Cristiano had forgotten the duffel on the bed, but enough cash and jewelry had gone missing from the safe to set him up for a long time.
Then there was the fact that nobody else could’ve come or gone from my mother’s bedroom that day without being seen. And that the mansion’s security system, including the cameras, had been magically disabled, which Barto claimed could only be done quickly and by someone familiar with it. Cristiano, who’d been one of the only guards with the highest security clearance at the time, had known it intimately. Then, getting access to my parents’ safe was nearly impossible—it would’ve taken someone close enough to the inside to find out that information.
That was as far as I let my mind go. Whatever struggle had caused the tear in Mamá’s dress and the bruises on her face—whatever had happened between the intruder entering the bedroom and me skipping in—I couldn’t think of without getting sick, so I never did. I knew it tortured Papá enough for the both of us.
And the final detail that didn’t add up was the small fact that a sicario didn’t kill of his own volition. He would’ve been hired. So if Papá believed Cristiano hadn’t done this, then who did? Who had the hitman worked for?
Some of the more conspiracy-minded newspapers back then had speculated rival cartels had done it instead of Cristiano, but growing up, I’d dismissed their theories without a second thought.
I stopped pacing. “Could any of this have to do with the Maldonado cartel?”
Diego frowned from a couple meters away. “Cristiano’s return?”
“No. My mother’s death.”
“The Maldonados didn’t exist back then.” Diego sat on the edge of the fountain, placed his cowboy hat next to him, and scrubbed a hand through his disheveled hair. “They’re newer. What do you know about them anyway?”
“Mostly what I’ve read in the news or what I overheard in the study the other day,” I said.
“I thought you wanted to stay out of all this.” He sucked on his cigarette, squinting at me as silky strands of his dark-cocoa hair fell around his cheekbones. “Yet as soon as you got here, you were already hiding in hallways like you did as a kid.”
“I want to live a respectable and honest life away from all this, but that doesn’t mean I want to be ignorant.” I couldn’t blame his quizzical look. When I was away at school and we spoke on the phone, I was ignorant. I’d ask about business because it was his life, but then I’d let him get away with cursory answers.
After my mother’s death, I’d no longer wanted to hear about the things I’d sought to know growing up—the handshake deals made over caramel flan with men visiting from exotic-sounding countries. The foreign sports cars, endless vices, and other spoils that came from feeding the world’s various drug addictions. The lost boys of the town that the cartel took under its wing, protecting and feeding them while training them like wards.
Back then, I’d do more than hide. I would seek information, curious about the dangers I was always kept from. I’d sneak away from the house and ride my bike a few kilometers to the sprawling, private ranch house on our property that housed boys and men like Diego and Cristiano. There, they’d learned everything about the business—including how to protect and kill for it. From a distance, I’d been introduced to the different kinds of arms and how to carry them. Other things happened in those training camps too, but those I didn’t stick around for. I hadn’t wanted to learn what could be worse than death.
As far as I knew, the ranch house had been empty since Papá had traded all that for less violence, going from rival cartels’ competition to their solution. They now paid him top dollar to move contraband across borders, and since he’d nearly monopolized the shipping market, he could be more discerning than most.
“My father can pick and choose who he associates with,” I said. “If he worked so hard to minimize risk and violence, why are we suddenly involved with two of the most dangerous cartels?”
“Calavera and Maldonado have nothing to do with each other,” Diego said, raising his eyes to mine.
“Are you sure?” I resumed pacing in hopes that moving would help the uneasiness building in me. “Maybe there’s some connection between them.”
“I don’t see how there could be. Maldonado is my thing. I brought them in.”
From what I’d heard in the office, it hadn’t sounded as if Papá had been completely on board. “It wasn’t my father’s call?”
“I brought the contract to him once it had all been arranged.” The orange tip of his cigarette flared with a drag. “He would’ve said no otherwise. Your dad wants to keep doing things as he’s always done, but that’s dangerous.”