“You did it for yourself, Carlos,” I said, looking down at him. The tears were gone now, dried by the heat of the generator and the cold reality of the basement. “You let them tear your brother’s life apart so you could live in a big house with high walls. Well, the walls are falling down now.”
The Road out of Guadalajara
Vargas signaled his men with a slight wave of his hand. The weapons lowered away from my chest.
“You have five minutes, señora,” Vargas said, his voice returning to its polite, businesslike tone. “After five minutes, the deal expires. If the truck is still within range of my optics, we kill everyone in this room, starting with your husband’s mother in the back of the SUV.”
I looked at Alejandro. His eyes were fixed on me, filled with a deep, silent peace that I had never seen in him during all my years of caretaking.
“Go, Sofia,” he whispered. “Run. Don’t look back at this house.”
“Alejandro…” My throat caught, the realization of what he was doing hitting me all at once. He wasn’t planning on giving them the bypass. He was going to wait until I was safe, and then he was going to end it all.
“Thank you for the bath,” he said, a tiny, genuine smile appearing on his face. “It was… very refreshing.”
I turned and ran through the dark utility tunnel, the brass key clutched so tightly in my hand that the metal bit into my palm.
The carriage house was cold and smelled of old oil. The utility truck—a battered, gray Chevy from the nineties—was sitting under a canvas tarp. I threw the tarp off, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and shoved the key into the ignition.
The engine cranked once, twice, a heavy, sputtering groan that made my heart stop.
“Come on,” I sobbed, slamming my hand against the dashboard. “Come on!”
On the third try, the V8 engine roared to life, a loud, guttural rumble that shook the old wooden walls of the shed. I slammed the truck into reverse, stepping on the gas before the garage door was even fully open. The heavy wooden doors splintered as the back of the truck smashed through them, bursting out into the torrential rain of the courtyard.
Through the rearview mirror, I saw the black SUV parked near the main gate. The driver’s side door opened, a man stepping out with a rifle raised toward my windshield.
I didn’t stop. I turned the wheel, aiming the heavy steel bumper of the Chevy directly at the front of the SUV.
The impact was deafening—a crunch of metal and shattering glass that threw me forward against the steering wheel. But the utility truck was heavier, a solid piece of American steel against a modern luxury vehicle. The SUV was shoved sideways, clearing the path to the main gates.
As I sped through the shattered iron entrance, out onto the flooded highway that led toward the center of Guadalajara, a bright, orange flash illuminated the sky behind me.
The explosion was silent at first, followed a second later by a low, deep rumble that shook the earth. In the mirror, the old estate—the house of secrets, the house of my marriage, the house of Alejandro’s pain—was swallowed by a column of fire that even the tropical rain couldn’t put out.
I reached into my apron pocket, my fingers wrapping around the small plastic case containing the flash drive.
The rain kept falling, washing the mud and the blood off the windshield as I drove toward the city, toward the embassy, toward the first day of the rest of my life. I was alone, but for the first time in three years, I could finally breathe.
