Page 76 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name

His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. “You listen to me. Whatever protection they’re offering you, you take it.”

A chill crawled up her spine. “What do you mean?”

His knuckles whitened around the receiver.

“I mean, you’ve crossed the wrong people.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “La Mano Negra.TheCártel de Sinaloa. Borya Sokolov.”

Her blood turned to ice.

“They will come for you, Julia.” He leaned in, his face inches from the glass. “And when they find you…”

He pushed to his feet so suddenly that the guard behind him tensed. His eyes locked onto hers, burning with something wild.

“You better run, baby.”

TWENTY-ONE

They werethe last words Daniel ever spoke to her.

Three days later, they cornered him in a prison shower stall. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The blade punched into the side of his neck, swift and deliberate, severing his carotid.

His blood spilled out in thick ribbons, swirling into the drain with the dirty water. The last of him, washed away like nothing. His killer had a black handprint tattooed on his chest.

Sebastián never woke up from surgery. He lingered for three weeks in a sterile hospital room, tethered to a bank of beeping machines, before they finally shut him down like a faulty piece of equipment. No legal status. No insurance. No family.

No reason to keep him alive.

When he died, the only person in the room was the nurse who flicked the switch.

Julia was taken to a safe house somewhere in the city’s southwest. A converted warehouse near an industrial park, faceless and gray, indistinguishable from the empty lots and shuttered buildings around it. Inside, the only things that stood out were a single bed with a wafer-thin mattress, a strip of green and orange carpet worn down to its threads, and a water stain blooming across the ceiling like an old bruise.

She spent most of her time lying on that mattress, staring at that stain. At first, she cycled through memories of Daniel, playing them over and over until they lost their shape—his voice turning unfamiliar, his touch fading into something half-remembered, like echoes from a dream she couldn’t quite hold on to. Then, even those memories slipped away, replaced by nothing. She lay there, hollow, her will to live drifting like a tide pulling further and further from shore.

The will to live is the will to die. Una paradoja.

Searing light cut into her eyelids. She opened them and blinked, squinting against the sudden brightness in the room. Weck was standing by the curtains, silhouetted by the daylight now streaming in the window.

She went to Julia’s bedside and looked down. “The good news is, your intel was solid. We took it to a grand jury, got indictments on eight members of LMN-13. Yesterday, we raided InterTruck and arrested Terry Bidois, Milo Bidois, Paquito Vasquez and Che Cardenas. They’re being held at MCC. There are warrants out for four others.”

Julia stared up at the ceiling and said nothing.

Weck went on, “U.S. federal agents and their Mexican counterparts raided that old dartboard factory in Jua´rez that Castan~o told you about. They arrested Jose´ Ferrera. Cut off an entire arm of Sinaloa’s heroin operation. Not the head, but still.” She paused, then added, “We wouldn’t have had any of that without you.”

Julia did not know why this woman was telling her this. Like she cared. Like it fuckingmattered.

“I just got off the phone AUSA Oates,” she continued. “He said the Attorney General is ready to sign off on your application for the federal witness security program.”

Another long pause.

“You just have to say the word.”

Julia said nothing.

Weck sighed. “This story only has two endings, Julia. One where you take what’s being offered here. Or one where you leave here and in a few weeks’ time, I have to watch as they dig your body parts out of a dumpster in Canaryville.”

Her words bounced harmlessly off Julia’s brain.

Weck leaned closer to the bed. “Listen, I know you wanted a different ending here. One where you got to live happily ever after with Castan~o.”