We’ve gone over this, but she needs to hear it again. I try to be as kind as possible, but it’s an ugly truth.
"Tyler's debt goes back eighteen months," I start, keeping my voice level, clinical. Facts are easier to handle than emotions. "Started small. Sports betting. Online poker. He was winning at first—they always let you win at first. That's how they hook you."
"Tyler doesn't gamble." But there's no conviction in it anymore.
"Tyler gambles a lot." I pull up another screen on the phone and show her. "Three different online poker sites. Sports betting across four platforms. Two casinos in Phoenix where he's a regular. The patterns are clear—he'd win some, lose more, chase the losses with bigger bets."
She's not looking at the screen. She's looking at her hands like they belong to someone else.
"Six months ago, he borrowed eighty thousand from Los Serpientes. That's not a casual loan—that's a cartel loan with cartel interest. Thirty percent compounding monthly."
"Jesus." She breathes the word.
"He couldn't pay it back. So he borrowed more. Another hundred thousand. Standard debt spiral—you borrow to cover the first loan, but now you owe both plus interest on both. It compounds fast."
"One hundred and eighty thousand." She's doing the math, and I can see her brain trying to make it make sense. "How does someone even get that deep?"
"One bad bet at a time." I've seen it before. Watched good soldiers destroy themselves the exact same way. "The cartel doesn't care how you got there. They care about collection."
"So they what—gave him two options?" She's pacing again, faster now. "Pay or die?"
"Pay or offer collateral of equivalent value."
She stops. Turns to face me. "Equivalent value to one hundred and eighty thousand dollars."
"Yeah."
"I'm not worth—" She stops herself, but I can see the calculation in her eyes. Former Army medic. American. Young. Healthy. She knows exactly what she's worth on the trafficking market, and it's a hell of a lot more than one-eighty.
"The trust fund makes it cleaner," I say before she can spiral down that path. "Tyler offers you as collateral but sweetens thedeal. Once you sign the trust documents, he withdraws the four hundred thousand. Pays the cartel their one-eighty plus interest. Walks away with the remainder."
"Two hundred and twenty thousand dollars." Her voice is hollow. "That's what I'm worth to him. The difference between four hundred thousand and his debt."
"The trust fund is the bonus." I have to tell her the rest. She needs to know it all. "You were always the primary payment."
She's shaking her head before I finish. "No. That doesn't—if they just wanted me, why would they need the trust fund at all?"
"Because Tyler's greedy. He doesn't just want to clear his debt. He wants to profit from selling you." It’s a stretch. I don’t know her brother, but I’ve seen this story too many times. My words ring true.
Her jaw tightens at the word "selling," a quick muscle twitch pulling at the corner of her mouth, like a wire snapping taut under strain. But her gaze holds steady, locked on mine, unflinching, her chin lifting just enough to carve defiance into the line of her neck.
No tears, no averted eyes—just that unyielding stare, the kind that stares down barrels and comes out swinging. This woman has steel in her spine that most operators I've served with would envy.
"So he what—staged the whole thing?" She's working through it now, following the logic. "Arranged for both of us to be taken. Told me it was about something Mother left us. Kept us separated so I couldn't see he wasn't actually being hurt."
"Yeah."
"The bruise on his face. The split lip." Her eyes go distant, remembering. "I never saw anyone hit him. He just showed up with injuries and told me they'd been interrogating him."
"He could have done those himself. Or had someone do it to make it look real."
"He looked terrified." Her voice cracks. "I thought—God, I actually thought he was trying to protect me. He said if I signed, it would buy us time. That we'd escape together."
I don't say anything. There's nothing to say that isn't just confirming what she already knows.
"So the whole kidnapping was theater." She's pacing again, butdifferent now. Angry. "Three days tied to a chair. Three days thinking we werebothvictims. And the entire time, he was—what? Negotiating his payout?"
"Yeah." I pull up another screen. "Guardian HRS traced Tyler's movements. Four days ago, he was in Phoenix. Meeting with a cartel lieutenant at a restaurant. They have surveillance footage."
