“The Calaveras aren’t like us,” Diego said. “We grew up here. Our home is our identity. These transients from all over the world are here to take advantage of our market.” He waved smoke from around my head. “They have no loyalty and no home—literally. Since they didn’t have a location to operate out of, they took a town about an hour north of here.”
“What do you mean they took it?” I asked.
“Like a hostile takeover. The Calaveras seized it to run their operations. Raped the local women, pillaged and stole businesses, enslaved their people.” Diego checked my expression. “Now, the whole town is walled off on three sides, and the back abuts a mountainside. Some sadistic shit goes on in the Badlands, I’ll bet.”
“Badlands?” I asked.
“That’s what some people call it. Rough terrain.” Tepic wiggled his fingers like a witch. “Las puertas del infierno.”
The gates of hell. That sounded familiar. Suddenly, the designation Badlands rang a bell. I’d heard it before but couldn’t remember where. “He made his own town?”
“More or less. There are homes and businesses within its walls, but who knows what’s true or legitimate. As far I know, nobody has ever escaped, nor has anyone infiltrated and lived to tell the tale.”
“They’re like a cult,” Tepic said, waving his cigarette toward the house with a grimace. “Satanic rituals and shit. They eat snails, speak in tongues, sacrifice virgins, throw rotten fish at whores, that kind of stuff.”
I widened my eyes. I’d heard a lot of cartel-related fact that better resembled fiction, but nothing involving any of that. “How do you know all that if nobody’s ever escaped?”
“Who knows how rumors start?” Tepic said. “But I don’t doubt what I’ve heard. I just feel bad for the women trapped there who—”
“Tepic,” Diego warned. “Stop. You’re scaring her.”
I would’ve had to believe all that to be afraid, and I wasn’t sure I did. Rotten fish? Speaking in tongues? It sounded pretty far-fetched. Although, I started to vaguely recall a news story from years earlier about a foreign cartel that operated differently than others. Its boss had a long, international reach and an even longer rap sheet. It’d claimed he’d never been photographed or named and had taken more bullets than he had drugs in his lifetime—and survived.
I stared at the fountain, comforted by the sound of running water. Why were women trapped, and how come nobody had freed them? Did Cristiano really have something to do with that? Until the dark day in question, he’d always been respectful of my mother, and she had cared for him. As a girl, I’d caught Cristiano watching me many times with something that’d felt akin to affection. Nothing that’d made me fearful. Maybe I’d just been too young to know better, though.
“What about the women trapped there?” I asked to stop my mind from filling in the blanks.
“It’s terrible, Tali, really,” Diego said. “You don’t want to know. It’s my father all over again, which is why I don’t understand how Costa could go into business with Cristiano. He represents the same things my parents did.”
“Human trafficking?” I asked quietly.
“It’s fucked up.” He knocked ash from his cigarette, looking somewhere over my head. “But not all that surprising, I guess. Cristiano and my dad are a lot alike, which is why they never got along.”
“The women are mostly foreigners if that makes you feel any safer, Tals,” Tepic said.
Who could feel anything but disgusted hearing that? My stomach churned. Had there ever been anything redeemable about Cristiano? Why had my mother not only taken him in, but, as I remembered it, treated him with tenderness?
“It makes me feel like shit,” Diego said, glancing down at me. “I don’t want you anywhere near him. If he ever gets you alone, you scream, hear me?”
I had screamed—and screamed and screamed. And nobody had been able to stop him. Not in my parents’ bedroom, nor their closet, nor the tunnel beneath it.
I removed my arms from around Diego, suddenly warm. “He can’t get away with this,” I said. “If any women, from my country or another, are being held by Cristiano, my father wouldn’t accept him back.”
“And yet it seems he has,” Diego said. “It’s just another business to Cristiano. He traffics some, and other women are there for him and his gang’s use.”
I couldn’t keep my disgust at bay any longer. Bile rose in my throat, even as I tried not to let my imagination wander down that path. This was the side of my father’s world he tried to shield me from, but I was in it nonetheless. Did that make me complicit? What about Diego? Could either of them even stop someone like Cristiano?
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Diego glanced at me and flicked his cigarette butt away. “Jesus,” he said, taking my shoulders to hold me at arm’s length. “You’re pale again. I told you not to ask.”
“It’s okay,” I said. These were things I had decided long ago I didn’t want to know about. But now that I did know, I was less frightened than I thought I’d be and more quietly enraged. What about the millions of women in my country who didn’t have access to the defenses I did? Who was on their side?
Cristiano had always been a calculating killer, that was no shock—but apparently, he’d grown into a disloyal degenerate, a callous crook, a master of mind games. Hades of the Badlands.
Diego massaged my shoulders. “Relax. This is not something you need to worry about. I will always protect my sun—without you, I’d live in the dark. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Cristiano can’t get away with all the things he has,” I said. What did he have over Papá? It had to be big for him to ignore the horrors I’d just heard. After all, he’d taken down Cristiano and Diego’s father for similar offenses. “He must have a reason.”
“Who, Costa? He has none. He’s lost his mind,” Diego said and gestured at Tepic. “¿Tienes otro?”
Tepic passed him another cigarette, then dropped his and used his heel to stamp out the butt. “I’ll see what I can find out from Barto and the guys.”
Diego nodded him on. “Go.”
I tried to wrap my head around why Papá would do this to us. To himself. Just seeing Cristiano brought back scores of memories better left to rest.
Had he manipulated my father? Or could there be any truth to his claims?
Was there even a sliver of possibility that Cristiano was innocent?
It was a thought I knew I should ignore, because if he was or wasn’t, either answer would only incite more questions. And if my curiosity was an affliction, then my curiosity about a man like Cristiano could be of the fatal sort indeed.
Natalia
Some details from the Day of the Dead eleven years earlier were hazy, and some crystal clear, but I’d never doubted that Cristiano had left my mother for dead and had been about to take off with our valuables.
As Tepic returned to the ballroom on a quest for information, and Diego removed his arm from me to light a fresh cigarette, I paced by the fountain and tried to figure out the riddle before me.
Cristiano had forgotten the duffel on the bed, but enough cash and jewelry had gone missing from the safe to set him up for a long time.
Then there was the fact that nobody else could’ve come or gone from my mother’s bedroom that day without being seen. And that the mansion’s security system, including the cameras, had been magically disabled, which Barto claimed could only be done quickly and by someone familiar with it. Cristiano, who’d been one of the only guards with the highest security clearance at the time, had known it intimately. Then, getting access to my parents’ safe was nearly impossible—it would’ve taken someone close enough to the inside to find out the combination.
That was as far as I let my mind go. Whatever struggle had caused the tear in Mamá’s dress and the bruises on her face—whatever had happened between the intruder entering the bedroom and me skipping in—I couldn’t think of without getting sick, so I never did. I kne
w it tortured Papá enough for the both of us.
And the final detail that didn’t add up was the small fact that a sicario didn’t kill of his own volition. He would’ve been hired. So if Papá believed Cristiano hadn’t done this, then who did? Who had the hitman worked for?
Some of the more conspiracy-minded newspapers back then had speculated rival federations had done it instead of Cristiano, but growing up, I’d dismissed those theories without a second thought.
I stopped pacing. “Could any of this have to do with the Maldonado cartel?”
Diego frowned from a couple meters away. “Cristiano’s return?”
“No. My mother’s death.”
“The Maldonados didn’t exist back then.” Diego sat on the edge of the fountain, placed his cowboy hat next to him, and scrubbed a hand through his disheveled hair. “They’re newer. What do you know about them anyway?”
“Mostly what I’ve read in the news or what I overheard in the study the other day,” I said.
“I thought you wanted to stay out of all this.” He sucked on his cigarette, squinting at me as silky strands of his dark-cocoa hair fell around his cheekbones. “Yet as soon as you got here, you were already hiding in hallways like you did as a kid.”
“I want to live a respectable and honest life away from all this, but that doesn’t mean I want to be ignorant.” I couldn’t blame his quizzical look. When I was away at school and we spoke on the phone, I was ignorant. I’d ask about business because it was his life, but then I’d let him get away with cursory answers.
After my mother’s death, I’d no longer wanted to hear about the things I’d sought to know growing up—the handshake deals made over caramel flan with men visiting from exotic-sounding countries. The foreign sports cars, endless vices, and other spoils that came from feeding the world’s various drug addictions. The lost boys of the town that the cartel took under its wing, protecting and feeding them while training them like wards.
Back then, I’d do more than hide. I would seek information, curious about the dangers I was always kept from. I’d sneak away from the house and ride my bike a few kilometers to the sprawling, private ranch house on our property that housed boys and men like Diego and Cristiano. There, they’d learned everything about the business—including how to protect and kill for it. From a distance, I’d been introduced to the different kinds of arms and how to carry them. Other things happened in those training camps too, but those I didn’t stick around for. I hadn’t wanted to learn what could be worse than death.
As far as I knew, the ranch house had been empty since Papá had traded all that for less violence, going from rival cartels’ competition to their solution. They now paid him top dollar to move contraband across borders, and since he’d nearly monopolized the shipping market, he could be more discerning than most.
“My father can pick and choose who he associates with,” I said. “If he worked so hard to minimize risk and violence, why are we suddenly involved with two of the most dangerous cartels?”
“Calavera and Maldonado have nothing to do with each other,” Diego said, raising his eyes to mine.
“Are you sure?” I resumed pacing in hopes that moving would help the uneasiness building in me. “Maybe there’s some connection between them.”
“I don’t see how there could be. Maldonado is my thing. I brought them in.”
From what I’d heard in the office, it hadn’t sounded as if Papá had been completely on board. “It wasn’t my father’s call?”
“I brought the contract to him once it had all been arranged.” The orange tip of his cigarette flared with a drag. “He would’ve said no otherwise. Your dad wants to keep doing things as he’s always done, but that’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous or wise?” I stopped in front of Diego and crossed my arms. “If it works, why tempt fate?”
“What do you think happens when a wild animal slows down to rest or to tend to his wounds, or if he gets sentimental about his prey—the way Costa has about Cristiano? Nothing good.” He put out the smoke on the ledge, picked up his hat, and leaned his elbows on his knees. “If you’re not moving forward, you’re going backward,” he said. “Adaptation is the key to survival.”
I could see Diego’s point. We’d done case studies in business school about insolvent companies—those that’d changed too fast, or in the wrong ways. Those that had been left behind.
“Why does adapting have to mean taking on more risk?” I asked.
“Working with the Maldonados isn’t any more dangerous than what we normally do—it just sounds that way because they’re . . .” He scratched his temple. “Let’s just say they’re less forgiving than most.”
“What does that mean?”
“Can you come here, please?” He reached for me. “We don’t get much time together as it is. Why waste it on talking about stuff we can’t control?”
It was all I had wanted in the last year—to have Diego’s hands on me again. To be ignorant of the dark side of this business. This was exactly why I tried to stay out of these things. Now, I knew too much and had too many questions to overlook what was happening.
Not only that, but I couldn’t ignore how invested Diego was in the future of a cartel he was planning to leave behind soon.
I stayed where I was. “What does ‘less forgiving’ mean, Diego?”
He looked down at the hat as he turned it over in his hands. “They don’t do business the way your dad and his friends did. If they don’t like something, they get rid of it. They kill unnecessarily and without regard for the rules.”
“There are no rules,” I pointed out.
“Not true. As you know, up until the past decade or so, there was a code. There were agreements—like the one my family broke. But older cartel leaders are being replaced with ones who think they’re above the law of the land. With the Maldonados, there’s no justice—only the word of those in charge.”
Justice. In a strange way, it did exist in this world. I thought back to what Cristiano had said to me about justice and loyalty before he’d forced me down the tunnel. My father or his men would’ve killed him without trial based on the damning evidence they’d had. I could almost see Cristiano’s reasoning. If the Maldonados murdered who they wanted when they wanted, then that bred more distrust, disloyalty, and violence within their own cartel and amongst others.
“And you made a deal with them?” I asked, spinning the diamond on my ring finger. “What happens if you don’t deliver?”
“I will, Talia. I’ve done my homework. I’m talking over fifty percent more profit for maybe nine or ten percent more risk. How can I refuse those odds?”
“Because if there are no rules, how do you know when you’ve broken one? Or what they’re capable of?” I paused. “What are they capable of?”
“Things you’ve asked me not to tell you before.”
This was the kind of information I could never forget once I knew. And yet, if it involved Diego’s life, remaining in the dark didn’t feel like an option. I stilled my fidgeting hands. “I’m asking now. You’re caught up in this. So is my father. I want to know what happens if something goes wrong.”
“You’re overreacting, Tali. I’ve got everything under—”
He stopped when he picked up on my glare. “Life or death is overreacting?” I asked tersely.
Sighing, he looked away from me. “What happens if something goes wrong with the Maldonados? Death if they’re merciful. If not, it’s because they can do worse. Enslave a man to do their bidding, hold his family hostage, torture him by killing off his brothers, sell his women and kids.”
My heart rate kicked up a notch. It wasn’t as if I had no clue of the reach these criminals around me had. But it scared me that although Diego was most likely smarter than the people he did business with, he’d never be as ruthless. “You have to cancel the deal.”
He whipped his gaze to me, brows drawn. “I can’t do that, Tali. What’s done is done, and we need th
eir business anyway. If this goes well, then an ongoing arrangement with the Maldonados would set all of us up for life.”
“What kind of life is it if you’re looking over your shoulder every day? If you’re never allowed to make mistakes?” I ran my hands over my face. “No amount of money is worth that.”
“You can’t even comprehend the kind of money I’m talking about.”
“I don’t care,” I said, throwing up my arms in exasperation. “This is exactly the life I don’t want—one I’m trying to help you escape. Why are you even worrying about an ongoing deal if you’re trying to get out?”
“I have to make as much money as I can before I leave,” he said adamantly, imploring me with his eyes. “When I get to the States, I’ll be back at square one. What will I do for work? I need a bank account with enough zeros to take care of you.”
“Diego.” I squatted in front of him, set his hat on the lip of the fountain, and took his hands. “That’s not how I need to be taken care of. I could have that life if I wanted it, but I don’t. I chose to leave, and I thought you wanted the same.” I swallowed, searching his eyes. “Do you not want to come to California?”
“I do. I want that so much, but I have to know I can provide for you first. Whether you ask me to or not, it’s my responsibility as a man, and I won’t be happy anywhere if I can’t do it.” He moved some of my hair behind my ear and tilted up my chin. “It’s not just about the money. This first run will net me enough to come with you, and then you and I will be set until I get on my feet. But if it goes well, it’ll also secure the most profitable deal your dad has ever made. It’ll prove to your father that he can bring his business into the present, and . . .”
“And?” I asked.
He looked at me with cinched eyebrows, as if in pain. Diego felt everything. I hated arguing with him, but it was important that he see that money and status meant less to me than being with him. I was tired of living a country apart.
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