Chapter 13
DEAN
Four months is a long time to play a role, but with the new baby and the work that Carlos was dumping on Dean, it had surprisingly flown by.
The twins had their fifth birthday, and once more Carlos went over the top.
At least this time he kept the invite list to those that had other small children.
The day was filled with balloons, music, entertainment, and desserts.
Watching them run around and play…it really created a glimmer of hope.
In that span, Mercurio, the person Carlos insisted he was, learned to breathe where Dean might have drowned. Meetings multiplied, routes tightened, guards rotated on a schedule that smelled like paranoia.
Ricco’s little circle grew by ones and twos, never more, never enough to tempt fate. The message to Alvarez went out into the dark and came back as all good gambles do at first…with silence.
There were new tests, each more poisonous than the last. His father either sensed that his men were slipping away, or it was just that the real Carlos was starting to emerge.
Carlos arrived one morning without knocking, the way a man enters a house he owns. He smiled at Yasmine as if he were the patron saint of family, then lifted Isabella from the rug with a grandfather’s coo.
He didn’t ask. He tucked a curl behind Isabella’s ear and said he was going to show the little one the stables and horses.
Dean had been ready to jump on his father, but Yasmine grabbed his hand and put on a huge fake smile.
She was right, it was another test and if they refused something terrible would happened.
But that didn’t stop the fear from creeping in when he didn’t bring her back until moonrise.
It was long enough for Yasmine to wear a path in the floor, long enough for Dean to see red.
When Carlos returned Isabella, she wore a yellow ribbon in her hair she hadn’t left with and had powdered sugar on her cheeks. Carlos had the satisfaction of knowing he could pluck any string in Dean’s body and play him for a chump.
Another night, Carlos’s fun bled a little too much and left a corpse where a girl had been. The medical wing was closed. The whispers were quiet, but they couldn’t hide the truth. Discretion, Carlos had said, as if he were ordering a dessert.
Dean carried a trash bag that wasn’t trash to a place where weeds grew wild and no one ventured. Men stood by as he dug the hole, set the body on fire, and watched the flames consume her. Once the fire had been reduced to ash, he covered up what his father had done.
Then, there was the member of the Righteous, the one leading the rest. The one sending out the anonymous orders knowing full well that they all worked for the Cartel and no longer for the government.
He no longer wore his fatigues, but was armored with a private helicopter, an expensive suit, and a shit eating grin that screamed just how much money he was making from doing this.
He introduced himself as if the world revolved around him—Mr. Keene.
He didn’t recognize Dean because men like Keene never saw the knife until it was slitting their throat.
Dean recognized him anyway. Not the man…
the type. Greedy. Mean. Power as perfume.
The sort who enjoyed turning the screws and calling it policy.
Carlos called Keene his point man, the American conduit through which the Righteous now moved, managing ops, logistics, cleanup.
Keene talked about, stability objectives, asset leverage, and he looked at Dean’s hands when he used the word asset like he wished they were doing worse things.
He would be of no use. Tools that enjoyed their job were the last to break.
Through all of it, the map in Dean’s head grew teeth.
The dead zone between arches. The river bend between the murals.
Which tower guards chewed sunflower seeds at 1400 hours and which ones flirted with the kitchen staff at 1800 hours.
Which lieutenants followed orders because they feared, and which because they wanted to be Carlos when they grew up.
And how long it took the perimeter to close around a scream.
He kept score. Being here was like swallowing poison in sips.
He counted beats between the tick of the antique clock in Carlos’s office and imagined sliding a blade into its brass heart just to see if it could by some miracle stop time.
Fuck…forget stopping it, he wanted to turn the hands back.
Parts of him screamed that he should’ve grabbed a gun and shot his father and took over when he was eighteen.
Then Dean looked at his family and couldn’t picture what his life would look like any other way.
Sighing, Dean glanced around the office he’d been tied to for half the day.
The sun was just beginning to set. Carlos’s office hummed with the low insect-buzz and breeze of the night.
He sat behind the desk the way Carlos liked, with his suit crisp, pen poised, ledger open while Carlos sat in the corner, smoking a cigar and reading as if he were Dean’s schoolteacher, waiting for him to finish an exam.
The phone on the credenza lit up, vibrating once. Carlos lifted the receiver and turned to the balcony. He stepped outside, but left the doors cracked, curtains breathing in and out with the breeze.
Dean kept his head down, filling the balance sheet like it was any other night. He marked with a calm hand where any Garcia family should be reminded to pay their protection tax. His expression stayed bored. But his ears tuned in to his father.
“…Armored transport was hit,” Carlos said in Spanish, the words clipped and hard. “What do you mean, it was hit?”
Dean’s pen paused mid-stroke. A slow warmth, almost pleasant, sparked in his chest.
No…could it be?
“Are you fucking kidding me? Who the hell would even want to break the girl out, let alone perform a coordinated attack?”
Carlos flung the balcony door open and glared at Dean as he looked up. He put the man he was talking to on speaker. The voice on the other end crackled faintly.
“They were professional and had the same Hummers that your army guys use. The doors were breached, and they were in and out in a couple minutes. We never had a chance to take the girl from the police. The call came in over the radio that the truck had been hit, and too much time had passed for us to pick up a trail when we arrived. The girl was gone and the spot was swarming with flashing lights.”
“Son of a bitch,” Carlos swore, keeping his eyes locked on Dean’s face.
Dean let his breath leave on a silent, measured count of four, not giving anything away.
Trev.
This had Trev’s signature all over it. A clean, focused, no wasted motion attack.
Carlos’s tone dropped to a threatening whisper. “Do you have any idea where the girl is?”
“We’re working on it, Sir, but nothing yet.”
“Fuck! Fine, I have other strings to pull. I’ll call Keene, but you better fucking find her before they do, or I’ll have no use for you anymore,” Carlos snapped, then he hung up. The tension stretched between them as Carlos silently accused Dean of having something to do with this.
Maeve was alive and free.
The spark in Dean’s chest flared, brief, and against his will. There was still a long road ahead, but it was a win.
“Mercurio,” Carlos said lightly, testing. “Do you know what distrust smells like?”
“Are you accusing me of something?” Dean tilted his head, leaning back in the leather chair to stare at his father. Dean’s heart pounded hard, but his face remained made of stone.
Carlos studied him, hunting for the tremor under the ice.
“You saying that you have nothing to do with what just happened? How Alvarez’s daughter magically found herself a top lawyer, who happens to be part of the Righteous, and then miraculously escapes an armored truck destined to bring her to me? ”
“Sounds like you have a leak in your government assets. You should speak to Mr. Keene about that,” Dean replied flatly. He loved the fury it created in his father’s eyes.
“You think you’re funny, but I know you had something to do with this.”
Dean pulled out the phone his father had given him a few weeks back.
“Go ahead check it. I’ve had no contact with anyone from the outside.
Righteous or otherwise. If something happened to that transport…
it wasn’t my doing. And here I thought we were finally finding some sense of peace between us.
But now you’re accusing me of betraying you the moment something goes wrong. ”
Dean stood and buttoned his suit jacket. “Unless things have changed, business things go wrong all the time, people die, shipments are lost, and people need to be taught a lesson.”
Something like amusement crossed Carlos’s eyes. “So, it wasn’t you?”
“No, check whatever logs you need to, but it wasn’t me,” Dean answered firmly.
“We will find her. I’ll be sending your old teammates after her next. Maybe I should just kill her instead of going to all this trouble,” Carlos pondered, trying to get under Dean’s skin.
“Do whatever you need to.” Dean shrugged.
“Fine. Are you not curious about who would’ve done this then?”
Dean met his gaze at last, the mask fitting like second skin. “Curiosity…it always kills the cat. Just tell me what you want done. You point and I’ll shoot. Isn’t that what you wanted from me?”
His jaw twitched with annoyance at having his words thrown back into his face.
“Later.” Carlos’s smile hardened. “For now, a reminder. No one steals from me and lives long.” He took two steps, then paused as if an afterthought. “How is your family? The fiery redhead and my grandchildren.”
Dean froze.
Where the fuck was this going?
“They are restless. Tired of only seeing this house and the walls that surround the property.”
Every part of Dean wanted to put his father through the balcony door, over the railing, and watch him fall. Instead, he shrugged.