Killing Sarai

22

Sarai

Victor walks quickly, but casually over to get the mattress and box springs lifted. With one arm holding them up, he reaches in and grabs each bag, one by one and sets them aside.

“I don’t understand,” I say, crossing my arms and rubbing them with the opposite hands, up and down as if there’s a chill in the air. “Did he say he was going to kill me?”

Victor unzips the duffle bag on the tabletop and sifts through the contents.

“No, he offered me one million to kill you for him.”

I blink back the stun and just stand here in disbelief, more goose bumps breaking out all over my body.

Victor comes up in front of me and places both hands on my shoulders. He pushes me gently down on the edge of the bed where I sit willingly. Then he takes a seat in one of the chairs underneath the table, turning it around fully so that he can face me.

“Why would Javier want you dead enough to pay that much to have you killed?”

Absently, I raise my eyes to look up at him, still a bit lost in my thoughts.

“I-I don’t know,” I stutter.

“Yes you do,” he insists. “Perhaps not directly, but something tells me that deep down a part of you has some idea—think.”

I look away from his eyes, trying to recall my time at the compound, searching for what could be the answer. When many long seconds pass and I’ve found nothing, Victor lifts his bottom from the chair long enough to scoot it closer to me. That gets my attention again.

“I need you to tell me everything,” Victor says with gentle intent. “Tell me about your relationship with Javier. You said he believes he is in love with you.”

I nod in a slow, rapid motion. “Yes. He told me once that he was in love with me, but I know better. He’s crazy. Possessive. But he protected me from the things the other girls had to go through.”

I don’t like to think about these things, much less talk openly about them. I am ashamed and I hate myself for what they endured.

“He protected you?” Victor asks, needing more information.

“Yes. I was off-limits to Javier’s men. And Izel, well, Javier nearly killed her when she hit me in the face once. After that, she wasn’t allowed to touch me. And I was allowed luxuries the other girls weren’t, too. Hot showers and good food and I got to see places outside of the compound. I even flew on a small plane with him several times. Javier would rarely let me out of his sight. Izel hated me for it, accused Javier of ‘going soft’, falling for a ‘stupid American girl’.”

A spark of intrigue passes over Victor’s features.

“What kind of places were you taken?”

I shrug softly and let my hands fall in-between my thighs, my fingers curling nervously around one another.

“Sometimes,” I begin, “he’d take me with him to other rich men’s houses, with sparkling blue pools shaped like horseshoes and other strange things. Javier said it was just to mingle but I knew we were there for drug deals. And girls. Sometimes we came back with a new one. He would dress up in a nice suit and shiny black shoes just like yours.” I glance down at Victor’s shoes briefly. “He didn’t look like the scumbag you saw the other day, living in filth. He is rich, despite what you saw.”

“I gathered that much.”

I go on:

“And of course he’d make me dress up, too.”