A loud ringing sound crashes through my musing, startling me. My fingers shake the teacup splashing hot water over my hand. I cry out and leap up from the chair, rushing to the stove to snatch up the cloth hanging there. I press it against my hand and gulp deep breaths in. It’s not the burn that’s upsetting me though. It’s the phone, sitting on the counter where I left it. My emergency cell. The last connection I have to Andres.
I knew he would call, and I knew that this moment would come. That I would only be able to answer this phone once. The ringing stops before I can pick up. But I know my husband. He’s a persistent bastard. He has now returned home to an empty house, no family, no note. He will give me this one opportunity to explain before he starts tearing the world up to find us.
I take the three steps that bring me to the counter and stare down at the silver phone. Untraceable he once told me. In case there was ever a threat to the family and I needed to disappear. I was to take this phone so Andres could connect when it was safe to do so. He never imagined he would be calling the phone for this reason.
It starts ringing again and I reach out with trembling fingers, wincing as pain from the burn shoots through my wrist. I feel dizzy at the coming confrontation. I pick up the phone, press the little green button and set it against my ear. “Andres,” I whisper, my voice weak and wobbly to my ears.
“You’re safe?” he demands.
“Yes,” I reply, trying to ignore the guilt eating at the edges of my consciousness. Of course the first thing my husband would want to know is if I am hurt. “And the children, we’re all safe.”
“Then where the fuck are you?” he explodes, he deep voice echoing through the line.
I wince, holding the phone slightly away. I picture him standing in our beautiful home in Mexico, on Los Zetas territory, at The Site. He would be alone, confused, justifiably angry. But I’m also angry. And I am done. I can’t survive this marriage anymore, never knowing if he’s going to come home or if he’s going to allow the darkness to finally take him. Or if an enemy has finally murdered the man I love. But most of all, I refuse to agonize over the years to come, the unimaginable pain we’ll be causing our children.
“I can’t tell you,” I say, trying to infuse some strength into my words.
There’s a moment of silence. I hold my breath and wait, not quite knowing what to expect. Andres can be a terribly violent man, but he shelters me from the worst. I’ve rarely had reason to glimpse the savage I know is buried within my husband, the man that emerges when he goes to work for the cartel. I can feel tension leaping down the line from him to me as his swift brain works out my cryptic words.
“Why the fuck not, Luna?” he finally snarls.
My fingers tighten around the phone until they stiffen. My knees buckle and I slide to the floor, my back against the counter. I wrap my free arm around my legs and stare unseeing at the wall opposite. I curl my toes against the cheap linoleum.
“You didn’t come home when you were supposed to,” I say, choking a little as I remember pacing and worrying, wondering if he’d been killed on his last assignment. Then his men came back home without him, his second-in-command explaining to me that he’s decided to stay behind for a few more weeks. I knew what that meant.
“I didn’t come home,” Andres repeated, his voice a deep growl. “So you decided to leave? Is this your way of getting attention? Is that what this is, Luna? Because if it is, then you can get your ass home now and we can discuss this, like the fucking adult you are.”
“I-it’s not about attention, Andres,” I stumble to get the words out. The heat of his anger stabs at me, even over the vast distance of the Caribbean ocean. I lick my lips and swipe a finger under my eyelids, catching the moisture.
“Then what, Luna? Make me fucking understand,” he snarls.
A shaft of pain slices through me at his tone of voice. He never speaks this way to me. I press a hand against my chest and lie. “You didn’t come back with your men from P-panama, Andres. You just disappeared for weeks after. For all I knew it was another woman, or… or drugs again. What am I supposed to think?”
“That’s garbage and you know it, Luna!” he roars. “You are supposed to trust me. You are supposed to stay where I tell you, keep my home for me. Not kidnap my kids and leave because you think I’m doing something you don’t like. You stupid little bitch.”
I flinch under the onslaught of his anger. This was the side of my husband I knew I would have to face, the terrifying reality I’d spent years avoiding. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
