Alejandro
São Paulo, Brazil
Isit back in my chair and hold up the ring to the overhead light.
It’s been a long fucking day. I just got home and came straight to my office to get a few moments to myself.
Cristiano should be here soon to check in. He was in the city today with the other lieutenants. I’m sure he’s going to be very interested to hear my updates.
After I left Eric this morning, I had several things to check out that took up the rest of the day. Now I’m home, and everything is weighing down on me again with the same fucking question of who El Diablo really is.
The idea of any of the men in my family returning from the dead, or essentially staging their deaths, couldn’t be more farfetched, but I’m at the point where I’m clutching at straws. The same way I was after my sister was stolen from us and trafficked to sex slavers. I didn’t stop looking for her until I found her bones under the floorboards of some bastard’s shed in Montana. It took me three years to get to that point, and all the while I looked, I knew she was dead. I just needed the evidence.
There has been so much grief and pain in my life. Too much loss and danger. I don’t want Mia to live in danger, so I have to put an end to this.
Since no one has ever managed to successfully hide from me the way El Diablo has, I have to factor in all possibilities.
To hide from me, you have to know me. To know me, you have to get close to me, and I was close to all the men in my family. Because of that it’s hard to imagine anyone who could hate Eduardo and me enough to want us dead, but money, as I know, makes people greedy.
The desire to own the oil company— Petróleo—is enough to turn a man against his family.
Petróleo is the largest petroleum producer in Brazil. Until Eduardo and I took control, the government owned the ruling share interest and the rest was divided across private agencies. My godfather was one of those agents.
When he died, he left us his shares. We struck a deal with the others they couldn’t refuse and bought them out. Then the day came when we saw an opportunity to take the whole fucking company. We already owned Equibras, the two-hundred-year-old multibillion-dollar gas company our family built from the ground up, and we had BioCina, the pharmaceutical company which forms the foundation of the cartel. Owning Petróleo was supposed to be the epitome of the Ramirez family. Our legacy.
It was me who discovered five of the ministers and governors involved in a prostitution ring. I threatened to go public or keep quiet for a price.
That’s how Eduardo and I ended up owning Petróleo.
We split the ownership evenly, but he divided his between himself, Priscilla, and Mia. We wanted our ownership kept a secret because we knew the type of problems it would cause if word got out.
Now I’m not sure who contacted whom first, but my theory is this: since El Diablo was keeping tabs on us, he would have known about the transaction, and that was the moment he enlisted Micah Santa Maria.
Of course, he had help from my government friends who would have struck up some deal to benefit them all. The only way to get the company back is if we’re dead and there are no heirs. The agreement was, if that was the case, the company would go back to the government.
That’s how I know they have to be involved, too. I just don’t know which of them are. It would always be better for them to own a portion of a company like that than nothing at all.
The only minister Micah corresponded with supposedly killed himself weeks after I started investigating him. The others know nothing, and I’m only keeping them alive in case they can lead me back to El Diablo.
Apart from getting Micah out of the picture, the only thing I’ve managed to do is take legal measures to protect Mia. That way, if I die, she has protection until her eighteenth birthday.
I set up an irrevocable living trust for her to own my shares in Petróleo. I also gridlocked the transfer conditions so if she dies before she turns eighteen, everything goes to the Syndicate. I left everything else I own to her on my death.
That was the last ace left up my sleeve, and no one is supposed to know about that.
A knock sounds on my door, cutting into my thoughts. I straighten just as the door swings open and Cristiano walks through carrying a large brown envelope.
The smile on his face recedes when he takes in my hard-edged expression.
“What happened?” he asks.
“This.” I hold out the ring for him to take. When he does, his eyes bulge, and he runs a hand through his thick dark curls.
“Fucking hell. Where’d you get this?”
When he pulls up a chair, I fill him in on Eric’s findings.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?” He looks as confused as I feel.