Chapter 32 Ronan
RONAN
Ihad no way of sleeping.
How could I, when I had endangered everyone that I was responsible for, and almost lost her completely in a matter of hours? I got a text from Taylor telling me to come down to tech and she only sent it to me, which could only mean that maybe she had something on my personal request.
Unfortunately, Kane was snooping like a little bitch and read over my shoulders, deciding he wasn’t going to miss out on any sort of new information.
álvarez was still sulking in his room like someone shoved an icepick up his ass, but I had no intention of poking the homicidal bear.
If he was gonna brood, he could stay there the whole week for all I cared.
I’d had enough of secrets.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about her always choosing everyone else over me.” The confession bubbled its way out before I could stop it, but my brother needed to know this was eating me alive.
“It’s because you keep trying to cage her in whatever way you can. You’re so afraid of her leaving again, you haven’t stopped to think that maybe she’s here by choice now.” He looked me in the eye.
“What, so just absolve everything, forgive all the deception and secrets?” I asked him, and the thought that I was getting advice from him on a girl I’d known my whole life was laughable.
Did I know her though?
“Maybe just try to move past it, stop trying to put limitations on what she can do, where she can go, who she can fuck.” He emphasized, making my blood boil at the insinuation. “She wants to be free, so let her.”
“Let her fuck you, you mean?” I clarified with my own question knowing he wouldn’t directly admit it.
“The difference between me and you is that I love exactly who she is. You love the idea of who you had. I’m not asking for more than she can give.
I’m taking whatever she’s willing to spare.
I just want her, a little or as much as she’s willing to let me have.
” I was having a hard time swallowing down his words.
I couldn’t accept that he was right in any way because it meant admitting that I didn’t know the Cecilia in front of me anymore.
“You love her?” I repeated his confession back to him, not missing a beat before he realized what he’d said a little too late.
“I think somewhere along the way I realized she wasn’t like anyone else this world could give me.” He was looking at me, waiting for me to call some sort of truce to this. But I didn’t know what he was expecting, I would just share my girl with him?
“Except the world gave her to me,” I cut through him as the elevator opened to the tech level and he grabbed my arm to stop me from getting out.
“If you can’t give her what she needs, you will lose her. And believe it or not asshole, I’m actually cheering for you here. You don’t have to lose her. So don’t lose her.” He looked me dead in the eye and I shook him off of me, as I began to enter the codes.
Once we made it past the safe door, we could see Taylor seated in her chair.
Chair was putting it mildly though, it was a fucking epic throne.
It was reminiscent of a captain's seat in Star Trek, but instead of the vastitude of open space, it was an array of screens that somehow never failed to let me down.
She was in full concentration mode, so I cleared my throat to announce that we were inside.
The rest of the team was gone and that struck me as odd, even for how late it was.
They normally slept in shifts so that at least three of them could monitor the live feeds at a time, you never caught one of them alone.
I wasn’t a micromanager, technically this lab was Taylor’s responsibility.
Anyone employed here was hers to deal with, and I never worried about the ins and outs of this place.
I signed their paychecks but as far as I was concerned, they were her team.
Not mine. But still, it was strange to see not even an extra person in here.
“Pizza party for the rest of your team somewhere?” I joked at her.
“Um, something like that.” Her mood was nervous, and her vague response immediately set off red flags.
“Why’d you send them away?” I asked as I caught on.
“I found some seriously sensitive stuff, and I knew you wouldn’t want just anyone seeing this. I only watched a few seconds myself before I realized what I was watching,” she said, her face pale and full of worry. I began to sweat while a million possibilities began rushing through my head.
What the hell could have been so bad to have her this spooked? Taylor Constance saw the same horrors we did out there, so if something had her looking at me this way. I knew it had to be rough.
She glanced over at Kane and shifted her eyes back at me, but I nodded at her.
Her loyalty was unmatched, and I appreciated that to no end, but Mateo Kane was my brother and whatever secret Cecilia was keeping from me, he deserved to know as well.
I knew whatever it was, there would be no way I’d be able to go through it without him anyway.
She nodded her head in understanding before she began to explain. “This was a hell of an ask, and someone sane likely couldn’t have done it.”
“Good thing he didn’t ask someone sane, did he?” Mateo smirked and took a seat in a nearby chair.
“Alright, buckle up and I’ll take you the whole ride through the way my mind worked this one out.” She pulled up some google articles, reddit posts and underground media videos, and began to lay them all out across the many screens.
“When you told me to look up Flores, I literally wanted to shoot you in the dick. But, after a few hours of digging up hundreds of thousands of Flores census archives, I decided to go a little obscure. Reddit can be a hell of a tool if you don’t know what you’re looking for. ” She mused and highlighted the page.
“It wasn’t what I found, but what they didn’t want us to find, over the years there had been a couple hundred posts made.
Nothing too specific, just some ramblings that sounded illegitimate and vague as hell.
The interesting thing is, they had all been removed from the main server, every single post.”
Mateo leaned forward in his chair to give her his full attention, and I couldn’t help but feel my interest pique. Anyone with the power to remove information from an internet server is a lot higher up the chain of anarchy than I could have imagined Cecilia being tangled up in.
“So, what were in these posts?” I nudged her.
“Like I said, speculations, paranoid conspiracy theories, He-said-she-said-they-saw type of stories. All involving some Ortíz cártel family. I found some old photos of newspaper articles that talked about them, but even though it’s hard to search it ain’t news baby.”
“Apparently everyone below the Texas border can tell you who the Ortíz family is. I called a girlfriend whose mom was born in Tijuana and she spent about two hours telling me every story under the sun. This is the real deal shit, the Cártel. That’s why, aside from a few deep underground media videos of live executions that have been server trashed as well, there is nothing to find.
Not unless they wanted you to find it. Which they don’t, by the way. ” She said, crossing her arms.
“And what does that have to do with Flores?” I reminded her of what I sent her after since it seemed like this was going to be taking a few detour routes before we got to the main exit.
“Well, that’s why I was getting all these deleted hits when searching for Flores.
My friend’s mom said when she was young The Ortíz Cártel was practically Greek mythology to them at that point, the Cártel had been split into multiple families, and eventually, the Ortíz head was killed off by one of the other heads, ending their long line, and rule over the Cártel.
” She looked at me while she waited for me to beg for more information, but I was starting to get annoyed, and she wasn’t giving me enough to keep me calm.
Maybe she was procrastinating because she didn’t want to get to the point, I'd never seen Taylor so uncomfortable with digging up some dirt before.
“That’s where the Flores family comes in, they don’t just kill off the Ortíz line, but they take over their seat in the Cártel.
They acquire all of the money, and assets, the paid off military men and police working for the Ortíz, and merge with their own.
Fucking powerful shit. Throughout history even the presidents worked for the Flores family because they had so much military power behind them, it was easier to keep them paid and happy than to start a civil war.
The Cártel kept the cities protected, and justice was served by their principles.
Nobody interfered. That’s fucking wild right?
Can you imagine a government so fucked that the gang leaders are secretly in charge and puppeteering the politicians? ”
“Can you get to the point? You sent your team away over village gossip?” I asked, not hiding my annoyance one bit. Kane kicked out at me with a deep scowl on his face that told me not to piss her off.
“Take a seat asshole. And stop rushing her,” he came to her defense, and she nodded at him in gratitude.
“Well, once I knew what I was looking for, it wasn’t so hard.
I started searching through Mexican records of politicians with the last name Flores and there we had it.
Rafael Flores, political affiliations with nearly every single president for over twenty years, listed as a member of The Congress of the Union.
Basically, way too many hands in way too many baskets to avoid the last name for me.
Can’t find any information on any relatives, living or deceased for him though.
He wiped himself off the radar so good, I’m honestly impressed.
Nearly fucking impossible to find a photo of the guy, but I did find a few older ones, all side profiles.
” She split one of the screens as she pulled up the image of a Mexican man shaking hands with another.
Both men looked incredibly put together like they both knew the world of politics like the back of their hands.
“No clearer photos? This shit is more pixelated than trying to play a nintendo64 on a 4K TV.” Mateo rang out, and I had to agree. These pictures were no good to me.
“The photos don’t matter because he’s dead.
Killed in a drive-by shooting nearly fifteen years ago.
” My eyes went wide while the gears turned in my head faster than I could process it, there was no way.
It was a coincidence. I only met the guy once, but I would have recognized him even in those shit quality low-resolution photos.
“Bring back the photos,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes as she pulled them up again and I stared into the much younger version of the man I once thought would become my father-in-law.
I dragged my hand over my face while every terrible thought my mind could conjure up began to consume me.
My vision went black and the noise around me felt muted and hushed.
The sizzling buzz of the electronics in the room was the only sound coming through and connecting with my brain.
My knuckles were a stark white as they pressed through my skin from the violence that yearned to pour out of me and I clenched my fists to relieve the desire.
Who the fuck was she? I let a Pandora's box into my life, into my heart, locked up, full of secrets while she chose to never once share any piece of the truth with me
Her father–the coldest motherfucker I had ever met in my entire life–was Rafael Flores, and he was probably the most dangerous man in Mexico while he was still alive.
The ache of her betrayal had grown into rage, and it clawed its way out of me.
I knew if I didn’t get rid of this energy somehow, I would end up with someone bleeding under my fists again.
Taylor waved her hands in front of my face to get my attention, but I couldn’t quite make out what she was saying. I stood up from my chair and shoved her away from me, earning a “Hey!” from both her and Kane.
“I wasn’t done, you know?” she announced as I turned my back to leave the room. I didn’t care. I needed to get my ass to the gym now, I needed to turn a punching bag into dust and fabric with nothing but the force of my fists.
It was no wonder she was looking for protection.
Daughter of the head of the Cártel, I could only imagine how much someone would have paid to get their hands on her.
She was a trophy, and whoever had truly killed Rafael Flores all those years ago was likely still after her.
Though hard to say who wasn’t after her.
Being the kid of the most powerful man in Mexico was probably painting a huge target on her head for anyone Rafael may have pissed off in his wake.
I hit the bag over and over without relenting, not bothering to wrap my hands so I could feel every blow splitting my knuckles apart as I dealt it.
I allowed the same woman to ruin me twice now and it was a mistake I couldn’t repeat.
My heart was breaking all over again, but even stoking the tumultuous rage that throbbed inside me, I knew I would allow her to continue to break me over and over again.
Because I would always come back to her, I would always look after her.
From the first time I ever saw her, I knew she was mine to protect.