Chapter 69 Mateo
MATEO
Aretinal scan and a digital fingerprint of all five fingers were needed before the main doors opened.
We were in the absolute middle of nowhere.
It was as empty as it got out here in the desert, aside for the five by five metal barrack with steel reinforced doors sticking out of the ground.
The doors opened with a mechanical hiss, sliding inside their compartments and allowing us to enter.
She looked calm, comfortable. Like she was in her element.
But I’d watched enough of those videos to know that behind those doors was also the place where her monsters tried to eat her.
She of course had ended up eating them instead, but nonetheless, no child should have faced the burdens Celia Flores had been made to bear.
It was a tiny steel room with a trap door on the floor, we turned on our phone flashlights and the stairs presented themselves.
“There are many entrances, but to unlock them I have to open the main door and turn the system on then send power to all the other doors,” she explained.
The stairs went down into another room, and there an elevator, with far too many digital screens on it, waited for us.
First another retinal scan, another fingerprint on one of the glass screens on the wall.
Then a device came out of the wall holding a piece of glass that reminded me a lot of a microscope slide. She reached her hand out to us.
“Who’s got a knife?”
Santos was the quickest, placing the blade in her hand.
She gripped it tight, pressing the sharp edge against the pad of her index finger until blood pooled around the blade.
She squeezed, the droplets of blood straight onto the glass.
She pressed a button, and the device withdrew back into the wall, the lights turning green and the elevator opening up.
“No fucking wonder he couldn’t steal this from you,” Zerkos snorted out.
“He is just a pretender, playing at being the boss. My papá worked hard to make sure that his empire would only be accessible to me.” Her eyes seemed to darken as she turned toward him.
“Now he will feel the full force of my fury. He’s going to pay for what he did to my family, for turning my sister against me, and for all the lives he’s taken. ”
The elevator opened, and the screen read negative fourteen, which meant we were a long way down.
Far below civilization—where no one could hear your screams. It opened up to a massive room, the walls lined with large stones and a cold concrete slab floor.
Several hallways split off in different directions letting me know this place was bigger than it seemed.
This wasn’t somewhere you wanted to get lost.
She seemed to know exactly where she was going, head held high like none of the trauma she suffered here had been anything but a stepping stone on the way to becoming who she was always meant to be.
She even looked like she fit the part. She wore a black two piece suit, fitted to her curves from every angle. She wore her long black hair slicked back into a low ponytail and her lips were painted a captivating black.
Battle colors.
“How soon can you get Taylor down here working?” she asked Ronan.
“She’s just waiting for you to give her the word.” He had no problem deferring to her, it was an odd thing to see because Ronan Zerkos didn’t defer to anyone.
“We should be able to track him down within the week,” she said confidently.
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“This dungeon is the central hub. There’s sixteen total throughout México.
Four of them never got locked down when my papá died, that’s what he’s been working with this entire time.
The other twelve I can open through the command station with Taylor’s help.
” She walked over to a large table dusting it off to show a map.
“Every dungeon is connected to this one, through a tunnel system. Once I open up all the doors, he’ll know I’m here.
Either he’ll go scurrying like a rat and go into hiding, or he’ll take the bait and come straight to me. ”
“Is that what you want?” Santos asked her, the scar on his face was finally starting to lose its shine.
“I’m not afraid of him anymore. Let him come, less work for me.”
Ronan’s phone rang, breaking the intensity of the moment. He stepped away to take the call and I turned back to her. She looked as beautiful as ever, radiant. My sun. She wore her makeup heavier than usual, to cover the scar on her face.
The scar didn’t take away from her beauty.
It enhanced it.
It told the story of her strength and her refusal to die in a world that wanted nothing more than to bleed her out. Fuck. She was a goddamn reckoning, and she was coming for them all. It was an honor to be considered worthy enough to stand at her side and watch it happen.
But all I wanted to do was reach out and touch her. Slide my hands between her legs and bend her over one of the desks and fuck her senseless. She was so wound up from the stress and the crushing weight of all the expectations that came with being her father’s daughter.
I couldn’t do that.
Not in front of her men, her soldiers.
I knew she played a calculated game and that to be respected she needed space.
But I hadn’t touched her in days, and I was ready to die because of it, I was sure.
She cocked an eyebrow at me like she could read my thoughts.
She shook her head and turned abruptly to say something to César in Spanish.
Then Ronan stepped back into our circle with a pissed off look on his face, his jaw muscles ticking hard like the whole world pissed him off.
“Something’s happening in Cove City,” he said to me before looking over to gauge Celia’s reaction.
She didn’t have one. She wasn’t just damn good at the game, she was a prodigy, carefully cultivated by a monster of a man who genuinely thought he was doing the right thing. The life was a wicked game, and we are all just pieces on a chess board, waiting to be knocked over.
“You’re leaving then?” César spoke for her as if he could sense her lack of words was due to anxiety.
“I gotta sort some things out. I’m surprised your men haven’t called you.
The Bratvas are sending threats, and the Crows are spread thin in multiple directions and with no purpose.
I gotta figure out the future for my men.
” He looked at both me and Santos, the question was there in his eyes, but he couldn’t ask it.
I shook my head.
“It’s you brother, it’s always been you. Go handle it and come back to us.” I tilted my head before slapping my hand on his shoulder, giving him my vote of confidence.
“You won’t go with him?” she asked, concern spread over her face.
“He doesn’t need us, morena,” Santos said from a chair, his arms resting comfortably on his thighs with his shoulders hunched forward.
“And I do?” Shit, she was offended. “Fuck that,” she spat out. “All three of you can fucking go. Deal with your Crows desmadre and then come back together.” She waved her fingers between the three of us angrily.
César choked out a laugh like the asshole he was. Santos huffed out a response, and Zerkos smirked, seeming happy enough to not be on the biting side of her anger for once.
“If you’re opening up these dungeons, you’ll be exposed, vulnerable for your uncle to try something. I’d feel better if at least one of us stayed,” I told her, finding myself with a shovel in hand, ready to dig my own grave.
“You don’t think the hoard of bikers can protect me from the big bad wannabe cártel jefe but you can?” She pouted her lips seductively and stepped closer to me, running her index finger from the center of my sternum and slowly dragging it down.
My breath hitched as she got lower. I could hear César pretending to suck something out of his teeth to distract himself from the moment.
She was dangerous as fuck when she wanted to prove a point.
“Or that the men I’ve collected who’ve sworn their allegiance to me, who’ve dropped to their knees for me, they aren’t capable of keeping me safe like you can?”
“That’s not it, sunshine,” I said with an exhale, feeling frustrated that her past had shaped her to believe that having people who cared for you somehow made you seem weaker.
“It’s that there are three men in this room who would likely eat a bullet if they found out something else happened to you while we were gone. ”
Her jaw clenched hard, a familiar mannerism of Ronan’s. Little moments like this always reminded me that they’d grown up together. Now I saw it for what it really was. It was her behavior not his. He had been mirroring her all this time. It made me wonder if she’d learned it from her father.
She was calculating her options.
Damn, I loved a smart woman.
“Everybody out.” She didn’t even have to say it loud, and the room cleared out fast. All the little techie nerds that were already working to reinstate all of the built-in systems promptly stood and vacated to God knows the fuck where.
César stood as well, and she stood with her arms crossed, waiting for the room to empty completely.
“Are you not going to say anything?” I asked Santos, who still sat on a foldout chair, ankle over his knees and hands behind his head.
“Nah.” He chewed on the toothpick pressed between his back teeth.
Of course he wouldn’t, so I would be the only insane one who wanted to suffocate her because I couldn’t handle the idea of her being on her own without her. Even though history would prove…
Either way. That wasn’t fucking fair. Ronan wouldn’t disagree because he was never going to be saying no to Celia ever again.
And Santos, well… I didn’t really know what his fucking deal was.
I figured he was just handling the post torture shit poorly.
Wouldn’t blame him. He didn’t talk much about it, but she did.
She’d told me in confidence. Every day Guillermo would ask him if he still wanted to protect her, still wanted to take her pain for himself.
Every day he gave him the option to swear himself back to Los Muertos, to kill her instead.
Every day he took what was meant for her, and they’d hurt him instead. And every day she watched. I hated that she had to do what she did, but I respected her for it. But Santos, he was still haunted by it and having a hard time looking past anything but his own failures.