Page 187 of Forbidden Fate

Robin furrows her brow. “But that’s when he was here. Working drugs on the border. When Eagle got involved with him.”

“Eagle was involved with him?”

Robin ignores me, continuing. “He couldn’t have been running a crime syndicate in Colombia while also spending that much time in Texas.”

“I mean, maybe. He has lots of associates,” I say. “Where are you going with this?”

“Eagle got involved with a drug kingpin named Diego Vega.” She swallows, lowering her voice. “We thought… In the barn…”

Oh, shit.

I get it now.

She doesn’t know.

And I didn’t know it was even important. I didn’t understand how much of this family’s confusion rests on one name used for two men.

“Robin.”

She looks at me.

“The man buried underneath your barn,” I say, low, “was not Diego Vega.”

She furrows her brow. “What?”

“Not the Diego Vega who is head of the family now. Not the man who runs the organization tied to the Agudelos, the Bianchis, the McCallisters. To Hernando Reyes.”

Robin stares at me.

“That man—the body I exhumed—was Diego Vega Junior.”

Her mouth drops.

“His son.”

45

ROBIN

My head hurts.

Not in the normal way, either. Not the dull throb of exhaustion or dehydration or too many tears, though I probably have all that going on as well.

This is different.

This is the specific ache of too many puzzle pieces snapping into place.

Diego Vega Junior.

Vega’s son.

For a second, I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe properly. I just stand in the open doorway of the main house, my heart pounding, my mind racing so fast it feels like it might break apart inside my skull.

Because—

God.

Everything makes sense.