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Desperate times calls for desperate measures. You agree to sell drugs for your friend, not knowing that they were stolen from a ruthless drug baroness. And Valeria doesn't take kindly to thieves.
A/N- This was originally going to be chapter 4 but I decided it would make a better chapter 5. Anyway, it was also SO HARD TO WRITE. But I did it, be proud of me.
Tags/Warnings-Femslash, Descriptions of Violence and Gore, Indentured Servitude, Power Imbalance, Drug Dealing, Valeria is mean and physically violent but not forever, Valeria is her own warning, Slow burn, more to be added
"And what would you say your greatest weaknesses are?"
Your mind draws a blank at the question. It's not that you don't have any, but rather which ones are acceptable to admit to. You can feel the seconds ticking by, each one dwindling your chances of getting a call back. Weaknesses fly around your head like frightened birds, and you snatch the most presentable one.
"I doubt myself a lot," you tell the interviewer. It feels like a safe enough weakness. Humble enough to seem real, not so egregious that the interviewer won't hire you. Sure, it's a little tired and basic, but it's a classic for a reason. This is the first interview you got since getting laid off. It feels like you're facing a very rare, exotic animal and you feel like you're one wrong move away from losing it. Your nerves are so frayed that you spent fifteen minutes hunched over the toilet afraid you were going to hurl.
Or maybe you're anxious about the job Valeria has for you tonight. The one she made you buy a new outfit for. Turns out it's a party, and you're going to be cosplaying as one of the servers.
"Elaborate on that," the interviewer says.
"Well... I..." You figured 'doubting yourself' was pretty self-explanatory. You weren't expecting her to want an explanation. "When I was a kid, I was always questioned or second guessed so I guess I internalized that, and now I always wonder if I'm doing the right thing, or if I'm going to be able to do it at all." You study her closely, trying to read her expression. Her face remains frustratingly passive, and you can't tell if she thinks one way or the other about what you just said.
"Okay. Thank you," she smiles. "Do you have any questions for me?"
The questions you rehearsed at home have long since vanished from your mind and you shake your head.
"That should conclude our interview then." She stands up and you copy her, awkwardly wriggling out of the booth you were sitting in.
You smooth out your pants and respectfully dip your head at her.
"I've got some more interviews to conduct, but if we decide to proceed with you, you can expect a call back in three days," she says.
"Okay, thank you," you say. Then you remember that Valeria never gave you back your phone. Anxiety worms around your gut and you tell yourself to ask Valeria for it later. The interviewer politely says goodbye and leaves you. The pressure finally lifts from your shoulders, and you exhale tiredly.
You run off to the restroom to check that the concealer you applied to hide the bruises on your face held up. In the dim lighting you turn your face this way and that, scrutinizing every inch of yourself. With the swelling gone, you'd never guess that under the makeup your skin was splotched with purple and yellow. You nod at yourself approvingly and turn away, ready to leave the restaurant. After the mentally draining ordeal that was the job interview, you want nothing more than to go home and rot in bed for the rest of the day. But you have other, more important things to do today.
The intoxicating smell of baked goods makes your mouth water as you pass by a bakery. The smell is so potent that you can almost taste the sweet warmth of the breads and muffins inside. You imagine the soft give and chewy insides. How nice it would feel to have something warm and fresh in your stomach. It's frustratingly tempting to run inside and snatch whatever you can and run out before you're caught. But you're not hungry enough to lose all self-restraint just yet, and you force yourself to keep walking.
Your destination is just up ahead of you. At the end of the street. It's the only place you can go to access the internet and more importantly, a printer, for free. You've always been too poor for a printer and the ungodly amount of ink it eats, and your ancient laptop went to sleep for the last time a few months ago and never woke up again. Thank God for public libraries. Even if this one is small and attached to the local public school. Right outside is a small playground, swarming with children. The ones too old to find playgrounds fun form small cliques on the tarmac, doing more talking then playing. And hidden behind big fuse boxes, you spot a few preparatoria students smoking something out of an old soda can, unaware that a supervisor has smelled whatever it is and is marching over to them.
You walk past them and enter the library. It smells like mildew and old paper. Old wooden shelves display ragged and even older books. Taped and marked as library property. In the very center is a circular counter where the librarian is, quietly typing away at an old monitor. She politely nods at you in greeting before going back to her typing. You walk past her and the shelves. Going to the back where the big, archaic computers are. Using them makes you desperately miss your broken laptop. As old as it was, it was much more modern than these things. The layouts and formatting are different too. And they're painfully slow. You're forced to sit and stare at a little moving circle while you wait for it to finish logging you in.
Trying to use anything on these computers is a true test of patience. When you finally get onto a word document, the layout is competently different to what you're used to. Nowhere is where should be. You can't find the 'import photo' option for five minutes until you give up and look it up online. Needing to follow a video from six years ago in order to understand. After emailing yourself the most recent picture of Julie you have, you import it onto the document, pausing what you're doing to stare at the picture. You took it only two years ago, but you're struck by how young she looks. Her large smile showing off her braces that she got late. You were able to get her a discount for them and she was so happy. Her hair was shorter too. She always preferred shorter hair but over the past two years she got too lazy to cut it herself and let it grow out it messily.
Writing the big 'MISSING' above her picture is hard. It makes everything feel all the more final. And once you do what you're about to do, you won't be able to ignore the seriousness of the situation. Not that you were before, but this is acknowledging to the world that she's gone. You shove away the discomfort and force yourself to type out her information. Her height, weight, last known location. And your phone number, so anyone can contact you if they have seen her. You wonder what Valeria's going to think about this when she sees these plastered around town. It feels risky, somehow. But you owe Julie this much at least. And if worse comes to worse, you'll take them down. You hover your mouse over the print button, then click it. The large, old printer squeals and coughs loudly, slowly spitting out ten copies of the missing poster. They're all in black and white and the last couple copies are so distorted that it's hard to make out Julie's face where the ink bled and stuttered.
You take them and walk out of the library. Sticking the first one up on the poster board outside. Her face just becomes one of many, lost in a macabre crowd of other smiling faces placed there by other desperate people. Some of the posters are weathered into unrecognizability. Here for so long, yet still unfound. It makes you sick to imagine this as Julie's fate, so you turn away and stop thinking about it. You stride along with your posters and stick them wherever you can. To windows, poles, poster boards. You try to go to the places you know she frequented. Like her favorite bar. Plastering one right on the window. Next to a 'half off!' sticker for some beer.
The sky bleeds orange and pink as the sun starts sinking deeper into horizon. You watch it from a park bench, allowing yourself this little moment of peace. You don't want to go home and get ready for the party. You wish the ground would open up and swallow you right up. You wonder if anyone would notice if you went missing, if they'd your face up beside all the other missing people. But you answer your own question; no one would be looking for you. Except maybe Valeria, but only because you owe her money. You peel yourself off the bench and start the short walk home.
Even when you're home with nothing to do, you still put off getting dressed right until the last second. There's a few sharp knocks at your door and you hurry to tuck the white shirt into your pants and pull open the door, unsurprised to see Valeria. She looks you over and frowns at your shoes; a pair of old, beat-up sneakers.
"Those don't look like server shoes," she says pointedly.
"I don't have server shoes," you reply. You don't even know what that means. Dress shoes? Fancy shoes? Valeria rolls her eyes but says nothing more on the matter and retreats down your front steps towards her car. Despite pressing you on your choice in shoes, she remains very casual. Sporting a black tank top, jeans, and a black and white plaid flannel. Though the heavy looking chain winking at you from her neck reminds you that she's many tax brackets above you, and she wants to make sure you know it. Even dressed casually, Valeria will always find a way to assert her greater wealth over those around her.
You exit the city limits and are left driving along the dark countryside. You get flashbacks to the night you had to dig a grave, and the two bodies rotting inside them. The worms must have gotten to them by now. Like last time, you see a house in the distance. But this one is far larger. Propped up on a towering cliff and glowing like the sun, is a villa. Just as you notice it, Valeria slows to a stop.
"You're going to have to walk the rest of the way. I don't want us seen entering together," she says. You frown at her. She's so prideful that she thinks being seen with you is embarrassing? She has to make you walk all that way to the house? Granted, it's not that far, but still.
"Because I can't be associated with you if you get caught."
"If I get caught?" You repeat, raising your brows at her, anxiety wreathing around you. "Am I not supposed to be here?"
"No, you're not. You're only dressed like a server, so no one questions your presence," Valeria says. "I need you to steal something for me. An envelope. It'll be somewhere upstairs, probably an office. Get it, get out, and wait by the gates out of sight for me to come out." You stare at her wordlessly.
It would have been nice of her to give you a heads up beforehand, but that would require Valeria to have a shred of kindness in her in the first place.
"Okay and what happens if I get caught, Valeria?" You ask.
"But if I do?" You stress. "What's going to happen to me?"
Valeria shrugs indifferently. "Then he'll probably kill you,"
"Quit whining and get out," Valeria says, reaching over you and opening the door for you. She doesn't say anything else, just looks at you pointedly.
You glare back at her before undoing your seatbelt and hopping out of the car, not closing the door after yourself. She closes it herself and drives off, leaving you in the dark on the side of the road. You watch the red lights of her taillights grow smaller and smaller until she goes around a bend and disappears. You wrap your arms around yourself and shiver. The silence is so heavy, you never realized how much noise there was in Las Almas, even at night. There was always a car going by, or a neighbor making noise. But out here there's nothing. Not even a cricket.
You start walking towards the house, keeping to the road as best as you can. You follow it along a bend and start walking uphill, reaching open iron gates. On either side large stone lions guard them with open mouths. Before stepping through them you try to catch your breath, not wanting to walk in panting like a dog. You step inside the gates and walk through a large, wide redish brick driveway full of very nice, parked cars. A tall hedge circles the outside of the driveway, leaves gently rustling in the breeze. The house is even larger up close. Light tan and columned with arches over the ground windows. Green vines creep up the front walls, coming to a stop just short of the clay tiled roof.
You walk around a circular patch of grass in the middle of the driveway, admiring the slender palm trees and ferns curling outwards. You approach the front entrance, two large black doors with glass centers and nod at a man sitting outside smoking. He ignores you completely. You open the door and walk inside. People swarm around inside, surprisingly casually dressed. Apart from the servers running around carrying trays with foods and drinks. They're wearing the same outfit as you; a white collared button down tucked into black slacks. You glance at one's shoes as he passes by. Valeria was right about your shoes being out of place. Looks like fancier shoes were part of the dress code.
You take a cautious step inside and look at the winding staircase to your left. It's lit by vintage looking sconces emitting a warm light, making the yellow walls around them look orange. Before you can slip off upstairs, a server comes up to you.
"Who are you?" He frowns at you.
"Doesn't matter, I don't care," he says. "You're late. And what are those shoes? Kendra is going to have a fit if she sees you wearing those. We're supposed to look professional," he chides you.
"Sorry... I'm new?" You offer the lame excuse. He buys it without a second thought and starts ushering you into a hallway, away from the staircase.
"Well don't let Kendra see your shoes. And next time, don't be late." He expertly swerves around guests and servers alike, navigating the hallways confidently like he's lived here all his life.
You struggle to keep up and not get stuck around groups of people. He leads you into a big kitchen, swathed in plant life and with a large window overlooking a courtyard. String lights twinkle in the dark and through the propped open door you see people in bathing suits coming and going from a pool.
"Here." The server unceremoniously shoves a tray full of drinks into your hands, and you nearly drop them. One of the bottles tips over and starts rolling and you tilt the tray towards your chest, making it roll backwards into the other bottles which clatter into you. "You're really bad at this," he tells you. "Maybe you need to rethink your career. Now take these to Mr. Ventura, he's in the common room."
"Okay. Where is that?" But as you're asking he's already walking away, leaving you confused. You turn around and walk out of the kitchen, feeling lost and very nervous.
You wander around the labyrinth of hallways and rooms. You don't even know what Mr. Ventura looks like. Finding him on your own is hopeless. You spot another server and go up to her, asking her where Mr. Ventura is. She gives you a weird look like that's something you should just know but points you in the right direction. Turns out, he's just down the hall in front of you. You follow her directions and come to a room. The walls are a deep maroon and accented with gold trim. Large paintings depicting very graphic sexual activity hang on them and there's a large pot with a tall green fern in each corner. In the center is a plush looking yellow sofa that curls into a halfmoon shape. Seven pairs of eyes look up at you as you enter, including Valeria's.
She's sitting stiffly beside a man in a gaudy looking red suit. You're starting to hate the colour red. He sees you and smiles.
"Well hello, and who might you be?" He says. "I know all of Kendra's girls, but I don't believe I recognize you." Valeria narrows her eyes at you, probably wondering why you're here serving and not looking for her envelope.
"I'm new," you say meekly, hoping he doesn't ask any more questions. In the room full of seven people, Valeria manages to somehow be the least intimidating. When Valeria looks at you there's nothing but cold disinterest, occasionally a bit of disdain. But there's something more frightening about the way the man in the red suit looks at you.
"I was asking for your name," he clarifies, still smiling. His voice sounds gentle, but it feels mocking. Like he's amused by a joke you're unaware of. You're so nervous that you can't think up a name on the spot and reluctantly hand over your actual name. From the corner of your eye, you see Valeria scowl.
"That's a lovely name," he reaches out for your hand. You assume he wants to shake it and you hand it over, only for him to kiss the back of it. It takes all your strength to not recoil and jerk your hand back. "I'm Wolf Ventura, it's a pleasure to meet you." Wolf. Of course his name is something odd like Wolf.
"These are for you," you mumble. Awkwardly picking up and setting down the bottles onto the wooden coffee table in front of you.
Eyes burn into you from each side. You do your best to conceal your discomfort. For once you actually feel a little bad for Valeria. These men - Wolf in particular trigger every single red flag alarm in your head, but at least you get to leave them. Valeria has to stay here and speak to him.
"Thank you," Wolf says. You nod briskly and try to leave but Wolf tuts at you. "Here, I care about supporting the working class," he says condescendingly and reaches into his wallet, pulling out a fifty-dollar bill. You don't want to interact with him any longer, but you'll happily take his money.
"Thank you," you say, backing away.
"Of course. Why don't you come find me at the end of your shift? I think we might be able to help each other out." He smiles. Valeria rolls her eyes but says nothing.
"Sure," you throw the word over your shoulder as you hurry out of the room.
You shudder. Feeling like you need to shower after that interaction. You keep your gaze down on the floor. Sure that anybody who looks at your face will be able to tell that you're up to no good. That you don't belong. You start down the hallway, but you're stopped by a woman in a very expensive looking dress shoving her empty glass at you.
"Go get me another one," she says, not even looking at you for longer than a second. You take the glass and scowl. You debate setting down her glass and leaving it, but if she complains about you not doing your job, that might draw too much attention to you later. So you go to the kitchen and fill her glass with wine. She doesn't thank you when you bring it back and hand it to her.
You try to move on to the hallway again, but the man with her stops you too.
"Can you get me a plate of crab?" He asks. The kitchen is only a few feet away. Why he can't go get his own crab is beyond you. You grab him a plate, piling on so much crab - real crab, not the cheap imitation crab you've tasted before - that some of it tumbles off the plate and onto the floor. That should be enough crab for him. You stop what you're doing and glance around. Nobody is paying you any attention. You quickly snatch a leg and shove it deep into your pocket for later. You walk back out to the couple and hand him his crab, hurrying away before they can demand you do anything else for them. You find your way back to the foyer and the staircase. With a cautionary glance around to make sure you're still going by unnoticed, you sneak up the stairs.
The upstairs feels like an entirely different place then the ground floor. It's devoid of any guests and all sounds from below are muffled. You're facing a long, wide hallway flanked by closed doors on both sides. You think of all the places someone would store an envelope and think it must be in an office somewhere. You go to the first door on your right and carefully crack open the door to peek inside. It looks like a library. A library is kind of like an office, you think. And an office is probably where you'd find an envelope. You slip inside and quietly shut the door behind you.
You feel along the wall for a light switch and flick it on. The back wall is just one big shelf from the floor to the ceiling, packed full of books. There's a nice dark wooden desk beside you, with a single lamp, a laptop, and a sleek printer tucked into the corner. You check the drawers, but don't find anything in them besides basic stationary. You check out the rest of the room, and even under the little armchair in the corner, and under the rug. You look at the bookshelf. The idea that the envelope could be hidden in or behind one of the books crosses your mind. You slowly drag the armchair over to it.
You search along the shelves and try to see if any of the pages are separating from something being slipped between them. You pull back dusty hardcovers, trying to see if anything is behind them. You readjust your foot for better balance but feel your foot slip and your uneven weight makes the chair start tipping to the side. You try to grab the shelf to stabilize yourself but miss and grab a few books instead. They fly off the shelf and hit you in the chest when you land painfully on the hard ground.
Pain blooms in your entire back and you stare up at the ceiling blankly, worried that the noise of you falling attracted attention. Any moment now Wolf is going to burst through the door and realize that you were snooping around. But the longer you lay there catching your breath without anything happening you realize you're safe. You sit up and grunt and grab the books you pulled off the shelf. You pick the chair back up and step back up on it, careful of where you're putting your feet this time. You start putting the books back when you notice something in the wall. Three fine, nearly invisible lines engraved in the dark wood. It looks like the panel can open up or come out. You set down the books and dig your fingers into the little divots, pulling open part of the wall and revealing a big metal safe.
You don't know if the envelope is in it, but it's certainly something interesting. There must be something important inside if it was hidden behind a wall and books. The problem is you don't know the combination. There's nothing much you can do with the safe, besides maybe look around and hope the code is written down somewhere. But even without a code, you think Valeria will be pleased to learn about this secret little safe in the wall. You climb back down from the armchair and drag it back to its original spot.
You leave the room after fixing it back up to make it look like you were never there and try the second door you see but it's just a bathroom so you keep looking. You open the next door and find an office. In front of a window in the back is a heavy-duty mahogany desk. Beside it a matching shelf with a few books and trinkets. Beside it are some black filing cabinets, just waiting for you to start looking through them. You step inside and beeline towards the shelf, investigating it. The few books are all about business and human psychology. The trinkets and decorations are interesting but not at all what you're looking for. Just a few wooden carvings. One of a howling wolf, a long, wingless dragon, and a disturbing statue of a woman bent over backwards with a sword stabbed through her chest.
You back up from the shelf. There's nothing useful to you there. You look at the desk and filing cabinets, wondering which one to check first. You decide the desk would be quicker and start rooting through the drawers. There's just more stationary, and a few to-do lists. You mindlessly shuffle through them and stop when you come across a sticky note with a string of five numbers scrawled on it messily. '63991'. There's nothing to say what it's for, but you'd bet the crab leg and fifty dollars in your pocket that it's to the safe. You put it away for later, deciding to search the rest of the office just in case the envelope is in here somewhere.
You turn your attention to the filing cabinets and start at the bottom, pulling out a drawer. There's just one brown box and you pull it out. You take off the lid and frown. There's t least fifteen polaroids of men and women in various states of undress, posing against a white wall. Though their nudity isn't the most disturbing aspect. Some of them have bags over their heads, or rope around their necks. They don't look dead or injured, but something about the pictures feels sinister. You quickly close the box and put it back. You try the next drawer, nervous that there's going to more strange things inside. But this drawer is full of folders, labeled from A to Z. You skim through the different names, passing by J until a familiar name catches your eye. You immediately go back and pull out the folder labeled Julie Bonilla. Your fingers freeze at the name.
You just stare at the name written on the tan tab, mind whirling. What's Julie doing in here? Out of an irresistible curiosity you pull out her file and look through it. You pull out a picture of her, one you've never seen before. It's very recent, looking as recent as just a few months ago. She's smiling at the camera mischievously, long hair tangled and hanging over her shoulders loosely. You frown at her image and set down the picture to check out the typed-out pages paperclipped to the side of the folder. It lists her address, her age, medical information, family history. And it says something about routes with addresses and street names. Including the club.
It makes you uneasy that Wolf has a file on Julie. You struggle to find the connection between the two. You put it back and take out another folder, for a man called Emerson Cortez. You hope it may provide more context to Julie's folder, but it just contains the same amount of information and different street addresses. The rest of the cabinet is just more folders. Some empty, some containing more of the confusing files on people. You move onto the next cabinet, finding more of the same. There's so many names in here, it's like half of Las Almas' population is in here. You almost expect to find your own name and file in here, but you don't.
Satisfied that you've searched all of the office, you get up and quietly exit it. You pull out the sticky note with the numbers and hope you're right about it being for the safe in the library. On your way back towards the library, you nearly jump out of your skin when you see the shadows on the wall of two people approaching from the stairs. Thinking fast you duck into the closest room, a bathroom, and watch through a crack in the door as two men enter the hallway, speaking to one another quietly.
"I think she ran off on us. I went to her place to collect our money, but she was gone and the room was empty," One of them says. Your heart is thumping so hard that you're worried they can hear it.
"Probably. I told Wolf she'd screw us over then run off first chance she got." To your alarm, the first man starts coming towards the bathroom you're in. "I gotta take a quick piss, don't wait for me."
You scramble back and crawl into the tub, hiding behind a red shower curtain that's too opaque for comfort. You lay down on the hard ceramic of the tub and watch despairingly as light floods the room when the man turns on the light switch. You look over and see his silhouette standing beside the tub. He unzips his fly and starts peeing, and you pray that the shower curtain is just solid enough that if he were to glance over, he won't see you lying there.
He finishes, and to your disgust, doesn't wash his hands. But he's gone now. You exhale heavily and sit up. You carefully climb out of the tub and shuffle towards the door, pressing your ear against it. The hallway is silent now and you crack open the door, peering out cautiously. The coast is clear and you quickly cross the hallway to the library, slipping inside and shutting the door.
You drag the chair back over the shelf and pull away the books covering the safe. Your hands tremble as you look between the dial and the numbers on the sticky note. You're so on edge that you jump at every sound, scared that it's the men coming back this way and that they'll come into the room you're in. You hear a click and grin triumphantly.
"Thank you!" You pull it open and immediately spot the big orange envelope tucked up to the side. You grab it and slip it under your shirt, tucking the top into your bra so it doesn't slip out somehow and retuck your shirt. You take a look at the other contents in the safe, curiosity getting the better of you. There are stacks upon stacks of cash. Neatly tied up with rubber bands. And a single handgun neatly laid in the back. The urge to take the money is almost more than you can handle. And if you're already taking the envelope... you take just one stack of cash. Compensation for the shit time you've been having lately. And it's not like anyone's going to know it was you.
Your job is done. You casually walk back downstairs and slip out of the house; wad of cash and envelope tucked into your shirt. You force yourself not to run down the driveway towards the safety of the gates and when you realize how sweaty you are when you sneak behind them and a breeze kisses your damp skin, chilling you. You crouch down, staring off into the darkness. Now all that's left to do is to wait for Valeria.
You sit there for what feels like hours. Each time a car starts and drives towards the gate your heart jumps, and you shift a little further into the darkness. You're exhausted and hungry. And the crab leg wasn't as good as you though and now lay discarded beside you. You hear the approaching rumble of another car and brace yourself, watching from the shadows nervously. This time, it's Valeria's black Benz crawling out from the gate. You stand up and hurry over to her, opening the door and climbing in. Once you're seated, she drives off quickly, hands gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles pale.
"Did you get it?" She asks.
"Yes," you reply. Reaching into your shirt and pulling out the envelope, careful that the money doesn't fall out from under your shirt, lest Valeria take it from you. "This is the envelope you wanted right?" Valeria looks at it and nods, irritated expression lifting.
"It is." You set it on the dashboard and lean back in your seat. For once, the ride back home isn't tense. Valeria's aura feels less hostile and oppressive and you can actually breathe.
She slows to a stop in front of your house and looks at you. She's not smiling, but she doesn't look angry either.
"Good job, pendeja. You didn't get caught." She unlocks the door and says no more. The unexpected praise catches you off guard, but since she seems in a better mood then usual, you take the opportunity to ask for your phone back.
"Valeria..." you start. "Now that we've developed a kind of... trust between us, do you think I could get my phone back?" You ask hopefully.
"There is no trust between us," Valeria says flatly. Your annoyance with her flares but you keep your temper under check.
"Okay, whatever it is between us, trust or not, can I have my phone back?"
"I destroyed it," Valeria says casually. You look at her unhappily.
"Why would you do that?" You ask, unable to help the indignation and anger from creeping into your voice.
"I was going to kill you, you weren't going to be needing it." That's hardly helpful. You're never going to get a call back from anyone who might have information on Julie. And as for your potential new job, now you're going to have to go in person and make up an excuse about your phone and figure out another way for them to contact you. But that's a problem for tomorrow you.
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