I consider what he hasn’t told me as he rehashes history I already know. I let him speak since he loves to hear his own voice. Given the chance, he’ll tell me what I want to know simply because he’ll come up with more to say to keep the conversation going. He thinks it’s buying him time to strategize an escape. No prisoner comes down here and leaves as anything besides ash.
“Ernesto paying you monthly wasn’t enough recompense, was it?”
“Not once I discovered his granddaughter trained as a chemist in the States. She came back here because her mother had cancer a few years ago.”
That’snotsomething I wanted to have common with Flora.
“She trained to be a pharmacist instead because it gave her a less stressful job with more flexible hours to help her mother.”
“You decided the debt wasn’t about the money but the control. You forced Domingo to work for you, but you didn’t get what you wanted out of that. Rather than continue to extort Ernesto, you insisted Florencia work for you. It was still trading information.”
“You were always the smart one of your generation.”
There isn’t a man among my cousins and me who didn’t attend an Ivy League or Top Tier university on merit. All the members of the Four Families earned their spots at the most competitive and rigorous universities in the States. No parents bribed their kids’ way in with a massive donation or by being a legacy. We all understand the value of education and networking, so we made sure we had the best of the best.
“Except you’d made surelosAguilarnever paid off the debt. You’d keep demanding more if you could. Ernesto decided to keep his money and sell his granddaughter to you.”
“It was working out well.”
“Was it, though? You didn’t have the finished product. Florencia hadn’t even brought you a big enough sample to offera buyer. You don’t know where the lab is, so you’d still need her if you wanted the product you paid her to create. The biggest problem you have now is that you’ll be dead before dawn. Everything you smuggled and invested in trying to deal behindTíoEnrique’s back was for nothing.”
He remains quiet because he knows I’m right. We found out what he was doing, soTíoEnrique ran out of patience. My job was to come down here, find the labs, get the product and recipe, then kill Humberto. No one in my family will force Flora to reveal the location or formula because we won’t intimidate her. I hope she volunteers it, but I won’t manipulate her to get it.
“You never got over the idea thatTíoEsteban betrayed you and that killing Domingo took your bloodhound from you. Why’d you wait so long to haveTíomurdered?”
“The fucker was too hard to kill. I tried over and over, but he kept finding out my plans. Ernesto wanted revenge even more than me. He happily took my money and passed it along to the men who finally got yourtío. As usual, my hands were clean if anything went wrong since I didn’t hire anyone myself. I realized the only way I could get him was whileTres J’swere nearby. The mercenaries knew not to hurt them because no women and children, but the threat was enough to make Esteban expose himself to protect his sons. He died thinking he was protecting them.”
“If no women and children, then why’d you let men go afterTíaLuciana and try to force her into remarrying? Try to assault her? Why let the street gangs you could’ve controlled attackTres J’s?”
“Nothing happened to them.”
I flick open the knife I carry in my pocket while walking around to the other side of the table. I stab him in the shoulder.
“You sick fuck. You forced my cousins to kill to protect each other and themselves before they were even out of elementary school. You forced them to kill to protect their mother.”
“I needed to know whether they’d make excellent soldiers one day. They do.”
“They were never going to work for you!”
My temper is getting the better of me. But I know what my cousins endured living down here without a father. They have personas they developed once they moved to the States. They thought they needed them to protect themselves like they would’ve needed them down here. The other three families say they’re psychopaths and other shit like that. We’reallsomething like a sociopath since we commit crimes and do heinous shit without remorse, knowing we’ll keep doing them.
But Javier is an introvert; Joaquin is shy; and Jorge has social anxiety. They’d all rather stay home than do anything else. That’s what Humberto’s plan did to them.
“They would’ve if Luciana married a man I chose. She would’ve had no choice but to let them if she wanted a peaceful home life with a man who treated her properly.”
“You really are stupid as fuck. The moment any man tried to hurt her around her children or targeted her children, she would’ve killed him. She killed men to protect them. That’s why they moved to New York. Besides, there’s no chance in hell she’ll ever remarry. She’ll never move on fromTíoEsteban. He was her soulmate. She’d never force a man to live with her husband’s ghost in their marriage, and she’ll never give another man room in her heart.”
There’s one more thing I want to know.
“You put a bounty on Florencia’s head. Make your last words to the outside word a command to call it off.”
“It’s far too late for that. There’s no way I can reach everyone who’s heard about it. It’s on the dark web. Any mercenary whoknows how to access shit like that has seen it by now. There’s nowhere you can take her that’s safe. She’ll spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. You can’t protect her. You’ll fail like your father andtíodid protecting my brother. You’ll fail like your father andtíodid protecting Esteban. When you have to live with that, you’ll know that in the end—even when I’m dead—I still won.”
“All you’ve done is shut yourself out of the most powerful family in Latin America. You’ve spentdecadesin near solitary confinement rather than enjoying the freedom the rest of us have had. You ate the food mytíoallowed. You slept in the bed mytíoallowed. You breathed the air mytíoallowed. Now you will die by the hand mytíoallowed. You went after my woman.”
“Yourfamily and your soulmates.” His voice drips with disgust.
“They aremyfamily. You’re not part of it.”
