Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
NINE YEARS AGO
The call came in just after lunch. “Senor Esquivel would like to see you in his office,” said the receptionist.
Lucía blinked at the phone, heart skipping. “Now?”
“Yes, senorita. Right away.”
She stood too fast, nearly knocking her chair off balance. Her blouse clung at the back from hours of stress-sweat. She hadn’t touched her lunch.
Across the room, Mateo looked up from his screen. Their eyes met for the first time in days. She couldn’t read his expression.
She smoothed her skirt and walked to the elevator.
The top floor was always too cold. A calculated chill designed to discourage lingering. Lucía’s heels echoed down the corridor. She could hear her own breathing.
This was it. This was the moment she was going to get fired from the only job she’d ever wanted.
The only job that had ever challenged her or had felt like it was going to lead to the life she wanted.
The life she’d worked so hard for. All because she’d refused to sleep with her boss, a man whom she’d both fantasized about and was attracted to, but who had asked for something she just wasn’t prepared to give.
When had her life become so fucking complicated? So out of her own control? And how on earth could she gain it back?
Javier’s door was open. He was standing by the window, facing out over México City. The skyline shimmered with late sunlight, steel and glass humming with distance.
“Come in,” he said, without turning.
Lucía obeyed.
“You’ve been working late,” he said.
She didn’t answer.
He turned. Dressed, as always, in casual authority. He gestured to the chair opposite his desk.
She sat.
He tapped a file on his screen and rotated the monitor slightly so she could see it. “There’s an account here. Layered beneath a defunct logistics firm. It was recently flagged for inconsistencies.”
Lucía stared blankly at him for a long moment. This wasn’t about the other night. This was about work. Actual work.
He shook his head irritably, as if she were being deliberately stupid and he had no time for it. So she leaned forward, scanning the spreadsheet.
“In this firm, there are three sets of books,” Javier said. “Two of them are lies.”
She frowned. “And the third?”
He smiled. “The one we don’t show the authorities.”
Her eyes darted up to meet his. His tone was level. Neutral. But she felt the warning behind the words.
He continued, “This is off-roster work. Not billable. No paper trail. I need you to reconcile these files. You’ll report only to me.”
Lucía’s mouth went dry. “Is this…internal?”
“Let’s call it sensitive.”
He tapped a key. A secondary folder opened. It was encrypted. But she saw the name in the metadata: SinalData Holdings.
The name struck a bell she didn’t like. She forced her expression flat. “I thought you trusted only senior staff with discretionary accounts,” she said.
“I do.”
Silence. Lucía sat back slowly, spine straight.
Again, all she could do was stare at him.
This meeting had gone nothing like she’d imagined.
She wasn’t being fired, she was being promoted.
She was being invited into a secret upper echelon within the firm, where the real clients lived.
The real money, too. And the real power.
SinalData. Sinaloa.
Cartel.
Javier’s smile never shifted. “You’ll work from home. Air-gapped. No backups. No questions.”
She said nothing, just looked at the screen. The folder blinked, waiting.
He slid a USB drive across the desk toward her. “Still want the job?”
Lucía took the drive. The plastic felt heavier than it should have. Then she heard herself say, “Yes.”
Downstairs, the elevator doors slid open. Lucía stepped into the lobby, pulse still drumming from the conversation upstairs. She adjusted her grip on the USB drive in her palm, fingers clenched so tightly the edges were biting into her skin.
Ahead, Mateo stood by the front desk, flipping through a file. He glanced up as she approached.
Their eyes met. She couldn’t read his expression. Couldn’t afford to try.
She kept walking.
If he spoke, she didn’t hear it. If he moved, she didn’t see it. She passed him like smoke sliding past a closed window.
If she turned around now—if she met his eyes, if she let him see what she was holding—he’d know what she’d agreed to.
And she wasn’t sure she’d survive the look on his face when he realized how far she’d gone.