She laughed. “I would hope not.” Turning slightly in her seat to face me, she said, “Quote something for me.”
“What?”
“You said you could quote literature. I would love to hear something.”
“Seriously?”
Her face brightened. “Yes, please.”
“Okay then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Once again, the sweet peals of her laughter rang in my ear.
“It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. That a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee.”
Annabel’s green eyes widened in delight. “You know Poe’sAnnabel Lee?”
“I do. I knowThe Ravenas well. Poe’s a personal favorite of mine.”
“I was named for Annabel Lee.”
With a grin, I told her, “I had a hunch.”
“My sister is Lenore fromThe Raven.”
“Your parents must have a love for Poe as well.”
“My mother majored in English in college.” Annabel rolled her eyes. “Mainly she was there to get the all important MRS degree, but she managed to snag my father and finish college.”
I laughed. “I can’t help but wonder how someone like you came from two such horrible people.”
She smiled. “That’s a good question. It’s one I often ask myself as well.”
My amusement was short lived when I saw we had come upon the border patrol. Annabel let out a small squeak of alarm as she shot straight up in her seat. “It’s going to be fine. We can count on the Raiders to make excellent documents. We’ll get right through.”
“Okay,” she replied softly.
“But try not to look suspicious.”
Her eyes widened in horror. “I look suspicious?”
“When you look like you’re going to piss your pants.”
A nervous giggle bubbled from her lips, and I was glad to ease the tension in the car. “Okay, okay. I’ll be calm. I’ll be the best Mary Jones I can be,” she replied, alluding to the name on her passport.
Slowly, the car inched further up in the line. When we reached the inspector, I rolled the window down and handed him our passports. He gazed at our pictures and then back to us. Time seemed to tick by agonizingly slowly. Beads of sweat, both from the heat and my nerves, began to form on the back of my neck.
The officer handed our passports over to another man. He also took his time eyeing us and the documents. Just as I felt the tension threaten to overwhelm Annabel, the man stamped the passports and handed them back to the first officer.
After he shoved them back at me, he waved us on. The moment the car passed through, I exhaled the breath I had been holding. Once we were out of their sight, I gunned the engine,and like Chulo had instructed me, I began to put as much distance as I could between us and the border.
CHAPTER NINE: MENDOZA
Manuel Mendoza peered at the blackened desolation of his once thriving trafficking camp with his upper lip curled in disgust, surveying the construction workers scrambling around the land. It had been one fucking week since those cocksuckers had stormed what should have been an impenetrable fortress. His first act after the fires were extinguished was to put a bullet in the head of the man in charge of his security.
Once that was done, he’d had his remaining men search the compound for his Roja. Just picturing her beautiful red hair and creamy white skin sent an ache through his groin. He had beaten her within an inch of her life, but he knew he was justified in his actions. The cunt had called out another man’s name when he was fucking her. After everything he had done for her, for her to betray him like that…she deserved the violent beating.
When the search of the compound came up empty, he remembered destroying his bedroom in a rage. He had intended for no other man to ever have her—and now she was in the hands of the people who had stormed his compound.
If she’d lived.
