Mr. Stormy Eyes would have been fun, but that ship sailed when I stole his lighter. Now, I was only interested in putting distance between us. We’d head back to New York in the morning, and I would be in the clear, never to see the man again.
Chapter 2
Primo
When I was a child, only about six years old, my mother drove us from our home in Hermosillo all the way to Mexico City on a pilgrimage to see the blessed Lady of Guadalupe, otherwise known as the Virgin Mary. My mother had talked about the iconic Mexican statue for years but was only able to make the trip when her employer, a wealthy Mexican businessman, gave her two weeks off while he took his family on an extended vacation abroad.
She explained that the statue was far more than art. Countless miracles were owed to prayers uttered at the holy site. My child’s mind heard what my mother said and imbued great powers upon the statue, seeing it as a glorified telephone to God’s house. I couldn’t wait to see it with my own eyes.
We lived in the servants’ quarters on a large estate and had few possessions of our own, but unlike many of the other staff, my mother had done well enough with her money to own a small car. We made the drive in three days. We stayed in shabby motels and ate the food she’d brought with us, except for the occasional splurge on ice cream or a soda along the way.
That trip was one of my best childhood memories. We sang along with songs on the radio and cuddled together in bed each morning before getting back on the road. My mother was my entire world, and spending uninterrupted quality time with her was a unique gift.
By the time we reached Mexico City, I was giddy with excitement to see the sacred statue that inspired our great adventure. The sight of it more than lived up to the hype. She was clad in a modest robe and floral gown, hands out welcoming the indigenous people around her, a halo of golden sunbeams radiating outward from behind her. With a rocky waterfall backdrop and artfully crafted water fountains arcing sprays of water all around her, the scene stirred something within me.
Several years later, I would disavow all that the sacred Lady stood for, but at that moment, I was in awe of her majesty. Her power and grace. I felt like laughing and crying at the same time, my skin humming with the sense of the supernatural around me.
I never experienced another feeling remotely like it in my twenty years since that day. Not until a certain petite brunette with questionable survival instincts decided she wanted to dance with the devil. It wasn’t necessarily unusual for a woman to approach me, but they rarely aroused more than my cock. Something about this woman sent an electric current pulsing through my veins. As a child, I would have sworn the sensation was owed to the hand of God. As an adult, I knew simple adrenaline and the unpredictability of body chemistry were to blame.
Something marked the woman as different from all the other pretty faces around her. Something that enabled her to trigger a reaction within me.
She was bold. Brazen. Confident.
It had taken all my faculties to control my response to her, and I hated it. I despised that someone could have that effect on me. I’d fought too long and hard for control of my life to hand over the reins to another person—especially a woman. They had a way of crippling even the strongest of men.
There was only one individual I answered to, and I owed him my life, so I was duty bound to take orders from him. I refused to allow this woman any power over me, no matter how seductive her efforts.
In what could only be a strategic play to maximize the beguiling effect of her green eyes, she wore a rich forest green dress to accentuate the jade and emerald highlights in her irises. The garment hugged her curvy figure, tying on one side like a package begging to be unwrapped. It wasn’t particularly revealing, which only made her that much more enticing. She knew the effect she had on men, and every inch of it was calculated.
She wasn’t just striking; she was fucking mesmerizing.
And if the sight of her wasn’t enough to capture a man’s interest, her sharp tongue was the ultimate lure. Men couldn’t help but take on a challenge, and she wouldn’t be reeled in easily. Winning her would be its own reward if a man was willing to fall into that trap. He may have won his prize, but at what cost? Falling for a woman would only make a man weak and give his enemies a weapon to use against him.
I would never hand myself over so easily.
As if on cue, the crowd at my table erupted in cheers, drawing me back to the present. I’d had a few hundred dollars riding on various bets at the craps table. The roller had hit paying numbers a dozen times in a row and was amassing quite the payout for his fellow players. Not one to push my luck, I took the opportunity to cash out and pocket my winnings.
I wasn’t a fan of gambling and preferred to put my money into ventures with guaranteed payouts. But milling around the casino without approaching a table made a man like me stand out, and I preferred to blend in, if at all possible.
Before I could step away from the table, my phone buzzed. No doubt it would be Naz checking in with me for an update. Nazario Vargas, known as El Zar, was my boss and had been a father figure since he took me in at the age of twelve. I was one of the few people allowed to call him by the familiar nickname, Naz. Anyone else who took such liberties ended up losing a finger.
I had expected him to call rather than wait until I reported back to him. His impatience chaffed, but I could do little about it. He trusted me as much as he trusted anyone, which wasn’t necessarily saying much. His hovering presence felt like a leash. I hadn’t been a child in need of supervision for a long time, but he couldn’t seem to accept that. He always expected the worst in people, but they often lived up to his expectations, so I couldn’t necessarily fault him. I wasn’t perfect, but if he could have relaxed around anyone, it should have been me. Yet he’d only gotten more paranoid as time went on.
I cleared a path away from the bank of gaming tables toward the edge of the room to get as far from the casino noise as possible.
“Yes, sir,” I answered as I walked.
“I just got off the phone with Juan Carlos. He said the Russians attacked and killed five of his men. I’m afraid the transition is not going as I’d hoped. How are things there in Vegas?”
“Everything’s gone well. If we need to follow through with our backup plan, it won’t be an issue.”
He was silent for a long moment, no doubt rubbing his chin the way he did when he was thinking. “I haven’t taken on something this big since I overthrew Martín Alvarez years ago. These things are never pretty, no matter how necessary.”
Naz was one of two leaders of the Sonora Cartel. Originally, three kingpins ran independent organizations under the alliance of the cartel, but before I came to live with him, Naz overthrew Alvarez and usurped his territory. I’d been told Alvarez came from a wealthy line of Spaniards, and he had thought himself superior to the other bosses. Naz had never talked to me about his motives, and I didn’t care. What I did know was that the takeover had been bloody, and Alvarez’s men had resisted the transition.
“You control nearly half of Mexico and eighty percent of the drug trade in the US. Are you certain the expansion is necessary?” I had to be careful with my words. Naz did not take kindly to others challenging him, but it wasn’t in my nature to go along blindly with a plan when it didn’t make sense. It was rarely an issue during the normal course of operations, but his expansion initiative was different. We were opening ourselves up to attack, and I wasn’t certain the payoff would be worth it.