“Go fuck yourself, Fernandez,” I say coolly, hanging up on him. I don't negotiate with cartel assholes.
Glancing back at the house, I seek out Joseph’s bedroom window. These latest developments need to be discussed and deliberated over, but I have a hunch he has other things on his mind right now.
Took them long enough.
So now what?
Now I kill.
Calmed by that thought, I pick up the half-empty bottle of bourbon and take my drinking and murder indoors. That bitch, Viviana, is taking up too much oxygen around here. Gabriela’s a fool to think she can keep on hiding her from me. My men and Gomez’s soldiers have the whole place surrounded. No one is going in or out without my say so.
Kill or be killed. Family loyalty is a postcode lottery, and mine will always fall on the losing side.
Taking the long route back to the kitchen, I enter using the side entrance after detouring via the cellar for another bottle of bourbon. As I do, I catch a cloud of black hair sprinting for the main door. I have my gun pulled on her so quick she’s not even crossed the threshold. One bullet fired into the frame above her head has her stopping dead in her tracks. She cries out in fear, but I’m dead to all that keening shit.
“Viviana Martinez, I presume?” I slow my articulation to solidify my disdain. “Or should that be Viviana Santiago?”
She turns, and my grip tightens on my gun. Holy fuck. She’s a carbon copy: Same oval-shaped black eyes, same wound-up tight features... same psychopathic disposition? I’d need further proof to confirm that.
“Please—” she begs. “Don’t shoot. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Then sit down.” I indicate to a long wooden table in the center of the room and she obeys without question, avoiding my gaze. Even so, she’s more stoic than I was expecting. She’s not a trembling wreck, by any means, and that rose tattoo is giving off some sassy vibes. “Keep your hands where I can see them.” She plants them in front of her. “How long have you known you’re Emilio’s daughter?”
“How did you find out about me?”
I smile coldly. “I’m not into the rhetorical, sweetheart. I ask the questions and you answer them, or I blow the top of your fucking head off, right here, right now. Understood?”
She nods and swallows. “My birth mother left me on the steps of a convent when I was a couple of weeks old. Gabriela sought me out and raised me herself. She never hid the truth from me. I’ve known since the day she adopted me.”
I lean back against the counter, keeping the muzzle trained right between her eyes. “So your father never knew you existed?” She shakes her head slowly. “Hardly fucking surprising,” I drawl, aiming low to prompt a response. “He sold coke and fucked whores for a living. There must be a string of his illegitimates contaminating this country.”
“I’m not after any trouble—”
“Trouble?” I scoff. “You just pumped three bullets into Fernandez’ son’s stomach and stirred up a fucking hornet’s nest. It’s a little late to plead the fifth with me.”
I wait for her to contradict me and lay the blame on Anna, but she doesn’t.
Interesting.
“You shot El Asesino,” I say idly. “That man is more of a brother to me than your own father was. You know I’ll make you suffer for that.”
Still, this doesn't produce any fear. Instead, she serves me a side of those unflinching black eyes. “Do what you want to me. It can’t make me hate you any more than I already do.”
A chill hits my spine and travels north and south. “And why do you hate me so much, Viviana?” I ask curiously, concealing my unease with a quirk of my lips.
“Because of the mess you made of this country. Because of your arrogance in thinking you can just sweep in and fix it all with one of your killing sprees.”
“And what would you do different?”
“Get rid of Los Cinco Grandes,” she says, without blinking. “Establish one ruling cartel, like you did in the old days. The coke’s not going away, so we’d clean it up. We’d streamline. No more trafficking or any of that other shit on the side. We’d increase production to cover the shortfall, maybe even cut a deal with the Mexicans. We’d reinstate prime government connections and we’d make them blood-tight. We’d stop thumbing our noses at the DEA, and tie them up in paperwork instead. We’d slink back into the shadows like you did when you were in power. We’d stay anonymous, but be lethal when required.”
I’m almost impressed. Everything she suggested makes outstanding business sense.
“I see your soul is as compromised as your father’s—”
“And my Uncle’s.”
“Touché.” The bitch is growing on me. “Are you applying for the position?”
“Would you offer it to me if I were?”
What a fucking joke. How old is she? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?
“Viviana,” I say patiently. “I don't trust you. I will never trust any spawn of my brother’s. Your place is lying in the ground, six-feet-under, preferably next to him, and not running a cartel where guns and violence are used freely and without restraint. In exactly five minutes your brains will be decorating this kitchen floor, so I think you’re excused from the application process, don’t you?” She stares at me, frozen and unblinking, reminding me so much of her father that I can feel the bile rising up inside of me. “Is there anything else on your ‘I hate Dante Santiago list’ you’d like to confess before I pull the trigger?”
“Because of what you did to Manuel.”
Now it’s my turn to blink. “Nothing like dragging up the past,” I say, recovering quickly. “That’s old news. Manuel died protecting my wife last year. There’s no greater honor than that, and Gabriela knows it.”
“He was like a brother to me!” Her tight expression fails to crush the surge of emotion in her voice. “He was happy in Colombia until you made him go and work for you.”
“If we’re getting technical about it, he was actually your uncle,” I say flippantly. “My father fucked Gabriela and he was the result. I use the term “fucked” loosely...”
There’s a pause. “I shot El Asesino because I thought he was kidnapping and hurting my friend.”
“I don't give a shit if you thought he was the Easter Bunny and you needed a sugar fix.”
She’s loyal to someone in this house, and it’s not me.
“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” she says, finally losing her cool.
I give her a wintry smile. “You’re not the first person to throw insults my way tonight, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”
“Tell me how you knew about me?”
Does this bitch show any fear?
“Anonymous tip off two days ago…. Any other last requests?” I click off the safety and aim high to make it a clean kill. She’s my niece, after all.
“I’m not frightened of dying, Dante Santiago,” she says suddenly, her face an eerie mask of calm. “With the exception of Gabriela and Anna, all the people I’ve ever loved are in heaven. Manual, and Matias, and…”