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Franco doesn’t need much encouragement to eat Horatio’s surprisingly good meal of pasta and salad. Then we patiently review all three potential schools until he tiredly settles on one. After taking him to bed and tucking him in, I leave his room to find Horatio waiting at the base of the stairs.
“How can I be sure that Franco will be safe?” I demand without descending one damn step. A glance around the scowling guard reveals that his master isn’t anywhere in sight, leaving poor Horatio as the only one to vent my frustration on.
Unfortunately for me, he is a formidable opponent. Without showing a hint of emotion, he shrugs and heads for the door. “Come.”
He’s already storming down the front walkway by the time I start to follow. A sleek luxury vehicle is waiting in the round driveway. Inside it sits another passenger, already waiting for me to join him. One look and I nearly trip in my rush to greet him.
“Damn, Pita,” Pedro murmurs with a wary glance in Horatio’s direction. “All this cloak-and-dagger shit is working on my nerves. I’d kill for an oxy right about now.”
He helps me settle onto the seat beside him, smoothing my rumpled skirt into place.
“I’m sorry,” I say hoarsely. “I am. I can’t believe I’ve dragged you into this mess.”
He laughs. “It’s not all bad, sweetheart. I have a penthouse room with a view and a private concierge at my beck and call.”
“But you have a knife at your throat,” I add.
We both do.
“Cheer up,puta,” he says with a sigh. “At least we get some free shit out of it, no?”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or serious. In any case, it’s mere minutes before we arrive at an upscale hotel so luxurious I’m sure that renting a room costs the same amount as some small houses.
“Okay, we’re alone now, Pita,” Pedro says once we’re sequestered in a private sauna. Jaguar booked us a full private suite complete with an army of masseuses ready to make us limber from head to toe. Clad in only a towel, Pedro leans back against the tanned wood composing the sauna’s interior and props one of his feet on the bench beside him. He stares sternly at me, his dark hair falling into his eyes as he demands, “What the fuck is going on?”
“God, I don’t know.” I cup my face in my hands and inhale the warm air basting us from all sides. It does little to make me feel any steadier. My heart flutters like a caged bird, desperate to break free. All I can do is lay out the most pressing issues in a way Pedro can understand. “There’s this mess with Braulio and Tiena—”
“Speaking of that, I learned something,” Pedro interjects, his expression grim. “I had a hunch, so I did some digging. I was planning on telling you all this before Jaguar insisted on my impromptu vacation, but here it is… Tiena cleaned out her bank account, Pita, not even a week before she went missing. A clear-cut cash withdrawal. She must have fucked some banker good to make that happen so quickly.”
“Or perhaps, an accountant,” I say, picturing the man with whom I’d been held captive in Gatita’s cage. An icy chill washes over me as I recall the confusing way he’d looked at me the first time I met him in his office. Like he’d recognized me.
Or, in any case,Tiena.
“Whoever she used, the bitch cleaned house,” Pedro says. “Bank accounts gone. Credit cards maxed out. She even left her cell phone at Braulio’s mansion, but, in spite of all that, I don’t think she’s dead. She’s done this before, remember?” He scoffs when I remain silent.
Of course, I remember the last time Tiena went off the grid. One could say it’s becoming a habit of hers.
“I do,” Pedro snarls, taking over the narration of this particular tale. “Not even a month after she gave birth to poor Franco, the bitch vanished. Left her own baby screaming in that big house with Braulio.”
“I remember,” I say, wincing at the memory. Infuriated and enraged, Braulio had called me and demanded I either find Tiena or watch “her screaming fucking brat.” I was there for over a month until, one day, Tiena waltzed through the front door, smiling as though she’d been gone for five minutes.
“This is the second time she’s left Franco behind,” I point out. There goes whatever goodwill I might have still held for her. “I’m sure she heard about the attack on Braulio’s safe house, but she hasn’t even bothered to check in on her own son.”
“That’s why he has you, honey,” Pedro says. “You’re the one who should be his mother. Not her.”
“That’s what Jaguar seems to think,” I croak.
“What do you mean?”
I inhale before blurting in a rush, “I mean, he knows I’m not Tiena, and yet he’s still treating me like I’m Franco’s mother.”
Pedro whistles through his teeth, but it’s not quite the horrified reaction I expected. “Well, we know he’s smart as hell. Anyone with eyes can see how much you love that little boy.”
“Did you learn anything else?” I ask Pedro, shrugging off his comment. I was hoping changing the subject would make me feel better, but I’m more jittery than before. “Like where Tiena might have gone?”
Pedro shakes his head. “You know Tiena. She’s craftier than I want to give her credit for. I couldn’t find a single fucking trail. Except for the last place she was seen.”
“Braulio’s?”
