Chapter 13

trigger warning – gore 😛

There’s a full-blown party going on in this otherwise deserted landscape. Men sit at several tables drinking and playing cards. A young guy pours shots behind a counter. I see only one woman. Blonde hair and dark roots, she’s wearing even more jewelry than Eris and a tight red dress, accentuating her clearly artificial breasts. Along the walls hang various paintings. In the dim light I can’t see them well—only the men surrounding them, inspecting them closely and talking excitedly in Spanish. Gold and silver chains hang off their necks. Tattoos cover some of their arms. There’s old and young, light-skinned and dark-skinned, fat and muscled. The one thing they all seem have in common are the massive watches adorning their wrists.

The place smells dusty—it was probably just a safe house for drugs before they decided to turn it into this. Are they all Mexican? I have no idea. My question is how they got over the border without the DEA going for their throats. Or maybe they’re local gangsters. Just how involved are gangs with the cartels around here? I should ask William.

The moment Eris and I walk in, all eyes turn to us. Some of the men smile, waving her over to their table. Even with her meager height she takes up half the space in the room, chin held high with pride. They’ve been waiting, waiting for her. She doesn’t even tremble while my chest tightens, panic bubbling through my body. I underestimated her, writing her off as this air-brained party girl with exaggerated cockiness, good only at ripping off classical art.

But she has every reason to be cocky. With the gun in the pocket of her jeans, the golden handle with the diamond Virgin of Guadalupe sticking out, she commands attention.

Two men approach us. One of them is the guy with the slicked-back hair and polo shirt from earlier. He has a cigarette between his lips, the smoke stenching up the room. The other is a short, chubby guy with no gun on him that I can tell. He has a baby face, and I’d guess he was twenty at most if it wasn’t for his receding hairline.

They greet Eris with cheek kisses and hugs like they’re family, and then they look at me.

Eris tells them something in Spanish, and I can only make out my name and the word Canada. She’s introducing me. Is she telling them I’m her enemy, a fellow artist, or just some random girl from school? I’m dying to know.

The polo shirt guy switches to a heavily accented English. “Ah. So you are Diosita’s artist friend.”

I’m thrown off, almost disgusted by the word friend, but instead of dwelling on that I ask, “Diosita?”

“Just what they call me,” Eris says.

“What does it mean?”

She leans in closer to whisper into my ear, “Little goddess. Just like you, pendeja.”

I try not to cringe at her proximity, the air too hot. If people gave her that nickname it must mean she’s respected—a prophecy for what she can become. Panic thrums in waves down my chest, my legs, Eris’ whisper echoing in my head like a broken tape.

Calm down, I order myself. Just pretend they’re judges in an art contest; pretend that you’re important. With that, I give polo shirt guy a fake smile. Did he ever buy my father’s paintings? Did Marcus ever come into direct contact with these people? Did Iker ever take him, like Eris is taking me now, to these art shows in the middle of fucking nowhere?

“Persephone,” she drawls, pronouncing it how one would in Spanish, and the room feels even hotter, scorching. “This is one of my godfathers. Alfonso.”

Polo shirt guy shakes my hand. His palm is rough and calloused, like he used to do field work before he became whatever he is now. Smoke from his cigarette blows my way. It stings my eyes, and I try not to cough.

“You have more than one godfather?” I ask. “How’s that supposed to work?”

She chuckles, ignoring my question, and goes back to talking to the men in Spanish. She shows the chubbier guy the painting, no hint of anxiety or guilt on her face, no tells that she’s a fraud. Just from the way he looks at the canvas I can tell he’s no expert. He smiles and then disappears with the painting into another room.

I’m nothing but Eris’ accessory. This is her world, not mine—I don’t even have a world; all I do is hole myself up in my house and paint. I wish Canada had a military base in Spain instead of Germany; I wish my mother had been assigned to the land of flamenco and bullfights so I’d actually understand what Eris and all these men are saying. Knowing French should help me, but it doesn’t at all.

We go sit at one of the tables. The men look at me with leering eyes, and I desperately wish I had a jacket. My favorite floral dress is too tight, too revealing. I’m not used to anyone looking at me like this. Outside of art contests, I’m not used to anyone looking at me at all. With Eris, they lower their gaze after greeting her, giving her none of the sleazy smiles they’re directing my way. Throughout my life, I’ve avoided 99.9% of males outside my family, have never even been catcalled on the street, and the overload of macho energy makes me want to retch.

She notices how stiff I’ve become. Her face shifts, and she snaps something at the men—a string of gibberish I can’t begin to comprehend, but it’s giving just the right amount of snarky and threatening. Is she… telling them to back off? Does she actually have it in her to be considerate of me?

Either way, they soon lose interest in me in favor of something else—a certain white powder. I’ve never seen cocaine, and watching them snort lines with rolled-up hundred dollar bills makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat. At least Eris doesn’t take part—I would not be pleased if I had to deal with a coke-head as a partner for the Arts Olympiad.

These people probably need to be drugged out 24/7 to stomach what they do. I think of Axel, his dependence on Xanax and Oxy and how I’d fruitlessly try to convince him to stop. Unlike him, Eris never seems foggy or strung-out. She’s always alert, even with all the weed she smokes.

The bartender comes up to us with drinks, and even though we’re underaged, it feels rude to say no, so I take the glass. It smells like the type of whiskey William likes to drink.

I look at Eris. She gives me a go ahead motion, downs her glass instantly, and asks for more.

I shouldn’t, but I swallow the whiskey. Never in a million years did I think my first time trying alcohol would be here of all places. It burns in my throat, and I wonder too late if this could be a set up, if they’re going to kidnap Eris and I’ll be collateral damage, too dazed from the spiked drink to fight back.

She asks if I want to play cards. I don’t know how to play—my mom used to say it brought bad luck—so I get up to look at the paintings, still sick at being looked at like I’m nothing more than a pair of tits and ass.

I don’t recognize any of the artists. They range from boring landscapes to more stylized, Diego Rivera type pieces. There’s one of a naked woman bleeding out on a church altar. The way the light shines through the mosaic is extremely realistic, and I take a closer look. Instead of Jesus, the mosaics portray a man with a mustache and two green leaves of marijuana at each side.

I stop in my tracks at the sight of The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, one of Rembrandt’s most famous paintings and his only seascape. It depicts Jesus, calm while his panicked disciples struggle to regain control over their fishing boat in a storm. The angle of the boat crashing into the waves, the darkness of the sea matching the sky—not my style, but it’s one of the classics I respect.

And it’s also been missing since the 90s, when two thieves dressed as police officers looted the Isabella Gardner museum in Boston in the biggest art heist in history. The case remains unsolved.

If it’s not a fake, here is a real-life stolen Rembrandt. It could be the whiskey, but I’m dizzy, speechless, a hundred times more starstruck than that one time I went to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

The FBI offers ten million dollars to anyone with information about the heist. If I tell them I saw it here, in this old California warehouse teeming with gangsters, I could be rich.

And then Eris would come for my head, and it’d be me bleeding out on an altar.

The woman with the tight red dress comes to my side. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she asks in English, already knowing I don’t belong. I could pass as Dominican or something, but she clearly doesn’t seem to think so.

“Does it belong to you?” I ask.

“Yes, dear.”

“How do you preserve it? It needs to be handled carefully, in the right temperature and humidity so the paint doesn’t degrade—it’s literally a desert here.”

“Oh, we take the right precautions.”

How many hands have traded it since the 90s? The Italian mafia is fond of art as well, and I can imagine it sitting in some mobster’s summer vacation home until these Mexicans bought it, the new kings of the drug trade. The painting is worn, the paint chipped in various places, and I know for a fact it hasn’t been kept in optimal museum conditions.

And then I ask the burning question, “Is it real?”

She smiles. It’s a forced, fabricated smile like the ones I give art judges. She’s polished and manicured, no tattoos in sight, effortlessly playing the part of high-end art connoisseur.

“Yes, dear,” she says again.

“And you’re not afraid,” I deadpan. “You’re not afraid of getting caught with this. You’d be facing prison for ten years.”

Her smile widens, bristling with curiosity—it’s probably not often she meets 5’8″ teenagers with pink-tipped braids and floral dresses who know the exact penalty for art crimes.

“And you’re not afraid,” she says, “of being involved with Eris Zepahua Lugo?”

“I’m not involved with her,” I’m quick to say. “We’re just working together for an art competition.”

“The International Arts Olympiad? Yes, I remember. It was you two who won last time. I was there.”

I pause. One of Eris’ bodyguards is standing by the door, watching the scene. Watching me, like I’m now under his protection, too.

“This year’s final is in Mexico City,” she continues. “It would be a death sentence for Eris there, ever stepping foot in that country again.”

Well. I did not consider that.

“Why?” I ask. “What happened?”

“Ask her yourself,” the lady quips. “But that family, hm… so secretive.”

“And what about you? Who are you?”

She gives me a business card. Ximena Leyva, art dealer.

“I’ve seen your art,” she admits. “Give me a call sometime. I worked with your father a few years ago. What a shame he fell out of style.”

The fact she knows who I am sends alarm bells ringing in my head. I’m no Diosita, but my silver-medal win four years ago did put me on the map, in a way. It should please me, being known, but I hate how it feels like I’m being monitored, like they’re waiting for me to fall into the same trap as Marcus.

A tattooed man approaches Ximena, his eyes raking over her body, and she turns to talk to him from a safe distance away.

I glance at Eris still playing cards. There’s a pile of money in the center of the table and probably a whole gram’s worth of cocaine coating the bills. Eris slaps down her cards and then stands up, triumphant. She wraps her arms around the pile of money and drags it over to herself, grinning while the men groan.

I’m dizzy again. I want another whiskey, craving that warmth in my stomach that temporarily eased my nerves. Instead, I go sit on a dusty couch by the door.

After several minutes, Eris’ godfather sits beside me. I go still, trying to forget about the definitely-loaded gun at his waist. He’s silent, slowly sipping whiskey, but at least he’s not smoking this time.

“So you baptized her?” I ask him.

He turns to me. When he smiles, I notice the golden grill on his upper teeth. “You can call it that.”

“Are you close with her father?”

“Yes. Me and him were farmers, once upon a time, picking poppies in Sinaloa.”

Does that mean they’re part of the Sinaloa cartel? It’s the most powerful crime organization in the world, the most entrenched in the corruption of the Mexican government.

“Poppies,” I say. “Like for making heroin?”

He laughs like an uncle that got too tipsy at the family function. “You are very direct, Persephone. Don’t change that.”

“Not planning on it. There’s nothing I hate more than people who tip-toe around the truth, waiting for you to understand their stupid little hints.”

“You must not like us Mexicans then.”

“There’s only one Mexican I don’t like, and she’s sitting across the room.”

In reality, I also loathe Iker Lugo, but I’m not about to tell his bestie that.

“You know what the problem between Mexico and Canada is?” Alfonso asks.

“What?”

“The United States.”

I scoff. I would hate Eris Lugo even if we were in the middle of fucking Russia.

“Right,” I say. “Without the US’s excessive law enforcement Canada would be ripe cartel territory. I’m sure the likes of Iker Lugo and yourself would absolutely love that.”

I need to keep my mouth shut, but venom is seeping through my teeth.

Alfonso isn’t phased. He makes a tsk sound with his lips. “Iker… I hate to say it, but he is little fish. He plays scared. Even me. But that girl over there…” He motions to Eris. “She has what it takes to be the next Chapo.”

I want to laugh in his face. “You honestly think that?”

“I’ve seen it.”

Before I can ask more, Alfonso gets up and goes to the bar. Another man stumbles up to me. He’s tall and beefy with cologne that stenches up the room almost more than Alfonso’s smoke. His unbuttoned shirt reveals the elaborate MS-13 tattoo on his hairy chest. 

“What fruit of Africa do you come from?” he asks, very drunkenly. “You’re quite a beauty.”

On instinct, I glare. “I’m Canadian, actually. And you’re, like, three times my age, so you can kindly leave me alone.”

Another guy comes to his side, younger but essentially a carbon-copy of the first.

“Sorry about my dad,” he says in perfect English and holds out a hand. “I’m Javier.”

The last thing I want to do is touch him, but he’s probably someone dangerous, so I oblige. Unlike Alfonso, his hand is soft like a girl’s.

He takes a seat next to me while his dad drags himself to the bar, wrapping an arm around Alfonso and slapping him playfully on the back. Alfonso sneers in annoyance. 

“You from around here?” the younger guy asks me.

“Do I look like L.A. to you?” I snap, increasingly impatient in this environment. “Honestly insulting you would even think that.”

“Let me guess—San Diego? Like Eris?”

“I’m not from any city in this septic cesspool of a state.”

His hand wraps around my bare thigh. I freeze, cringing a million times—if he doesn’t move within two seconds there’s a high likelihood of me throwing up whiskey in his lap. Not even Axel was so blatant, so disgusting. 

“How long are you staying?” he asks. “I’d like to take you out, if you don’t mind.”

I try to move away, but he holds my thigh tight in his grip, and my stomach contents are rapidly making their way back up my digestive tract. The idea of any male wanting me makes my cells go cancerous.

“I don’t usually go for Black girls,” he says close to my ear. “But for you, I’ll have to make an exception.”

Great. Not only is everyone here a misogynist, but we also have a few racists thrown into the mix.

“And what makes you think I go for greasy Mexicans like yourself?” I ask.

His weak, droopy jaw tenses a little. “I’m from El Salvador.”

“Same difference.”

Now that ticks him off. “Dangerous saying something like that, sweetheart.”

Someone steps in front of us. There’s the boots, the skinny jeans, and then the golden gun, which she pulls out and presses against Javier’s head.

He finally pulls his hand away from my thigh and raises it in the air.

“Touch her like that again and I’ll put a pretty golden bullet through your head, puto,” Eris says.

Maybe I’m delirious, maybe I’m tipsy, or maybe the heavy energy of this place is getting to me, but I get the urge to laugh. The painting I could create inspired by this is already coalescing in my head.

“Didn’t know this was your girl, Eris,” Javier mutters. “My mistake. Would’ve been kind of you to share.”

She digs the gun into his forehead. He doesn’t flinch, just stares her down. His dad, finally noticing what’s going on, shrieks and starts blabbering from across the room, which has otherwise fallen dead silent—”No te mueves Javier, por favor no te mueves, ay por Dios…”

“She’s not my girl,” Eris says. “She doesn’t need to be my girl for me to see that she doesn’t fucking want your ass.”

“Neither do I,” he says. “What I really want is you.”

Wow. Big mistake. He looks her up and down just like the men from earlier did to me, but there’s something even more sinister in his dark eyes. He wants to take her, conquer her, like he’ll absorb some of her power, like she’ll finally be beneath him. Envy seeps from his pores; he wants that golden gun in his hands instead.

“A ver,” she says. “Alfonso. Este putito tiene que aprender que no se habla así con pinche Sinaloa.”

Every soul is tuned into this very telenovela-worthy drama, all drinks, paintings, and lines of coke forgotten.

Alfonso grabs Javier. His dad cries and begs and blabbers, and all I can understand is please, please no. Alfonso pushes the man away, making him nearly crash into one of the tables. He takes Javier to the back. Eris follows with her gun still aimed, eyes flickering over the crowd challengingly.

A moment later, a guttural scream. No one looks alarmed except probably me. Javier’s dad breaks down in tears. One guy goes back to his cocaine. Another shuffles a deck of cards. Two more screams. Then a whine. Jumbled pleading. A muffled apology. A sharp slap. I brace myself for the gunshot, but it doesn’t come.

The three step back out. Javier’s shirt is wrapped around his hand, soaked in blood. His dad, probably more relieved than he’s ever felt in his life, rushes to his side, but his son ignores him, eyes glassy and red and his lips now finally shut. 

And Eris. Eris is holding a plastic bag filled with…

Three fingers. Three tan little fingers.

She swings the bag back and forth like a toy. The severed fingers rustle against one another, blood coating the inside of the bag until it’s opaque.

“Good luck ever fingering a girl with your right hand again,” Eris says. “Try me again, and you’ll finally learn what it’s like to bleed between your legs.”

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a/n: shoutout to wattpad for featuring this book on so many of their reading lists and also editor’s choice!! it really made my month. welcome to all the new readers; i hope you’re enjoying eris and persephone’s story so far. pls do let me know what you think! which character is your favorite? are you enjoying the mafia vibes? did you expect that from eris? what do you want to see more of?

also, i will now be updating this book regularly. expect updates every 1-2 weeks. no more waiting a whole month, i promise.

thank you for reading, and i hope you all have a wonderful week <3

“Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” by Rembrandt (1633)

this chapter is dedicated to yallnamestaken2!! thank you for following along on eris and ef’s story!