You can’t make someone into someone else.
My morals may be flawed. I may be able to kill some people without remorse. I may have no problems in running drugs into America and around the world, drugs that ruin hundreds of thousands of lives. I may dip in and out of the grey area with ease.
But I am not my father.
And never will be.
Love never broke him. Whatever he felt for Ellie, whether it was love or not, that was never the issue and it still isn’t. What broke him wasn’t the loss of love but loss in general. Of reputation. Of self-respect. Of dignity. She did that to him twice, and both times he was able to take that loss and advance. Become harder, stronger, better.
But as long as Violet is alive, I will not be broken.
I will be ruthless.
I will be relentless.
Until she is free.
They don’t see that about me. They don’t trust what I feel for her is real. They think it’s lust. And while it is, it’s something so much more, a power straight from the core. I don’t even question it. It is what it is.
And it fuels me.
My mother had left me the knife behind. If it was on purpose or by accident, I don’t know. I don’t care. She could later remember and tell my father. She might have told him from the start. It might be a test. It doesn’t matter.
I have the knife now, turning the blade over in my hands.
Over the last day I’ve thought about using it.
Then not using it.
I come close to picturing what I have to do.
Then I lose my nerve.
Then I heard her screams.
And that was it.
It sealed the deal.
I know how far I will go.
To hell and back.
Basically.
I wait, sitting on my bed, my knife in my hand. I count the minutes and hours and I wait some more until I have enough will to do it.
My horrible plan.
It’s night now.
Darkness begets darkness.
I go to the door.
Knock loudly on it.
To whoever is standing outside. Maybe La Mueca. Probably Parada.
“I need to speak to my father,” I say loudly.
I knock again.
“You hear me? I said I need to speak with my father.”
No answer still.
But they are there.
I start pounding on the door with my fists, knowing if I’m loud enough I’ll wake up my mother. And that’s when the ball will really get rolling.
“I said GET ME MY FUCKING FATHER NOW!”
Finally, I hear a voice say, “Si, Vicente.”
I step back away from the door. The knife hidden in my hand at my side.
I wait.
Ages seem to pass.
Finally, the door unlocks and opens.
I can see Parada behind my father, peering around him at me.
My father stares at me with such blankness that I have to wonder if he’s sleepwalking, especially as he’s dressed in sweat pants and a plain t-shirt. How the fuck can he sleep at a time like this?
“Do you want me to come in with you for protection?” Parada asks him, eying me with disdain.
I’m actually glad he said that. My father may have wanted the security but now it just makes it seem like he can’t take care of himself.
Besides, he has a gun in his hand.
Like I thought he would.
“Just stay here and mind your own business,” my father says flatly, shutting the door on Parada. His grip tightens on the gun, but he doesn’t take a step toward me.
I don’t move toward him.
I have to remain passive for now.
With just the bedside lamp on, the whole room has an eerie, shadowed effect.
And here we are, facing each other like two fighters in a ring.
“You know I need my beauty sleep, Vicente,” my father says, tapping his gun along his thigh impatiently. “What is it that you want? A bedtime story?”
Fuck you, I think.
But I don’t say it because he’ll just turn and leave and I need to get close to him.
“I want to know what you were doing to Violet.”
“Who said I was doing anything to her? Really, you’re so quick with the blame.”
My fist curls around the knife until I’m sure it’s cutting into my palm.
“I heard her screaming.”
He shrugs. Yawns. “Well, things happen. You know how Barrera is.”
“He follows your orders. What did you tell him to do?”
“Why do you want to know every gritty detail? Don’t you know that ignorance is bliss?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of all this? So I do know every gritty detail? So that it breaks me down?”
“Yes, well, that may be,” he says, his eyes roaming the room. “Seems different in here now.” Change of subject.
“The room is the same. I am different. Tell me what he did to Violet.”
“I honestly don’t know and I don’t care either,” my father says. So blasé. It takes all of my strength to keep my anger in check and not explode, though frankly I think I’d welcome the explosion. “I guess you’d like to know what she did to your mother.”
I cock my head, staring at him in confusion. “Violet?”
“Your mother went to help her. Violet repaid that help by striking your mother. In the ribs, in the head.”
I’m not sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I’m relieved to know that Violet has fight left in her. On the other hand, it’s my mother. And on yet another hand, I know that Violet would have been heavily punished for her actions.
The screaming makes sense now.
“Fuck,” I say, grinding my jaw together. I wasn’t expecting that. Wasn’t expecting my mother and Violet to be at odds with each other, though I know that Violet was doing whatever she could to escape. She would see my mother and only see my father in her place.
I exhale, my heart heavier than ever. “How are the both of them?”
“Your mother is banged up but she’ll be fine. She’s tough,” he says carefully. “You never told me Violet was a fighter.”
“I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Yes, well, she managed to escape for a moment. Until Barrera caught her. That’s when I told him to deal with her. I didn’t say how. So as you can see, whatever your lover girl was screaming about, had nothing to do with me and all to do with Barrera.”
I’ve had enough of my father trying to pass the blame to someone else. As if ordering someone else to rough someone up or torture them is any better than doing it yourself. At least one option means you have the balls to do it.
“I want to negotiate,” I tell him.
My father sighs, rubbing his forehead with his palm. “With what? Can’t this wait until morning? As far as I know, she’s not going to die overnight.”
As far as you know…
He acts like we have all the time in the world.
Meanwhile, I’ve never felt time so acutely before.
The pass of each hand around the clock.
The tightening of a noose.
In fact, it’s kind of strange how my father is dragging this whole thing out.
You would think if he wanted to break me, he would do it off the bat.
Torture her, rape her, kill her in front of me. Do all those things that would send me to hell, to a place I would never ever return from.
Yet he’s not doing that.
Why?
What exactly is he waiting for?
Each day this goes on for, the less broken I am. The angrier I am. Surely he sees that. Surely he sees that there’s more margin for error. For my mother to interfere. For Violet to escape. For anything that could throw a wrench in his plans.
Why is he waiting?
But the tick of the clock is loud, even with my questions. I don’t have time for answers. I have to act while I can.
/> “I want to negotiate,” I repeat, my voice harder. “I want to see her.”
“In due time,” he says tiredly.
“No.”
“No?” he repeats.
“You’ve hurt her. Tortured her. Who knows what La Mueca has done. Let me see her. You want me to break, I can’t break without seeing what you’ve done. So let me see her.”
He narrows his eyes, watching me carefully. “There will be a better time.”
“There will never be a better time. Let me see her. Now.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” he says.
“Now.”
“You don’t get to call the shots here, Vicente. If you haven’t forgotten, you’re locked inside your room. It’s not the other way around. I’m going back to bed.” He sighs with impatience.
He’s tired. Sloppy.
He can’t be bothered with me anymore.
So he makes a mistake.
He turns his back to me as he goes to the door.
Raises his hand to knock.
But before he can even bring it down…
I’m there.
I take my knife and I stab it into his side, just below the ribs.
The world seems to stop spinning as the blade goes in.
As if it knows this is something that should never happen.
A son stabbing his father.
Wrestling the gun out of his hand.
Holding the gun to his father’s head.
Removing the knife from his side.
I didn’t want it to be this way.
But it’s the only way.
My father screams but it’s more from shock, from the utter betrayal of it all, rather than pain. I don’t even know if my father registers pain anymore, just loss of ego.
He tries to struggle but he’s hampered by his injury, his hand clamped over the knife wound at his side, trying to stop the bleeding, all while I press the nose of the gun into his temple.
“I once told Violet that I would kill you if you ever laid a hand on her,” I sneer at him, my fingers digging into his arm. My heart is racing, alternating between anger and shame until I don’t know what I’m feeling. But it’s not stopping me. “I made her a promise, and like you I keep my promises. Now you are going to fucking take me to her. Right now.”
“You…” he says, coughing, wincing. But he can’t finish his sentence. What is there to say? He knew this was coming, that’s why he brought a gun with him to talk to me. I just knew how to play his game and get him where he was weakest, that’s all there is to it. My father has little patience. Test that patience and you tire him out. Tire him out and you overtake him.
“Knock on the door,” I say, turning him so he’s facing it. “Tell him to open it.”
“You are not my son,” he hisses at me before letting out a moan of pain.
“Right now, I’m more your son than I ever was before. Tell them to open it.” I jab the gun at his temple. “Now.”
“I’m just doing what’s best for you, Vicente.” His voice is ragged but with venom. “And this is how you repay me? By trying to kill me?”
I decide to bang on the door instead.
I don’t bother telling my father I knew exactly where to stab him. No vital organs. The cut was clean and not as deep as it could have been. If he keeps the pressure there for the next while, he’ll be fine. La Mueca could give him stitches and he’d be back to normal. Only a scar left behind.
But none of that is relevant right now.
I need to get to Violet.
“Tell him to open the fucking door.”
I lower the gun so that it’s now pressed against his bloody hand he keeps clutched at his side, creating more pressure on the wound.
My father yelps from pain and manages to yell, “Parada! Open the door.”
He’s coughing by the time Parada opens it.
Parada, the little weasel, immediately goes for his own gun and aims it at me.
“Put it away,” my father says, the pain and humiliation crawling through his voice. “He’s not kidding.”
Parada hesitates, then looks down to where my father is clutching the stab wound. Sees the blood. Sees the stark determination in my face.
His gun lowers.
He can’t believe his eyes.
How a son has his own father as a hostage.
First time for everything I guess.
We step out of the room and into the hall.
“Tell me where she is,” I snarl at him, headlock tight.
“The basement,” he chokes out.
“Which room?”
“Room A.”
We go down the hallway to the staircase, start making our way down.
“Who is stationed outside?”
“Just La Mueca, maybe Frankie.”
“Big guards for a little girl.”
“That little girl is nothing but trouble,” he spits out, then moans from the pain of his side.
I don’t feel anything, which is a relief. I thought it would have been a lot harder to do. But frankly, my father deserves this. He’s deserved this for a long time.
And it’s something he’ll never get over.
Neither will I.
He’ll forever be humiliated by his only son, the ultimate betrayal, all for a girl.
And I will never speak to my father again.
For all that he’s done.
It’s sad.
It’s fucking sad.
This family completely torn apart.
Sworn to be enemies after this.
But I can’t think about it right now.
I have the rest of my life to come to terms with it.
But my life doesn’t start without her.
I made a promise.
A promise I’ll keep.
Or die trying.
“You’re going to open the door and let me in to see her,” I tell him.
“Oh yeah? And then what?”
I don’t know why I’m so surprised at his nerve.
I also don’t answer him.
Because I don’t know my next move.
I just know I need to see her, be with her.
My mirlo.
It ends up being La Mueca who is sitting on a stool outside of Room A down the basement hall, his head resting back against the wall, long legs splayed in front of him.
His head lolls to the side to look at us and in the dim light of the hallway I nearly delight in seeing the rare expression on his face.
He’s shocked. No narrow, thoughtful eyes here. He’s got them open wide, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing and I’m not sure I can blame him.
“Shit,” he swears, getting to his feet. “What happened here?”
“I want to see her. Open the door.”
La Mueca stares at me for ages, then looks at the gun, then looks at my father.
“Is this what you wish?” he asks him.
“Just open the fucking door, Barrera,” my father says. He’s not about to tell him how serious I am, lest that somehow gives me the upper hand—more of an upper hand than having a fucking gun to my father’s head. Instead he’s acting like this whole thing is a game and he’s bored. Bored.
“Yes, patron,” La Mueca says after a long moment, taking out a key from his pocket and slowly unlocking the door.
I steel myself against what I’m going to see.
But even then it does me no good.
Violet is in the middle of the room, lying next to an overturned chair.
She’s motionless.
Ruined.
My mirlo with broken wings.
It takes me a moment to feel what the sight does to me.
It takes a few steps into the room.
My hold on my father loosening.
My gun lowering.
If I was a better man I would have stayed vigilant, I would have turned my rage against my father and killed him right there.
Instead I am so shocked by Violet—dirty, crumpled, bleeding
from her face—that my guard drops. Everything drops.
Before I know what’s going on, my father is spinning out of my grip and I am falling to my knees in front of Violet.
The gun is still in my hand.
But my father is gone, leaving the room with La Mueca.
The door slamming shut.
The lock turning.
I’m a prisoner with her now.
But there’s nowhere else to be.
I got what I wanted.
“Violet,” I say but I choke on my words.
I don’t even know where to begin.
She’s lying on the floor, in a loose white t-shirt and pajama pants, one arm stretched out in front of her. It takes me a moment to realize what it is about her arm that’s throwing me off. Her wrist is ten times the size it should be, swollen and purple and red.
Broken.
The side of her face is against the concrete, her eyes closed, mouth open, her hair around her, tangled in knots.
Her cheek is covered in gauze, completely soaked in blood.
Even without these atrocities, my heart would have halved over the sight of her.
This isn’t the Violet I remember. The one full of life, of lust, of love.
This Violet is tiny, pale, abused.
Barely hanging on.
“Violet,” I whisper again. I want to touch her, hold her, but I don’t know where to start.
How can I bring her comfort?
How did I think that me being here would make any of this okay?
What did she have to endure while I was locked away in my room feeling sorry for my shitty family?
Everything pales now. Everything.
I move over to her, nearly afraid to get too close in case I hurt her. I carefully lay my hand on her shoulder.
Her arm flinches automatically, which in turn puts pressure on her wrist.
She moans loudly, eyes opening, not seeing me, then fluttering closed.
“Violet,” I say again, pushing the hair off her face. “I’m here. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”
I’m not sure that she can hear me.
But it’s the only thing I can promise right now.
They’ll have to kill me before I leave her side again.
Chapter Twenty
Violet
I must be dreaming.
Except that when I’m dreaming I feel no pain.
And I’m feeling pain.
A whole fucking lot of it.