Mateo tilted his head. “Suicide?”
A wicked grin spread across my face. “He’s been fucking someputawho’s snorted more of our profits than he’s moved. I’m sure his wife won’t mind.”
“Muy bien,” he nodded, accepting his task without argument.
After what was left of Nando was bagged and tagged, I’d have to reevaluate Mateo’s place in my hierarchy. Although he and I hadn’t known each other very long, he’d proved his loyalty repeatedly.
I briefly glanced at the destruction of my desk, now residing in chaos on the floor. “If that’s all...”
Mateo shifted his weight and cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing.”
I sighed. “Make it quick.”
He finally glanced at the paper he held in his hands and scratched his head. “One of our new dealers, Isabella, informed us that a repeat buyer in Maplewood has put four grams of our shipment up his nose. He’s in for about ten g’s and missed the last two drops. Do you want us to torch his place?”
I remained silent for a moment, processing the information. Normally, morons who snorted their paychecks meant very little to me. That’s why I had a crew. But with Nando disrupting the trust in my organization, I needed to send a message to our associates that we weren’t to be fucked with on any level.
“What would my father do?” I countered.
Mateo’s face paled. “He’d have them beheaded and mounted on a stick in the family’s yard.”
“True,” I said, the images I’d seen as a boy in Mexico giving me pause. “However, that’s hardly our style.” Shifting in my seat, the damn chair creaked, eliciting an involuntary clenching of my jaw. “But the debt makes us look weak, so it can’t go unpunished.”
I paused as my gaze roamed my desk and landed on the only thing that withstood my earlier mood swing—a framed picture of my father as a young man. His blackened eyes mocked me with silent words he’d ingrained into me before every beating: ‘Mercy doesn’t exist in our world. Mercy yields weakness, and weakness brings death.’
“Boss?”
I met Mateo’s stare. “Ten g’s?” He nodded. “Have Emilio pay our friend a visit and see what he’s managed to collect for a payment. For every grand he’s missing, he owes us a finger.”
“And if he has nothing?”
Leaning back, I loosened the top button on my collar. “I suppose our friend will need to find a new profession. I imagine it’s hard to hold a hammer with two bloody stumps.”
Without another word, Mateo nodded and left my office to handle business. It was half of what I liked about the guy. I gave orders and he shut his mouth and followed them. I needed more men like him in my operation.
“Fuck.” Surveying the broken glass on the floor, I watched the expensive tequila soak into the carpet, making no move to clean it up. As usual, my thoughts wandered to an unwanted distraction who’d managed to invade my day-to-day business more and more lately.
When I arrived in America, I assumed everyone had my same tastes and high standards. The first time I ordered a shot ofañejotequila in Houston, the bartender handed me a highball glass of chilled,blancopiss water garnished with a hunk of lime and a salt shaker. It was insulting. In Mexico, a man could get shot in the face for less. There seemed to be only one bartender in the entire Houston metro who could get it right, although I tried not to show my face there if I could help it.
Being there wasn’t safe or smart. Regardless of what she looked like in those shorts.
Chapter Two
Six Months Prior
VAL
Istoodin the corner of the cantina watching her long before I sat down. She wore an expression of a caged animal that had been poked with a stick one too many times. Leaning my back against a corner wall, I studied a line that sank deep between her eyebrows and the line of sweat that trickled down the back of her slender neck. Fascinated, I followed her busy hands as she poured drinks with marked precision without giving a thought as to what she was doing.
That took skill. I appreciated skill.
It’d been a long day making sure I had the district attorney’s office in my back pocket. Not that I couldn’t run my business around them, but having someone on the inside of the legal system made life a hell of a lot easier. The young assistant DA had been resistant, but everyone in this town had a weakness—the challenge was simply to find it.
And I never backed down from a challenge.
I needed to unwind in the quiet of my own house, but as much as I told myself I should stay away from a business I cleaned cartel money through, curiosity won out over common sense.
Since opening Caliente Cantina, my lieutenant, Emilio, had gone through no less than four bartenders. They weren’t particularly bad at their jobs; Emilio just had a problem with employer/employee lines. If he didn’t calm the hell down, his proclivities would cost me a sexual harassment lawsuit.
