Page 66 of Sins of the Orchid

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The dark haze slowly started lifting and I spotted a man walking this way. They carried Mom back to our little cage. It felt like hours, though it was mere seconds, a minute tops, until they reached the cage. The moment they threw her body inside, I crawled to her and lifted her withering form into my arms.

“Please, Mom,” I whimpered, holding her battered body. “I am so sorry. Don’t leave me.”

I hadn’t heard George’s screams today. They killed him and left him in the ditch, one of the men said. They’d start torturing me soon; I knew it.

I rocked back and forth, my mom in my arms and scared out of my mind. We wouldn’t get out of this alive.

“He’ll come for us,” she rasped through her cracked lips, blood seeping from the corner of it.

“Who?” I cried in a low whisper.

“Your father.”

George was dead. He wasn’t coming. Except I didn’t have the heart to tell her. So, I rocked her like a baby, hoping I soothed her.

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered against her hair, my body rocking back and forth. “I should have listened to you.” My voice cracked. “P-please… I’m so sorry.”

Her bloodied hand came to my face. “Set up,” she rasped. “You will avenge us. Your father will come, Amore.”

The tears burned against my cracked lips, and I worried they'd hurt Mom’s cuts too. So, I buried my face in her hair.

“I will,” I promised. “If we get out of here, I will. I’ll make them pay.”

The moon glowed, the stars glittered, and the night creatures piercing calls filled the air as both of our bodies trembled with the cool night temperatures. I held her body all night as she slept in my arms, and I prayed to anyone that listened… just to get us out.

The next morning, they came back for her. I cried, trying to hold on to her. I screamed, begged, and pleaded to let her stay with me.

“I need you to be brave, Amore. Be strong.” Those were her last words.

A young blonde man came over, something was familiar about him, but I was so distraught, I couldn’t think clearly. He grabbed Mom’s hair and placed his knife against her throat. His eyes locked on me, not sparing her a glance. I kept shaking my head, pleading with every fiber of my being.

“Don’t! Please don’t,” I mouthed. I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry, too raw. Then he sliced her throat and took her away from me. She gurgled, desperation in her eyes, her will to live strong. Her eyes sought me out, and I held her gaze as tears streamed down my filthy face.

“Mom,” I whimpered.

Her mouth opened but no words came out. Only blood. I watched the light in her beautiful, green eyes extinguished in front of my eyes. My mother’s hair stark against the dirt and the crimson red soaking the earth. She was forever gone.

I stood frozen, unable to scream, to move. I wasn’t sure whether my heart stopped or whether it raced so fast that I couldn’t hear anything. I just stared at Mom’s blank eyes that used to shine and smile as she read me stories or drew her next dress designs.

They left her there, in front of my cage and disappeared into their building on the other side of the compound.

Her whispered words rang in my ears.‘Avenge us’. The two words reverberated through my blood.

If I stayed, did nothing, I’d be dead soon too. I had to try. I had to survive to avenge.

I dug and dug, my nails turning bloody. It didn’t matter. The pain didn’t compare to the one in my chest. The moment the space was big enough, I snuck through the dirt, under the cage and ran. I didn’t stop. The sounds of the jungle were scary and dangerous, but those didn’t compare to the men I had left behind.

ThePerèzCartel. If it was the last thing I did on this earth, I would find them and kill them all.

The Carrera Cartel found me in the woods, slumped in a ditch two days later, barely alive. They took me to a hotel in Bogotà where one stayed with me along with his guards for five days.

We never spoke a single word to each other. Until I went to sleep and woke up screaming from the nightmares that plagued me. Again and again. He’d come in the room and soothe me, speaking words in Spanish.

Until I learned that I had a father who had been looking for me for the past two weeks. In Venezuela.

Yes, the Venezuelan Cartel was full of monsters. Santi was protecting Adriano by keeping him away from them.