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Luis cuffed his son on the back of the head, nearly sending Matteo to the floor. “Grown-ups are talking, Matteo,” Luis said without taking his eyes off me. “I told you to hold your tongue and watch.”
I smirked but didn’t rise to taunt the boy in return. That would make Luis think that I was beneath him. “I’m waiting for your answer, Luis,” I said. “Why now?”
Luis sighed. “I’m tired,” he said, “of the competition. Our fighting cuts into both of our profit margins. Think of how much more we could achieve if we stopped trying to cut each other off at the knees?”
I didn’t believe a word of it. “So, this has nothing to do with the retribution that I owe you for the men that are dead because of you?”
The older man waved his hand, as if I was overreacting. “I apologize for the misunderstandings between our families,” he said. “I think I have a solution that will benefit both of us, if you’re willing to listen.”
I was going to make this man swallow his own tongue. “Of course, we will listen.”Fuck. Padre settled beside me, and it was everything that I could do to keep my face and body neutral. If I tensed for a second, he would notice, and it would cost me when we got home. “I told you he wanted peace, did I not?”
“Si, Padre,” I said through my teeth.
“I didn’t think that you were coming, Gustavo.” He pointed at me, and I dug my nails into my palms in an effort not to snap it. “This one said that you trusted his judgment.”
“I do,” Padre said, “but the appointment that I had was pushed back an hour, and I was intrigued with the business opportunity that you mentioned. I’d like to hear it.” He looked at me. “We both would.”
I didn’t want to hear it. I imagined the man’s head separated from his goddamn shoulders, but with Padre here, there wasn’t much that I could do. “Tell us,” I said.
Luis glanced at Matteo, who had been absorbing the exchange in silence since his earlier rebuke. “As you know, we have a sizable business in…transportation, and we don’t have the manpower to keep it running along with our other ventures. We would like to turn over this business to you.”
“Transportation?” I asked. From the intel we had on the Rojas, I knew they had their hands in a little bit of everything. Where we had dug into one market — moving substances — and used legitimate business to shield that movement, the Rojas dabbled. But I hadn’t heard of them smuggling.
Luis nodded. “We help those who wish to enter the country do so and find work once they’re on American soil.”
A pit opened in my stomach. “Trafficking,” I said.
Padre squeezed my arm. “We’re in public,mijo,” he said without looking at me. “Watch what you say.”
My face burned. I’d forgotten where we were for a moment. I bobbed my head in acknowledgment, but my eyes didn’t leave Luis. “This employment you help them find,” I said, “is the kind they can leave at any time?”
Luis shrugged. “If they’ve repaid our fees associated with their relocation, they’re free to go. We’re not in the business of keeping people against their will.”
I didn’t believe that for a second. “How long does it normally take for someone to pay off what they owe?”
Luis shrugged, a pleasant smile still etched onto his face. “The duration is set by the person owing the money, isn’t it? How hard they work directly translates to how long they have to work.”
No one has ever freed themselves — that’s what his words told me. I looked at Padre, and nausea rolled through me. He was smiling. “Padre, you can’t be serious.” He glanced at me, surprised by the objection. “Padre —”
But how could I say why I objected? To admit that the idea of selling anyone, sellingwomen, made my stomach turn would be a weakness.Never show your enemy what you love or what you fear, I thought. It was one of the first lessons that my father taught me.
But the image of my mother, slumped against the side of the tub, was burned in my mind; her blood had turned the water pink. Her eyes were open, and I would never forget the lifeless, gray haze in them. She had been gifted to my father because her family thought they could trade her for a better life. She’d survived under my father’s hands for as long as she could, but there was no way out of this life for her. From the moment she became his wife, she was trapped. I would never understand what was the tipping point, but something about her life had become so bad that she decided that she only had one solution left.
I couldn’t be a part of an industry that broke people like that. My mother’s spirit would haunt me for the rest of my life if I did.
But I couldn’t say any of that to Luis Rojas. My father would see my body disposed of in the Everglades first.
“They shot at Manny,” I said instead, pushing myself to my feet. “They killed half a dozen of my men trying to kill me.” I looked at Luis and Matteo and then at my father. “There will never be peace between our families.”
I walked away from the table knowing that whatever punishment Padre would conceive for me would be bad. Not fatal, hopefully, but bad. In the parking lot, I pulled out my phone and called Emma. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to hear from you today,” she said when she picked up.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Usually if I don’t see you before breakfast, you don’t come home until after I go to bed,” she pointed out. “Are you okay? You normally don’t call like this.”
She was far too observant for her own good. “What if I just wanted to hear your voice,mi esposa?”
Emma scoffed. “That isn’t it,” she said. “So what’s wrong?”
