“And she never married Travis. Travis took her in because he was obsessed with her. Killed your father, kept her as his own. Kept her is the key word that was thrown around a lot. I can’t say what went on. I don’t know all the facts, I only know what I read and what I’ve been told. I’m guessing it was something like Stockholm syndrome. If they were ever officially married, I never heard about it. I just know it was a fucked-up, messy situation.”
I had my fair share of that. I held Camden’s hand tighter again and hoped that the Watt cycle of being sucked into co-dependent, obsessive and unhealthy relationships was finally over. As long as I had Camden, I had broken free of that. I wouldn’t end up like her.
“Did you know that Gus was my real father?”
“I did,” he answered simply. “Javier was supposed to tell you, it was part of the plan. But he held off at the last minute. Maybe he was afraid that when the time came and you found out that he’d tricked you after finding out the truth about Gus, you’d come after him. I guess he was right about that, wasn’t he?”
Was he fucking ever.
“So what happens next?” Camden asked. “After we get Ellie fixed up and get Gus. What happens to us? And to you? How do we know you won’t kill us or come after us?”
Derek eyed him in the rear view mirror. “Because so far, that’s not my job. And, believe it or not, it wouldn’t become my job. I like you two. I fucking hate dealing with the cartels and yes I do it for a living but some jobs are better than others. I take what interests me and that’s it. I want you to get to Gus and I want you to get home to California. Then I want to take a nice long week of drinking and fucking tourists on a beautiful beach.” He paused and scrunched up his brows. “I will say this to you, man. Camden. When we took off in the jungle that morning, I was certain we were only leaving Ellie behind. Javier wanted to take you with him. I told him not to, that it would slow down our operation. So he left you behind. He didn’t want to.”
“Of course,” Camden scoffed. “He wanted to off me somewhere.”
“No,” Derek told us. “That wasn’t it. We all had specific instructions to keep both you and Ellie safe. But the emphasis was placed on you, Camden. You were the priority.”
I coughed at the tickle in my throat and threw a bewildered look to Camden. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I have no idea, honestly,” Derek said. “But that’s what we were told. There were too many other things to question than that.”
Camden looked at me, lips pursed and I could tell he had no clue either.
The next couple of hours were a blur. Instead of some farmhouse like the one that Javier had taken Violetta to, Derek drove me to an honest-to-god medical clinic. It was after hours of course since gunshot wounds attracted at least some attention but the woman who ran the clinic was quick, silent and efficient. And by efficient, I mean she pumped me full of drugs until I couldn’t tell what was up and what was down. Not quite morphine but something that made me stop wanting to chop off my leg.
She had no problems pulling out the bullet, least it didn’t seem that way in my drugged up head and said I was lucky it didn’t strike an artery. She gave Camden the medication, painkillers and antibiotics to fight infection, wrapped me up and I was somewhat good to go. Derek handed her a handsome wad of American bills for her effort.
“So,” Camden said as they put me back in the Escalade. “Now we’ve all been shot. You, me, Gus. Quite the team, right?”
I jerked my head. “We’ll be a team once we see him again. Derek, that’s our next stop.”
“Yes, m’am,” he said, seeming to lighten up a bit. “Back to Mexico you go.”
We drove through the night, passing through the Guatemalan and Mexican borders with ease. Now that my leg was fixed, we weren’t attracting any suspicion. Just three gringos with Mexican plates. And even if they did search the car and found the guns and ammo we still had in here, Derek was ready to bribe them. Or take them out. Whichever came first.
Derek had told us that Javier kept Gus in the city of Oaxaca, a place we had already driven through on our way to Guatemala and Honduras. That fact made me rage inside, pushing away the euphoria that the drugs had laced my brain with. All this time I was wrong. All this time I was being led like a puppet on a barbed wire by Javier and Gus was alone somewhere, hurt, wondering if we’d ever come for him. We had been so close, so damn close and I believed Javier. I fell for his lies time and time again.
At least I wouldn’t fall for them anymore. My chest choked up with feelings of sorrow and fear. I didn’t know if I could ever find peace knowing he was alive. I didn’t know if I could ever be relieved knowing he was dead. There I was, still caught on the drifting cobwebs of the past.
It was the middle of the night when Derek pulled the Escalade into the suburbs of the city. Despite taking another dose of painkillers, I was wide awake, anxious to see Gus.
“I don’t understand why they even have Gus, though,” I mused. “Like, not that I wanted this to happen, obviously, but why didn’t Javier just kill him? He must have told you why?”
“I don’t know,” Derek said. “Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some affection for him. Maybe if you thought Gus was dead, you wouldn’t go with Javier.”
“Oh, please,” I said in disgust. “Like I would have anyway.”
“Javier is used to getting what he wants,” he explained. “I think in the end, he still wanted you.”
Camden stiffened and I put my hand on his knee to comfort him. We road in silence for a few moments and I did my best not to dwell on Javier, how he could both still want me and be someone who would leave me behind to die.
How the hell did his love for me get so fucked-up?
“Are you sure they’ll let Gus go willingly,” I asked Derek, shaking memories out of my head. “I mean, you’re not the one running this show.”
He eyed me over his shoulder and gave me a handsome smirk. “Who said anything about willingly? We’re taking him whether they let us or not.”
Oh great. Another one of these.
“Obviously you’re staying in the car,” Camden filled in beside me, stifling a yawn. “You’re not going anywhere on that leg.”
I cocked my head at him. “Oh really?”
His eyes were serious in the darkness of the car. “Really. Ellie. You need to stay safe. I’ll get your father back.”
Father.
My heart warmed.
And filled me with determination. I wasn’t letting the men do this without me. Gus had come for me now I was going for him. After everything I’d been through, I wasn’t leaving without him, the only family I truly had left.
We stopped on a quiet, wide road in the suburbs and Derek turned off the lights and the engine. He nodded at a house in the distance that had a few garbage cans knocked over in the front yard and a real estate sign. “That’s the one. It’s usually a stash house. Guess they’re stashing people there now too.”
He turned around in his seat and looked at Camden. “What guns do you have?”
“None. I had to drop mine back at the compound.”
Derek jerked his head to the back of the car. “Come around back.”
Camden put his hand on my shoulder and applied light pressure. “Stay here, Ellie. Please.”
I couldn’t promise him anything. I just watched as he got out of the car and went to the back. The trunk opened and Derek started going through the guns that the team had left behind before we went traversing through the jungle. I watched them with curiosity as Derek handed Camden a shiny new 9mm and picked up a sawed-off shotgun for himself, his eyes glinting feverishly at the weapon in his hands. Derek was in his element once again. I only hoped it was enough to get Gus out of there in one piece.
Derek and Camden both shot me one last look before they closed the trunk.
“Be right back,” Derek said. Then they ran off toward the house, their feet quiet on the street.
I waited a few moments, watching them as they split up and disappeared around the back of the house. In my emotional, drug-infused state there was something supremely romantic about the sight of Camden running off with a gun to save my father.
