But then another message comes through.
Call me if you want your father to see another day.
Terror hijacks my mind. It wells in my throat and surges through me like hot lava, and that does it. That makes me push the call button.
Thiago answers straightaway, and I swear he growls at me like a feral animal.
“You motherfucking bitch. How dare you avoid me?” he lashes out.
“What do you want?” I ask foolishly. Really, Lucia? What made you say that?
Of course, the question enrages him further.
“You stupid bitch. What the hell are you asking me that for? I want a fucking update.”
“I don’t have anything for you,” I reply with a lie, and for the first time it feels like I did the right thing.
“Nothing! You’ve been there for five and a half fucking weeks, and you have nothing for me!”
My ears hurt from his high pitch, and his threatening tone chills me to my bones.
“I don’t. I’m sorry. Maybe next week will be better.”
One week would buy me time to figure out what to do. I have no idea what the hell I’m going to come up with in that week, but fuck, I have to figure something out
I can’t live like this, and I can no longer do this job.
He’s silent for a moment, and I pray to whoever is listening he’ll drop it. I pray hard, so hard my brain hurts, then I hear him sigh.
“Today, you acted quite unlike yourself, Lucia,” he states in a voice so calm I could be talking to someone else. Not the raging lunatic from moments ago.
“What do you mean?” The quiver in my voice continuously gives my fear away.
“Don’t think I missed the way you tried to get Alejandro to leave the restaurant when you saw me coming. You’ve grown protective of him and the child. So, I think you’re lying to me. I think you know something, and that’s why you haven’t been answering my calls.”
Clearly, I’ve crossed too far over the line of reason for anyone to hear my prayers. I’m too evil and just as bad as these people, so why should any of my prayers be answered? Even if I’m praying for the people I want to protect.
“No,” I choke out.
“No? I think you’re lying, but hey, I know the perfect way to test if you are or not.”
“What are you going to do?” I blurt.
“Hey, give me eyes on the old man in New York ,” he says to someone else. He’s talking about Dad.
“What are you going to do to my father?”
“Give him the special treatment.” My phone beeps as he switches to video call. “Connect the video call, sweet Lucia.”
With shaky hands, I do. His face pops up first, and then the screen splits and I see two men hustling Dad toward a wall.
One hits him with a metal rod, and he screams.
“No,” I cry.
“Stop!” Dad wails. “Please, God, stop.”
The men go crazy on him, throwing continuous punches into his face and stomach, then they hook him to chains. It’s like the image El Diablo showed me.