were paper.”

I could hear the sadness in his voice, but it only stoked my anger since he kept avoiding my question. Avoiding giving me the truth of it all. I clenched my fists allowing the pain to fuel me and ask him again.

“Who’s left, Cézar?” my voice didn’t waver.

“Your Mamá had a pulse when I ran to turn on the car, so I put her in the backseat before I brought you out there. She’s in bad shape though Célia.” My old name came out of his mouth sounding so strange and foreign that it took me by surprise.

“Who is left, Cézar?” I asked him one final time because he was choking on the words I needed to hear so badly.

“Everyone else is gone,” his brown eyes met mine and there was nothing but sadness and pain in them.

“Everyone? You checked everyone? You’re sure?” Panic ripped through me at the thought of Carolina or my Tia bleeding out all alone in our driveway, but he shook his head at me grimly.

“I’ve never seen a job so overdone, Célia. He didn’t leave any room for error with this one. I couldn’t even recognize them they were all so fucked up. Some of the guys looked like Swiss cheese. It was bad Reína.”

“What a joke,” I scoffed, “Reína del Cártel. Queen of the Cártel… Queen of Nothing. He painted such a pretty picture, my whole life I actually thought it would come true one day. He was protecting me though, you know?” I said through my swollen, cut-up lips.

“I know Princesita,I know,” Cézar murmured from the chair in the corner as he looked out the window.

“He knew that without sons, his seat had a countdown, it was just a matter of time before Ignacío would kill him for it,” Cézar told me what I already knew.

“He knew women in the Cártel only have one place and that’s being married off for an alliance, he would have never let that happen to me though. Not while he was still alive.” I scoffed, angry at everything, but mostly at my Papáfor being so naive to think he had the upper hand on his brother.

“I think he would have liked to have seen you come to power, and I think we could have seen it through if he stayed alive until you were old enough to take his place, but now…” he trailed off.

“Todo és perdido,” I said, and Cézar nodded.

“All is lost. Now Princesita, you and your Mamámust lay low, don’t get noticed, live quietly. Entiendes?”he asked, and I nodded. “He will not stop looking for you until he can be sure you are not a threat, and even then, he may still find a use for you, and I don’t want to think what that could mean Princesa,”Cézar’s words were a warning of the harsh reality I somehow avoided twice now.

Rafael Flóres’ only living daughter was sure to have a pretty price tag to the highest buyer. Bile churned inside my stomach as I realized how vulnerable my Papá left me. I wasn’t even sure how rage was the surpassing emotion over grief at this moment, but I knew the bastard was responsible even for how I was reacting to his own death.

He burned into me long ago exactly who he wanted me to become.

“Where will you go?” I asked Cézar, realizing with my Papá gone it was likely Ignácio had already taken his seat and pledged his case to the Cártel. With Papá’s top men out of the way, the rest would fall in where the green would roll from. The lack of loyalty made me bitter. My Papá was cold, but he was dedicated to his men, and always did right by them.

“I have some amigosscattered around a couple of motorcycle clubs out East, thought I’d pay them a visit and maybe find some work,” he shrugged his shoulders.

“You? In a motorcycle gang?” I laughed so loudly that my shoulder stung, making me wince. “Hanging up your Armani suits for a leather cut? I’d like to see the day.”

“They’re clubs, not gangs. And I’m not too good for anything Princesita, your Papá changed my life when he took me under his wing, but somehow, I always knew it wouldn’t last. Nothing good ever lasts,” he muttered.

“I am harshly aware,” I cut his words with my own and immediately sighed my regret, “I don’t blame you,” I softened to reassure him. “I know you would have done anything for him, for us. And I know the pendejo would have asked you to save me instead of him anyway. I’m sure he’s proud of you… en el infierno.” I mumbled the last bit, and he pressed his lips together in a flat line like he hadn’t decided whether he agreed with me or not.

“Listen Princesa, one last thing. That boyfriend of yours came running by after I brought you and Jamila to the hospital. I don’t know what he found when he got to your Tia’shouse, but you better start painting the picture you want him to see before he decides to start turning stones on his own,eh?”Cézar’s tone changed, and I knew he was right, any breadcrumbs that could lead Ronan to the truth would just put him in danger.

“He’s outside the room right now - you know, one visitor at a time and all, and I made a damn good case that I should be the one with you when you wake up,” he pulled on his suit lapel proudly and I laughed, coughed, and shuddered from pain all at once. I would miss Cézar like a crab missed an infected limb after they self-amputated it.

I knew that my Papápicked him because he saw in him a son he never had, and I felt that same sibling love I had with Caro with him as well. Now we would just be strangers with a shared history of violence and fucked up trauma. I’d be lucky to bump into him at the grocery store on an odd day.

Cézar stood and awkwardly limped my way, he groaned as he bent down and placed a kiss on the top of my forehead, “Don’t look for me Princesita. Even if you somehow kill the pendejo.”He dropped a single gold coin on my lap, but it wasn’t a regular coin. It had the Flóres Cártel symbol pressed into it, a five-petal flower crest. His relinquishing of it was the greatest insult I could probably endure, it meant he was out.

I scoffed to myself because no one got out, not alive at least.

Rafael Flóres would have put a bullet between his eyes for leaving me, whether or not he raised him as if he was his own son.

I was not my Papá, and I refused to ask a dead man to do my bidding, I was a dead woman too. With one last look, he turned the doorknob to leave. Before he could fully get through the door, Ronan was already coming in with an intense burning in his eyes as he looked Cézar’s way. Once his gaze turned to me though, that intensity quickly dissolved and transformed into fear as he rushed to my side.

“Oh shit, Cecilia! You’re awake,” he knelt by my bed as he grasped my hand on my non-injured side. “I thought I lost you. I heard so many guns going off from my house and I tried calling you but you didn’t answer. By the time I came over, they were all dead. Everything was taped off and you were gone!” He blurted out in one frantic breath, and I could see the tears pooling at the edges of his eyes.

I finally allowed myself to break to the one person I knew could put me back together again. The tears poured out of me for the first time in longer than I could remember, and he climbed onto the hospital bed. The pain in my shoulder as he reached to hold me was a dull sting compared to the deep ache inside of my chest. “I got you, okay? I promise I’m not letting you go,” he vowed, and I knew he meant it.