Alfredo charges toward Salma, but he doesn’t get far before gunshots sound, and his body falls to the ground. Salma flinches, but she doesn’t panic. Calmly, she lifts herself from the desk and grabs a bottle of tequila from a cabinet on the side.
“Where was I?” she asks out loud.
Alfredo makes a few gurgling sounds from behind me as Salma pours brown liquor into three glasses and offers one to me. I take it, and she hands Adrian another. She doesn’t evenpause to look down when she steps over the blood oozing from Alfredo’s body.
“Oh that’s right. Missy was pregnant and very excited. Curtis, on the other hand, was not. I’m almost positive he was giving her something that led to their child’s death. Missy was heartbroken as any mother would be. I think that’s why she did what she did.”
“Kidnapped someone else’s child?” Adrian asks dryly.
“Yes. She did do that, but I think it all stemmed from something deeper inside her. You know she never experienced true love from her own mother and?—”
“Skip the bullshit,” I interrupt.
“Anyways.” Salma crosses back over to where she left the bottle of tequila on the desk. “Missy had nowhere to go, and she came to me. I was young and didn’t know what to do, so I called my boyfriend at the time.”
She points the glass at the body on the floor before she tips it back, finishing it.
“Alfredo Biondini,” she says with a sour expression.
“Does he have ties to the mob?” Adrian asks as an afterthought.
“Currently, no. But at the time, he was very close to the current head, Don Rosario Messina, Savino Biondini’s grandfather,” she remarks.
I stiffen at the name.
“For what it’s worth, I had no idea about Alfredo’s ties to the mob, but Don Rosario did help us,” Salma continues. “He gave Missy money to help her take the child and start a new life away from Houston.”
“Why would he do that?” I ask.
“To be honest, I wasn’t sure of his motives at the time. Then years passed, and Cesidio got word that Alma was in Houston. They threatened to hurt her if I didn’t find out what she knew.”
Salma stops embracing herself and lets out a long sigh.
“Alfredo owed a large debt to the Don.” Her eyes flick to the corpse. “He offered my notes. Updates. Warnings.”
“Motherfucker,” I exhale.
“I never gave them anything relevant,” she says quietly. “For my friend. But you need to leave. Take her. It’s only a matter of time before they come for her.”
A baby cries upstairs. Salma walks past us to the end of the staircase and pauses.
“If you don’t mind disposing of that… I’d appreciate it.”
Chapter 35
Alma
Imiss Efren. I miss him so much, I type it out and delete it about ten times before Mireya notices my discomfort.
“Is it Efren?” she asks. “You have to get used to it. Adrian misses a lot of these events.”
“Are you used to it?” I look at the way my friend holds her baby close and stares out past the terrace.
Thalia’s mansion sits on Patricio’s twenty acre estate where he built not only his home but also a home for Adrian, Thalia, and his father, Don Vicente Consuelo. Mireya and Adrian’s house is modest compared to Thalia’s. Thalia went for a more goth maximist vibe. Dark cala lilies fill the outer edges of the courtyard, and bushes are carved into majestic creatures like they walked right off an Edward Scissorhands screening and into her backyard.
“I thought I was adjusting,” Mireya replies after a moment of silence. “But sometimes, all the secrets and shit and the drama can be too much.”
“Tell me about it. Human relationships are complicated.” I sigh.
