Fat Louise(15)

“This isn’t my truck. I bought it from Jorge. I wouldn’t drive an expensive SUV like that.”

“Why not?” she asked curiously.

“Because it would get stolen at the first roadblock. This piece of shit, no one will want. I had to give Jorge a thousand for it.”

“Another business expense?”

“That’s right.”

“This is going to cost my father a lot of money, isn’t it?”

“He can afford it,” he said without sympathy.

“Yes, he can, but sleeping with Teresa doesn’t count as a business expense,” Jane snapped back, becoming tired of his unfriendly attitude. People were usually nice to her. Actually, the only people who didn’t like her were her stepmother, her sister, Teresa, and The Last Riders. But everyone else liked her. She was a nice person and went out of her way to make people freaking like her. She shouldn’t take it personally. Maybe he was an asshole who didn’t like anyone.

“Yes, it does. It was hard work to satisfy her. Teresa would have turned you over to the Silvas if she became angry enough. She was mad as hell when she saw me kissing you.”

“Why did you kiss me?” Jane asked, making sure not to look at him when she asked.

“Jorge was about five steps behind me. If he had seen you come out of his office, he would have shot you and thrown your dead body out his back door.”

“He wouldn’t have shot me!”

Cade gave her a grim look that had her believing him.

“He would have?”

“Yes. Jorge might come off as a bumbling idiot, but he takes his own safety seriously. He wouldn’t have let you jeopardize his safety for any reason. That’s how he’s kept alive all these years.”

Jane stared out the window, watching the people in the streets as they passed. They walked on the sidewalk like they would in any city, although they dealt with the fear of getting killed daily.

Cade drove through the city. Gradually, it thinned out until they were driving on a smaller two-lane road. Jane began to get nervous when he drove onto a small, dirt road.

“This is the way to the airport?”

“We’re going to an airstrip. There’s a difference.”

“There is?”

“Yes. Fuck!” Cade gradually began to slow the truck down.

“What’s wrong?” Jane asked.

Cade nodded his head toward the road in front of them. “There’s a roadblock.”

Jane’s breath hitched. She had been stopped while on the buses a couple of times, each one terrifying her.

“Stay quiet and do everything they tell you.”

Jane nodded as he stopped the truck.

“Get out.” A soldier dressed in fatigues pointed a gun at Cade. Cade held his hands in the air and carefully reached down to open his truck door. The soldier kept his gun pointed on Cade as they climbed out of the truck. Jane’s own hands rose into the air when she saw another soldier standing by the truck-bed with a gun trained on her.

“There is a toll for traveling on this road. Give me your money,” Jane heard the soldier demand from Cade.

She turned to watch as Cade pulled the cash from his pocket, handing it to the soldier who shoved it into his own pocket.

“Is that all you have?”

“Yes.” Cade’s voice was low and non-confrontational. Jane was kind of surprised, thinking he would have fought harder to keep his money.

“Search the truck.” The soldier motioned her to go stand beside Cade as he opened the truck door.

Jane stood beside Cade as the soldier found her backpack, pulling it out of the truck to toss it to the ground in front of the soldier who had taken Cade’s cash. He bent down, tossing her clothes in the dirt as he shifted through her things. He stared up at her in surprise when he pulled out the gun before shoving it into the waistband of his pants. Standing up, he kicked the backpack towards her, and she bent to pick it up.

“Get out of here.”

After Jane and Cade both got back inside the truck, Cade made a turn and went back the direction they had come from.

“We’re not going to the landing strip?”

“Change of plan. I don’t have the money to pay the pilot, and he doesn’t do credit. I’ll find a place for us to stay in Peñuela and get some more cash. Looks like you’ll be flying back with your sister after all.”

Jane was both relieved and frustrated. She had wanted this ordeal to be over, but she was relieved not to be going back without Bailey. She hadn’t liked feeling like she had failed her father.

Sometime later, Jane announced, “I’m hungry.”

“How am I supposed to pay for food?” Cade replied.

Jane took her shoe off and pulled out some folded money, showing it to him.