Page 70 of Bad Blood

“The stolen shipment and dead workers were the opening act to their shitshow. There’s more.”

“How much more?”

There’s a tense pause and then, “The main event.”

* * *

The main event consists of seventeen dead girls—stripped of their clothing and dignity and dumped like garbage in a forty-foot shipping container.

Some as young as ten, some as old as twenty litter a dark, damp mausoleum. Some healthy, others starved to nothing but a layer of skin and bones. Some with painted faces and nails while others wear the gaunt mask of poverty.

Death doesn’t discriminate. It just takes.

“Did they arrive this way?” I ask, unable to look away from their faces.

Frozen in fear for eternity.

Nodding, RJ palms the back of his neck. “Rocco got here first. He’s the one who discovered the missing shipment and this…” He jerks his head toward the stench, as if unable to stomach another look. “When he opened the container, the bodies had already started to…”

He doesn’t finish. We both know what he means.

Decompose.

“That didn’t come from Guadalajara,” I say.

No one in Mexico would dare to traffick women behind my father’s back. His fight to end it resulted in the origins ofLa Boda Roja.

The Red Wedding.

The start of everything.

“No,” RJ agrees, sliding his hand up to rub the back of his closely cropped black hair. “But someone sure as hell wanted it to look that way.”

My mind flashes back to a conversation four floors below Legado’s marble surface

“No, wait!” Bardi’s tied limbs thrash in the chair. “That’s not everything! If you kill me, you’ll never know what he has planned!”

“He?”

“Edier Grayson,” he says hesitantly. “That’s who shot up your casino, right?”

Son of a bitch…

“Not someone,” I grit out as another piece of the puzzle clicks into place. “Grayson.”

RJ’s thick dark eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “Not Santiago?”

“Even Santiago wouldn’t stain his hands in trafficked blood. The man has left a trail of body parts from here to Romania for over thirty years in revenge for shit like this.” At RJ’s sideways glance, I tighten my jaw. “Personal reasons.”

“You think Grayson has thecojonesto go against him?”

“Cojones? No. Reckless ignorance? Yes.”Even the smallest taste of power can do damage.“We’re the second generation of this war, RJ. You included. Sometimes as it evolves, so do values.”

Neither of us speaks again. Partly out of anger, but mostly out of respect. Seventeen innocent girls just became a casualty of a war they knew nothing about. They were someone’s daughter… Someone’s sister…

And my final straw.

The reverence is shattered by a shrill ring coming from my pocket. I don’t bother to pull out my phone and see who’s calling.