My uncle sighs heavily. “You and me, both.”
“How do you live with yourself?” I ask, shaking my head.
To my surprise, my uncle doesn’t get angry. Instead, he gives me a smile full of sorrow and shakes his head. “With a lot of alcohol. It’s not easy living with the terrible things I’ve done in life.” He claps me on the shoulder and then stands. “In time, I hope you will be able to forgive me for my sins against both you and your mother.” With that, he walks over to the other side of the plane and takes a seat, as it hurtles down the runway.
I rest my head back against the headrest and shut my eyes, hating flying ever since the first time I did it.
As the plane takes off from the runway, it feels like I’m that scared little kid again, leaving Mexico behind and my dead mother.
Hernandez is insane if he honestly believes I’ll ever forgive him for killing her. She may have betrayed him, but she was his blood.
And I don’t believe everything he says.
Just because she was sleeping with a Vasquez, it doesn’t mean she was betraying her brother.
Did he even give her the option to explain?
I highly doubt it.
As the plane makes its ascent into the air, I try to forget it all and fall into an uneasy sleep.
I don’t wake until the plane bumps down four hours later at a small private airstrip just outside of Reynosa, the town where I was born.
My uncle is already up on his feet, ordering his three men he bought along with him.
It’s not often that Hernandez makes the trip back to Mexico, even though his bosses live here.
He may be Don Hernandez in Chicago, but down here he answers to Don Pablo, boss of the Estrada Cartel in Mexico and his cousin.
“Come on, Elias. We haven’t got long here.”
I rub my eyes and then stretch my arms over my head before jumping to my feet and following my uncle out of the plane. “Why don’t we have long?” I ask.
“Because the Vasquez cartel runs this territory, and we don’t want them to know about our presence.”
My brow furrows. “Since when do the Vasquez Cartel run Reynosa?”
“Not long after we left, they took control.” His jaw clenches. “Your mother had given them all the information for them to snatch it from us. It’s why we left in such a hurry.” He shrugs. “As well as the lucrative Gurin deal my cousin had bartered with Mikhail Gurin.”
I swallow hard, as the more I learn about that time, it appears the more Natalya’s family had less and less to do with the reasons for my move.
Without another word, I get into the back of the town car awaiting us and stare out of the window.
Uncle joins me and we make the silent ride toward the city center graveyard, where my mom was buried.
I didn’t get to attend her funeral, but I know she was buried in the family plot, even if she was a traitor.
“Does the rest of the family know she was a traitor?” I ask, glancing at my uncle.
Hernandez nods. “It was Pablo who learned the truth. He had her followed to confirm his suspicions.”
I clench my jaw, realizing that if it was Don Pablo that found out about his mother’s treachery, then there was nothing Hernandez could have done to save her.
I fall silent and watch the scenes of my home town rush past the window, feeling an odd sense of nostalgia as places I recognize rush past.
Places I’d been with my mom and dad before everything went to shit.
It takes a ten-minute drive until we arrive outside the ornate, wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. A cemetery I visited weekly with my mom, as she liked to lay flower on her parents’ grave.