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“Something’s come up,” he says. “We have to make a quick detour to Arizona.”

“What’s in Arizona?”

When Attila flicks his eyes to The Jekyll, I notice the look that passes between them. Like they’re unsure they should be talking about what we’re about to discuss. The Jekyll gives him a short nod then nestles his big frame into the bench seat.

“We’ve got a lead on the man who killed Marden’s sister,” Attila tells me.

I shrug, letting him know I don’t understand what that has to do with them.

“Marden’s sister Sisely also happened to be married to The Jekyll.”

My eyes go to the Jekyll in surprise. So many things make sense now. The anger humming inside the man. His willingness to do anything and everything to bring the cartel to justice, his own personal brand of vigilante justice.

Yet so many things still didn’t make sense. Like when Attila and The Jekyll started working together. I thought when I saw him in Guatemala, that would be the last interaction I would ever have with The Jekyll. Obviously not. So I decide to just throw it out there.

“I don’t understand. When did you two start working together?” I ask him.

“When I realized that we have a common enemy. Coyin Castillo.”

* * *

Coyin Castillo.The name falls like a mantra from Attila’s lips.

The bastard lives invisibly in the darkest shadows, emerging every few years to cause mischief and then going back underground. Reputedly responsible for at least two dozen murders, two of which happen to be my parents. And now, The Jekyll is on board because his wife was also killed by the cartel that can’t be touched. Coyin and his brother Miguel are as untouchable as the air swirling around us.

I’ve tried for years to find him, but I’ve had no luck. Every time I came within a hair of him, he would slip and slide like a snake until he slithered back into his wretched shadows. My hands have been itching for years to get a hold of him, ever since I turned eighteen and Durian Accardi handed me the file documenting everything he’d been able to find out about my parents’ murders. One name kept popping up. And that name was Coyin Castillo. The trigger man. He was a street punk then, doing the bidding for others. And he is a cartel leader now.

“What makes you think he’s in Arizona?” I ask.

“He isn’t,” Attila tells me. “But his daughter is.”

“His daughter?”

I give him an uncertain look. We’re not in the habit of hurting women.

“Relax Caleph,” he tells me. “She’s only the bait. The bait that will get us to Coyin Castillo.”

* * *