Page 61 of Cartel Prince

It’s Enrique who speaks up. “She found out, but I’m confident she didn’t know beforehand.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because Néstor had four knife wounds when Alejandro found him. They were deep but not anywhere fatal. It was punishment. He admitted he was at your mother’s house when Icalled him. I wanted to hear his excuses before I sent Alejandro to visit him.”

To visit.

That’s diplomatic.

“She overheard the conversation. Apparently, she waited until after I hung up to strike. She kicked him out of the house. As he staggered onto the street, she got in her car. She nearly ran him over, but he got outside the gate and stayed on the sidewalk where she couldn’t hit him. His driver took him home. Alejandro paid a house call.”

“Tío, why did he help Humberto?”

“Humberto swore he had far more money than he did. He claimed he had enough to buy legislative members and influence taxation laws to levy higher ones on industries we don’t dominate. He told Néstor he could bankroll his bid for president.”

Pablo scoffs. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. I guess Humberto really was as delusional as Pablo claimed the other day. Apparently, Néstor was in the same boat. He was always an ambitious guy who loved having my beautiful mother on his arm for events but wouldn’t commit in case someone better came along. Someone who wasn’t a single mother with a former lover who was a failed, murdered narco-trafficker. Someone younger. Someone with more money. Someone who could give him perfect children for posters and junkets. I definitely wasn’t the right person to go on those publicly funded political tours.

“What happened to Néstor?”

There’s dead air on both ends of the call. Enrique says nothing, and Pablo just looks at me.

“Okay. So, he’s dead. Good.”

“Good?” Pablo didn’t expect my response.

“I never liked the creepycabrónaround my mother. He made my skin crawl whenever he cornered me.”

“Cornered you?”

If I didn’t know Pablo wasn’t directing his silent rage at me, it would scare the shit out of me. It’s like watching a wall drop in his eyes. His gaze doesn’t appear distant, but it’s like he’s void of all emotion. I only sense his anger because of that change. I’m looking at the man ready to kill for me. The man who has killed for me. I’m looking at the man who did unspeakable things in that basement. The one who has done it before and will do it countless times again.

Is this who I want to have children with? The person I want to make a life with?

As I stare at him, those questions roll around in my mind. The longer I assess him, the more remote his gaze becomes. He must know what I’m considering. It’s like he’s challenging me. He’s daring me to walk away.

I don’t like this coldness. It hurts. It’s pushing me away.

It’s also giving me a choice. Pablo wants me to know what I’m getting myself into. He can’t admit these things aloud, so he’s letting me see it. I don’t believe this is who I’ll come home to. I don’t believe this is how he’ll be with me. I think he’d rather keep me far from this. But I need to know. Make an informed decision.

I nod once before I rest against him again. I wrap my arm around his waist, and he relaxes. He’d tensed as he waited for my decision.

I remember he expected an answer to whether Néstor cornered me.

“Yeah.”

“Tío?”

“I’m sorry, but Alejandro already spoke to him.”

Enrique’s apologizing because Pablo doesn’t get to kill him on my behalf. Doesn’t get to defendhis woman. That’s archaic,but fuck if I don’t find the idea of being Pablo’s woman arousing as fuck.

“What aboutPapá?”

“Luis’s visit was successful too. He learned what he needed from theNuevos Reyes.”

The New Kings—one of the deadliest street gangs in all of Colombia. Theircapitánis serving like ten life sentences with no possibility of parole. He planned and led a raid on a house owned byelcapitán deToros Callejeros—the Street Bulls’ leader. They massacred them. Like slaughtered them.

If Luis visits that man in prison and directly holds influence over him, then I wonder who the true mastermind was. Hell, if he can get visitation with anyone atla alcantarilla—the sewer, the nickname for the worst of the worst prisons—then he really has divine powers.El Espíritu Santoat work.