“Don Zachary’s busy,” came Ailin’s gruff Irish twang from behind the partially closed bathroom door. Zachary paused, the hand holding his straight razor barely touching his throat. His nondescript face peered back at him—brown eyes the color of mud, sandy brown hair swept back from a forehead marred by faint frown lines. He was pushing thirty-eight, and life had tried to etch those years deep into his flesh. But he’d always been too healthy for his own good—his face was that of a thirty-five-year-old’s, perhaps a few years younger.

“Please, Senor Ailin, I have news—”

“Then ya tell me. I’ll pass it on verbatim like, yeah?”

“I—I will speak only to—”

“Let him in,” Zachary called out, sliding the razor up his throat and flicking the foam from its blade. “I’m almost done.”

From the faint grumble Ailin gave, he wasn’t happy about letting the boy in. But he knew better than to challenge an order Zachary gave. There was still a scar on his cheek from the first and only time he’d insisted Zachary had been wrong.

The bathroom door opened. Angel appeared in the mirror, head turning until he saw Zachary standing by the basin. His eyes dropped to the floor, and a faint blush bloomed on his coffee-colored cheeks.

“Perdón, señor, I—I didn’t—”

“It’s Don Zachary, boy.” Zachary slid the straight razor up his throat, watching the young man’s reflection. “Not Senor.”

“Perdóname, Se—Don Zachary.”

Was it because he only wore a towel that the young man seemed so flustered? Or was it the sight of the distorted, marbled flesh that covered the left of his body?

“What did you come here to tell me?”

Angel’s eyes flashed up, flickered on Zachary’s scars, and struggled eventually to the reflection of his eyes. “I—I think I find him, Don Zachary.”

“And who is it that you think you found?” he asked quietly, scraping the last stripe of shaving foam from his neck.

Angel shifted his feet, and dropped his gaze again when Zachary turned to face the young man. Patting at his face and throat with a damp towel, he leaned idly against the basin as he waited for Angel to find his voice again.

When his men had dragged Angel and his brother, Marco, from the Rio Grande like a pair of drowning rats, they’d been defiant, angry, scared. He’d offered them work in the cartel, and both had accepted. Marco without hesitation, Angel with the wary reluctance of a man who’d already lived three people’s worth of hellish lives in his twenty-odd years on earth.

Both excelled as halcones—the cartel’s eyes and ears. Cautiously watching from the shadows came naturally to them. He hadn’t asked after their pasts, but they had to have been living on the streets for several years before scratching together enough pesos to pay a coyote to take them over the border.

“Señor Martin,” Angel said.

“Spit it out, boy.” As much as he enjoyed the young man’s presence—he had an exceptional beauty to him, both he and his brother—he had a busy day ahead of him.

Angel’s eyes flickered up at the sound of his voice, but then darted to the floor again. “A truck, this…this Land Rover?” Angel glanced up and, this time, held Zachary’s gaze. His eyes were so dark there was no telling where his pupils ended and his irises began. Paired with thick, black lashes and dark brows, the young man’s gaze could become fairly intense. Somehow, the world hadn’t yet trampled his youthful exuberance.

“You followed it?” Zachary took a bottle of aftershave from the rack beside the basin mirror.

“A week. It comes back same place, every day.”

“And that place is?”

“Dirt road by fence.” Angel’s eyes glowed. “Gringos and Mexicans. Lots of cars, black windows.”

The boys must have gotten close if he and Marco been able to note so much detail. A dangerous thing to do, especially when they’d been sent to scout out a possible route used by Javier Martin’s men. One that might lead to the massive lot somewhere in the western part of Texas where Martin was said to be operating from.

Angel and Marco had happened upon one of El Calacas Vivo’s men, celebrating in a local pub in El Paso. The more alcohol that had flowed past his lips, the looser they’d became. Soon, everyone knew he was one of Martin’s sicarios—recently promoted—and that he’d be swimming in women and cash in mere weeks.

It hadn’t been happenstance that Angel and Marco had been in that bar. They’d been hanging out in seedy pubs close to the border for the past two weeks, convinced that they’d pick up the trace of rival cartel members that sometimes used bars for their business transactions. There were rumors some of those bars were even money laundering outfits for ECV or Sinaloa.

The brothers were expendable—all his men were—so Zachary had given them the go ahead. Of course, there was always the chance they’d try to run. But they were broke, illegal, and their strong accents and wide-eyed stares gave them away. They’d be picked up by border patrol within the week, something he made sure the other men they spent time with would constantly remind them of.

For how long the threats would keep them close, he couldn’t tell. Perhaps they’d become loyal cartel members, rising in rank until, one day, Angel and Marco would replace Ailin and Rodrigo as his lieutenants—tasked with keeping him safe and taking care of some of his more delicate transactions.

The smell of mint and cedarwood drenched the air as he smoothed his aftershave over his cheeks.

“Have you seen Martin yet? One of his sicarios?”

Angel shook his head and dropped his gaze again. “But we return today. We will—”

“No.” Zachary stepped closer and lay a hand on Angel’s shoulder. The young man was still dusty; no doubt from whatever position he and Marco had been in in the dirt, possibly out of sight behind scrub. “You will stay here.”

“Por favor, Sen—Don Zachary.” Angel’s eyes flashed up to him. “Another day and—”

“You fought with one of my men.”

Angel tensed under his hand. The young man inflated his chest, but didn’t deny the fact.

“I cannot abide infighting. Not now, not ever.”

Angel twisted out from under his hand. “Pendejo insult me.”

Zachary couldn’t keep the faint smile from his mouth. “I don’t consider the term ‘pretty boy’ an insult.”

“Is for me.” Angel’s eyes sparked. In their depths, roiled a loathing so deep and dark that it made the hair on Zachary’s nape stand up.

“But you are a pretty boy.” He surged forward, grabbed the young man’s throat, and slammed him into the wall.

Angel’s hands came up, but then he dropped them to his side, stiff, as if he was forcing his own muscles to obey him. There was hardly any distance between them now, and that air smelled of dust and cedarwood.

“My men can call you whatever they want.”

“I may not defend my honor?” Angel whispered furiously. He glared up at Zachary. Angel was short for his age, growth no doubt stunted from years of poverty. But he was thin and stringy as a weed.

Zachary gave a small squeeze, but Angel’s only reaction was to shift his feet, evenly distributing his weight. Preparing himself. Not to fight, but to stay upright.

He leaned closer, until he could feel Angel’s breath on his mouth. When he spoke again, the boy flinched under his fingers. “I propose a different release for the pain and humiliation you have suffered. Something that will benefit both of us.”

Confusion flickered in Angel’s eyes. The young man swallowed nervously, and Zachary could feel every contraction of his throat muscles as he did.

He stepped back, ran a hand over Angel’s chest to smooth his disheveled shirt, and swept his gaze over the dusty, torn clothes.

“But first, get yourself cleaned up.”

Angel pushed away from the wall, and lifted trembling hands to the buttons on his shirt. He stopped when Zachary lifted a hand.

“You won’t see your brother again until you’ve mastered your emotions.”

If Angel had returned from his scouting, then so had Marco. And he’d already informed his men to seize this man’s brother as soon as they came back on the property. Not because he didn’t trust them out there by themselves, but because he had a feeling he had better uses for their talents.

Angel’s face solidified. “Por favor, Don—”

“Marco is safe.” Zachary spoke the words slowly, carefully. “He will remain safe, as long as you are useful to me.”

Another flash of confusion from the boy.

“If you please me, then Marco has nothing to fear.”

Angel dropped his head. His shoulders slumped. “Sí,” he murmured as he undid his buttons and shrugged off his shirt. But before it hit the floor, Zachary had left the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Ailin straightened, regarding Zachary warily. He always did, and it was something Zachary would never take for granted. Even after serving under him for almost ten years, Ailin knew to expect the unexpected from his master.

“Give him clean clothes. Boots and a belt.”

“Breakfast?” Ailin asked as Zachary discarded his towel and began to dress in the clothes laid out on his bed. Saraphina—one of three serving maids he hired at the ranch—took it upon herself to lay out a new outfit for him every day. He couldn’t seem to stop her doing it, much to his chagrin.

“No.” Zachary glanced at Ailin over his shoulder and gave him a cold smile. “Let’s not overestimate the boy’s stomach for violence just yet.”