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  I eyed the open wardrobe again with interest. Yes, I thought. I gathered up the stuffy pillows and the white comforter and rolled out of the bed, crawling over to the wardrobe and closing myself in. At least in here, I would be able to hear someone enter the room in the dark. A pillow behind my head, I half-laid, half-leaned against the back wall of the wardrobe and fell into a drugged, numb void.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mariana

  The room may have been escape-proof, but it definitely wasn’t soundproof. I awoke in the dark, momentarily confused. I sat in pitch blackness, a hard wall at my back and a blanket twisted around my legs. I smelled old blood and wondered if it was mine.

  Am I dead? Did somebody bury me?

  The events of the previous night came crashing back into my mind. I sucked in a deep breath as the image of Este’s bloodied corpse hit me like a punch to the stomach.

  And then, the rest of the night’s events came hurtling back, unrelenting, even as my drugged brain struggled to catch up. Emilio. The drive. The creepy dude in the suit. You’re mine.

  If I’d had anything left inside me, I would have burst into tears, but I couldn’t let go. I was too tightly wound, my heart thudding loudly in my ears and my hands shaking as foreign sounds reached me through the wardrobe door.

  Cars on the city streets below. Horns blaring. A truck’s reversing siren, loud and obstinate at what felt like a ridiculously early hour.

  A knock on the bedroom door, followed by the door opening, had me scrambling to stand up. As it was, the wardrobe had a shelf about four feet from the ground, and I only succeeded in slamming my head against it. ‘Ow,’ I muttered, reaching out for something to hold onto. I steadied myself on the wardrobe door just as it was wrenched open, and I spilled out onto the person on the other side.

  Murphy grinned as he took in my dishevelled appearance and my sleeping quarters.

  ‘You look like shit,’ he said. I narrowed my eyes, flicking them up and down his outfit as I disentangled myself from him. He wasn’t wearing a suit anymore. He looked like a garish tourist who belonged in Florida or somewhere similarly tropical, sporting tweed shorts and a bright blue shirt printed with palm trees. The loafers on his feet looked cheap and nasty, a complete contrast to the expensive leather shoes he had been wearing last night.

  ‘You look like Hawaii threw up on you,’ I retorted, rubbing sleep from my eye. I looked down at myself, barefoot, still wearing my black sundress and Este’s blood all over me.

  Murphy stepped back, his smile still wide and freakish, and gestured to the door. ‘Time for breakfast.’

  I eyed him warily as I side-stepped him, walking as quickly as I could to stay out of his reach. I’d take Emilio and his violence over this freak and his wandering hands any time.

  I entered the main living area again, expecting to see cereal or perhaps some fast food on the small round dining table, but what greeted me instead made my stomach flip.

  Emilio sat on the far side of the table, sipping an espresso from a tiny cup as he read the paper. He was studying the stocks this time, and I wanted to ask if I was allowed to fix a coffee for myself, but I was too distracted by the plate that lay between us.

  ‘Sit,’ he said, without looking up.

  I sat across from him, trying to suck my stomach in to suppress the loud growling noise it was making. I was so hungry I’d eat anything.

  Except what was currently in front of me.

  ‘You don’t seriously expect me to do that?’ I asked, barely concealing the horrified tone in my voice.

  He swallowed, annoyance showing in his cocked brow. ‘Did I say you could speak?’

  I looked down at the table, trying to cover my rage. What I really wanted to do was stand up, throw the table on its side and scream ‘FUCK YOU!’, but I knew if I did that, he’d punish me. Probably by letting Murphy put his hand up my dress.

  I stared at the table for a few moments, as Emilio returned to his paper. When he didn’t speak again, I let my gaze wander higher, eyeing off the bottle of olive oil and the plate stacked high beside it.

  Surely he wasn’t going to make me do that?

  He folded the paper up leisurely, placing it on the table as he drained the last of his coffee.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Good morning, Ana. I trust you slept well?’

  ‘Like the dead,’ I replied, without missing a beat.

  ‘No doubt. We need you looking fresh and well-rested. You’ve got a long day ahead of you.’

  ‘She looks like shit,’ Murphy said again, making me prickle in annoyance. ‘They’re going to stop her in customs looking like that.’

  Just fuck off, I wanted to say, but instead I bit my tongue and ignored him.

  Customs. So it was what I had suspected.

  ‘I’m a drug mule?’ I asked Emilio in disbelief. ‘That was fast. What if I go to the police in the airport?’

  Emilio chuckled. ‘I own the police,’ he said, his gaze shifting momentarily to Murphy before returning to me. I choked on that inference as I whirled around to face Weird Eyes. ‘You’re a cop?’

  He glanced at Emilio, for once not engaging with me. I guessed that he hadn’t wanted me to know that.

  ‘Murphy here is a Federal Air Marshal,’ Emilio said, his amusement evident as he rolled one of the rubber-coated pellets on the plate between his fingers. ‘He helps us get our product from A to B.’

  ‘You’re a drug-trafficking cop?’ I asked Murphy, who continued to give me nothing.

  ‘The drugs are an attractive part of the package,’ Emilio teased, dragging out my torture. ‘But he specialises in moving other possessions of mine.’

  Oh.

  ‘I bet he does,’ I said sharply, imagining Murphy taking full advantage of the women he trafficked from one country to another. It was enough to make me want to stab them both more than I already did.

  ‘Can I at least eat something first?’ I asked, eyeing the pellets nervously. There had to be at least thirty of the fuckers, gleaming smugly at me from their spot on the table.

  ‘No,’ Emilio said. ‘If you eat, your metabolism will start working. No food until you’re on American soil.’

  ‘If you shit these out on the plane ride,’ Murphy added behind me, ‘you’ll have to rinse them off and swallow them again. We wouldn’t want that, would we?’

  My skin crawled at the thought.

  Emilio laughed, gesturing at me as he addressed his associate. ‘She’s Marco’s daughter and she’s never been a mule? I don’t believe it.’

  I eyed the pellets again, each about the size of my thumb, tightly wrapped in plastic. I might not have acted as a drug mule before, but I wasn’t stupid — I knew what would happen. And I wasn’t as worried about them going in as I was about them coming back out again. Ouch.

  ‘The plane leaves in three hours,’ Emilio said. ‘In the meantime, Murphy, I suggest you go and buy cholita some fresh clothes and that shit women put on their face to get rid of the bags under their eyes.’

  ‘Concealer,’ I said. ‘It’s called concealer.’

  Murphy whistled as he left the apartment, for once not arguing. I jumped in my seat as the door slammed loudly, and sat on my hands to stop myself from fidgeting.

  I stared down at the plate in front of me, at the reality that greeted me. Plastic-wrapped pellets full of pure cocaine.

  ‘What if one of them bursts inside me?’ I asked Emilio, who was arranging a passport and papers in front of him.

  ‘You die,’ he said casually, as if I had asked him what would happen if it rained today. ‘You die, and I get very angry, and I cut you open to get the rest of my coke out.’

  I shivered despite the warmth, imagining my lifeless body in a bathtub, dead and gutted. I imagined my blood sprayed on the walls as faceless men pushed their hands inside me and removed bloodied plastic pellets full of Colombia’s finest white powder.

  ‘They won’t burst,’ he said, setting the papers to one side and fixing his bead
y eyes on me once more. ‘I am a professional. I wrap my product properly. They will only burst if you don’t get them out quickly enough, if your stomach acid eats them away.’

  My stomach roiled. I was thinking there was probably a lot of fucking acid in there right now. I wanted to throw up and I hadn’t even begun.

  As if reading my thoughts, Emilio unscrewed the bottle of olive oil and took one of the pellets from the plate, balancing it in his palm. He added a swig of olive oil to his slightly cupped hand and worked the oil over the pellet until it was coated in the slick substance.

  ‘Open wide,’ he said, standing and leaning over the table. I swallowed, keeping my mouth firmly closed.

  ‘I will rape your mother and kill your father,’ he said, pressing the pellet to my lips. ‘Or you can swallow a few tiny little packages for me.’

  A tear burned in my right eye and I blinked it away hurriedly, opening my mouth to allow the pellet inside. The strong smell of the olive oil hit my nostrils and I fought the urge to pull away.

  ‘Wider,’ Emilio instructed, forcing the pellet past my lips and teeth. My eyes bulged and my throat protested as his finger pushed the pellet all the way to the back of my tongue, aggravating the sensitive gag reflex.

  I jerked away in one sharp movement, gagging and choking as I chased the slick pellet around my throat with my fingers. I couldn’t get hold of it, it was too slippery, and finally I just dropped my head forward and let it fall out into my shaking hands.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, panicking. ‘Please, I’ll do something else. I won’t run away. I’ll be good.’

  The words tumbling from my mouth were completely foreign to my ears and I felt hot shame rise in my face as I heard myself beg.

  Emilio slapped the table loudly, circling around and grabbing hold of my jaw. I whimpered as he squeezed.

  ‘Look at me,’ he commanded. And me, being the obedient slave, did what I was told. I met his dark brown eyes and saw my worst nightmares within them.

  ‘This is a test,’ he said, gripping my chin. ‘You think I would let you out of my sight without some kind of insurance policy? I know you will stay with me, cholita, when you’ve a belly full of drugs and a United States Air Marshal by your side. Do not forget the deal you struck with me last night. Do you want your family to die?’

  He released my chin, pushing me roughly as he stepped back. I looked at the pellets and gagged again, not as loudly this time but enough that I thought I might throw up.

  Emilio returned to his seat across from me, breathing heavily, and I could tell he was trying his hardest not to fly off the handle and beat me to a bloody pulp. Not because it would make him feel bad, but because he wanted me to look pretty.

  I took a deep breath in turn, let my shoulders drop, and tried to calm myself. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, recalling his threat about my parents. ‘I’ll try again.’

  His lip curled up into a sneer and he simply gestured to the plate.

  I bobbed my head, tentatively picking up one of the pellets in one hand and the olive oil in the other. Taking a deep breath, I repeated what I had watched Emilio do with the olive oil in his palm.

  Without giving myself time to think, I slid the pellet as far as I could to the back of my throat and swallowed forcefully.

  Shit!

  The pellet lodged painfully in my throat for an agonising moment, and for a brief second I thought it would remain there. Thankfully, it eventually went down, and I swear I could feel it travel all the way to the depths of my stomach and settle on the bottom like a brick dropped in a fish tank.

  I smiled, hitting myself lightly on the chest. ‘I did it!’ I was pleased, until I remembered where I was, who I was with, and how many pellets were left on the plate in front of me.

  Oh, Christ.

  Emilio looked amused as I stared in horror at the rest of the plate.

  ‘I don’t think they’re all going to fit inside me,’ I told him.

  He chuckled. ‘Of course they will. I’ve fit twice that amount inside girls half your age.’ Half my age? Visions of nine-year-old girls swallowing these pellets made my heart contract painfully.

  ‘You’re trying too hard,’ he said. ‘It’s just like taking a tablet. Or sucking a cock. I’m sure you’ve had a cock in your mouth before.’

  I almost fired a retort at him until I remembered I actually had had one of those in my mouth the night before, in the alleyway, before Este and I had moved onto other things.

  ‘Speaking from your own cock sucking experience?’ I finally managed.

  Without pause, Emilio stood and reached across the table, backhanding me across the face with a ferocity that had seemingly come out of nowhere.

  I cringed, holding a palm up to my stinging cheek. When I pulled it away, a small amount of my blood marked my palm. I glanced at his hand, seeing a large gold ring adorning his ring finger. Great.

  I was too shocked to say anything. I just pressed my palm back to my cheek and watched Emilio, my mouth slightly open.

  ‘I wasn’t always this rich,’ he said, twisting his ring back to the correct position on his finger. ‘I was a smuggler before I was a kingpin, tough girl. I built this business up from the ground level.’

  ‘Your parents must be so proud,’ I muttered, one hand on my stomach as it growled in hunger. Don’t eat through the pellet, stomach acid, please don’t eat through the pellet.

  ‘My parents are dead,’ he replied without a trace of sadness. I cowered, expecting another slap for speaking out of turn. I had to stop mouthing off or it would be the end for me. ‘They were slaughtered by a rival mafia family in Italy when I was just a boy. My father was not as smart as me. Kind of like you and your father. We’re more alike than you realise, cholita.’

  ‘How lovely,’ I replied.

  ‘Quit stalling and get the rest into you,’ he said, pushing the plate closer to me. ‘We leave for the airport in one hour.’

  My heart sank as I faced the impossible task in front of me.

  He’s not lying. He’ll kill your entire family if you don’t do what he says.

  I pulled the plate closer and continued.

  Nineteen pellets. One for every year of my life. That’s how many I’d been able to swallow over the course of an hour, before my stomach refused to take any more. I still wasn’t entirely sure if the nineteenth had made it all the way down, or if it was still lodged in the bottom of my throat. I felt fuller than I’d ever felt before, fuller than I felt after the biggest El Día de las Velitas dinner of buñuelos and rum.

  Emilio watched my face carefully, as I clutched my stomach and fought the urge to throw up. I really didn’t want to be sick. I was pretty sure the pellets wouldn’t make their way up as easily as they’d gone down, not that they went down very easily. Still, I could imagine them getting stuck, banked up in my throat, bursting, killing me. No, I definitely did not want that.

  ‘That’s enough,’ he said, pulling the plate back to his side of the table. He handed me a passport and the stack of papers he’d been fidgeting with. ‘Memorise these details. You will be flying with my associate today. I expect you to stay quiet and act normally. Accept a meal on the flight, but do not eat anything. Sip water, but not a lot. When you get to the other end, further instructions will await you.’

  My head spun as I looked at the photo in the passport. The girl looked nothing like me. ‘How is anyone going to believe this is me? The guards at the airport will laugh in my face.’

  Emilio shrugged. ‘I own the guards. I own the airport. I own everyone. This is merely for show. It would look odd if you walked right through without a passport, cholita.’

  I opened my mouth to protest. Murphy strode in right on cue, tossing a full plastic shopping bag at me. I glanced down into the bag to see a jumble of reds and blacks, gaudy lace and polyester.

  Great. He was going to dress me up like a hooker. That didn’t bode well.

  ‘The girl did good,’ Murphy said, seeming genuinely impressed w
ith the almost-empty plate on the table.

  ‘Just like sucking dick, right?’ I said to him. ‘Looks like it’d come naturally to you.’

  He flashed me a wicked grin. ‘Your words, not mine,’ he said, laughing.

  He sobered immediately as Emilio cleared his throat.

  ‘How many, boss?’

  ‘Nineteen,’ Emilio answered. ‘One for every year of her pathetic little life. Right, cholita?’

  I chose not to respond.

  ‘Right,’ Murphy said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Let’s go on vacation, little lady.’

  I rolled my eyes, and he laughed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mariana

  The travel arrangements were nauseating — more nauseating than the fact that I had nineteen plastic-wrapped pellets full of pure cocaine powder in my stomach. According to my passport, I was Maria Reyes, wife of Danny Reyes, also known as Murphy. We were checked in express and I was acutely aware of the heat Murphy was packing underneath his gaudy Hawaiian shirt. I was mortified at the outfit he’d picked for me — a black skin-tight dress that hugged me in all the right (or wrong) places with a plunging neckline that stopped barely above my navel. That was only a slight exaggeration. He ever so graciously let me pack a grey zip-up hoodie in my carry-on bag (again, purchased by him, tacky and cheap) and I hugged that jacket tightly around myself as we took to the skies.

  It didn’t erase the cold terror that was growing in the pit of my stomach, though. With each moment that passed, as we got closer to our destination, thoughts of what Murphy might do to me once we were on land and alone plagued me. I talked a brave talk, and I snapped back at these men in conversation, but I already knew Murphy was bigger than me, stronger than me, and if he wanted to pin me down and force himself on me, I’d be pretty fucking useless to stop him without some kind of a weapon.

  Oh, how I longed for a weapon.

  The plane ride was bumpy at first, as we flew through storm clouds that were common in the tropics. I was used to flying back and forth from my stateside college a few times a year, but I still hated flying. Hated not being in control. This time, however, I lifted up the window shade and watched jagged streaks of lightning spark between clouds, thinking I was safer up here than I would be once we landed. After the pilot managed to divert the plane from the bad weather, we levelled out and the air hostesses started rolling food trolleys down both aisles.