Reina del Cartel: Complete Trilogy

Prologue

It’s all gone.

I watch a woman who looks to be nearly my mother’s age walking through the family villa as it burns to the ground, her long, raven hair somehow unscorched by the blistering flames as she steps out into the courtyard, not fazed by the surrounding destruction.

“Wake up, Celia!” My mother hissed out through the smoke.

I was in the middle of a dream.

The kind I could never remember after waking, but would still waste the day chasing the feeling.

By morning, the plot would be just a distant memory, but I’ll miss it regardless.

I could beg my mind to bring it back again, but once consciousness hits it’s never the same, it’ll become so far out of reach that I won’t even recall its purpose anymore and once a dream is lost, it’s gone forever.

Only the promise of another sleep could reunite us.

The heat of the fire urged me to wake, but the smoke invaded my lungs, promising to lull me back to unconsciousness while the blaze of the flames engulfed my second-story bedroom.

All four walls were surrendering to the embers dancing up them.

“I don’t know what to do, Rafa! Cézar! Help me!” My mother’s frantic panic was a lead pipe, beating me awake.

With an urgent breath, I choked on the heady smoke that devoured the room. Reaching in the bed next to me, I padded around for my little sister, Carolina, but felt nothing.

“Cézar and I will hold them while we jump, the floor will give out any second now.” My father reassured her.

I felt the bed shift under me and suddenly I was being rolled into the blankets.

“Papá! Please, I can’t breathe!” I shouted under the layers of fabric.

Carolina’s screaming was sharp, piercing through the blankets when suddenly, the mattress below me was gone and all I could feel was the air being pulled from my insides when my body hit the ground. The impact is hard, my lungs falter for one, two, three too many seconds.

Was I outside?

I tried to roll but I was tangled and wrapped in this ball of cushioning that I couldn’t force myself out of.

Everything was caving in, and I couldn’t breathe.

The stale smoke and the darkness of the makeshift cocoon were setting my heart off a million miles an hour, “I CAN’T brEATHE! ” I screamed again.

Carolina’s cry was a comforting sound, she was close, I could hear her. She couldn’t have been far from me, she was only six. She was too little to understand what was happening.

I didn’t understand what was happening.

“Breathe deep, mija.” My papá’s voice reached me, the pressure of his hands gripping the blankets surrounding me.

I labor through a long, painful wheeze, my lungs burning as oxygen and stale smoke push their way out of me in a stuttered exhale. The sob pours out of me with no control.

“What is happening, Papá?”

“We must leave México, right now. Our family is in grave danger.”

The sound of Carolina’s cries would ring louder every hour and soften again as she ran out of strength to weep. I wanted to cry too, but every time the tears pooled in my eyes, I would clench my fists and turn the sadness into anger like my father taught me.

Most eight-year-olds had the luxury of crying, but I was the daughter of the leader of the Cártel.

Heiress to the most dangerous criminal enterprise in México.

My papá reminded me daily that everything I did, or said was a display of how much power our family held.

He said that they wanted to see me crumble and break simply because I was born a woman.

I couldn’t cry.

No, I squeezed my fists until my nails dug into my hands.

It was all gone.

We traveled for hours, mostly in silence. Every minute was a rushed blur of madness as we did our best to make it to the border. Cézar’s snoring helped me fall asleep after our third or fourth stop for gas. I didn’t wake up again until I saw the flashlights of patrol officers at our window.

Cézar wasn’t really my brother, but he’d been around for as long as all my other memories. He was ten years older but never once acted like his age made him too cool to be around me. His dark hair was kept short, and his copper skin had the same warmth as mine.

If you saw us side by side, you’d probably think we were actually siblings.

“My children are asleep. Please turn that off,” My mother spoke to an officer outside of the car.

“We need to make sure they match the photos on the passports,” I heard another voice on the other side of her window.

“What time is it?” Carolina asked, her head on my lap taking most of the backseat.

“Still bedtime, go back to sleep,” my mother reassured her with a hush.

“Here, is ten thousand enough? It’s all the cash we have,” my father threw the wad from the glovebox at the cop standing at his window.

“Not bad, but I thought this was the Cártel we were helping? I thought you had fatter wallets than this?” Another man’s voice rang out from the darkness.

“Maybe we should turn you back around so we can collect a bigger fee,” the woman spoke again.

Cézar struggled to feign asleep, a low growl sounding from deep within his chest in response to the obvious threat.

“Please, we have nothing left. We can pay you more once we are through,” My father said to them, in a reasoning tone.

“That’s what they all say. Lucky for you I’m feeling generous. I’ll let your family through for a discount if your pretty wife here does a little favor for me, you know?”

There had not been many times in my life I’d seen my father lose his cool.

He was calm, collected, and calculating.

That was how he bested his enemy. It was the quality I most admired and hoped to inherit when I got older.

The closest I had ever seen him lose his composure was when my Uncle Ignacio’s son called me a whore in the middle of a Cártel business dinner.

The dinner itself was a significant event, the remaining three heads of the organization and their families were invited to dine and drink at our home.

My father displayed his power, his strength, and everyone could let their guards down to drink without the fear of a knife in their back or poison in their pies.

Meals were sacred to our family, it was practically neutral ground.

I had barely caught the insult before I heard the knife swish by from across the table when suddenly blood was pouring out of my cousin Carlito’s mouth. Cézar’s laugh was that of a maniac when he pulled the blade from his cheek, the blood pouring down my primo’s newly deformed face.

My uncle’s bitterness was so tangible you could taste it around the room.

That day my father told Carlito he was now as ugly on the outside as he was on the inside. In front of everyone, Papá reminded him and my uncle that they would never hold a position of power in this family and would be lucky to get grunt work once I was seated as queen of the command.

“Look, friend, my wife here is not for sale. However, I can promise you that whether or not my family makes it across this border, will be what dictates how you get home tonight. You see, my men are not confined to the walls you and your little government set. They are waiting for me in Ocean Valley, so you can imagine that if I don’t make it there in time…

Well, they will be waiting for you, in your homes.

Mija, what was that address again?” My father said calmly gesturing to me in the backseat.

“1355 Rainwater Court, Chula Vista, California,” the words came out of my mouth on autopilot from the hundreds of times we rehearsed this in the car on our way here and I hoped to God that it was the correct one.

“Yes, 1355 Rainwater, they’ll be waiting with guns, knives, and bags to put you and your little parts in. Those bags will then be delivered to your mother’s house—what was that other address?”

“229 West Main Street, Duncanville, Pennsylvania,” I recited the next address from the back of my mind the way we practiced.

The man’s eyes widened, quickly turning his flashlight away from my window. I could feel the pride beaming from my papá and a quick check at the half-smile on his face in the rearview mirror let me know I did well.

“Keep the money. Please sir, go on,” the man nervously mumbled as he placed the wad of cash back into the car as he signaled Rafael Flores, the king of the Cártel, to move through the gate.

“Now, America,” my mother exhaled.

I wasn’t sure if it was relief or dread that coated her tongue.

It wasn’t anything new to me. We came up here a few times a year for either my papá’s work or for holidays to see my mamá’s sister, Tía Larissa.

But this wasn’t a visit, and there was nothing to celebrate.

Our whole world just turned upside down, and aside from the blanket I was still half cocooned in, there was nothing I carried with me to remember my home, my country and the remnants of my life.

We spent the next few hours on the road until we finally made it to the outskirts of Ocean Valley.

Your typical coastal city, but positioned perfectly so that it extended into the outskirts of a deep forest as well.

My aunt Larissa waited outside her large home in her fancy gated community as we turned onto her street.

She had the same big smile on her face that she wore every time we drove in, but it didn’t reach her eyes this time.

She opened my mother’s door, quickly pulling her sister in for an embrace, the world dissolving around them as they cried together.

My aunt reprimanded my mother in quiet whispers through their grief, “Yo Sabía!” and words of “This is why Diego is gone,” but my mother shushed her sister, both eyes darting to the boy next to me.

Her eyes searched for Cézar who stared in the opposite direction out the window with nothing but apathy. She opened Carolina’s door next, but my sister was fast asleep.

“I’ve got her,” My father tried to intervene, but my tía slapped his hand away, rejecting his offer.