His hand falls off Mateo’s shoulder. Mr. Martinez’s eyes narrow, and he visibly shakes.
“That lying cunt stole you from me. She left and married that pathetic and weak excuse of a man who couldn’t offer her anything. We could have had it all, but she chose poorly and suffered the consequences. She left you and me.”
Mateo nods, trying to appease the crazy in this man who claims to be his father.
We move closer to the screen, and I watch Mateo’s features. Emma has her hand over her mouth, waiting to hear what he will say next.
“Yeah, she did leave us both.” His head is bowed down when he says this, and I know that the emotions shown on his face are real. This is his family and he doesn’t hide his feeling from them and only them. He looks like he feels every bit of her leaving him, and he may never get over that fact. For whatever reason, she thought it was in his best interest to do so.
But when he raises his head to meet Mr. Martinez, his following words are spoken as an act, but still gut his family as they fall from his lips. “What do you need me to do, Father?”
Emma chokes on a sob, and Eduardo brings her closer to him as we stare at Mateo on the screen.
Mr. Martinez laughs sinisterly. “I knew you’d come around, son. We are going to leave here and go to our new home. Everything I have will be yours now, and we will grow our business, and then… you will take over. We will force the Ortizfamily to play nice and accept our terms. I need the connections to bring my drugs over the border, and they have the connection that I need. I have them here.” He lifts his palm up to Mateo to signify that he has them in the palm of his hand. “You see, it's a mutually beneficial agreement.”
Mateo rubs his chin, pondering the things Mr. Martinez has said. “I don’t know if you are aware of this, but they sent me to boarding school, and I don’t think they will be willing to accept that deal from me. They barely acknowledge me as their own.”
For some reason, I see the shared look on Evie and Emma’s face, it’s obvious that they, too, feel the raw emotion that comes through in his spoken words. Despite the performance he is portraying for Mr. Martinez for our benefit, there is some truth radiating from the harshness of his tone.
Ramón steps closer, and so does Mr. Martinez. He leans forward on the kitchen island.
“Well...” He cocks his head to the side. “They might not be with you, but when we take your sisters with us, then they might have to reconsider.”
Eduardo stiffens, rage building in him. Gus, Eli, and Philip exchange glances with each other, and the room is so quiet you can hear a pin drop.
I hold Evie closer, and she leans into my embrace. We listen and wait for the rest of the story.
“You’ll make them come with us, and then we will marry them off to the highest bidder.”
There is the slightest tic to Mateo’s jaw, indicating that he is much displeased with this direction of conversation, but he doesn’t say as much. We look at the screen, dumbfounded.
Eduardo stands up, and Emma almost falls off his lap. However, his usual firm grip around her waist allows her feet to land on the floor instead. He is shaking with uncontrolled rage.
“Motherfucker! I will fucking kill you! You’re dead!” Eduardo is yelling at the screen with spittle flying like a rabid dog. He’s fuming and shaking with so much unrelenting anger, and Emma hits his arm, trying her best to calm him enough so we can hear the rest of the conversation.
“Highest bidder, huh? I don’t know about that. Father, I don’t want my sisters being offered up like cattle.”
Mr. Martinez shrugs. “Makes no difference to me.” He pretends to pick an imaginary strand of lint from his suit jacket.
Mateo is deep in thought and then snaps his fingers when he is struck with an idea, although I don’t think he had thought about it long.
“I got it,” he says, and Mr. Martinez looks over at him. “What if we have a party announcing their ‘availability’ and then have suitors come and discuss a mutually beneficial agreement.”
He seems to think about this, and then his smile broadens. “You know, son, I think that would be a great idea.”
Mateo nods. “We need strong allies if we are going to make this business venture beneficial with powerful players in place, but also, we want to be able to control the narrative. We should pick the best suitors who would make a more profitable alliance, right?”
Mr. Martinez soaks this up, and at the moment, I am afraid that Mateo may have switched sides. He is so determined to bring us down that I believe him.
He turns toward the camera and winks. Emma reaches over to Evie, and she nods that she saw that, too. Evie sinks into my lap in relief because Mateo’s story was too believable for our liking.
Mr. Martinez must buy the act too because he claps his hands together in an excited fashion. “Okay. When do we leave?”
Mateo makes his way toward the door. “No time like the present.”
Ramón has been watching this entire exchange without interruption, but as Mateo moves to leave and passes him by, he stops him.
“Where are you going?” Ramón looks over to his son sheepishly and then at his bag. “Do you need me to go with you, Mateo?” The look in Ramón’s eyes says that he is afraid to be alone with his son while Mateo is away.
