58. Attila
58
ATTILA
L una squeals as she disembarks from the jet and flies into me, almost knocking me over. Her excitement sends a wave of trepidation through me. She’s excited to be seeing her brothers, but where does that leave us?
“Where are they?” she asks, jumping on the balls of her feet in barely contained excitement. Nadia joins us, looking better than she did when we left her in Arizona.
“They’re waiting for you,” I tell her, as we walk toward the waiting car. I don’t tell her that I left a watchful eye on them in the form of Cesar.
We drive the short distance to the house, with Luna animated the entire way as she tells me she met Dante’s wife Kingsley and Caleph’s fiancé Ariadne.
“They are… amaaaazing,” she croons. “I can’t describe to you how well we got along.”
“I heard,” I snicker. “You guys stayed up all night watching old movies. Caleph and Dante were fuming.”
“Why?” she whips her head in my direction curiously. “We were right there in the building.”
I shake my head and laugh. “They’re not used to sleeping without their women beside them. They don’t like it one bit.”
Luna lifts her shoulders in a shrug and tells me the girls had fun and that my friends would survive one night on their own.
“They weren’t really angry, were they?” she asks, a worried frown creasing between her eyebrows.
“They had a bit of a bitch, but like you said, they’ll survive.”
“Their partners are lovely — no wonder they don’t want to spend a moment away from them.”
I look at Luna thoughtfully. I don’t know how I’m going to spend a moment without her after all this is over. She’ll probably decide to stay in Mexico, although I don’t miss the absence of a bag. She’ll want to be with her brothers. She’ll want to be in the comfort of family, not strangers.
I turn away from her and glide my eyes toward the window as we near the house. I don’t miss Nadia’s gaze as our eyes cross and she gives me a little shake of her head and rolls her eyes.
* * *
I sit with Enzo, watching Luna as she frolics on the grass with her brothers. They’re like little kids seeing each other after an extended absence, their laughter echoing off the cliff side as they play tip. Nadia and Cesar are sharing a coffee at the other end of the patio; Cesar listens to Nadia, nodding and grunting at certain intervals as he hangs on every word the woman says.
“I haven’t had a chance to thank you,” Enzo says, turning to me. “For saving my sister. She told me what you did. And for saving us.”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “People like us — people in our world — don’t care about doing the right thing. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”
I shift in my seat, an uneasy tension forming between us. I hadn’t thought it was that obvious, even though I’ve limited my interactions with her.
“I’m not saying this to make you feel uncomfortable,” he hurries to add. “I just wanted you to know that I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for us, and I wouldn’t mind you for my sister. If I’m reading the situation right and that’s what you want.”
“Your sister’s not interested.”
“I don’t think Luna even knows what she wants. If you want her, you’ll have to make her want you.”
* * *
Coyin Castillo died almost broke. What remained were the scattered properties across Mexico that he had mortgaged to the hilt. He was, at the time of his death, effectively bankrupt. A cartel leader with no money was as good as dead even before he woke every morning; cartel members that don’t get paid don’t hang around for free.
This, I know, is a hard pill to swallow for the Castillo boys. They have to start over from scratch; it’s only a matter of time before the banks reclaim everything that’s theirs. I know they don’t want to be part of what their father established from everyone else’s hard earned money. They don’t want to be thugs, and they don’t know how to rule in this world. So I devise a plan. I run it past Caleph and Dante, get the go ahead and put my plan in motion. It’s up to them whether or not they accept.
Enzo tells me they have no desire to leave Mexico. This is where they’ve lived all their lives, and this is where they’ll stay.
“So what will you do?” I ask.
He shrugs, tells me they’ll work it out. Go back to the beginning. I tell him I have a proposition for him; he looks at me uncertainly until I start to outline my idea for him.
“And who will bankroll this venture?” he asks.
“None other than Nestor Gamboa.”
“The man is dead,” he reminds me, deadpan.
“But his money isn’t.”
I go on to tell him that Nestor forfeited any right he had to anything in our world the minute he decided to attack us. I had Pietro, Dante’s trusted security whizz and resident hacker, sink his teeth into Nestor’s offshore accounts. And there was plenty to write home about there. This is what we call the spoils of war. The dead businessman left behind a fortune and no one to claim it, so we seized it. And we’d put it to good use.
“We’ve been thinking of avocado farming,” I tell Enzo, who regards me with some skepticism. He must think I’m crazy. I know there’s a massive market for avocados in the US; my plan is not limited to Mexico, and I tell him so. “You and your brothers will run the business side of things; overseeing production, transport, export. I will supply the contacts in the US. It’s a lucrative industry, Enzo, and it’s only getting bigger.”
“And if it fails?” He’s hesitant. It’s a business venture and he’s using someone else’s money.
“It won’t.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch. All I ask is that you employ local farmers, you treat them well and you pay them their due. A third party will be conducting regular compliance audits.”
“You really think it will work?”
“I know it will. But I can’t do this unless you’re on board.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“This will be beneficial for all of us,” I tell him. “We’ve been thinking about it for a while, but it’s been on the back burner until we could find someone to run the venture. This is the perfect opportunity.”
“We don’t want any part of any shady or illegal dealings. We lived that with my father.”
I put my hand to my heart in faux horror as I tell him that’s not what we’re about. This is a legitimate business and it will stay as such. I watch as he turns to his siblings, then as he lowers his eyes to my outstretched hand and puts his palm in mine.