The Heart of Blood (3 page)

“Thanks for worrying about me. It’s been a long time since anyone’s been worried about me.” He was looking at her lips as he spoke, and she was suddenly aware of how attractive he was. “I’m sorry I’ve been so grumpy with you guys. You let me in and I . . .” His voice trailed off. “Thank you for listening to me yak about shit last night. It means a lot to have someone just listen sometimes . . . my brother’s lucky,” he said with a soft, but mysterious, smile.

Lucinda wondered if she should ask him about what had been troubling him, or who the woman and the kid in that picture were, but she stopped herself. She felt incredibly attracted to him at the moment, and the guilt was making her blush.

Juan leaned in closer and kissed her softly. She pulled back abruptly, but minutes later, they were wrapped up together in a sexual frenzy unlike any Lucinda had ever experienced. Juan was incredibly tender at first, which she found surprising, but he got more passionate with every passing second.

Lucinda suddenly thought about how he seemed harmless now. He gazed at her with affection and caressed every inch of her skin with his rough hands. Lucinda didn’t know how long had it been when it all stopped. She lay on the bed of the guest room next to Juan, drenched in sweat.

She kept thinking about Octa, and what he would do if he found out. She shuddered at the thought of something bad happening.
It happened on the spur of the moment
, she justified it to herself.
I don’t even love Juan, and . . . how could I be so stupid!
Lucinda knew she couldn’t tell Octa about the picture she had seen the previous night anymore. If Juan had wanted him to see it, he wouldn’t have hidden it and if she ended up telling Octa, who knows what Juan might do or say. She felt the sinking feeling in her heart settle once again as she got up quietly to leave the room without waking Juan up.

Juan lay there, his eyes closed, but his mind running fast. He was proud of how well he had handled the threat.
That’ll show her
, he thought, grinning slightly. As she got up and left his room, Juan started thinking of how easy everything had become now.
It’s a piece of cake
. He reveled in the joy and satisfaction of knowing that Lucinda would no longer raise any further suspicions against him.

Octa was sitting at the dinner table discussing some employee at work that kept post-dating his data, and how work was becoming too chaotic, but Lucinda barely heard him. He even mentioned that Bob was located in Delray Beach, Florida. He had decided to quit his job without informing his superiors and was reluctant to talk to anyone.

Flashes of what had happened that afternoon kept passing by as she sat uncomfortably in her chair eating her soup. Juan had gone to North Miami Beach to meet some old friend that evening before supper, and wouldn’t be back anytime soon. She was relieved that he wasn’t there through dinner.

The guilt would have been unbearable. She had completely lost track of what Octa was rambling on about when she heard him.

“Lucy? Is everything okay? You look tense,” he inquired, breaking off from his work problems.

“Oh . . . It’s nothing . . . I’m just a little tired,” she said meekly, trying hard to hide the traces of nervousness in her voice.

“Is my brother giving you a good scare?” Octa asked, grinning.

“No . . .” Lucinda uttered. “He’s almost always pre-occupied.”

“Really? What does he do all day?” Octa looked at her as if there was nothing that could be bothering her from the inside.

“Well, he drinks a lot, so he seems grumpy all the time . . . Love?” Lucinda was choosing her words very carefully.

“Yeah.”

“Where has Juan been the past few years?” She suddenly realized that was too direct an approach. “He seems terribly depressed most of the time. . . I thought maybe you would know better what could be bothering him.”

“Don’t concern yourself too much. He’s always been a heavy drinker,” Octa said with a weird smile, “a well-rounded sour puss.”

Lucinda smiled back at Octa. “Why didn’t he ever get married?” She thought this the best way to address the question she desperately wanted answered.

Octa started snickering. “You know, I’ve never told you this story.” Octa took a big gulp of wine to wash his dinner down.

“What story?”

“Well, back in high school, Juan was pretty good at school, and I used to be good with all the girls,” he smirked.

She looked at him with surprise.

“It is very flattering that my wife finds this fact hard to believe.” They both cracked up as Octa began revealing the story Lucinda was particularly eager to hear.

“That was back when he used to sport a pair of dorky glasses that made him look like a complete nerd. We both liked this one girl in school . . . and well, I am not particularly proud of cock blocking my little brother, even though it was fun. So we both asked her out to the prom, and she said yes.”

“To whom?” she asked, puzzled.

“Me, just like you did when I asked you out that cold December night.” Octa leaned in close, trying to compensate for the jealousy he assumed Lucinda would be feeling and gave her a soft peck on the cheek. She was far from jealous. “That night, the prom night, was the first time he got drunk, and he grew compulsive about it as time passed. I doubt he has any particular reason to be depressed; he can’t still be sobbing over his high-school crush. He just likes to drink, I guess.”

“What was this girl like?” Lucinda asked, picturing the attractive young woman in the image she saw in Juan’s bedroom last night.

“She was nice, but not better than you, sweetie,” he said. Lucinda was not getting the details that would ease her mind. She tried asking again as she attempted to appear casual about it by taking small sips of her wine.

“I mean, how did you handle going out with Juan being around all the time? He apparently liked her enough to ask her out on his prom night.” Her mind was now rushing in a thousand directions.

“He was hardly ever around when we used to hang out, and we broke up after a couple of months,” he said. “She was the first girl ever to cheat on me.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” she said apologetically. She stood up and started to rub his shoulders.

“Now, you tell me, sweetie, what woman in her right mind would marry a scary drunk like him?” he said teasingly, ignoring her apology. “I sometimes doubt he’ll ever get married, with his destructive habits and all. It will be a long time before the guy settles down, honey. Trust me on that one.”

“Maybe he has a girlfriend,” she said to herself more than him.

“I hope he does . . . that ought to do him some good,” Octa replied.

“So did you enjoy being cheated on?” she teased as she massaged the back of his neck.

Octa leaned back and said, “Young love leaves deep scars,” and looked at her for traces of insecurity; she didn’t budge. He smiled and said, “How tired are you? I’ve never known you to be so indifferent to my previous love interests.” He smiled tenderly as he lifted up his arms, took her hands in his and kissed one of them. She leaned in and kissed his forehead from behind and smiled at him, feeling knots in her stomach as she thought about what had happened between her and Juan earlier.

“Well, they all wanted you, and I’m the one who got you. How can that make me jealous?” Lucinda spoke flirtatiously as she collected herself. She couldn’t afford Octa getting concerned and inquiring about what was troubling her.

Octa held out her hand and made her sit on his lap. His body felt so familiar to Lucinda, and she felt the dreadful guilt again. She ran her fingers through his hair, combing it and feeling the thick, brown hair that she was utterly used to.

“So what was her name?” she asked him in a way that made her seem insecure, but she had no other way of finding out.

“Who? That girl from school?” he asked, eyeing her in the personal way he always did, with a teasing smile.

“Yes! ‘That’ girl from high school you liked so much you wouldn’t even give up a date with her for your flesh and blood,” she asked, messing playfully with his hair.

Octa let out a chuckle. “Amy.”

Juan came home really late that night. He made sure both Octa and Lucinda were asleep, so they wouldn’t spot the supplies he bought downtown. He had a couple of contacts that sold the specific equipment required for the quick fix like the one he had in mind, and that’s exactly what he needed. But guns were not what he brought.
All set
, he thought to himself as he opened up the small but heavy suitcase he was carrying and looked inside.

Earlier that evening Juan had received another call from his son’s kidnappers. They made him hear his voice as they slapped him repeatedly; Aaron was hardly even crying anymore, and he let out small whimpers with every blow. After the disturbing ordeal, Juan had immediately left to look for supplies that would speed up his plan. The man on the phone had said, “Aaron doesn’t have much time.”

Juan never even tried to consider taking Octa into confidence about this. Every time he thought about his brother, flashes of an overshadowed childhood started passing him by. Juan was a distraught gambler with a kidnapped son whose life was in terrible danger.

Juan still remembered how Amy and he used to meet secretly, how devastated Octa was when she left him for Juan and how she ended up cheating on him too, later.
Sluts, sluts, sluts, that’s all you get these days
, he thought, thinking about how similar Lucinda and Amy seemed right now.

Although Amy had left Juan, she was still Aaron’s mother, and even though things had gone terribly sour after that, they still used to meet once in a while whenever she missed her son, until . . .

Juan thought about that day and shuddered. Flashes of Amy’s limp and lifeless body started crowding his mind. Amy had been battling with severe depression and drinking problems, when her dead body was discovered in her apartment one morning. The doctors explained that traces of heroin and alcohol were found in her body, which is a dangerous combination. She had passed out the previous night, never to wake up again.

Juan was aware of her drinking, but he could have never imagined her pumping drugs up her veins. The black spots and scars on her skin near the inside of her elbow spoke for themselves, though.

Bringing up Aaron hadn’t been easy ever since then, with the nature of work he was involved in, but he couldn’t risk losing him too.
And now they have him
, he thought as he broke into helpless tears thinking about the kind of people he was dealing with.

The gambling den was good while it lasted, but his sour affairs with some of his clients always posed certain risks. Killers and billionaires alike came to the shelter regularly to play, but he would have never imagined the extent to which those people would go to get their money back. Juan had learned through his experience in the den that there is no such thing as fair play when you have heavy pockets that you want to make heavier.

“I can’t be weak,” he said to himself, coming back to reality. “I’ll save you, Aaron, no matter what the cost, I’ll save you.”

Overwhelmed by the reminiscing, he quietly slipped under the covers and rested for a while. He knew tomorrow would be a life-changing day and not in a good way. He may have to hurt a lot of people to save one, but he couldn’t care about anybody but his son.
I’ll do anything to save you, Aaron, anything
, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, unaware of the serious consequences he would soon be faced with.

Lucinda thought all night about Juan, trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle that he was together. She knew he was hiding something, but could not figure out what.
He barely seems like he cares about money; something’s troubling him . . . something more serious
, her mind rambled on about all the things that had happened since her husband’s notorious brother had arrived.

I can’t ever undo what I’ve done
, she thought with a sinking feeling in her heart.
Octa will find out someday. How will I face him? He’d never understand. How could I be so stupid?
She kept cursing herself without realizing how well Juan had manipulated her. She wanted to help him despite the fact that he was a little unorthodox, scary, and seemed deviously dangerous. She didn’t know when she drifted off to sleep, but when she woke up, it was past noon.

She was getting out of the bed slowly, when she saw Juan standing in the doorway smirking at her.

“You look adorable when you sleep,” he said in a flirtatious manner.

“Uh . . . Hi . . . I guess I slept in. Has Octa gone to work already?” she inquired, completely ignoring the fact that he was eyeing her intently. Suddenly, he came into the room and held Lucinda by the waist as she was heading toward the bathroom. Awkwardly, Lucinda forced his hand away and looked at him.

“This . . . this isn’t right,” she said, pulling herself back.

“It felt pretty good to me yesterday.” Suddenly, Lucinda noticed a bit of anger in his tone.

“Juan . . . I’m married to your brother. I’m his wife. I made a mistake yesterday, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him.” She tried very hard to explain, but couldn’t even convince herself. Juan seemed tense and angry now, and the veins in his temple started to swell.

“Well, that makes this whole thing a lot easier for me.” He practically spat those words and leaped toward her. Lucinda fell to the ground with a shriek and Juan landed on top of her.

“No! What are you doing Juan? Octa will find out and kill you!” She was fighting with both her hands and feet, but she knew how strong he was.

Juan came really close, pinning her to the ground. “I’d really like to see him try,” he whispered in her ear and pulled back to look at her. He looked like he was about to bash her face in. Lucinda barely knew what hit her when, with a loud thud, everything went pitch black.

When she finally regained consciousness, Lucinda found herself bound to a chair with the help of chains, in the middle of her bedroom.