Epilogue
EPILOGUE
R ogan entered the dark restaurant and made his way to the booth in the far-right corner, slipping in on one side.
Colm wasn’t pleased to be left outside in the car, but Rogan didn’t need help. And if he did, then he was in more trouble than Colm could assist him with.
“MacGuire.” Diego Mota looked straight at him. The Fuerte Cartel lieutenant was a hard man. Rogan was used to dealing with dangerous men, but Diego Mota was in a league of his own. His soulless eyes held no mercy, no regard for anyone or anything that stood in the way of what he wanted.
Rogan nodded at him. “You wanted to see me?”
Rogan didn’t know why Diego was in San Antonio, but it couldn’t be good. Part of him wondered if he’d make it out of this meeting alive. But refusing wasn’t an option. He might be one of the most influential men in the city, but that wouldn’t save him if Mota wanted him gone. He knew that when he’d declined to push Fizz for the cartel, he was putting a black mark next to his name.
“You saved the boy. I owe you.” Diego’s English was flawless, his accent barely noticeable. Maybe those rumors that he’d been educated in the US were true.
Okay, he hadn’t expected that. Did Diego actually care about Mateo? Those dark eyes watched him coldly.
It seemed unlikely.
“With your help,” Rogan said carefully. Without his help, they wouldn’t have had a chance in hell.
“My men took care of the cleanup.”
Of that, Rogan had no doubt. He’d been instructed to leave the men restrained and alive. Their fate had been sealed the moment they’d taken Mateo, and he hadn’t had a qualm about leaving them for Diego and his men.
“You know the man Natalya is marrying? The man adopting the boy?”
The boy. Not Mateo or my son.
He thought about lying, but Diego could easily find out the truth. “He’s my cousin.”
“Good. The boy will have his name then. The kid is his responsibility now. If my enemies come after him again, I can’t be seen helping.”
“I understand.” He didn’t, really. If he had any children, he’d move heaven and earth to protect them.
“It sets a precedent. It was a risk to get involved as much as I did. If anyone thought I cared about the boy, they’d continue to try and use him against me. It’s best that very few know about his connection to me.”
There was a warning in his voice, and Rogan nodded. “What about your people? They know.”
“They would never betray me.”
And if they did, their lives would be short-lived.
“Everyone who knows will keep quiet.”
“They better,” Diego said in a friendly voice that did nothing to put Rogan at ease. The warning was clear. Anyone who talked would pay with their lives.
What Rogan couldn’t figure out was if Diego was warning him because he cared about Mateo or because he simply didn’t want any more complications.
Things just didn’t add up. Rogan had been puzzled by Diego’s actions with Natalya and her brother’s debt since the beginning. Taking her and her dying nana in wasn’t keeping with his reputation. He wouldn’t have just waived Río’s debt, not without extracting a much higher price. From what he’d learned from Natalya, Diego had basically left her alone.
“Do you know where Natalya’s brother is?” he asked. Asking questions probably wasn’t his wisest move, but this would be his only chance to get some answers.
“Río is no longer a problem.”
Which probably meant he was dead.
“He owed a lot of dangerous people money he couldn’t pay back. I was indebted to Natalya’s nana. I could have fulfilled my obligation by wiping all of Río’s debts. But in another year’s time, he would have been in the same place. The people he owed money to wouldn’t have hesitated to use Natalya and her nana as leverage.”
“So you made that deal with Natalya to protect her?” It still seemed implausible.
Diego shrugged. “Everyone believed she was paying off her brother’s debts to me. While she lived with me, she was under my protection and her brother’s debtors didn’t dare touch her. I may not follow the law, but I pay my debts. Now that the debt is cleared, I want nothing to do with her or the boy. Oh, and it was the cousin who told the ELO where to find Natalya and the boy.”
“So, you found her?”
“Yes. Apparently, she was involved with Luis—the man in the sketch. She met him on a trip home a few months before Mateo was kidnapped. Luis believed that I’d killed his cousin. When he learned about Mateo, he came up with the plan to kidnap and ransom him. They had no intentions of handing the boy over, of course. They were going to kill him, then flee the country with the money.”
Rogan didn’t need to ask if she was alive. He already knew the answer.
Diego stood. “The cartel wasn’t happy when you refused their offer. I wouldn’t piss them off again,” he warned.
Was that it? “Understood.”
“I owe a debt. I won’t forget.”
He left, and Rogan sat back thoughtfully. Having Diego Mota owe you a favor could either be a blessing or a curse. He just wondered which one it would turn out to be.
I hope you enjoyed Rectify. Redemption, Rogan and Miller’s story is now out!