Chapter Twenty-One
Lourdes, you’re allowedto feel angry.To grieve.To be unsure.
The therapist’s words repeated in Lourdes’s mind.Emotionally drained but surprisingly lighter from the one-hour session, she followed the well-placed signs and navigated the maze of hallways with ease.The spacious two-story Clínica Horizonte Nuevo enveloped her in the shade of off-white and dove-gray.The scent of vanilla infused the cool air with comfort, a far cry from the astringent stench of cleaners and the bitterness of tension she’d expected.Her sandals thudded steadily on the tile as the air conditioning unit purred from somewhere within the walls.
Up ahead, seven young women in T-shirts and jeans exited a room, likely having concluded a group therapy session.Three of them ducked their heads and walked on silent feet while the others smiled at Lourdes in greeting as they passed.At the end of the hall, they filed through a doorway to the dormitory section of the rehabilitation center.
The steadyclunkof the metal door closing behind them quickened Lourdes’s pulse.
Rubén’s war with the Tronco de la Muerte Cartel had left hundreds of enslaved women with nowhere else to go except the street, so he offered them shelter, access to doctors and therapists, and the chance to rebuild their lives with safe jobs and homes.
Currently, most of the women still lived in the dorms.
The precedence was unheard of.Donating money to worthwhile causes to keep a polite public persona was one thing.Rubén starting and funding an organization entirely from his own pocket was another.Her father was disgusted with it, though the great Gerardo Villegas would never dare tell the Lozano leader that.
She continued down the hall to the lobby.For the first time in a long while, she was no longer drowning under her own silence.Confiding in the kind, soft-spoken therapist about her first marriage and her relationship with her parents had ripped open old, crusty wounds.
She wasn’t to blame for her father’s or Jacobo’s actions.
Or her mother’s inaction.
Miscarrying her children had not been her fault.
Her fear of getting pregnant again was natural.
She didn’t need to be fixed, as Enrique was determined to do.She needed toheal.Needed someone to just listen.
Her next appointment couldn’t come soon enough.
Lourdes bypassed the canteen where a few nurses in scrubs chatted with a handful of men and women who could only be therapists given their casual yet professional attire.The armed security guard, who was half hidden behind the monitors on his bulky black desk, smiled at her as she approached the exit.
Even though the Lozano Cartel had decimated their enemies, retribution was always possible, so Rubén had hired private security for the clinic and dormitory.
“Have a good day, Señora Villegas.”The guard pressed a button on the wall-mounted panel.
A beep resounded, and the caged red light bulb flashed from above the large steel door.
“Gracias.”She pushed through the barrier into the small, compact lobby.Sunlight streaked across her face from the wall of bulletproof windows before her.At the glass double doors, her hulking new bodyguard scrolled through his phone and leaned against the doorframe instead of relaxing in one of the surrounding half-dozen padded chairs.
Another guard waited at the check-in counter, though the clinic’s only clients were the women Enrique and Rubén had rescued months earlier.
And now, Lourdes was a client as well.
