by Elodie Colt
“Mochaccino with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles,” Kendra croons.
Despite my mouth watering, I whip my head to the other side. “Go away,” I snap, hoping my shitty mood rings through.
“Not happening.”
“Huh? As far as I remember, you couldn’t leave fast enough last time.”
A deep sigh. “You know it was a damn hard decision, Leo. Aaron’s tour is over for this year, so I’m going to stick around for some time,” she tries to convince me. “Come on, Leo. I know you’re dying to get your hands on this coffee.”
With a sour face, I yank the blankets away and snatch the Mochaccino from her hands, causing her to grin despite my dark glare that would have made Skyla cower in fear.
“See, that wasn’t so hard.” I just pop a spoonful of whipped cream into my mouth. Kendra sighs again, wiping her hands on her designer jeans. I’m relieved to see she still seems to be the old Kendra I know. “Leo, we need to talk this out.”
“You left,” I prompt without missing a beat.
Yeah, I’m selfish—I always am—but Kendra just being up and running with this wannabe DJ Callaghan to go on tour as some naughty dancer was a stab in my heart.
“I was always going to come back.”
I huff, although I know I’m being unfair. Did I really think Kendra was going to stay by my side forever? I knew she was going to leave one day, but it’s fucking hard to accept. My shrink says I rely too much on her. I know I should try to get along on my own, but sometimes it just seems impossible.
Kendra’s hand rests on my forearm. “You know you’re my best friend, Leo. I’ll never leave you.” I nod, agreeing to the ceasefire for now. “Friends again?” she asks in a hopeful voice, lifting her pinky for me to accept our secret handshake that includes a few claps, twists, and pokes to the shoulder.
Kendra laughs, and I can’t help but smile along with her. What shall I say, she just makes me happy.
“So, about the bridesmaid shopping…” she starts, and I groan before she even finishes the sentence. “You can’t bail out of this one.”
I slurp my coffee loudly, wiping the cream from my lips with the sleeve of my shirt, as always, as sophisticated as a pig. “Why can’t Sam just marry Matthew in Vegas? No one needs this wedding crap,” I mumble, already dreading the ceremony and the people I’ll have to endure.
“You go and tell Sam. I’m sure she’ll cancel all reservations for the location she already booked eight months ago,” Kendra retorts dripping sarcasm.
“You know I don’t do dresses. Like, ever.” Even the thought of wearing something leaving my neck, back, or cleavage bare makes me itchy.
“Have a little faith in me. Everyone will be happy, I promise.”
~~~
In the end, Kendra succeeds in dragging me along and entering a bridesmaid shop with the girls. Everyone croons ooh’s and ah’s and oh my God, look at this dress, whereas I can only gag at seeing the masses of ruffles, frills, and lace.
“I can’t do this,” I mutter in horror, already stepping back and ready to bolt out the door.
“You can, and you will,” Kendra repeats for the tenth time, banding a hand over my hip to keep me from running. “It will be fine.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got this covered,” Sam comes to her help, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
The next thing I know, I’m hustled into a dressing room where I’m expected to get into the endless piece of fabric myself. “How the hell am I going to close the zipper?” I complain in a cranky voice, hoping to get my annoyance across.
“I’ll help you,” comes Ruby’s reply from the dressing room next door. A second later, she opens the door to mine, dragging the zipper up to my neck. “Now, would you look at this… Beautiful,” she gushes with a hand over her mouth.
I remain skeptical, whirling from side to side in front of the mirror. Granted, the long satin dress reaching the ankles along with the long sleeves and a decent neckline is acceptable, but I already know I’m going to sweat through that thing and stain it with cake and champagne. Manners are missing from my repertoire.
“I wanna see!” Sam shouts from somewhere, and Ruby shoves me out to join the other girls all wearing the same dress.
“Oh my God, you look gorgeous!” Skyla gushes, and Kendra agrees.
“Absolutely stunning.”
We all turn around to stand in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror, me sandwiched in the middle.
“Do you like the color?” Sam asks in a hopeful voice, referring to the shimmering aquamarine of the fabric.
“It’s okay,” I mumble sounding bored, although I’m touched by the gesture. It’s immediately clear that Kendra is behind this. She knows that aquamarine is my favorite color. I would have thrown up if I’d been forced to wear something in peach or baby blue.
Kendra chuckles. “See? It’s not that bad.”
“I’m surprised you’re comfortable with wearing this,” I mutter. “It doesn’t even show the ankles.”
“Kendra doesn’t have to angle a score anymore. She already has the world’s hottest DJ,” Sam enlightens me.
“Yes. Only Aaron is allowed to see my ankles,” Kendra remarks, and we all giggle.
My arms burn from the workout as I continue to tread water, but I go on, determined to do my daily one hundred laps. The sun shines on the cloudless sky reflecting in the clear, blue water.
After two more laps, I pull myself out of the pool, fetching a towel and ruffling it through my hair before wrapping a black Versace bathrobe around me and entering the mansion.
After pouring myself a glass of orange juice, I stroll into my office. Propping my feet on my teakwood desk, I take my phone and activate the home screen, the sight of the picture staring back at me, as usual, a stab in my heart. It shows my mother, Natalia, chasing my little sister, Valentina, through the garden. As always, I’m mesmerized by her unusually big, azure blue eyes, which she inherited from our mother.
We knew about Valentina’s illness, but we didn’t expect it to worsen so quickly.
Now, Natalia lives with Valentina in Australia where she devoted her life to run the foundation that should help heal my sister someday. We all know that Sanfilippo Syndrome can’t be cured, but we continue to pretend. For Valentina’s sake, and my mother’s.
My phone vibrates with a text message.
Victoria: Handover taking place tomorrow night at the old warehouse. 200K, cash.
Daniel: Good job, Victoria.
Sighing, I rake a hand through my wet hair. Technically, even if I’m not the bad guy, I loathe this job every goddamned day. Sure, I can’t complain about the twenty thousand square foot mansion I own, the shiny sports cars collecting dust in my garage, or the millions multiplying themselves in my bank account.
I let my head fall back against the backrest and activate the home screen again, my gaze lingering on my mother’s warm, brown eyes. I’ve never met the man who raped her and got her pregnant with me, thank God. Why Natalia didn’t abort me, determined to raise and love me as if I weren’t an abomination roaming this world, is beyond me. But all her love couldn’t stop her from me getting into the wrong circle of friends and doing what everyone did around here—dealing drugs.
A dirty business spread around by a gigantic network so ruthless, you would choke on your tongue if you knew the shit I know. It took years of earning the respect and street cred to get to where I am—a king ruling this land, its borders, and its dirty undergrounds reaching as deep as the bodies rotting in the thousands underneath the earth.
My eyes and ears are everywhere. If a sleazy deal is made between north of the equator and the border at La Paz, I know it before the shipment can take off into the Gulf of Mexico. I smell a corrupt cop from miles away. Every cartel fears my name, and every drug lord wants me on their side.
But no one knows what I really hide behind the silk suits and dominant attitude. They don’t know the source of my power—the United Nation
s Office on Drugs and Crime.
I’m an undercover dealer in the highest ranks, handing over drug lords, traffickers, and crooked cops to the states. I know the network inside out and have put a bunch of scum behind bars already, but still… It feels my success is barely a drop in the bucket.
Every day we find meth labs, trucks and airplanes full of cocaine, or dead people on the streets—victims of this goddamned country brimming over with drug racketeering, corruption, money laundering, child labor, and other atrocities. Every day I have to pretend to be just as corrupt and greedy as them, faking my identity and conducting business with the worst. Every day I have to pretend to cherish this lifestyle of ridiculously expensive cigars, rum, and whores.
Whenever I hand them over, I feel I’ve done the world a favor, but the next day, you hunt down another with blood on their hands.
Glancing at the picture of my family again, I know I’ve made the right decision. I could have quit after I got my first check from the states, but I stayed. The only thing soothing my conscience is that the better part of my fortune flows into the Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation, knowing I’m doing everything in my power to keep my sister alive.
My phone vibrating startles me, and I frown when I see Emilio’s calling. He never calls this early. I already smell trouble.
Emilio starts speaking as soon as I take the call. “Boss, we caught someone dealing on your territory.” I straighten in my chair. There’s only a handful who have the balls to set foot on my ground without explicit permission. Everyone knows I rule this land, and my word is law. “Javier is taking care of him,” Emilio continues.
“Bring him to me immediately.”
“Yes.”
~~~
I adjust my tie before the door opens, and my men—Emilio and Javier, both in black suits, dark sunglasses, and wired with earpieces—stroll in, dragging a limp body over my Persian rug. Javier heaves it into a chair, and I saunter to the front of my desk to have a look at the battered creature, more dead than alive. The breath comes in rasps from his mouth, and blood trails down his lips.
Rolling up the sleeve of my suit so as not to get it dirty, I grab the guy’s chin, forcing him to look at me. One eye is swollen shut, the other roaming aimlessly around.
“Do you know where you are?” I ask in a dark voice. The guy moans, barely able to focus on me, but he manages a nod. “Do you know who owns this estate?” I continue my interrogation. Another nod. I tighten my grip on his chin, and he groans as my fingers dig into a cut on his cheek. “And do you know who owns this territory?” I shout, sprays of spit showering his face.
“Pl… pleeease,” he begs, more blood flowing down his chin.
Suddenly, his eyes shut, and his head rolls to the side, a last breath squeezing through before his life drains away in my hand. I growl, shooting Javier an angry glare. “He’s not of much use if he dies before I can interrogate him.”
Javier harrumphs in embarrassment, hiding his bloody hands behind his back. “Sorry, boss.”
Adjusting my sleeve, I take the tissue Emilio offers me to wipe my hands. “Keep your fists at bay next time, Javier.”
“Yes, boss.”
“He told us a name,” Emilio throws in, and my eyes flicker to him. “Alvarez.”
“Never heard of him. Who is he?”
“We don’t know, but we’re already on it.”
I throw the dirty tissue into the trash. “Find him and bring him to me. Alive,” I growl in Javier’s direction, who tilts his head in respect.
After my men tow the corpse to dispose of it, my housekeeper, Mariana, starts cleaning the carpet. With a sigh, she kneels down to rub at the blood-stained fabric. She knows I’m not an ice-cold killer, even if I’ve contributed to spilled blood more times than is good for me. Mariana doesn’t agree with how I handle my business. That’s okay. I’m not satisfied with it, either, but I’m stuck too deep in this shit already.
When she finishes, I walk over to the giant map printed on my wall and get to work. Three shipments of cocaine are expected to arrive tomorrow night in the haven of Veracruz, loaded with fresh goods from Colombia and Venezuela.
I don’t know the guy pulling the strings. Maybe a new player on the field. I need a backup plan in case the handover turns out to be a disaster like the last one, which ended in six killings, all because of an innocent boy roaming the area and blowing our cover. The fact that I couldn’t save him from the bullet hitting his chest gives me nightmares. It took a lot of blackmailing on my part to sweep that one under the rug and not alert the executive to the mess we made.
I’m so lost in my work that I flinch when my phone rings. Emilio is calling.
“There was a murder in an apartment near the Fuerte Baluarte Museum. A woman got stabbed. She’s dead.” The phone nearly slips from my hands. What the fuck is going on today? “The neighbors alarmed the police. We interrogated a few already.”
“And?”
“They claim to have seen a man running out of the building shortly after they heard a woman screaming. We got a few descriptions that might help us.”
“Find him, Emilio. Find him before the police do and do what you get paid for, so I’ll finally get some fucking answers!” I shout into the speaker.
Emilio mumbles a hasty, “Of course, boss.”
I’m close to hurling my phone through the room but reign in my anger, making a few calls instead. As it turns out, the victim was Sofia Sánchez, forty-three years old, Spanish heritage. She worked as a curator in the Fuerte Baluarte Museum and made a living as an artist. Sofia lived in Florida until she came to Mexico five years ago and married Isidro Sánchez, who’s mysteriously missing since the murder.
The woman got stabbed with a kitchen knife and bled out on the floor. My informant, Victoria, tells me there was only one stab wound in her abdominal area, which surprises me. Murders happening in the heat of the moment usually end up with multiple stabs, bullets, or hits. If you want to kill someone with a knife, you either slit their throat or make sure to hit enough times, so death occurs quickly. An accident, maybe?
An hour later, Emilio informs me that they’ve caught the suspect. I rise from my chair when my two best men drag in the second man this day, but this time, he’s in better shape and can walk by himself.
He writhes and kicks as Javier hustles him into the chair, his torn shirt hanging low on one shoulder. “Get your hands off me, asshole!” he shouts at Javier, who doesn’t like being called names.
In a swift move, Javier snaps a switchblade open, pressing it against the guy’s throat. “What did you call me?” he demands in a threatening undertone.
“Javier,” I caution as I position myself in front of them, and Javier’s jaw clenches at my order. Making sure the guy stays put, Javier rests a warning hand on his shoulder.
I study the man. Not one of the big fish. A nobody. His clothes are cheap, and his Rolex is fake. Emilio hands me his briefcase already splitting at the seams and containing a measly nine hundred pesos.
“Isidro Sánchez,” I drawl when I glance at his driver’s license, and I pull out a picture of a woman. A pretty thing with black hair and dark-brown eyes. “Your wife?”
His nostrils flare, but tears well up his eyes. “I didn’t kill her. I would never hurt my Sofia,” he says firmly, his voice wavering slightly.
“Why did you run, then?” Isidro looks lost for a moment, glancing at Emilio and Javier as if weighing his options. Curling my hands around the armrests of his seat, I lower my head to be at eye level. “Do you know who I am?”
Isidro’s eyes flicker between mine, and he swallows hard. He’s afraid. I can smell the fear in his sweat. Good.
“Daniel DeLuca,” he replies with a slight tremble.
I nod. “Then you know that I’m a very, very busy man, Isidro. So, I ask you again.” I pause, inclining my head. “Why did you run?”
He swallows again before answering. “He came to our apartment.”
“Who?�
�
“He was Spanish. I’ve never seen him before. I heard Sofia shout at someone and wanted to run to her, but when I glanced around the corner, I saw a guy cornering Sofia. He was armed. Sofia threatened him with a knife.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, short black hair, a stubble. Probably in his forties. He wore jeans and a gray suit jacket. Looked like a rich ass.” Everyone on the dark side is a rich ass here. His description gives me nothing useful.
“What was the fight about?”
“About one of Sofia’s paintings.”
“A valuable one?”
Isidro shakes his head. “Sofia was a decent artist, but she never made a fortune with her art. For all I know, they could have been talking about a painting that wasn’t hers. The guy screamed at her to tell him where she’d hidden it.”
“So, they knew each other?”
“Yeah. He called her by her name. Sofia dared him to come near her, threatening to kill him. Said she’d never tell him where the painting was, and then…” Isidro stops, his voice trembling.
“Then?”
“The guy stepped closer, and Sofia swung the knife but suddenly… suddenly the knife was in her stomach.” His voice breaks. “The guy panicked.”
“What happened then?”
“I… I screamed and attracted their attention, and he pulled out a gun, so I…”
“You ran,” I conclude.
Isidro averts his gaze, guilty eyes drawn to the floor. “I didn’t know what to do. He would have killed me, too!” He gives me a pleading look as if expecting my approval for his actions.
I clench my fists trying not to lose control over my hands that want to multiply the bruises on his face. What a coward.
“Any idea who he was?” He shakes his head. “Did Sofia have any enemies? People she was on bad terms with?”
“No. Everyone loved Sofia. She had a good heart and did a lot for the community.”
And yet, she hid a secret that made her an enemy. “Sofia lived in the states before she moved to Mexico. What do you know about her life in Florida?”