Instead, she sends a letter.
Dear Feo, she writes, and that’s when he knows what kind of letter this will be. He’s Feo to her now. An ugly beast, and this is no fairy tale. There will be no third-act transformation. He is the monster, and she’s lucky to have escaped with her life.
The doctors say I’ll make a full recovery. Please don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault; it’s mine. You are who you are; your life is what it is. I never should have tried to turn you into someone else. I never should have let you believe this was anything more than a vacation for me—I guess I let myself believe it too. But when this happened … I know what I want now. Who I am. I’ve given my entire life to dancing, and I’m not going to turn my back on that. It’s my dream. My destiny, I guess you’d say. It took almost losing it to figure that out. I went a little crazy for a while, thinking it was so easy to just wish yourself into a different life. I’m going home, Feo. Thank you for helping me understand that I belong there. Just like you belong here. I’m sorry for ever suggesting otherwise.
Best wishes,
Alicia
Jago doesn’t understand. Has he done this to her? Broken her, convinced her to give up her dreams?
He’s the one who put her in harm’s way, by failing to live up to his responsibilities. If he’d only done his job, killed Alejandro and Julio, not fallen prey to this stupid delusion of kindness and mercy, then Alicia would have been safe.
His job, his entire life, is to protect his people. Maybe this is his punishment for imagining he could escape that, or want to.
Or maybe she means it, and this was, as she said, simply a vacation for her, a break from her cozy life.
Either way, this was inevitable. His mother was right: They’re too different. They’re too dangerous for each other. Alicia made him soft … and the consequences of that have made her heartbreakingly hard.
You are who you are, she wrote.
Best wishes, she wrote.
He doesn’t know which one hurts more.
Jago locks himself in his room for two days and two nights. He gives himself over completely to his anguish, letting it sweep over him, wash him out to sea; he drowns in it, drowns in memories of her. Jago has been taught how to withstand pain, how to retreat to a place in his mind where he doesn’t feel it, but he lets himself feel all of this: pain, guilt, betrayal, fury. He lets the fire rage inside of him, lets it burn everything away—and then, when he’s hollow and clean, burn itself out.
When he’s ready, when it’s done, he sets fire to the letter, drops it into the trash bin, and watches the flames consume what’s left of her.
He emerges from his room a different man.
A man who’s learned his lesson. Not to dream, not to wonder, not to love. Not to think he deserves anything more than what he has—not to think he’s anything but a monster. Feo, outside and in.
This is good. This is as it should be.
He will not forget himself again. He will not be tempted by mercy or beauty. He will not show weakness. He will find Julio, and punish him, as he will punish all enemies of the Tlaloc and the Olmec. But he won’t do it for Alicia, who ran away from him. He vows he will never again put some girl, some stranger from a foreign line, ahead of his own friends and family. He will never stop loving her; he will never forget her. But she is his past, and his past doesn’t have to define him. She taught him that.
A new future starts today. And from today on, he will act only for his line. He will care only for his own. They’re the only ones who can understand what he is, and love it.
They’re the only ones he can trust.
Hayu Marca Tlaloc steps out of the SUV and ventures into the abandoned alley, her high heels clicking against the cobblestones. She looks down in disgust, carefully stepping over a pile of drying dog shit. She’ll have to throw the shoes out when she gets home.
A small sacrifice to the cause.
At her side, she carries a small briefcase, filled with US$100,000.
Julio’s eyes light up when he sees it.
“You did a good job,” she tells him.
He bows his head. “Gracias, Señora Tlaloc.”
“But I’m surprised you’re not halfway to Brazil by now—my son’s sure to come looking for you, and I promise, he’s not very happy.”
He doesn’t dare meet her eyes. “I came for my payment.”
“Ah, yes. Your payment. Well worth it, I have to say.”
Her plan has worked out better than she could have imagined. Poor Jago will be heartbroken for a bit, she knows, but he’ll get over it. Every man needs a few dents in his heart—it’s how he learns to be hard. He’ll blame himself, of course, but he’ll forgive himself too. Men always do. It will be easier for him, believing that the girl made a full recovery, and Hayu has paid the doctors and nursing staff enough to ensure no one will ever say anything different.
As long as he never sees la gringa again, all will be well.
And la gringa has been taken care of.
“If you ever try to contact my son again, I will kill you,” Hayu told her in the hospital room. “Do you understand me?”
“I love him,” the girl said, as if that were allowed, and Hayu nearly smothered her with a pillow. “I said all these hateful things to him, and I have to tell him—”
“You will never speak to him. I don’t like to repeat myself, so I don’t want to have to say this again. Are we clear?”
The girl nodded.
“I’m sending you back home, but be sure: even there, I’ll have people watching you. For the rest of your life, I’ll be watching. I have that much power. And as for mercy … I’m expending all of it right here. This is the only chance you’ll have. Do you believe me?”
The girl nodded again, tears streaming down her face.
She was alone in a foreign country with a flimsy grasp of the native language and a bullet hole in her spine. She’d just been told she would never walk again. She’d lost all will to fight.
Once reality sank in, she would blame Jago. Hayu may have forged the letter to Jago, but she truly believes it’s what la gringa will want to say to him, once she understands the cold facts of her new life. The brilliant dancer, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her days, and all because she made the mistake of loving the wrong boy. She will most certainly come to hate Jago, Hayu thinks. Almost as much as she’ll hate herself.
Maybe that’s why Hayu takes the risk of letting her live.
Transgressions like hers must be punished.
“Of course, my son can never know about this,” she tells Julio now. “Understood?”
He nods. “Claro, señora. Of course.”
“You know I don’t like to take risks of any kind.”
“I have heard that about you, sí.”
“So you’ll understand, then, why I have to do this.” Hayu slides a very small revolver from her purse and shoots him in the head.
Julio drops to the ground, a neat hole at the center of his forehead. Someone will find the body in a day or two, but the police won’t investigate very hard—not a man like that, in a neighborhood like this.
Not that it matters. The police are in her pocket. All of Juliaca is in her pocket. And now her son is there again too, right where he