“What you have heard about me is largely exaggeration. You are perfectly safe, cariña. If you don’t mind, will you join me in the car to speak privately while my men handle business? I came a long way to see you, so I would rather not waste what little time we have, and we are not in the safest location right now.”
He opens the door to the SUV and gestures to the interior. Someone calls out my name from the darkness as I slide onto the seat and make room for Amador to climb in after me. Just beyond his shoulder, I catch a glimpse of Leo Reyes staring in shock before the door closes.
This can’t look good to him, but there’s nothing to do about it now. Gustavo said it would only be a couple weeks before he came to collect on his promise to keep my secret. I didn’t bother sharing with Gustavo that, since his threat of exposure, I’ve discovered I have another more compelling reason to follow through with this meeting. Amador has been Papá’s enemy for years, but that wasn’t always the case. They used to be partners. Maybe even friends. And my mother wrote several checks to this man just before she died.
“Why did you want to see me?” I ask, deciding to get that question out of the way before I barrage him with my own.
“Your papá and I have a long history. Believe it or not, you and I have met before, when you were only a little girl. Your mother would bring you to Cancún with her on occasion. I had the pleasure of an introduction during one of those visits. I imagine you might have questions about Lola.”
I clench my jaw at his evasive answer, but it’s a sufficient segue that I decide not to waste more time.
“Were you there when she died?” I ask.
“No, cariña, and I regret it to this day. What happened to your mother could have been avoided.”
What happened was something I doubted the moment I looked at my mother’s signature on those checks. The stories my father spun were tragic and laid the blame fully at Amador’s feet, which is the reason this meeting feels so reckless. If this is the man who killed my mother, what will he do to me?
I don’t feel any sense of danger from him, however. He looks concerned, maybe even regretful.
“Did you order her death?” I ask.
His brow creases and his jaw spasms. “Is that what he told you? All these years, you believed I was somehow responsible? I heard it was suicide, but you and I both know how common it is in our world for suicide to hide the truth.”
“Are you saying you don’t know how she really died?”
He takes a deep breath and stares down at his hands where they rest on his knees. “No, Celeste. I was nowhere near her when it happened, and Arturo was not exactly forthcoming with the details. I take it your presence here means he’s just as tightly locked up as always.”
I let out a huff of frustration that earns me a low chuckle from him.
“Is there anything you can tell me?” I’m almost desperate for something to make this meeting worthwhile now. It’s enough that it ensures Gustavo won’t talk to my father about my meeting with Maddox, but if Papá ever finds out I was here, I want it to have been worth it.
He turns toward me, his gaze intent on my face as if memorizing it. “I remember how beautiful she was. You look like her in almost every way.” He reaches up and brushes a knuckle over my cheek, then raises his hand to touch the curl of a cowlick at my hairline that I’ve been cursed with my entire life. My heart pounds from the gesture, which reminds me acutely of how my father sometimes behaves when he’s being particularly sentimental. “Do you truly know your father, cariña? He may not be who he seems.”
Voices rise outside, and I tense, but I’m not finished with this conversation yet. He scowls past my shoulder and fishes into his pocket for his phone.
I open my mouth to ask another question when a shot rings out from outside the SUV.
Amador drops his phone onto the seat and lunges toward me, yanking me down to the floorboards. My adrenaline spikes as more shots echo through the night, followed by the squeal of tires on concrete.
Amador pulls a gun from beneath his coat and peeks through the seats out the front window. Another gunshot is followed by the sound of breaking glass.
With a swipe of his hand, Amador kills the interior light as yet another shot pings off our windshield without breaking it.
“Stay down,” he commands. He kneels above me, one knee on the seat and the other on the floor by my legs. Picking up his phone again, he taps the screen and puts it to his ear. “Gustavo, what the fuck is going on out there?” he demands. Then, “Where are the guns? Make sure Arturo’s men don’t get their fucking hands on them. What the fuck do you mean they’re gone?”
“What is it?” Arturo’s men? Guns? What the hell was this deal I walked into?
He curses and looks down at me, his face a mask of cold rage. “Forgive me. I should not have agreed to meet you at the same time as this deal Gustavo brought to me, but he insisted it was my only chance to see you. If we were in Mexico, I would have more control over the chaos.”
I’m not sure how to process that information. Why was he that interested in meeting me to begin with?
“Who is out there shooting at us?” I ask.
“They’re shooting at each other, not at us. Reckless fools. Your father’s men are highly protective of you, aren’t they?” He glances down at me with an assessing look.
“They’re not just his men. They’re my friends.” My
