Hell wasn't as hot as this goddamn place.

It was the kind of weather that smacks you down in a sunbed, and leaves you knocked out with your mouth half open and your eyes rolling over to the back of your head.

I opened one eye when I heard footsteps approaching. The sunlight was still blinding, even through the shades of my glasses.

"You know, just because it's rainy season doesn't mean the sun will disappear," mumbled Juan, trying not to drop the lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his lips.

"And?" retorted Andrea, as she craned her neck to try and see him under the ridiculously large brim of her straw hat.

Juan clinked his drink against my glass of sangria as he sat down. "Can't you girls finish tanning another day?"

He frowned, and swatted a fly off his freshly-shaved chin. He'd left Pablo at the pool bar, slumped on a chair and pressing his forehead against the cool tiles on the counter, quietly nodding off on whichever pill he'd taken earlier that morning.

"Seriously, I don't know why you do this," Juan muttered, "Em is as red as a seafood platter and I can smell Manée's sweaty armpits from here."

"Go fuck yourself," groaned his fiancée.

I agreed with Juan. We would have been better off inside, with AC and fresh drinks that hadn't been fermented by the blistering sun, but Manée and Andrea were adamant that this was a perfect day to sizzle for hours by the pool. And since I now knew that Manée had gotten her hands on some very sensitive information, I preferred not to leave her wandering around Pablo's house with no supervision.

My skin had started to prickle when Juan mentioned my sunburns. I stretched out my arm to grab the bottle of sunblock I'd left lying on the floor, but it was just out of reach. Juan leaned over to catch it and threw it at me, and I let out a grunt when it landed on my stomach.

It was a slow day, and I had counted every second.

I had planted Manée's burner phone in Mafer's room the night before, but it seemed like no one had found it yet.

With my luck, Mafer would see it before Pablo's men did.

I wondered if she suspected anything. She wasn't in her room when I went in to hide the phone, but she walked past me in the corridor less than a minute after I left.

I asked her how the interrogation went. She wiped an imaginary tear from her bone-dry eye, and told me it was scary, but at least she was okay. I hugged her and prayed it felt genuine, and disappeared a few seconds after I told her it would be best if no one saw us talking.

Now that I thought of it, it could take days before Pablo went to see her again, and even then, he probably wouldn't bother to check between her bedframe and her mattress.

I needed to speed things up.

Nervously swishing a chunk of fruit around my mouth, I tried to come up with the next step of my plan.

Pablo needed a reason to suspect Mafer might be the mole, but if I told him myself, he'd figure out I knew about their affair. She was supposed to be my best friend here, and a clueless little Emilia would have never turned her in.

I still had one card I could pull, one tool I could use, and he was sitting there, sipping on sangria, staring at his fiancée while she stared at me, and I stared at him.

Snapping out of a trance, I whipped my head around.

"I'm going to make some more sangria," I said out loud.

Nobody moved, and nobody answered, as if they'd already melted into sticky puddles of sweat and flesh. A bird heckled in the distance, Pablo snored lightly on the other side of the patio, the water in the pool clapped against the tiles, and other that than, it was silent.

I stood up and looked down at Juan, hoping he'd get the hint and follow me to the kitchen.

"I just refilled your drink," he muttered.

"Well, when I finish it, we'll be out of sangria," I replied.

He shrugged, and I felt my shoulders tense with frustration.

"What, do you want me to help you?" he asked.

I let out a sigh of relief. "Sure."

The kitchen was cool, dark, and damp. Its marble counters seemed to glint and sweat beneath the faint spotlights. I quickly glanced at every corner, window, or door to check if anyone was listening, and as soon as Juan walked in, I grabbed him by the arm.

"I need you to tell Pablo you think I've been working with Mafer," I told him, trying to keep my voice as low as possible.

"Mafer?" he asked.

He took a step back, his body turning rigid when it jerked away from me, as if the touch of my hand felt like a burn on his wrist.

"What are you doing?" he whispered, a breath caught in his throat. "Where's the phone?"

"Don't worry about it," I murmured.

"I am worried, Em," he gritted through his teeth. "I'm really fucking worried."

I held my breath as a maid walked by. She left the kitchen as fast as she had barged in, and didn't even seem to notice we were there.

"You need to trust me. Tell him," I said as I searched through the fridge. "Tell him you think she's also a spy or something."

"He told me to forget about the spy thing," mumbled Juan.

"Just find a way," I hissed, slamming down two handfuls of fruit onto the kitchen counter. "The phone is in her room and I want him to find it."

His worried gaze followed my hands as they grabbed a knife and started chopping.

"Do you know what he'll do to her if he finds it?" he breathed.

I bit my lip. Telling him what I'd found out would be too much information, too quick. He'd ask me a bunch of questions and I'd have to admit that Pablo had suspicions about him. Then, he'd get anxious, and who knew how stupid Juan could act when he was nervous?

"There's a bunch of things I need to tell you," I sighed, "but you have to believe me."

"Are you doing this for Manée?"

"No, I'm doing this for us," I answered.

He shook his head, astonished by the ice-cold tone of my voice.

"Please don't turn into someone like Pablo," he whispered.

I glared at him. He knew that was the worst insult he could throw my way. I wasn't the one kidnapping young women and ruining their lives. I wasn't a drug dealer, a psychopath, and much less a cold-blooded murderer.

Yet, that seemed to be what Juan thought of me. I could tell by the way he kept on staring at me out of the corner of his dark, wide eyes. By the ways his hands shook when he filled the pitcher with wine, spilling some on the side. How he leaned away from me as if he thought I would have stabbed him, just like I did with Pablo during our first date in this kitchen.

I shoved the fresh pitcher between his hands, and gestured for him to go back to the garden.

"Do it," I whispered.

Juan cautiously approached the pool bar, his moves slow and hesitant, as he poked Pablo's shoulder to wake him up. He had a serious look on his face and kept throwing anxious glances in my direction, and every time, I turned my head away, pretending I hadn't noticed.

Pablo, lost in his slumber, didn't seem to care about Juan's words, whatever they may have been. He drawled out a lazy laugh and clapped Juan on the arm before sending him back to the sunbed with a dismissive flick of the hand.

I let out a sigh, and my shoulders sagged. I knew the drill by now. At best my plan would fail, and at worst it would turn against me. Juan kept his lips sealed, and with Manée around, there was no way I could ask him how things had gone.

Yet, I could have sworn I saw Pablo typing something on his phone just before he went back to sleep. A few minutes later, three guards crossed the arched door that led to the maid's quarters.

Perhaps it was my hope or delusion turning insignificant details into important events, but I could feel that something was going on.

I strained my head to keep my brow from furrowing. It was a frustrating situation, like trying to figure out a thousand-piece puzzle when you only have a dozen.

A silhouette emerged into the garden, as if he was a blurry mirage in a desert, Oscar walked up to his brother. They exchanged a few words – concerning ones, it seemed, given their stern expressions and determined gaits when they both made their way back into the house.

I turned around to watch them leave, and my gaze struck the sight of Manée's pale face. Despite all the tanning and heat, she was as white as a bleached bedsheet, frozen like a stalagmite sitting upright in her sunbed.

I couldn't help but smile. It seemed that in this deadly game of poker, I held a handful of aces. Still grinning at Manée, I shook my head, winked, and pressed a finger to my lips. My discreet gesture meant "Don't worry and keep your mouth shut", and that's just what she did. Maybe it was an overzealous move, but thankfully, nobody else noticed.

With Manée silenced by fear, Juan wrapped around my finger, and Andrea still as happy and clueless as ever, things were going smoothly, and my plan was well underway. With that peaceful thought in mind, the wait was a little less agonizing.

I pretended to be surprised when, about two hours later, Oscar came back and stopped right beside me.

"Pablo wants to talk to you," he whispered.

"Where is he?" I asked.

His eyes scanned the garden, and his lips barely parted as he answered. "Follow me."

We made our way into the house, passing through locked doors and heavily-guarded hallways, then down a somber, winding stairwell.

I hadn't seen this place before– it was yet another basement, burrowing deep in the house's bowels. It was so quiet I could hear Oscar's rapid breaths, and my own faint heartbeat pummeling in the middle of my chest.

The air was thick with meddling smells. The wafting perfume of industrial-strength cleaner hardly masked the musty stench of humidity. There was a coppery scent floating about and a smokey, burning stink, somewhat like overcooked meat.

Oscar knocked on a door. I heard metallic clangs and muffled voices, and the door opened. There stood Pablo, a tense smirk on his dry lips. Before I could breathe, he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me into the room, and the door shut behind me.

The room was covered from wall to wall and floor to ceiling in tiles, sterile white and bile-green ceramic. The ground was streaked with some washed-out pink liquid, and it took a while for my eyes to get used to the blinding, bright lights above my head.

Only then could I see them– the crimson stains on his hands, wrapped tight around my wrist. The stainless steel cart in a corner, and the sharp metal tools he'd laid out on top of it. The red-speckled plastic tarps littering every corner, all the blood trickling down into a drain in the center of the room.

So much blood.

In the middle was a young woman, kneeling down on her bruised legs. Her arms, spotted with dozens of small burns, were zip-tied in front of her. Her mouth was gagged with a dirty rag, and her baby blue uniform covered in blood.

Her brown eyes were still open and alert, and they were staring right at me. It almost made my stomach churn.

It was Mafer, and this was what I'd done to her.

"I've already asked her a few questions," Pablo stated, without so much as an introduction. "Now I want to hear your answers, and I want to hear the truth."

He was staring right at me, but I was looking at Mafer. Her pleading gaze, her heavy breaths, the terrified look on her battered face.

It was a lovely sight.

"If any of your answers are different, I will know one of you lied," he continued. "And you know what I do to liars."

Perhaps I could never beat her at Tic-Tac-Toe, but I knew I'd win this game. I had the upper hand, and Pablo had proven it time and time again. If he had ever wanted to kill me, he would have done it already.

"Understood?" he asked, spinning my shoulders around to make me face him.

Mafer was behind me, and all I could see was the heinous look on his face. I nodded. This would be easy. All I had to do was play along and catch her in a lie, without letting them know that I knew what they'd been doing all this time.

He put a hand on his holster, and leaned against the grimy wall behind him. "Would you say Mafer is a good friend?"

"Yes," I lied.

"Did you ask her to tell the cops that you were here?"

"No."

"Do you think she would have done it anyway?"

I looked over my shoulder to glance at her. He took a step forward, and pushed my chin back with the barrel of his gun.

"Look at me, Gordita, not at her," he mumbled. "Do you think she did it?"

"No."

"Did you ever ask her to help you escape?"

I tried not to answer too eagerly. If I wasn't aware that Mafer had been betraying me, I wouldn't have given her away so easily. To keep my lie safe, I pretended to hesitate, and took a deep breath.

"Yes," I answered. "The first day I met her."

He lifted his chin, staring down his nose. "What did she tell you?"

"She said she couldn't."

"Good." Pablo nodded. "Did you ever ask again?"

His gun was so close to my face, it made my eyes cross.

"I'll rephrase that one," he sighed, growing impatient after a few seconds of silence. "Did you ever tell Mafer you wanted to run away?"

I meekly shook my head up and down.

"When was this?" he asked.

"Just after you left me to starve," I replied, "and right before everything with Gustavo."

His face distorted with a grimace as he licked his lips, a familiar look that said "I knew it." By sticking to the truth, I had hit the target. This was something she hadn't told him.

"And what did she tell you?" he seethed.

I let his question simmer. I had probably just used up a lifetime of luck, and I needed to tread carefully. If I spoke too fast, one of them would figure out what I was up to. I shook my head and tried to think of sadder things, hoping to shed a tear or two.

"Answer my question," he spat.

"She offered to help," I said.

"Tell me more about that."

It was easier to answer now that he wasn't staring at me, and his deadly glare was like a spear pointed at Mafer's heart.

"She said she knew a way out of the house," I muttered, slipping false tears between my words. "But I came back, that time, remember?"

I bit my lip. Those last words were too high-pitched and didn't ring true, and now my fear was real. It would be a matter of time before my whole strategy was discovered.

"What's the way out of the house?" Pablo asked.

"I had to move the camera in Majo's bedroom, and go down to the pantry, then leave through the window."

"You really thought that would work?" He let out a bitter scoff.

"It didn't. I came back. Mafer didn't do anything wrong," I stammered.

"It doesn't matter," he murmured. "Thank you for telling the truth, Gordita."

He leaned over to leave a kiss on my temple. I wished that I could have seen Mafer's face, and that Pablo couldn't see mine.

"Please don't hurt her," I whispered. "I was the one who asked her to help me."

My heart began to race. How the hell was I supposed to keep on faking distress, when this was the happiest I had been in ages?

"Gordita, you're a sweet girl, and you're honest," he said. "Mafer, on the other hand, is a traitor."

He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and handed me his gun.

"And you know what we do to traitors."

When I felt the cool and heavy weapon slip between my fingers, it all started to feel too real. I was going to kill her, in cold blood, just like Juan feared I would.

"Hold it like this," Pablo whispered, gently fixing the position of my hands. "Keep your fingers off the trigger until you're ready."

Reality hit me like a bullet to the brain. It made my ears ring with a high-pitched buzz, and my ice-cold blood burn up with a fever.

It would have been easier if I wasn't the one to shoot her. Now that I was the one pulling the trigger, it would be harder to shift the blame onto someone else.

My arms seized up and started to tremble with tension. I wasn't a murderer, let alone such a ruthless one. Her eyes widened in panic as they looked up into mine, and I could see her trying to beg for mercy under the rag he'd wrapped around her jaw.

"Fix your stance," Pablo said, as his fingers dug into the small of my waist. "Align your shoulders and your hips."

What if I was wrong? I caught myself thinking. What if he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, or I'd simply mistaken him for somebody else? He could have been in another room. It could have been another man. Perhaps it was just all a hallucination.

The words fell out of my mouth as a tear rolled down my cheek. "I don't want to kill her."

"It's not about what you want, Gordita," he muttered. "Aim for the head and she won't feel a thing."

A whistling, agonizing breath tore its way down my lungs, and I could hear Mafer's muffled screams. I didn't have to fake my anguish anymore. The pain and guilt I felt were far too real.

What if all she'd ever done was try to help me? I'd had delusions before, when I had heard Ana's voice and searched the whole house just to find out it was all in my head. This could have just been another one of them.

It was too late for me to go back, and I couldn't undo all the things I'd done.

That meant I'd have to live my whole life carrying a burden, that I was the sole person responsible for Mafer's death.

"Control your breathing," Pablo told me. "You need to focus."

My whole body was shaking, and the gun kept sliding out of my clammy hands. I'd schemed and manipulated my way to this moment, and now it felt like a mistake. I wasn't ready to face the consequences of my actions. 

I didn't know if I was misguided or simply plain evil, but that wouldn't have changed anything about the situation. Mafer would die here, in only a few minutes or seconds, and it was all my fault.

"All you have to do is press here," he whispered as his finger curled around mine.

"Why are you making me do this?" I breathed.

Pablo smirked. "I want you to prove where your loyalties lie."

He stepped away, leaving me in the center stage of his torture chamber. Quivering tears blurred my vision, and I didn't know where I was aiming.

"I'm so sorry," I murmured, guilt coiling in my throat.

Pablo lifted his finger, gesturing me to pause, and bent over to uncover Mafer's mouth. She dragged her imploring gaze away from me, nodding as if resigned to her fate, and turned to Pablo instead.

He stepped back, his arms crossed and a wry smile tugging at the corner of his lips. She must have thought it wasn't my fault, as her guilting glare was riveted to Pablo. The smell of death and the thought of it made vomit rise up in my throat. Juan was right. I was turning into Pablo.

He crouched down, getting onto Mafer's level, and clasped his hands together. My whole body trembled, and my finger hovered above the trigger.

This wasn't what I wanted. I couldn't do it. Not as long as I had a shadow of a doubt that I might be wrong about the whole thing.

"Any last words?" Pablo asked her.

"I love you," she told him.