My arms burn from the workout as I continue to tread water, but I go on, determined to do my daily one hundred laps. The sun shines on the cloudless sky reflecting in the clear, blue water.
After two more laps, I pull myself out of the pool, fetching a towel and ruffling it through my hair before wrapping a black Versace bathrobe around me and entering the mansion.
After pouring myself a glass of orange juice, I stroll into my office. Propping my feet on my teakwood desk, I take my phone and activate the home screen, the sight of the picture staring back at me, as usual, a stab in my heart. It shows my mother, Natalia, chasing my little sister, Valentina, through the garden. As always, I’m mesmerized by her unusually big, azure blue eyes, which she inherited from our mother.
We knew about Valentina’s illness, but we didn’t expect it to worsen so quickly.
Now, Natalia lives with Valentina in Australia where she devoted her life to run the foundation that should help heal my sister someday. We all know that Sanfilippo Syndrome can’t be cured, but we continue to pretend. For Valentina’s sake, and my mother’s.
My phone vibrates with a text message.
Victoria: Handover taking place tomorrow night at the old warehouse. 200K, cash.
Daniel: Good job, Victoria.
Sighing, I rake a hand through my wet hair. Technically, even if I’m not the bad guy, I loathe this job every goddamned day. Sure, I can’t complain about the twenty thousand square foot mansion I own, the shiny sports cars collecting dust in my garage, or the millions multiplying themselves in my bank account.
I let my head fall back against the backrest and activate the home screen again, my gaze lingering on my mother’s warm, brown eyes. I’ve never met the man who raped her and got her pregnant with me, thank God. Why Natalia didn’t abort me, determined to raise and love me as if I weren’t an abomination roaming this world, is beyond me. But all her love couldn’t stop her from me getting into the wrong circle of friends and doing what everyone did around here—dealing drugs.
A dirty business spread around by a gigantic network so ruthless, you would choke on your tongue if you knew the shit I know. It took years of earning the respect and street cred to get to where I am—a king ruling this land, its borders, and its dirty undergrounds reaching as deep as the bodies rotting in the thousands underneath the earth.
My eyes and ears are everywhere. If a sleazy deal is made between north of the equator and the border at La Paz, I know it before the shipment can take off into the Gulf of Mexico. I smell a corrupt cop from miles away. Every cartel fears my name, and every drug lord wants me on their side.
But no one knows what I really hide behind the silk suits and dominant attitude. They don’t know the source of my power—the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
I’m an undercover dealer in the highest ranks, handing over drug lords, traffickers, and crooked cops to the states. I know the network inside out and have put a bunch of scum behind bars already, but still… It feels my success is barely a drop in the bucket.
Every day we find meth labs, trucks and airplanes full of cocaine, or dead people on the streets—victims of this goddamned country brimming over with drug racketeering, corruption, money laundering, child labor, and other atrocities. Every day I have to pretend to be just as corrupt and greedy as them, faking my identity and conducting business with the worst. Every day I have to pretend to cherish this lifestyle of ridiculously expensive cigars, rum, and whores.
Whenever I hand them over, I feel I’ve done the world a favor, but the next day, you hunt down another with blood on their hands.
Glancing at the picture of my family again, I know I’ve made the right decision. I could have quit after I got my first check from the states, but I stayed. The only thing soothing my conscience is that the better part of my fortune flows into the Sanfilippo Children’s Foundation, knowing I’m doing everything in my power to keep my sister alive.
My phone vibrating startles me, and I frown when I see Emilio’s calling. He never calls this early. I already smell trouble.
Emilio starts speaking as soon as I take the call. “Boss, we caught someone dealing on your territory.” I straighten in my chair. There’s only a handful who have the balls to set foot on my ground without explicit permission. Everyone knows I rule this land, and my word is law. “Javier is taking care of him,” Emilio continues.
“Bring him to me immediately.”
“Yes.”
~~~
I adjust my tie before the door opens, and my men—Emilio and Javier, both in black suits, dark sunglasses, and wired with earpieces—stroll in, dragging a limp body over my Persian rug. Javier heaves it into a chair, and I saunter to the front of my desk to have a look at the battered creature, more dead than alive. The breath comes in rasps from his mouth, and blood trails down his lips.
Rolling up the sleeve of my suit so as not to get it dirty, I grab the guy’s chin, forcing him to look at me. One eye is swollen shut, the other roaming aimlessly around.
“Do you know where you are?” I ask in a dark voice. The guy moans, barely able to focus on me, but he manages a nod. “Do you know who owns this estate?” I continue my interrogation. Another nod. I tighten my grip on his chin, and he groans as my fingers dig into a cut on his cheek. “And do you know who owns this territory?” I shout, sprays of spit showering his face.
“Pl… pleeease,” he begs, more blood flowing down his chin.
Suddenly, his eyes shut, and his head rolls to the side, a last breath squeezing through before his life drains away in my hand. I growl, shooting Javier an angry glare. “He’s not of much use if he dies before I can interrogate him.”
Javier harrumphs in embarrassment, hiding his bloody hands behind his back. “Sorry, boss.”
Adjusting my sleeve, I take the tissue Emilio offers me to wipe my hands. “Keep your fists at bay next time, Javier.”
“Yes, boss.”
“He told us a name,” Emilio throws in, and my eyes flicker to him. “Alvarez.”
“Never heard of him. Who is he?”
“We don’t know, but we’re already on it.”
I throw the dirty tissue into the trash. “Find him and bring him to me. Alive,” I growl in Javier’s direction, who tilts his head in respect.
After my men tow the corpse to dispose of it, my housekeeper, Mariana, starts cleaning the carpet. With a sigh, she kneels down to rub at the blood-stained fabric. She knows I’m not an ice-cold killer, even if I’ve contributed to spilled blood more times than is good for me. Mariana doesn’t agree with how I handle my business. That’s okay. I’m not satisfied with it, either, but I’m stuck too deep in this shit already.
When she finishes, I walk over to the giant map printed on my wall and get to work. Three shipments of cocaine are expected to arrive tomorrow night in the haven of Veracruz, loaded with fresh goods from Colombia and Venezuela.
I don’t know the guy pulling the strings. Maybe a new player on the field. I need a backup plan in case the handover turns out to be a disaster like the last one, which ended in six killings, all because of an innocent boy roaming the area and blowing our cover. The fact that I couldn’t save him from the bullet hitting his chest gives me nightmares. It took a lot of blackmailing on my part to sweep that one under the rug and not alert the executive to the mess we made.
I’m so lost in my work that I flinch when my phone rings. Emilio is calling.
“There was a murder in an apartment near the Fuerte Baluarte Museum. A woman got stabbed. She’s dead.” The phone nearly slips from my hands. What the fuck is going on today? “The neighbors alarmed the police. We interrogated a few already.”
“And?”
“They claim to have seen a man running out of the building shortly after they heard a woman screaming. We got a few descriptions that might help us.”
“Find him, Emilio. Find him before the police do and do what you get paid for, so I’ll finally get some fucking answers!” I shout into the speaker.
Emilio mumbles a hasty, “Of course, boss.”
I’m close to hurling my phone through the room but reign in my anger, making a few calls instead. As it turns out, the victim was Sofia Sánchez, forty-three years old, Spanish heritage. She worked as a curator in the Fuerte Baluarte Museum and made a living as an artist. Sofia lived in Florida until she came to Mexico five years ago and married Isidro Sánchez, who’s mysteriously missing since the murder.
The woman got stabbed with a kitchen knife and bled out on the floor. My informant, Victoria, tells me there was only one stab wound in her abdominal area, which surprises me. Murders happening in the heat of the moment usually end up with multiple stabs, bullets, or hits. If you want to kill someone with a knife, you either slit their throat or make sure to hit enough times, so death occurs quickly. An accident, maybe?
An hour later, Emilio informs me that they’ve caught the suspect. I rise from my chair when my two best men drag in the second man this day, but this time, he’s in better shape and can walk by himself.
He writhes and kicks as Javier hustles him into the chair, his torn shirt hanging low on one shoulder. “Get your hands off me, asshole!” he shouts at Javier, who doesn’t like being called names.
In a swift move, Javier snaps a switchblade open, pressing it against the guy’s throat. “What did you call me?” he demands in a threatening undertone.
“Javier,” I caution as I position myself in front of them, and Javier’s jaw clenches at my order. Making sure the guy stays put, Javier rests a warning hand on his shoulder.
I study the man. Not one of the big fish. A nobody. His clothes are cheap, and his Rolex is fake. Emilio hands me his briefcase already splitting at the seams and containing a measly nine hundred pesos.
“Isidro Sánchez,” I drawl when I glance at his driver’s license, and I pull out a picture of a woman. A pretty thing with black hair and dark-brown eyes. “Your wife?”
His nostrils flare, but tears well up his eyes. “I didn’t kill her. I would never hurt my Sofia,” he says firmly, his voice wavering slightly.
“Why did you run, then?” Isidro looks lost for a moment, glancing at Emilio and Javier as if weighing his options. Curling my hands around the armrests of his seat, I lower my head to be at eye level. “Do you know who I am?”
Isidro’s eyes flicker between mine, and he swallows hard. He’s afraid. I can smell the fear in his sweat. Good.
“Daniel DeLuca,” he replies with a slight tremble.
I nod. “Then you know that I’m a very, very busy man, Isidro. So, I ask you again.” I pause, inclining my head. “Why did you run?”
He swallows again before answering. “He came to our apartment.”
“Who?”
“He was Spanish. I’ve never seen him before. I heard Sofia shout at someone and wanted to run to her, but when I glanced around the corner, I saw a guy cornering Sofia. He was armed. Sofia threatened him with a knife.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, short black hair, a stubble. Probably in his forties. He wore jeans and a gray suit jacket. Looked like a rich ass.” Everyone on the dark side is a rich ass here. His description gives me nothing useful.
“What was the fight about?”
“About one of Sofia’s paintings.”
“A valuable one?”
Isidro shakes his head. “Sofia was a decent artist, but she never made a fortune with her art. For all I know, they could have been talking about a painting that wasn’t hers. The guy screamed at her to tell him where she’d hidden it.”
“So, they knew each other?”
“Yeah. He called her by her name. Sofia dared him to come near her, threatening to kill him. Said she’d never tell him where the painting was, and then…” Isidro stops, his voice trembling.
“Then?”
“The guy stepped closer, and Sofia swung the knife but suddenly… suddenly the knife was in her stomach.” His voice breaks. “The guy panicked.”
“What happened then?”
“I… I screamed and attracted their attention, and he pulled out a gun, so I…”
“You ran,” I conclude.
Isidro averts his gaze, guilty eyes drawn to the floor. “I didn’t know what to do. He would have killed me, too!” He gives me a pleading look as if expecting my approval for his actions.
I clench my fists trying not to lose control over my hands that want to multiply the bruises on his face. What a coward.
“Any idea who he was?” He shakes his head. “Did Sofia have any enemies? People she was on bad terms with?”
“No. Everyone loved Sofia. She had a good heart and did a lot for the community.”
And yet, she hid a secret that made her an enemy. “Sofia lived in the states before she moved to Mexico. What do you know about her life in Florida?”
“Not much, other than she was married and got divorced. She never spoke about her past.”
“Who was her husband?”
“I never met him, and she never told me.” I sigh, my patience slowly dissolving. This guy’s wasting my time. “But I know she left a daughter behind.”
“Do you know her name?” I ask more out of boredom, but Isidro’s answer piques my interest.
“Leo. Leo Alvarez.”
Emilio’s and Javier’s eyes flicker in my direction. Didn’t the guy who died in my office a few hours ago say something about a man called Alvarez?
With a lift of my chin, I address Emilio who takes the hint and heads for the door to get to work. A girl with a Spanish heritage and the name Alvarez living in Florida shouldn’t be hard to find.
“Emilio,” I call out, and he stops turning to face me.
“Yes, boss?”
“Bring her to me. Unharmed.”