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Greta
Guns. Drugs. Mid-afternoon meet-and-greets at a psycho’s private estate in Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico.
God, this shit was boring.
It didn’t help that we’d decided to bring me along in the role of Amadeo Luciano’s girlfriend, so every one of Domínguez’s men kept looking at me like I was the blonde ditz of the group.
I sat at the outdoor table on the sprawling patio behind Domínguez’s estate, in between Deo andZiettoVito, sipping on an Americano—the alcoholic kind, not the coffee. Still, I preferred my liquor straight up, and mixing anything with club soda was just plain wrong. Yuck.
The dark-haired and heavily bearded Javier Domínguez sat across from Deo with a minion on either side of him. Neither of them had tats or shaved heads, so not the men from the warehouse. And there was no sign of ‘hot and twisted’ here today. He was probably busy dropping human heads into oil drums.
No girlfriend here, either. At least, there wasn’t until the patio doors of Domínguez’s massive estate opened and an attractive dark-haired woman stepped out. She was even taller than me, with ink down one arm and great curves tastefully accentuated in a short, flowy sheath. She had on a pair of sunglasses that looked like they’d walked right out of the 1950s, and they kind of made her look like an old-fashioned starlet. She was older than I’d been expecting—maybe late twenties, if I had to guess. That was interesting. Domínguez’s last girlfriend had barely been legal.
Domínguez smiled at her and waved her over.
“Excellent timing,mi vida,” he said, taking hold of her hand and pulling her down for a kiss. “Perhaps, you could takeSeñoritaAgossi on a tour of the gardens while we discuss business.”
Oh? Lucky me. Walking around like a bimbo, smelling flowers—what could possibly be more fun?
“Of course,mi amor,” she replied without the slightest hint of an accent.
An American? Interesting.
She turned to me and motioned for me to follow her.
Well, this was the point, right? Time to cozy up to the girlfriend.
I stood up, kissed Deo as chastely as I could get away with, and followed the woman away from the patio, toward a vast sea of color, broken up by a stone pathway that looked like it probably led right through it.
We walked in silence, with nothing but the buzzing of bees and the trickling of water somewhere nearby to break up the quiet. And while the air felt warm enough, there didn’t seem to be much warmth radiating from the woman walking next to me.
“So, aside from ‘Javier Domínguez’s girlfriend’, do you have a name?” I asked, smiling good-naturedly.
The girlfrienddid notsmile back. Not even a little bit. Yikes. Apparently, it was my job to cozy up to a cactus. Fun.
“My name’s Valeria Cano,” she said, paying particularly close attention to a cluster of purple dahlias.
“I’m Greta, but you already know that. I—"
“Have you been with the Luciano man for long?” she asked,
“Long enough to know he likes his coffee black, his cars fast, and his music loud. So… not long.”
She smiled, albeit reluctantly. “It’s interesting that he brings you along to a business meeting,” she mused.
I shrugged. “I’m still a new enough toy that I’m fun to show off.”
“What about you? Have you been withel jefelong? You sound American to me.”
She nodded slowly, expression guarded. “I am. Does that matter?”
Jeez, talk about prickly. Definitely a cactus.
I stopped walking and turned to face her. “Look, I’m sure Deo would like it if I did a little fishing for info here, and Domínguez probably wants the same from you. But really, all I want is someone to talk to who doesn’t expect me to swallow his cock in appreciation, if you know what I mean.”
She eyed me for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” she said. She took off her sunglasses and smiled tightly.
“I grew up in New York,” she offered up as she started walking again.
