The Journey to Freedom: Path to WW3

Chapter X

Any old place I can hang my hat is home sweet home to me. William Jerome

We ride and the heat is unbearable, it's close to 3pm and the heat is really hitting the road. I can feel the dry heat as we ride somewhere close to 80 miles per hour.  We finally make the turn to the road to where my ranch is and I see the windmills and all the solar panels.  As we ride for another 10 minutes, we get close to the main road to getting to my ranch and I see the graveyard up ahead.  I tap on my brother's shoulder and point to the graveyard and my brother nods and he goes straight for the graveyard.

We park and get off and he tells me "bro, we're so close, don't you think we should just go home already?"

I snap at him and say "Hey! It's my life and I'll decide when I want to get home!"

I look at my brother and say "Sorry, I just want to see the cemetery really quick."

He nods and they walk around the graveyard and I walk to the middle of the cemetery and kneel at my daughter's tombstone.

Her tombstone is squared off and on top there is an angel folding its hands in prayer, with tears on its face. I touch the tombstone and I hear a phone ring.

I am back in my apartment and it's been a year since I got divorced, I never got my daughter's custody because since my ex-wife moved to Mexico, the Mexican consulate wouldn't help me and neither did the American consulate. They both told me that it was the other country's problem.

So I just let it go and just had the divorce finalized and freed from my wife. I would still call my daughter, I would video chat with her on the internet and I would send her money and my ex would take her to buy her whatever she wanted with the money. She was one spoiled little girl but she was my only child. At the same time I was dating around, nothing serious, but eventually one woman caught my eye.

Her name was Zaelia. I eventually proposed to her after a year of being with her. Zaelia had a secret that I didn't know, she knew about my run-in with the cartel boss. And that always made her nervous. I never knew why until she became pregnant with my twin girls and she broke up with me after the babies were born. She had a family member locked up in prison for whatever reasons, but I never asked her because it wasn't my business.

When Ayeka and Melfina were born, Genesis didn't feel any jealousy over them, she loved them to death. She was ecstatic to have two sisters that were younger than her. She had two older brothers but they were my ex-wife's sons from her previous marriage. Genesis was ok with that but she really loved to be with me and her little sisters. Ayeka and Melfina were three years old when Zaelia had died.

I guess the cartels knew that I had more kids or I don't know but by some dumb luck they found me, after all the time I was being careful, but they went after Zaelia. My girls were with their grandmother in Piedras Negras. One day I told Zaelia that I was going to pick up Genesis and take her to some pizzeria; well Zaelia told me that she was going to pick up the girls and take them over there so they could be with their sister.

I wasn't even half way to my ex's house when my phone rings and I hear Zaelia yelling over the phone that they were shooting at her. I asked her where she was at and she told me that she was a few blocks away from her mother's house and that she was driving fast to get there.

I tell her "Está bien. Trata de llegar a la casa de tu mamá, ahorita llegó en unos segundos. Estoy bien cercas."

I hang up the phone and I punch the gas pedal on my suburban and start hearing gunshots get closer as I sped up.

"I'm close" I think to myself. Suddenly I turn on the street where Zaelia's mother lives and ram into a truck and the two guys that are shooting at her truck get smashed between the two vehicles, the other two in the bed of the truck fly off to the floor and hit it hard. I quickly get off and run to the truck and see Zaelia on the floor of the truck, I open the door and immediately pull her out of the truck. I run with her to the garage and tell her to stay inside and stay under some covers or where ever she thinks she will be safe.