Page 57 of Chris

“For what?” Jorge replied over his shoulder.

“Me being here—what do I get to see next?”

Jorge turned, giving Chris a smile as he did so. “The tunnels, I think. There’s a good chance part of your father’s run will go through the tunnels, especially if ports of entry are too hot, or we can’t take it across an unwatched part of the border for whatever reason. The easiest way for me to show you the tunnels is to take you to one we don’t use a lot but was also one of the first ones my father ever had built.”

Huh.

“And when are we doing that?”

“A few days, likely,” Jorge replied, shrugging.

“Not sooner?”

“You forget that you are here on my time.” Jorge turned back to the fighting men, the bonfire glowing bright with flickering flames a few feet away from their position. “Which means, I also have work to do, and so I will deal with you and what your father wants when I have time to do it, Christopher.”

“I prefer Chris.”

“I don’t care.”

Yeah, he was aware.

Clearly.

He left the conversation alone if only because he didn’t think it would get him anywhere to keep needling Jorge about it. He lost any chance at civility with the man the first night they met when Jorge felt Chris had overstepped his bounds with his wife, anyway, and he doubted it would get better now.

Not that he gave a fuck.

He wasn’t here to make friends with Jorge.

Chris was getting antsy even though this job could take a while to complete. He hadn’t expected to be in Mexico for any more than two weeks, maybe three, at the most. Already, he had been here for two, and he didn’t see an end in sight. He didn’t have a way to get Valeria the hell out of here, but might those tunnels help his plan along?

Who knew?

His bigger problem was what would happen if the ruse ran its course, he had to leave, and he still didn’t have a way out for Valeria? What the fuck was he going to do?

“I think you’ll like the tunnels,” Jorge said absently.

Chris looked Valeria’s way again. Now, she wasn’t looking at him. That was okay, he only needed to see her. If she was okay that’s what he wanted to know. The rest, he would deal with as he could, or should.

What else could he do?

“I look forward to it,” Chris replied.

The bay window of the small living room in the house Chris was using on the Lòpez ranch during his stay allowed him a good view of the rest of the houses on the property, and all the walkways connecting them. It was a nice, practical design, if someone admired that sort of thing, but mostly, he felt the need to imprint it to memory.

If something happened, he would need to know all the things about this place. Should something cause chaos, and it was his only chance to get Valeria and Maria out, then he wanted to walk it with his fucking eyes closed.

No questions asked.

That was why, every single morning, he took an hour-long jog around the property. He went out, took pathways, and sometimes didn’t, and then came back to his house again. To the guards, or the family, it looked like nothing was amiss. He was focusing on his fitness, and little else.

That was fine.

It’s what he wanted them to think.

The ring of a cell phone took Chris’s attention away from the window, and the scenery outside. He didn’t bother to check the caller ID when he reached for the phone on the coffee table behind him, simply picked it up and answered it, thinking it would be his father, or twin.

Although, Corrado had been careful not to call since Chris was here. So was his brother’s way—always erring on the side of caution, rather than unpredictability. It was something he appreciated about his twin.