I heard a splash behind me. I would not turn around. I would not give up.

I cried out in frustration, lunging forward to reach the sand, as if that would save me in the end. But there was no saving me.

Suddenly thick, rough arms went around my waist, lifting me up out of the water. I heard another splash, nearly drowned out by my cries, and everything went black as a bag was placed over my head. My arms were yanked back behind me so fast that I thought they were being pulled out of the sockets. I screamed in pain, my breath hot inside the bag that felt like it was already starting to drown me.

Another pair of hands went for my legs. I started kicking wildly, hoping that the current would catch the person off-balance, but within seconds my legs were wrapped with rope and I was being led out of the river like a pig on a stick, a man holding up either end of me.

“Two minutes,” someone said, a man’s voice that I didn’t recognize. Despite the bag that made everything sound muffled, he sounded like he was from the east coast.

“Are you sure?” asked the other man, his voice low and baritone, and close to my ear, the one who gripped my hands behind my back.

“I’m never wrong, hey.”

“All right, Este. Let’s not go down this path again. We have the bitch, let’s go.”

I swallowed hard, my stomach sick, a swirling pool of knots. This wasn’t Salvador. These weren’t his men. This was someone else, and even though I was running away from him, it was always better with the devil you know.

I was suddenly jerked downward, my back arching, and I cried out again. I cried out for Salvador as a last resort.

“Salvador!” I screamed through the bag, the heat rising up to my cheeks. “Help me!”

A fist came down on my cheekbone, my face exploding in stars of pain.

“Easy now, Franco” said Este, and the fist didn’t come again. My lips throbbed, my mouth filled with blood, and I knew better than to try and cry out once more.

The men, Este and Franco, carried me away, their pace quickening. I only heard their breathing, fast and shallow, and the sound of the earth beneath their quiet feet. I could smell Franco’s greasy breath, so close to my head. Every time I thought I might be able to move out of their hands and make an escape, their grip tightened around me even more.

I was going to die. There was no doubt about that now. Not at the hands of Salvador. In the hands of some unknown fate. These men, they were taking me somewhere. There was a reason I wasn’t dead yet—death was the dessert.

I took in a deep breath, my mind beginning to swim laps in a dark pool. I wished these men had just killed me. My parents had money now because of my marriage. That was the whole point of it all. That was the point of everything—to give them a better life in their ailing years than I ever had growing up. If I died, I would die with peace in my heart knowing they were okay. It was the only thing that made my life worthwhile.

I must have lost consciousness due to lack of air because suddenly my head slammed back against something hard, and I fell over onto a cold slab. An engine whirred, the smell of exhaust seeping through. I was in a car—no, the back of a van—being taken somewhere. That dessert again.

I was in and out for the next while until the van jerked to a stop. I heard the back doors open, and before I could move, there were hands on me again, three pairs this time. They pulled me out of the van so fast that I cracked my head on the door frame. I heard Este apologize under his breath but that was it. Strong fingers seared into my arms and waist, and I was yanked forward across what felt like well-kept grass. For a split second I thought I wrong, and I was actually back at home. For that second I had hope, hope to just keep living, while before I only had the hope to live under my own terms. Now it was all about survival, instinct trumping reality.

The moment I heard a door open and I was shuffled down a staircase, the damp and musty smell permeating my nostrils, I knew I wasn’t back at home. We didn’t have a basement. Salvador had rooms for torture in other houses, but not ours. At least, no rooms that I could ever see.

My mind began to race, flipping through thoughts and images I had been subjected to ever since I married Salvador. Who had taken me? Salvador had the Sinaloa state military and the police at his command, so it wasn’t them. It was another cartel or one of his old associates trying to usurp the boss. He had told me from the beginning that there were men out there who wanted me, who would do anything to have me—to take me, torture me, hold me for ransom, then torture me some more.

The wife of the jackal is the greatest card you can play in this game.

I was thrown down onto a chair, my hands and feet immediately unbound, and then tied back to the arms and legs before I could struggle. I thought about screaming again but the side of my face still throbbed with the violence. Este had warned Franco off, but I knew cartel men; I knew them too well, and I knew that courtesy never extended very far.

I started to shake uncontrollably and my whole body rocking with the spasm while hot tears pooled in my eyes. But I refused to let them fall. I knew what was coming next. The bag would come off my head. The bags would go on theirs. The camera would turn on.

I didn’t want the world to see me afraid. I had been afraid for too long.

“Is everything ready?” Este asked.

“It’s all set up,” I heard someone say, another male voice, heavy footsteps coming toward me. I tensed up, sensing Franco and Este and some other figure on all sides of me, and the other person, the one who had just spoken, who stopped a few feet away. I wondered if there were more than four people in the room and decided there must be. I could almost feel someone else’s eyes, hear their breath, read their silence.

“How drugged is she?” the unknown voice asked.

There was a pause. Then Este said, “Not badly. She’s somewhat coherent.”

“You didn’t gag her?”

“No, but she shut up when she needed to.”

“It’s lucky she was out there.”

“Yes. It was.”

Who were these men? Which cartel? Salvador had so many enemies and so many alliances that harbored grudges, you could never be sure who was looking for some way to ground traction. But even though I knew my fate was most likely death, it all depended on who I was with. Who had me. Some men were more deplorable than others. Now that the famous gringo Travis Raines was dead, Salvador himself was probably the worst of them all.

Though there was one cartel, one man, who I’d been told could give my husband a run for his money. He was famous for slicing the heads, hands, and feet off of people and littering them in streets all over the country.

There was a strange moment of silence and I concentrated hard, trying to hear more than the obvious. They were all waiting. Waiting for the order. Waiting for the man in charge to speak.

He did.

It came from the left of me. His voice was cool, calm, and collected. I didn’t have to see to know who had taken me. The man I’d heard so much about. The man I’d been taught to fear.

“Gentleman,” he said, and I could almost feel his infamous eyes on my body, “remove the bag.”

There was a rustle and my face was immediately met with cool air that seized my lungs and bright lights that blinded me. I scrunched up my face, afraid to look, to see. Now it was all so real and I wanted to stay in the dark.

“Who did this?”

Suddenly, cool hands were at my swollen cheek and I flinched.

“Who did this?” my captor repeated, an edge to his level voice, his cigar-laced breath on my face.

“Sorry,” Franco mumbled. “It was the only way to quiet her.”

A heavy pause filled the room like dead weight. Finally the fingers came away from my skin, and my body relaxed momentarily. The man was in my face, the spicy scent of tea emanating off of him.