A Fighting Chance (44 page)

Ignoring
my better judgment, I speak again. “It was my fault for getting confused. Your house is huge.” I’m testing his threadbare patience but he’s flying off the handle unnecessarily.
He always has to prove a fucking point.

Another of his golf club
s goes flying. “Shut the
fuck
up, Jesse,” Ramón yells with a menacing expectation of finality. I glare at him until he looks at me. I remember then that my life is perpetually in imminent danger here at Clusterfuck Manor.

He snaps his fingers at another armed man to fetch the clubs he threw. This is a stupid show of power.
Ramón doesn’t just fear his mother ending up on public assistance in the wake of his death. He’s also paranoid of being overthrown. He thinks one guard doing what he wants—even just a slight show of unauthorized force—or a fighter committing murder is a hop, skip, and a jump toward widespread mutiny. “Did you or did you not mistreat my guest against my wishes?” he asks, retrieving another golf club from his bag.

Right after
Ulysses takes a breath the club head crashes into the side of his face, sending him to his knees. Teeth spray the grass, and he falls without speaking a word. Ramón’s club does all the talking, and he keeps swinging. Back. Face. Back. Face. Face. He blinks only because blood splatters onto
his
face, but he is otherwise emotionless.

“
Once you’ve verified that he’s learned his lesson, call Doctor Alvarez to come treat him,” he says to another stoic-faced guard. There it is again. The brutality and the benevolence.

He’s God.

And we’re fucked.

I lead Drew away and head for the house.
Once the last of Ulysses’ cries fades, the whole place—the house, the yard, and the animals—is suddenly quiet, like we’re in some choreographed moment of silence.

“Hey, you two. Come back here,
” Ramón shouts. I want to keep moving but this is supposed to be the
bending
part, the part where I have to suppress my belief that Ramón would benefit from a fist down his throat. With a lot of reluctance, I spin Drew and we walk back toward him.

“He was incredibly disobedient. He was having problems staying in line,
” Ramón explains. He pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his face, but he inadvertently smears the blood instead, and it looks a lot like war paint. “Remember that little conversation we had about being on the same page with me? Ulysses was having a hard time understanding what that meant. I didn’t expect it from you two after our talk. Maybe I need to drill the lesson in a little harder.” He snaps at one of the guards. “Go get their passports. Then burn them immediately.”

My heart is a wrecking ball to my insides. “What have we done, except
for everything you’ve wanted?” I ask. My fists are balled, and my feet are moving toward him, until I walk chest-first into a rifle muzzle.

“Jesse…” Drew steps in front of me and pushes me back. The tension in the air feels like we’re all encased in wet sand.

“We’re here.
Here.
I’m training. Drew’s going to fights with you. What have we done?” All the adrenaline in the world can’t combat how defeated I feel. I knew he’d throw a wrench into our agreement. Now, no passports mean no home.

No. Fuck that.
Fuck Ramón Vega.

“You gave me your word.” I start walking toward Ramón again, and it takes another three rifles and a warning shot in the air to give me a second thought. It’s crazy how I’m so sick of this shit that things are starting not to faze me.

“And you gave me yours,” Ramón yells. “If that were true, then why’d you lie to me?”

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“You told me you weren’t fighting anymore after this. Yet, I’m hearing that you’re going with full-on sponsorship with another cartel.”

“Which cartel? Which?” I scream back.

“Are you trying to fuck with me, Jesse? Take out my best fighter, win this fight, and then take more money out of my pocket?” I’m shocked into silence, just opening and closing my mouth and waiting for some iota of a coherent thought to come through. “Fucking with
me
or
my money
is a death wish. You either fight
for me
or you get
the fuck
out of fighting. That’s it. Those are your only choices. Be grateful you even have any…because I can make it for you, if you prefer. I will put one of these clubs in your hand and a gun to your head and make you put Ulysses out of his misery. Then you’d be so far
fucking
down this rabbit hole with me—”

“When
do I have the privacy to plot against you? Your guards are around me twenty-four-
fucking
-seven. When I’m taking a goddamn shower one of them is close enough to scrub my balls. What more do you want?”

Ramón studies me for a moment with the tilt of his head, reason starting to bleed
into his rage. “That better be the truth.” He glares at Drew as he walks by us. “What? Did I offend you, Drew? You think you can just look at me and cast me under some spell? You think I’m going to start feeling bad?” If there’s humor in any of this, it’s that he actually
is
sensitive about what Drew thinks.

She shakes her head slowly then
shrugs. “I’m actually just thinking about what I always wonder,” she says, managing to keep the trembling in her voice to a minimum. “What it’s like.” Ramón backtracks until he’s in front of her. “You just get to deal with the people who hurt you in any way you want to. Everyone has to bend for you or they break, right? It’s interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

Drew picks up the bloody, bent golf club that Ramón used on Ulysses. “The robbery I told you about…it gave me nightmares for a while, and then I got angry. I started fantasizing about ways to get him back.
Hurt him.
See the fear in his eyes. You seem to enjoy it.” Drew squares her shoulders and runs her finger along the length of the club. She drops it back to the grass. “Anyway, if anyone needs me, I’ll be at the pool.”

My eyebrows come together. She sounds so convincing
I’m
almost falling for it. She’s just faking, right? But the sincerity in her voice chills me down to the bone. We’ve been through a lot and who the fuck knows how we’re really absorbing everything, how it’s changing us. But she’d talk to me if she were really feeling that way, wouldn’t she? It took her a while to talk to me before, though. Can’t say I’m not troubled.

The pace toward fight night is excruciating
from then on. Drew completely ignores me, spending a lot of time with Ramón and Gabe, and working on whatever plan she has to make sure we can get out of Mexico. And now I have all the free time in the world to ruminate on how much of a dick my father is. He borrowed money from a woman who is basically a human trafficker, and I don’t care what Ramón says, the way he’s “recruiting”
fighters is indentured servitude.

When it’s finally time to face Victor Santiago, I’m filled with a mix of relief and impatience for it to be over. I just want my passport and my money in hand so
that I can get the fuck out of here. The entire household loads up in the Escalades and heads out. We drive into the city, a wall of illuminated skyscrapers surrounding us. This isn’t a licensed fight but there’s no abandoned building this time. We pull up in front of a ritzy-looking nightclub called
Azúcar
. There’s a regular nightclub crowd downstairs, but the second floor requires exclusive access. I see why Ramón and Hector don’t do this often. Having it here is almost asking for a police raid. It’s set up like a regular floor of a club—bar, speakers, strobe light, and stools—but there is a black circle in the middle of the floor marked with tape. Drew and I huddle in a corner together as people file up the stairs to plop down a hefty fee at the door. She nudges me as a few familiar faces walk in: some of the people from the ship, and even Mr. Three Fingers is here.
Really? Is he actually this stupid? He’s still gambling?

“I wish we actually knew these people…I need to find someone who’ll let me use their phone, no questions asked,” Drew mumbles.

I sling my arm over her shoulders and turn to face her. “That stuff you told Ramón about the robbery…”

Her body tenses and I see a wall go up in her eyes. “You promised not to judge me when I did what I had to do to
keep us safe.”

“I’m not. I just wanted to know if that was how you really felt. Because if so, I need you to know, I’ll pull you back, too. Let me pull you back.” I touch her face and like always she puts her hand on top of mine. She sighs, her defenses lifting. “We don’t belong here, remember? We leave this here, Drew. All of it. We mourn our friend and everyone who is a casualty of this lifestyle, and we leave it, okay?”
I don’t break eye contact until she nods and warmth pumps into her eyes.

“It came from a dark place…
he
lives in a dark place. I needed to tap into something I knew he wanted to hear. I’ve been doing that…making him comfortable with talking to me—him and Gabe—letting me in little by little.” Her gaze shifts to my left as something catches her attention. “Sandrine!” Drew rushes across the room and the two of them embrace. Sandrine can’t even play off how happy she is to see us as Drew walks her over to me.

“What are you doing here?”
I ask.

Sandrine hugs me, too. “I was hoping when I didn’t hear from you two that you were in America, but I also knew when I heard about this fight, and knowing that Carlos hasn’t been to The Cull in weeks, that this was probably you,” she explains. “Have you been with Ramón since I last saw you?”

“Yeah…we’ve been at his house. It’s been…interesting,” I say. Just then Alejandra saunters in with a group of people. Her eyes land on me, and she sends a wink and wave my way.

“You know her?” Sandrine groans as if just looking at her is torture. “You know what she does, right?”

I nod, grimacing with distaste. “She brought a bunch of kids to Ramón’s to essentially
Hunger Games
each other in the yard for his friends.”

“Ugh. Even I have to draw the line somewhere. You don’t even want to know what else she does for the right price. That bitch would pimp out her own mother if it meant getting another pair of Manolos.” I don’t know what those are, but no wonder she and my father found each other. I watch Alejandra give Mr. Three Fingers a friendly nod, and he gives her one back. Pretty chummy for someone who might’ve been involved in mutilating him. Things continue not to add up.

“Could Alejandra be behind the finger chopping?”

Sandrine sighs. “For once, I’m at a loss. I’m used to knowing pretty much everything. She could be. I couldn’t dig up much more than I told you
that day before you left for Veracruz. But she’s crazy enough to do it, Jesse. Ale has more than a few bodies under her belt, and I don’t mean in the bedroom. Maiming would be as normal as drinking water for her.”

And she’s more or less selling kids so it wouldn’t be too much for her to threaten one, either. It was bold to ask Alejandra about my father’s debt and about her line of
work, but it’s probably really fucking stupid to inquire about her torture techniques.

“
El Americano
!” Ramón yells from across the room.

“That’s my cue,” I say with a sigh.

“Are you going home after this?” Sandrine asks. She gets excited about the possibility. I’ve never seen anyone so happy to be rid of me. Except for maybe my father when I went to college.
Henry Chance.
Annoyance heats my blood. I still have him to deal with.

“We’re gonna head back to Mexico City tonight. Probably leave the day after
tomorrow for Texas.”

“Call me when you’re back in the city. I’ll buy you your first last meal in Mexico.”

“Sounds great. But I have a huge favor to ask you first,” Drew says to her. “If you don’t hear from us, I need you to do this. Please.” She hands her an envelope. Drew glances at me and ignores my raised eyebrows.

Sandrine’s eyes widen as she peeks inside, and then she aims a wide smile at Drew. “I don’t know how you got this, girl, but you are brilliant. Are you sure?”

“Very.”

“
El Americano!
” Ramón calls out again with much more impatience.

“Go. Go,” Sandrine urges. Drew links arms with me and we head over to Ramón. Victor Santiago is already bouncing around the circle. When his eyes land on me, they brighten with anticipation. I put on my biggest kill-him-with-kindness smile
, though. I really couldn’t give any less shits about this fight. It’s barely on my radar.

Because all I see when I look at him…is home.

****

After the fight, I’m pretty much skipping down the staircase in Ramón’s house
, with my bag in hand. Victor got a few good hits in before I made him eat floor, so everywhere hurts, but no amount of pain is going to keep me from getting out of Acapulco tonight. The minute I got in the circle with Victor, I knew he would go down easily. He was sluggish. I think Peña is pushing him too hard. I heard it was his third big fight in just as many days. I feel sorry for him, especially because I think his story will end as tragically as Nico’s. I only prolonged the fight for Ramón. I didn’t want to give him a damn thing to complain about. Money says he’s itching for a reason to make me stay.