Manipulate (Deliver 6)

The pain was unwieldy, like a blanket made of boulders had been draped over her shoulders. It weighed her down and pinned her in place, making it physically and emotionally exhausting to stand beneath.

They glanced back with love and fear, hope and grief filling their parting expressions.

No words were needed. Everything had already been said.

Except the one thing she’d held back.

She told them with her eyes.

I love you.

If she ever saw them again, she would tell them with her voice and every part of her being.

She shut the door before they took the steps that would carry them away.

Her forehead dropped against the doorframe. Her breath perished in her chest, and her fingers slid helplessly up and down the wall as she tracked the sounds of their retreating footfalls.

Then she couldn’t hear them at all. She couldn’t feel the warm glow of their love pulsing through her body. She was too cold. So unbearably frigid. Her heart actually ached. It ached so ruthlessly it felt as though she were suffocating beneath the colossal pain.

They were still in the building. If she ran, she could catch them before they exited the stairwell.

Then what? More kisses? Another goodbye? It would never be enough.

She pressed her feet firmly to the floor and mentally traced the path they would take through Jaulaso. She imagined herself at their sides as they walked out of Area Three.

No one would stop them. They weren’t members of La Rocha Cartel.

They would reach the front of the prison and leave with their escort. A prison guard would notify Hector as that happened.

But they would already be gone.

Safe.

Far away from her.

Her grief sat right beneath her sternum, next to her heart. It expanded with ungodly pressure as her body took deep sighing breaths in an attempt to draw more oxygen. Panic rose with swelling agony, and her chest tightened, fighting a looming anxiety attack.

Martin and Ricky had coached her through this. She could hear their voices in her head telling her to relax and stay calm. They knew the next few hours would be the hardest, and they’d reminded her over and over to not break down.

A knock would sound on her door soon. Meetings would follow. Interrogations about where they went and what she knew.

She would endure it with a disappointed expression fixed on her face while she slowly died inside.

But she had a plan.

What Martin and Ricky didn’t know was that she wouldn’t be finishing her three years in Jaulaso.

Killing Hector La Rocha wouldn’t be easy. If she somehow succeeded, she would have to flee Jaulaso before his body was discovered. Timing would be critical.

Pushing down her grief, she grabbed her phone and dialed the U.S. consular. He answered after a few rings.

“This is Petula Gomez.” She pulled in a deep breath and released it.

“Petula.” He sighed, exasperated. “Nothing has changed with your sentence.”

“I’m not calling about that.”

In 1977, the United States and Mexico signed a prisoner transfer treaty. Since that time, some American and Mexican prisoners have been transferred to their respective countries. She’d already been sentenced, which made her eligible to transfer to a prison in the United States.

All she had to do was plead guilty and hope to hell Hector didn’t discover her intent to desert the cartel.

“Start the process to send me back to the U.S.” She strengthened her voice. “I’m ready to plead guilty.”

The consular had been advising her to do this since day one. She hadn’t listened to him because she always had Hector’s protection in Jaulaso.

And she had her pride.

She was innocent, serving a sentence for a crime she didn’t commit. A guilty plea would mar her criminal record forever.

After two years in Jaulaso, she didn’t give a goddamn fuck about her pride or her record. She just needed to get out and didn’t care what it took.

“I’m confident the U.S. Department of Justice will concur with your request,” he said. “Once everything is signed off, arrangements will be made for your transfer.”

“How long will it take?”

“You’ll be in U.S. custody within a month.”The knock on the door came an hour later. An hour that Tula had spent shoving her pain so far down beneath her bones she could no longer feel it.

She moved stiffly to the door, expecting Garra on the other side. But when she opened it, he wasn’t alone.

Garra stepped back to make room for Hector to enter.

The air tried to rush out of her lungs, but she held it in and arranged her features into a mask of pleasant surprise.

He stood two feet away, infecting her precious sanctuary with his pedophilic, child-killing pestilence.

His black hair combed back neatly with silver streaks at the temples. The cardigan was gone, but he wore his signature button-down shirt, open at the collar.

She couldn’t think about his pants or the things he did when he wasn’t wearing them.