But Roth gets right to business. “The lieutenant explained to me the capo has been unwell. I trust this does not delay the meeting?”
“I assured the governor everything is moving as planned—” the lieutenant starts, but Roth plows over both him and his translator.
“I don’t take assurances from subordinates,” he bites, belittling the guy with the enormous gun on his belt. “You’re the doormat in my welcoming committee. I came here for the capo.”
The lieutenant slides his tongue over his gold teeth, cracking his knuckles like he’s calculating where’s best to land a punch.
“In our final communication, there was no mention of a problem,” Governor continues, his voice simmering with repressed impatience. “The capo was to meet me at her northern stronghold and escort me on her private jet to the capital.”
I lean a few inches away, wondering if this will be the moment he finally explodes.
“Where is the capo?” he demands. The question is so quiet it’s disturbing. “If she is playing with me, I do not like games.”
Unless he’s the one controlling them, of course.
Valeria unsheathes that cutting smile.
“It pains me to say my mother has in fact been unwell.” I expect her to elaborate. She doesn’t. “But the Salazar capo is greeting you here. In my northern stronghold.”
Valeria lifts her hand, displaying a thick ring that covers half her finger. Gold scorpions make up the outer band, their claws wrapped around an enormous blood-red ruby.
Director Wix, still shorter than Valeria, even in her high-heeled boots, shifts her weight backward, away from the girl who wears the emblem of the Salazars. The ring that marks her as their capo.
The sight strikes me dumb. “¡De ninguna pinche manera!” I let slip. My translator trumpets my horrified shock for the entire tarmac to hear. No fucking way!
How? When? What, did she murder her own mom to claim the title? A woman called the Heartless Butcher can’t have gone down easy . . .
The lieutenant bows to Valeria, kissing the ring. “I declare allegiance to your rule,” he says.
Valeria keeps her wide eyes on Governor, her dad, like she covets his approval even more than her new power.
Roth holds back any reaction behind his stalwart veneer, like he’s neutral to the news.
Like Roth’s neutral to anything.
Most especially to news that his secret daughter now has, or has taken, the role of capo.
He removes his military cap in a form of salute. “Congratulations, Capo. I look forward to our meeting.”
Movement under the belly of the jet catches my attention.
A slew of servants, including the girl who dressed me, is loading the Salazar’s luggage into the cargo bay. I spot Andrés, Valeria’s caught mouse, escorted by the two cartel women I saw when I first met my aunt. They banter back and forth, laughing, one of them wearing the captive’s black leather patch over her own eye.
Hands cuffed, shoulders sloped, Andrés looks like a beat-up shell of a man, like his soul died right alongside the woman he called his love. All his fight is gone.
But he’s still alive.
That’s one piece of good news tonight.
Valeria looks pleased, jubilant even, as she leads our party to the airstairs.
When I enter through the jet’s oval door, I can’t even properly take in the wildly extravagant cabin interior, because seated on one of the five white leather couches is a man I recognize. He’s the pride and hero of Canada and my own former leader.
President Moore.
“I must say, I did not expect to see you here, Theo,” he remarks, the gold translator necklace popping against his beige suit.
So he recognizes me too. From the Battle for Dallas, I’m guessing.
I bet he wishes he could arrest me right now. Not only for being a foreign Glut who dared to live in his sacred lands, but for my freshly minted status of “legitimate grandson” to his foremost rival.
“Your new country is treating you well, then?” he says, eyeballing my uniform and medals.
The president’s chestnut hair is as glossy as a thoroughbred’s coat, and when he runs his hand through it and smiles, he oozes his famous I’m-a-good-guy charm, like he would never detain and torture asylum seekers like Ava and Mira in black-site prisons. My fingers clench into fists at the thought of feeding tubes forced down Mira’s throat on his orders.
I take a step toward him, half-sure I want to blow my cover just to sock Moore’s perfect, dishonest face, but the president rises to his dapper feet when Roth and Valeria enter behind me.
“I see you’ve decided to come after all,” Governor greets the northern president. “Good.” His downturned lips lift into a grin.
Did I miss something? There’s little chance Governor’s forgotten about Moore’s botched deportation of his Traitorous Twins.
He despises Moore. Why is he pleased to see him?
“Well, gentlemen, should we engage in pleasantries?” Valeria asks in her silvery voice, inviting Roth and Moore into a conference room at the back of the cabin.
This is the first time in decades the leaders of these formidable countries have met in person. All three have immense, expensive borders with the sole purpose of keeping each other out. And now, here they all are, on their way to making secret deals that will affect hundreds of millions of lives.
All of North America’s leaders seem to be in on this alliance. But what is Moore doing here? Canada has more influence and riches than its two southern neighbors combined, making Moore the most powerful person on this jet. Why do dirty dealings with the likes of governors and water lords?
The only thing I do know, and what Moore is most likely ignorantly blind to, is that no matter what they’re set to negotiate tonight at the capital stronghold, the balance is skewed.
There’s more than one Roth taking a seat at the power table.
The scheming leaders disappear behind the mirrored door of the conference room, and soon the Monterrey stronghold starts diminishing as the jet’s engines speed our party down the tarmac and up into the air.
Director Wix lowers herself onto the nearest couch, slipping off her heeled boots with her toes. She sighs in pleasure, then tucks two stainless steel briefcases I’ve never seen before beneath her swollen feet.
She catches me looking. “You either have a foot fetish or an emboldened curiosity that needs to be stifled.”
I take a long look at myself in the pristine glass of the conference door. What are you made of? my reflection asks again.
“Are you trading whatever’s in those briefcases?” I ask.
They seem too small to carry a weapon . . .
Wix laughs, a delicate airy sound so incongruous with her person.
“Don’t you have an execution to plan?” she answers. “It will be a nice send-off before we head home.”
“Home?” I say, taking pains to keep the fear from my voice. “To Dallas, you mean?”
She laughs again. “Yes. What will be left of it.”
MIRA
“We’re not lost,” Ava asserts, stubbornly.
But we’ve been walking—or what feels more like meandering—around the desert for fifty minutes.
No sign of anything. Or anyone.