… I could tell Harper, and maybe she could help me think of a way out.
The thought makes me laugh, sharp and bitter in the empty bathroom.
Sure, just tell Harper that the man she thinks is her protector, her provider and the escape from her fucked-up past is actually the one who destroyed her life in the first place? That I framed her, got Silas locked up, and then manipulated her into thinking I was her only option?
Yeah. That’ll go over real fucking well.
No, fuck it, I’m trapped.
Completely, totally trapped by life being just as shitty and unfair as always.
You try to get out from under one boot, andanother onealways comes back to crush you twice as hard.
I was just trying to make a better life for us. Was that so wrong?
I wrap my knuckles in as many paper towels as it takes for the blood to stop flowing, then finally make it over to the urinal, hands shaking as I unzip.
My reflection in the chrome fixture looks haggard, older than my twenty-two years. The guy staring back at me isn’t the clever, ambitious kid who thought he could game the system and come out on top.
He’s someone’s bitch.
And there’s not a Goddamn thing I can do about it.
When I finally make it out to the truck, coffee forgotten, I sit in the cab for a long time before starting the engine. The phone in my front pocket buzzes, and I yank it out to see a text from an unknown number.
Next Thursday. Laredo route. You’ll receive the manifest Tuesday. Don’t be late.
I delete the message with shaking hands, then pull up my photos on my real phone. There’s Harper from this morning after the shower, head thrown back, wet hair plastered to her shoulders. The smile she gave me that meant she was mine. Completely mine.
Except she’s not.
None of it’s mine.
I’m just borrowing it until someone bigger and meaner decides to take it away from me. Cause that’s the way the world fucking works.
I start the engine and pull out of the gas station, heading for the interstate. The same roads I thought were my ticket to abetter life now feel like chains, dragging me deeper into the same shit I thought I’d left behind.
And the worst part? Or fuck, maybe the best?
Harper will never know.
She’ll keep looking at me with those adoring eyes, keep trusting me to keep her safe, keep believing I’m the good guy in her story.
Because that’s what I do best.
I lie.
And now I’m going to tell bigger lies than I ever have before, hauling drugs and blood money while playing house with the woman I manipulated into loving me.
Some fucking life this turned out to be.
SEVEN
November 2024
HARPER
Ximena is really excitedto pop the champagne, and impatient, too.