“You should know why already,” she snapped.
“Alex?” I asked.
Nodding, she explained it, “I’d just gotten out of high school in the town where my Abuela lived. Then I came home. Alex had been missing for almost six years already. We knew he had to be dead because he would never have left his family like that. Bien, my parents prayed that he was alive but even at sixteen, I knew better. We just never knew what had happened to him. I went and looked for Gabriela to see if she knew anything. I knew about them being in love earlier when I was a kid. But she was gone too. I asked all over town. No one would say a word. They all looked too afraid to talk to me about that. Then old man Garcia was the only one who dared to tell me the truth. He said that they ran away together and never came back. But he had a cousin who lived down in Baja that told him they were living on the beach. Then one day, Santiago Castillo came into town with his men. Alex and Gabriela went missing that same day. His cousin sold them vegetables and fruit in exchange for fish. He was close by to the place where the couple had been staying and heard the gunshot. He then saw the cartel men all leave town quickly, he believed that Santiago had killed them both.”
“And that recording?” I asked. “Where did you get it?”
“My little sister said she found it on the net. Along with a very large reward for any information leading to finding the kids.”
“I think I see now,” I told her. “You joined up, so you could someday get revenge?”
She nodded. “That or get into a position where I got the opportunity to track the kids somehow.”
“Like taking me,” I stated, as it wasn’t a question.
“Absolutely,” she replied. “But the doctor and the nurse that I captured with you told me that you might never wake up.”
“So, what would you have done then?” I asked.
“Then when?” she asked as she looked confused as to what I was asking exactly.
“How long would you have kept me if I remained comatose?”
“As long as my boss would allow.”
“Well shit,” I grumbled. “He is not known to be patient or generous.”
Selena laughed. “No, he is not.”
“You aren’t afraid of him, why?” I could tell she wasn’t and she damn well should be. He wasn’t any better than my father.
Shrugging, she replied, “I have made him millions.”
“How?”
“My ideas? I have thought up ways to make money that had never occurred to him or his men. And I never asked for a cut or pushed him for anything beyond my regular pay. That is why he agreed with capturing you.”
“That idea was never going to pay off for him, Selena.”
“I know.”
“Then what would you have done?”
She looked away.
“The answer is that bad, eh?” I quipped.
She let out an uneasy breath then looked back at me “To be brutally honest…There would be two choices. Sell you to the highest bidder, including your family. Or snuff you out for a price.”
I stared at her. “Chingar,” I swore in awe. Not feeling anger or any resentment about this, I could see her doing that. It would save her ass too. Especially since she worked for Quanto. It made sense and it would still pay the bill for the operation. “Very smart.”
“Smart but cold as all hell,” she added.
“Have you ever heard of the cartel being warm and fuzzy?”
She shook her head.
“So, here we are,” I said.
