Page 17 of Chris

Chris would keep that in mind.

He might need it.

The private jet took a good twenty minutes to taxi to the correct gate where they could finally unbuckle and grab their bags from the cupboards at the front. Chris grabbed his own, a larger bag, than his father’s overnight travel duffle. If all went right, the overnight bag was all his father would need here, because Gian wouldn’t be staying more than a day or two.

They had to play their cards right.

“Merci,” Gian thanked the pilot at the front in French.

It was a toss-up with his father, and even his twin, or their oldest sibling, Marcus, which language they might use to talk. Chris was handy with English and Italian, but he had never picked up on French, for whatever reason.

Chris exited the plane after his father, giving the pilot a nod as he passed. He didn’t know where the flight attendant had disappeared to, but he didn’t care, either. At the bottom of the stairs, assault rifles in hand, stood three men dressed in matching outfits of denim jeans, and black shirts.

“Ah, good,” Gian muttered under his breath, “the cartel followed through.”

Chris swallowed the discomfort in his throat. “Good.”

It was unnerving when someone realized just how much control the cartels in Mexico— there were two major organizations that had long been in battle against one another—had in the country. From the government, to small businesses in the towns they used to make or smuggle their drugs through, it didn’t matter.

Blackmail.

Bribery.

Violence.

Cartels were not a game.

And here the Guzzis were, ready to play one with them.

Fun.

“Gian Guzzi?” the man standing ahead of the other two asked, his accent heavy.

“That would be me,” Chris’s father returned.

The man nodded. “We’ll walk you through customs, sir, and take you to the drop.”

The drop.

Huh.

They weren’t even calling it a meeting today.

Good to know.

“This is not the compound.”

Chris’s declaration to his father was quiet and said before the guards who had already stepped out of the vehicle opened the back door for them to exit the car. He had to say it while he had the chance because he wasn’t sure what to expect here. Sure, the Lòpez cartel had not offered many details about where or how they would do business, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable going in blind, either.

“Let’s get the pleasantries out of the way first,” Gian said quickly, “and then we’ll worry about what is going on here, oui?”

Chris sighed. “All right.”

He only knew the yellow brick mansion with the terracotta roof, surrounded by a large stone fence where armed guards stood staring down at their vehicle, wasn’t the Lòpezs’ infamous compound because of The League. The aerial views The League had provided of the cartel’s home base was neither in the middle of a busy city, nor were there any mansions on the property. Small homes, stables, barns, and a few other buildings out in the middle of nowhere, but not this.

“Step out,” one of the guard’s said when he came to open the rear passenger door for Gian and Chris. “And they will open the gate for you to enter the grounds.”

Chris had a million and one questions to ask, but he stayed silent because this wasn’t his show. His father was the one who had come here as the front man, so to speak. He was the boss, the one wanting to make a deal with the cartel, and Chris was nothing more than muscle at his father’s side.