Did he need to spell it out?
“We’ll figure it out,” Andino was quick to mutter.
Chris rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure.”
He didn’t like what ifs.
He hated unanswered questions.
Flying by the seat of his pants?
No fucking thanks.
He would have to roll with it whether he wanted to or not.
Great.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a man stepping out of the house on the far left to his that the guards used. One of several. The man headed toward Chris’s home, which meant his day was about to get started. For the last few days, the focus had been on transferring crates of product out of the barns, and onto trucks, all the while, they prepped for the trip to the tunnels this weekend.
It never stopped here, it seemed.
“I have to go,” Chris told Andino, “and don’t call again.”
“I got it—get the job done, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
That was the plan.
As unknown as it was.
• • •
“Right here, amigo,” the Lòpez man said, pulling the back of a Jeep wide open for Chris. “Toss that bag in, we’re just waiting on the boss, and his wife.”
Chris nodded, pleased that Valeria was coming along for the weekend trip. He knew better than to show that on his face, however. “Thanks.”
With his weekend bag thrown in the back of the Jeep on top of the other couple of bags piled there, the man closed the hatch with a slam. Chris settled on leaning against the back of the vehicle while the guard—or driver, whatever his designated job was for the day—headed for the house closest to them.
It was funny in that the only vehicles Chris had seen come this far into the ranch were all ones the guards and Jorge used to come in and out. Even the man’s siblings weren’t allowed to take a vehicle in and out of the place.
He filed that information away for later.
Vehicles were a no-go.
The slam of a screen door had Chris pushing off the side of the Jeep to look around the side of the vehicle. Jorge stood on the porch with Valeria where the two talked fast. She tried to remain calm and pleasant. It didn’t matter; her husband was animated and irritated enough for the both of them.
Chris’s irritation picked up a notch.
The more he observed the two together, the clearer it became to him that Valeria was neither happy with Jorge, nor safe. She carefully measured her behavior, and words. Even if she hadn’t told him the truth when he asked, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that marriage was a steaming pile of shit.
It didn’t help he had somehow got into his feelings about Valeria, and whenever he saw her being dismissed or mistreated by the bastard she called a husband ... it took everything in him not to kill Jorge right then and there with his bare hands.
Chris’s gaze slipped past the two on the porch to the little girl peering out the screen door, watching her parents’ quiet argument. Well, it was only quiet from Valeria’s side of things. Jorge didn’t seem to give a shit, to be honest.
Maria saw Chris looking her way, and the worry on her features morphed into a bright smile. She waved, and he returned the gesture with a wink. For whatever reason, the girl slipped out of the screen door, and headed past her parents. They didn’t even note her leaving the house or coming down the stairs.
Maria came to stand in front of him. Chris kneeled to the ground to be closer to eye-level with her, uncaring that he was dirtying the knees of his slacks. He always thought it ignorant for adults to loom above kids when they talked to them. How would they like it to have someone much larger than them hanging overtop of them while they talked?
Not well, he bet.
“Hey,” he said.
Maria beamed. “Hey. I made you something.”
Chris blinked. “Did you?”
“Yes.” Digging in the pocket of her dress, she added, “We’re friends, right? Friends make promises, and you made me a promise.”
Kids, man.
They had a way of simplifying everything. Of taking any kind of gesture and turning it into something more, innocent or otherwise. It reminded him of the good in the world when he was surrounded by things others might consider immoral, or even evil, sometimes.
“We are friends.”
Maria glanced up at him, her hand stilling in its quest to find whatever item she wanted in her pocket. “Best friends? Like Mamá and me?”
Chris grinned. “We can be, Maria. But you didn’t have to make me anything to be that, okay? Friends are just friends because they want to be—we don’t have to give anything to our friends to keep them. Just our kindness, and the goodness in our hearts, huh? That’s what counts.”
She shrugged tiny shoulders. “But I wanted to. You’ll wear it, won’t you?”
“Wear what?”
She found the item she had been searching for. Pulling it from her pocket, she held it high for him to admire. A woven bracelet made from a dark, thin leather cord. She smiled, her eyes glimmering with pride as he stared at it.
“That’s amazing,” he said.
“Aunt Abril showed me how to braid it. Do you like it?”
Chris took the bracelet and held it flat in his palm. “So much, thank you.”
“Put it on!”
He laughed but did as she said. It was a little too loose, but she showed him how to pull on one of the two end cords to tighten it firm to his wrist.
“It shouldn’t get wet,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
“But you’ll wear it always, anyway, right?”
Her genuine request had his chest tightening.
Chris nodded. “Absolutely. Always. I won’t take it off.”
“Good.”
Maria darted forward, and gave him a tight hug, her little arms snaking around his neck so hard, he almost lost his breath. He didn’t get the chance to hug her back before she stepped away from him and turned to dart back to the house.
She didn’t get far.
Valeria stood two feet behind her daughter, now, surveying the scene with a soft gaze. She gave them a small smile, and then said to Maria, “Better get back in the house. Jorge forgot something and had to go back in to get it. We don’t want him getting angry that you didn’t listen when he told you to stay inside, right?”
Maria peeked over her shoulder at Chris, but turned back to her mother. “Okay, Mamá.”
“I’ll see you soon. Love you. Behave.”
“I will.”
Once Maria had disappeared back inside the house, Chris stood up straight again. Valeria climbed into the back of the Jeep without a word.
He followed her lead.
• • •
Whenever he saw a Jeep in Toronto, Chris always wondered what in the fuck their purpose was for their owner. They almost always had mud on the tires, too. Where in the hell had they even found mud in a city?
Now, driving in a Jeep as Jorge’s driver took a sharp turn onto a dirt road that took their vehicle down a winding path, deeper into a forested area with little population, Chris understood the appeal. The Jeep handled the terrain just fine, and with the doors and top pulled off, the wind kept them cool.
Beside him in the back, Valeria sat quiet and still, her gaze drawn to the blur of trees at their sides, instead of Chris. He would much rather have her gaze on him, but that was perilous territory that neither of them needed to play in at the moment.