But I wouldn’t let him off the hook. Not for this.
I shifted my focus to the other side of the equation—Cristiano. Why was he back? Where had he gone? What had given him the confidence to return with a million-dollar bounty on his head?
“I didn’t even know Cristiano was still in the country,” I said.
Tepic ashed his cigarette. “Me neither.”
“Who are the Calaveras?” I asked.
Diego and Tepic exchanged looks. “You mind if I smoke?” Diego asked me. “I could use one.”
“I don’t care,” I said, drawing back. “Are they a cartel?”
“Stay,” Diego murmured, one arm around my shoulders while Tepic passed him a cigarette. As he stuck it in his mouth and lit it, he nodded. “Calavera is a cartel that came to power while you were away,” he said, exhaling smoke, “and has been growing at an exponential rate. They move narcotics too, but they’re mainly in arms trafficking, like my father was, and extremely private—”
“As they are violent,” Tepic added.
“They’re like a gang of misfits from all over,” Diego said. “Tightly knit. Supposedly make big decisions as a whole. But also a little cultish over their leader.”
“Cristiano?” I asked. “And you didn’t know it was him?”
“I didn’t even know he was back.” Diego shook his head. “Their leader was anonymous until now. Most likely hiding behind a front to keep his identity secret.”
“Because of my family?” I guessed. “If we’d known where to find him, it would’ve been Cristiano up there just now.”
“I assume so.” Diego took a drag, squinting ahead. “The question is why Cristiano’s back, what he wants, and how he pulled this off. I have no doubt he’s filled Costa’s head with lies.”
“Even with that display, you still think Cristiano’s guilty?” Tepic asked.
“I don’t think it.” Diego pressed his lips into a thin line. “I know it.”
“You would too if you’d seen what we did,” I told Tepic. Cristiano had killed my mother. If I’d walked in a couple minutes earlier, I probably would’ve witnessed it. Why was father denying it, and in front of such important people? “It must be blackmail.”
“Wow, Tali. Good thinking.” Tepic stopped pacing, looking from me to Diego. “That’s got to be it, hasn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t put it past my brother.” Diego nuzzled my hair. “He was always dangerous, but if the rumors are true, Cristiano became something else entirely after he fled here.”
I kissed Diego’s cheek. Sometimes I forgot that the day I’d lost my mom, he’d essentially lost a brother. “What rumors?” I asked. “The ones I heard were mostly in regard to his whereabouts.”
“It’s, ah,” Diego grimaced, “not really suitable for your ears.”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out another way,” I said. It brought me no joy to hear graphic details about the man who continued to haunt me, but if he was back in our lives, then I had to know what I was dealing with.
“The Calaveras aren’t like us,” Diego said. “We grew up here. Our home is our identity. These transients from all over the world are here to take advantage of our market.” He waved smoke from around my head. “They have no loyalty and no home—literally. Since they didn’t have a location to operate out of, they took a town about an hour north of here.”
“What do you mean they took it?” I asked.
“Like a hostile takeover. The Calaveras seized it to run their operations. Raped the local women, pillaged and stole businesses, enslaved their people.” Diego checked my expression. “Now, the whole town is walled off on three sides, and the back abuts a mountainside. Some sadistic shit goes on in the Badlands, I’ll bet.”
“Badlands?” I asked.
“That’s what some people call it. Rough terrain.” Tepic wiggled his fingers like a witch. “Las puertas del infierno.”
The gates of hell. That sounded familiar. Suddenly, the designation Badlands rang a bell. I’d heard it before but couldn’t remember where. “He made his own town?”
“More or less. There are homes and businesses within its walls, but who knows what’s true or legitimate. As far I know, nobody has ever escaped, nor has anyone infiltrated and lived to tell the tale.”
“They’re like a cult,” Tepic said, waving his cigarette toward the house with a grimace. “Satanic rituals and shit. They eat snails, speak in tongues, sacrifice virgins, throw rotten fish at whores, that kind of stuff.”
I widened my eyes. I’d heard a lot of cartel-related fact that better resembled fiction, but nothing involving any of that. “How do you know all that if nobody’s ever escaped?”
“Who knows how rumors start?” Tepic said. “But I don’t doubt what I’ve heard. I just feel bad for the women trapped there who—”
“Tepic,” Diego warned. “Stop. You’re scaring her.”
I would’ve had to believe all that to be afraid, and I wasn’t sure I did. Rotten fish? Speaking in tongues? It sounded pretty far-fetched. Although, I started to vaguely recall a news story from years earlier about a foreign cartel that operated differently than others. Its boss had a long, international reach and an even longer rap sheet. It’d claimed he’d never been photographed or named and had taken more bullets than he had drugs in his lifetime—and survived.