What broke up the machismo was the sea of gorgeous women — supermodels, all clad in tight-fitting dresses. Mostly blondes, with some brunettes and dark-haired girls thrown into the mix. They’d been herded into Rico’s VIP booth as soon as he’d arrived, with the promise of free thousand-dollar champagne and as many drugs as they could feasibly put up their noses or on their tongues.
And everyone was making full use of the blank cheque.
Rico wasn’t in New York often, so the burden rested squarely on his shoulders to make sure he and his entourage had a good time. It was rare that his father granted him permission to leave Mexico, but as a young scion with no concrete role in his family’s business proceedings, he had little else to do but wait around until he was given the go ahead to live life at its most lavish.
He wasn’t good at much, but he could damn well party.
So he lifted an open bottle of Dom Pérignon out of the nearest ice bucket and danced across to the closest model. She was stunning, even more so in the lowlight. Six inches shorter than him, even in heels, with a physique like something off the cover of a fitness magazine. She had broad blue eyes and white teeth between bright red lips, and she flashed her most alluring smile as he sauntered his way over. He could barely walk in a straight line, but he managed to gesture at the bottle in his hand. She batted her eyelashes at him and bent slightly at the knees.
Then she tilted her head back and opened her mouth.
He poured the champagne between her teeth, letting her suck it down. Then he took the bottle away, took a swig of his own, leant in and kissed her. She tasted warm and inviting, and she kissed back hard.
Rico knew it wasn’t just his status that allowed him to womanise with such ease. He had his mother’s good looks — his father was short and bald and fat, but the man was just as rich and powerful as he was ugly. He was the head of the Guzmán pasador, so he’d married a gorgeous Latino woman from Guadalajara, and together they’d had Rico. Thankfully, Rico had been blessed by the genetic lottery. Thick black hair swept back, a face like a movie star, pale green eyes with long lashes.
He used his blessings to spin the model around and gyrate against her, and together they descended into a bubble of pleasure. He had to use all the self-control in his arsenal not to drag her off to the bathroom and bend her over the countertop.
Instead, he thought he’d be a gentleman.
For once.
He whispered in her ear, ‘Let’s get a fresh bottle.’
She turned back around and purred, ‘I’d like that.’
He drained the last dregs of the Dom Pérignon in his hand, then lowered the bottle to the countertop. He shoved his way over to the ice bucket, but it was empty.
So he strode straight for the booth’s entrance.
One of the security put a hand on his chest. The man was a tried and tested sicario for Rico’s father. Not to be fucked with under any circumstances. But Rico couldn’t see straight, so he slapped the hand away. Hard. He didn’t want the guy to have to go fetch him another bottle of champagne like he was a baby that needed coddling.
The sicario stepped in front of Rico. ‘I can’t let you out there on your own. You know the rules.’
‘Fuck the rules,’ Rico hissed. ‘We need more Dom.’
‘I’ll get it.’
‘The bar is right there.’
‘I said I’ll get it.’
Rico pulled the man close and said, ‘If you don’t let me go there myself, I’ll tell my father you struck me.’
The guy went pale. Even in the throbbing darkness, punctuated only by dull flashing neon, Rico saw all the colour drain from his face. He smiled. It helped when your old man controlled fifty percent of the heroin and fentanyl that crossed the border from Mexico to America each and every day. You couldn’t buy that sort of power in a hurry. You had to build it, rung by rung, until the whole ladder was complete. To do that, you had to kill a lot of people.
Raúl Guzmán was by all measures a psychopath, and he wouldn’t take lightly to the fact that one of his men had hit the golden child unnecessarily.
So, despite the obvious security risks, the sicario backed down.
Rico smiled and pushed past. He could see the conflict in the man’s eyes. The guy was in a Catch-22. If something happened to Rico, the Guzmán patriarch would never forgive him. He’d be tortured for weeks on end and then left to die. But if he disobeyed Rico’s direct orders, then Rico would twist reality and the sicario would be as good as dead anyway.
Lose-lose.
Rico loved it.
He staggered out onto the dance floor, enmeshing with the throngs of upper-class civilians who’d emptied their savings just to get into Palantir. Rico would feel sorry for them if it wasn’t for his total absence of empathy. They slaved away in cubicles for most of their lives so they could struggle to flirt with the opposite sex at an exclusive venue. The illusion of success. Rico simply asked his father for a credit card, then went out and seized everything he’d ever wanted.
It was a beautiful way to live.
He eyed the bar across the room, but he was seeing double. There was a row of booths behind him, all VIP, all brimming with the most attractive people in Manhattan. He oriented himself in the right direction and took a step forward.
There was someone in his way.
A
