Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“I came to offer my sympathies,” she says. “I heard about your mother. Esperanza, yes?”
Hearing Mamá’s name from her red mouth makes my stomach twist.
“Yes.”
“A terrible loss.”
I say nothing.
“I understand you’re alone now.”
“I’m not alone.”
“No?” She glances around the front room. “Señora Valentina is not your mother.”
“She might as well be.”
“You are loyal,” Adriana says. “That’s good. Loyalty is a useful trait in a young man.”
A useful trait? Who is this person?
“I have family here,” I say.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
She looks toward the staircase, up to the hallway that branches into the rooms where the women work. She knows what goes on here. “A collection of whores is hardly a family, Cruz.”
I’m fifteen. Tall already. Strong for my age. Strong enough to lift crates and carry sacks of flour for Señora V.
Not strong enough to hit a woman.
Not stupid enough either.
But I want to. I’d really like to crack this woman’s skull for insulting my family.
“Don’t call them that.”
Adriana smiles. Sort of. “You’re protective,” she says.
“They raised me.”
“They serviced men while you slept down the hall.”
Heat floods my face. “You don’t know anything about them.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I know enough.”
“No,” I say. “You don’t.”
“I didn’t come here to insult you,” she says.
“You did anyway.”
Another smile. “You’re grieving. I’ll forgive the tone.”
“I don’t need you to forgive anything.”
“Maybe not.” She steps closer. “But you need what I’m offering.”
I should ask her to leave. I’m about to, when—
“You’ve captured the interest of my employer.”
“Your employer?”
“Señor Vega.”
I’ve heard the name from Señora V. From others. But I play dumb.
“Who’s that?”
“A very powerful man. A very wealthy man.” She looks around again. “A man who can offer you a future beyond this place.”
“I already have a future.”
“Do you?” she asks. “Señor Vega has helped many orphaned boys. Boys with no fathers. Boys with no direction. Boys who might otherwise be swallowed by poverty or bad choices.”
I stare at her.
“He takes them in,” she says. “Educates them. Trains them. Gives them purpose. Protection. Money.”
“What does he want?” The question comes out before I can stop it.
“Service,” she says.
“What kind of service?”
She looks me up and down. “That depends on your talents.”
“I don’t have talents.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“I’m not leaving with you,” I say.
She steps even closer, close enough that I can see the faint line of red at her mouth, the perfect arch of her brows, the way her earrings catch the light.
“You’re fifteen,” she says. “In three years, you’ll be a man. Men need opportunity. Think about it, Cruz Moreno. Think about what your mother wanted for you.”
I turn away from her. “Don’t talk about my mother.”
She lays a hand on my shoulder. Her fingernails are long and painted dark purple. “She wanted better for you, didn’t she? She wanted you educated. Safe. Respected.”
“Yes.”
She turns me around, slides her fingers over my cheek.
A chill ices through me.
I’ve been touched by women all my life. Kissed on the forehead. Hugged. Pulled into laps when I was small. Swatted when I was rude. Held when I cried.
But this touch isn’t motherly. It isn’t comforting. It’s not even friendly.
My breath catches.
“There is a world beyond this house,” she whispers. “A world where men make themselves useful and are rewarded for it.”
Then she hands me a business card, turns, and walks to the door.
I stand in the front room for a long time after that.
I want to know more about her. About this powerful man who knows my name.
Maybe there is more for me out there.
I don’t want to go to school. There’s nothing I’d learn there that I’d need to know in real life.
This woman might hold the key to the life I’ve always wanted to lead.
A week later, I call her.
A week after that, I leave the brothel.
29
ROBIN
Cruz is gone.
Not physically. Physically, he’s sitting right there at Señora Valentina’s kitchen table, but he’s also somewhere else.
Somewhere dark.
And for some ridiculous reason, I don’t like it.
I don’t like watching him disappear into himself.
Which is stupid.
Merely yesterday, I was tied to that disgusting cot, waiting to find out whether this man was going to hurt me, sell me, kill me, or use me as bait.
Now I’m sitting here in a borrowed robe, drinking coffee in a brothel kitchen, worrying because he looks sad.
I snap my fingers in front of his face. “Hey. You with us?”
His lips part. “Yeah,” he says. Then he clears his throat.
“Convincing.”
He blinks a few times. “I was just thinking.”
Mercedes clicks her tongue. “Oh, listen to him,” she says. “He was just thinking.”
Esmeralda sighs. “A broody man. Pensive. Tortured. Staring into the distance.”
Mercedes leans toward me, lowering her voice as if Cruz can’t hear every word. “Women love that, you know.”
“I’m learning,” I say.
Cruz looks down into his coffee.
Is he blushing?
No way.
Cruz Moreno does not blush.
Except he absolutely does.
A faint flush touches the high bones of his cheeks, almost hidden beneath his dark complexion but not quite. It’s subtle, but I see it, and something warm moves through me before I can stop it.