From what I've pieced together: the pharmaceutical company manufactures a pain management medication. A 32-year-old woman took it for three months and died of kidney failure. The warning label mentions a potential reduction of blood flow to the kidneys with long-term use or high doses, but vaguely, buried language doing its best to say nothing while technically saying something. Her family argues three months was far too long a prescription by any reasonable medical standard.
The firm has a plan for Thursday. The attorneys know what it is. I don't.
My stomach turns again and I set the pages on his desk, squaring the corners out of habit, and walk back out into the hum of the office.
CHAPTER 3
DIEGO
"Bye Ma, have a good night. I'll pick you up in the morning, same as always."
I watch her step out carefully into the 10 PM dark, the parking lot hushed under the glow of the few working lights. I catch the security guard's eye across the lot and give him a firm nod. Our routine signal. She's here, needs watching.
"Thank you, Diego! Be safe out there, mijo!" She calls it back over her shoulder, that blend of gratitude and worry she's never been able to separate, shuffling toward the glass doors, her thin frame cutting a silhouette against the light.
I roll my eyes, half-smiling. Her fussing never quits.
I sweep the shadows once more out of habit. Downtown Miami's quiet can turn feral fast, and Tuesday nights, while they usually breathe easier, are no guarantee. I watch her deliberate steps until she's through the door. Long dark hair in that practical braid. Her frame thin now in a way that twists something in my gut, every hollowed cheek a reminder of the woman she was before the accident. She used to fill a room. Proud, vibrant, the kitchen her kingdom, Cuban cooking alive in every corner of the house. Pain took all of it and left scraps neither of us can stomach talking about.
The Bluetooth crackles. Raul's name lights the dash.
My cousin doesn't call for chitchat. Trouble is his shadow.
"¿Qué bolá?" I answer.
"Hey, I need a hand running around town tonight. Car's in the shop. You busy?"
"Nah, just dropped Ma off. Be there in fifteen."
"Sounds good, bro." He hangs up.
I ease the Tacoma up to Uncle Ernie's weathered trailer, porch light flickering like it's running on spite, and Raul is already stepping out before I've cut the engine.
Ernie and Raul carry a certain reputation around these parts. Not built on rumors. Forged in the fire of their own unapologetic actions. They run drugs locally, nothing kingpin about it, just reliable hands moving product for whoever's holding the supply line that week. It stains the soul. It keeps the lights on. Sometimes that's the only math that matters.
"Hey, man." Raul swings into the passenger seat with his usual easy grin, eyes immediately sweeping the truck with a smirk. The once-black paint has oxidized so badly over the years it gleams a dull ashy gray under the streetlights. "Looks like she's gone fully gray on you."
"Do you want the ride or not? Don't start with my taco truck when she's the one getting you around tonight."
"Taco truck?"
"Yeah. Taco-ma. Because it's a Tacoma." I tap the wheel. "Get it?"
"Bro." He shakes his head. "That is so fucking stupid." But he's already chuckling, because that's how we've always been. Family ribbing over worse sins.
"I've got a bag to drop behind that new club on Ocean Drive, then a few smaller stops in the area. Shouldn't take more than an hour. I'll make it worth your time." He pats the duffel at his feet, casual as a man setting down groceries.
"Let's go, then."
The final drop drags us to 2 AM. We idle in a desolate liquor store parking lot, sodium lamps throwing long jagged shadows across cracked asphalt, and Raul peels off $120 in crumpled bills and presses them into my hand.
"For your trouble. I appreciate you stepping up, cuz."
Truth is I would have done it for free. Blood runs thicker than the risks we just danced with. But Ma's bills don't run on loyalty, so I pocket the cash with a quiet grunt and don't make it a thing.
"You want back in the rotation?" Raul leans against the seat, testing waters he knows are deep with my history. "We could use your wheels. Your head."
I used to run alongside him straight out of high school, back when the thrill was enough to mask the rot. I walked away after everything imploded. The supplier, a sleazy middle-aged predator who called himself B, had a habit of lurking around minors and turning their desperation into a delivery service for his poison. He'd been cutting pills with fentanyl, lacing product that should've stayed pure, and it turned lethal. One of our runners handed a laced pill to a kid from my own school. A freshman. Just chasing a buzz.
