Fifteen
Chapter One
Elena Sophia Carranza gunned the throttle to make it up the steep, rocky slope, doing her best to keep up with Hector. Thank God he’d taken the precious extra time to train her on how to ride a dirt bike in rough terrain. There was no more treacherous landscape than the border crossing between Mexico and the United States leading into the Big Bend National Park.
“You can do this, Señorita Elena, but you must be brave,” Hector had insisted when they’d set off on their desperate escape. “Once we leave, we cannot return.”
She’d known that from the start. Her ex-fiancé, Antonio, would not stop until he found her. And if he did catch her, there would be the devil to pay.
Squeezing Hector’s hand, she’d whispered, “You must call me Sophia from now on. Elena no longer exists.”
“Sí,” he’d agreed before mounting his bike and taking off.
It was imperative Sophia commit to her goal, or she’d die. Others had risked too much to help her break out of the compound. Hector had risked his life and his future to get her this far. The least she could do was hold up her end by keeping pace with him, not going so slow as to put them both in jeopardy. They had come across the United States border without being detected thus far. Now all they had to do was find help.
They’d splashed through the Rio Grande at a low-water crossing before dawn and headed into the canyons, zigzagging through the trails, climbing, dropping down into the shadows, heading north as far as they could before Antonio discovered their betrayal and came after them.
No matter what, Sophia couldn’t go back. Even if she could withstand another day of physical and mental abuse, she refused to let the tiny life growing inside her suffer the same.
Escape seemed impossible from the far-reaching Mexican Mafia la Familia Diablos. As soon as Antonio realized she’d left, he’d send a gang of his sicarios, enforcers, to find and return her to Mexico or leave it for the Americans or the vultures to clean up her body.
As far as Sophia was concerned, she’d rather die and take her baby to heaven with her than subject another innocent life to the evil of Antonio Martinez and the drug cartel he called family.
Anna, her only friend in la Fuerte del Diablo, the Chihuahuan compound, had compromised her safety and that of her young son to get Sophia out. Sophia couldn’t fail. Too many had risked too much.
Deep in the canyons of the far edges of Big Bend National Park, Sophia dared to hope she could evade Antonio and his band of killers long enough to find a place to hide, a place she could live her life in peace and raise her child.
Sophia had been born in Mexico, and her mother was an American citizen, ensuring Sophia had dual citizenship and could speak English fluently. Unfortunately, she no longer had her passport. Antonio had stripped her of identification after he’d lured her away from her family in Monterrey.
Once she found a safe haven, she’d do whatever it took to reinstate her citizenship and ask for asylum. In exchange, she’d give the Americans any information they wanted on the whereabouts of Antonio’s cartel stronghold on the Mexican side of the border. Not that it would do them much good. The Mexican government struggled to control their own citizens. What could the Americans do across the border?
Sophia knew that Antonio had contacts on the American side. High-powered, armed contacts that guaranteed safe passage of his people and products for distribution. Since the death of the former cartel boss, Xavier Salazar, Antonio had taken over, amassing a fortune in the illicit drug trade of cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin and marijuana. His power had grown tenfold, his arrogance exponentially, but he reported to a higher boss, a mysterious man not many of the cartel had actually seen. Rumor had it that he was an American of great influence. True or not, every time he visited, cartel members who’d betrayed la Familia were executed.
Sophia’s only hope was to get far enough onto American soil and reach Hank Derringer. Anna said he would help her and protect her from Antonio. She’d said Señor Derringer was an honest, good man who had many connections on both sides of the border.
Her motorcycle hit a rock, jerking the handlebar sharply to her left. Sophia’s arms ached with the constant struggle to keep the vehicle upright. She slowed, dropping farther behind Hector as they climbed yet another steep trail. They’d been traveling for hours, stopping to rest only once.
Her stomach rumbled, the nausea she’d fought hard to hide from Antonio surfacing, telling her she needed to eat or her body would set off a round of dry heaves that would leave her empty and weak.
When she thought she could take it no more, the beating sound of chopper rotors swept into the canyon, the roar bouncing off the vertical walls.
Adrenaline spiked through her, giving her the strength to continue on.
Ahead, Hector climbed a trail leading to the rim of the canyon.
Sophia shouted, wanting him to wait, seek cover and hide from the approaching aircraft. She feared Antonio had discovered her escape and sent his enforcers to find her and bring her back. He had the firepower and access to aircraft that would enable him to extract her from the canyon. Sophia had seen the airplanes and helicopters near the compound’s landing field. Money truly could buy anything.
Hector cleared the top of the trail, then leaped over the edge and out of Sophia’s sight. The helicopter pulled up out of the canyon headed straight for Hector.
Sophia prayed the aircraft was the bright green and white of the American border patrol. The setting sun cast the vehicle in shadow. When it moved close enough, Sophia gasped. The helicopter was the dull black of those she’d seen at la Fuerte del Diablo. Her daring escape had been discovered.
She skidded to a stop, hiding her bike beneath an overhang of rocks. Her entire body shaking, she killed the engine and waited, the shadows and the encroaching nightfall providing as much cover as she could hope to find until the helicopter moved on.
As the chopper passed over her without slowing, Sophia let out the breath she’d held, then gasped as sounds of gunfire ripped through the air.
Madre de Dios. Hector.
Her foot on the kick start, Sophia fought the urge to race to the top of the canyon rim to help Hector. Nausea held her back, reminding her she wasn’t alone. The child inside her womb deserved a chance to live.
Sophia waited fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe more, for the helicopter to rise again into the sky, then realized it must have landed and the crew might be searching for her. She remained hidden for all those agonizing minutes, while the sun melted into the horizon. Storm clouds built to the west, catching the dying rays and staining the sky mauve, magenta, purple and gray.
When the helicopter finally lifted and circled back, Sophia pressed her body and the bike up against the canyon wall, sinking as far back into the darkest shadows as possible. The chopper hovered, moving slowly along the trail they’d just traveled, searching.
For her.
After what seemed like hours but was in fact only minutes, the aircraft moved on, traveling back the way it had
