Chapter 6 Entre El Amor Y El Odio
Ernesto
My signature on these merge papers feels heavier than all the gold stowed away in the Puerto del Sol vault.
Each time I sign my name, it pulls me further and further into the depths of corporate warfare.
My uncle Casimiro circles Sol Industries like a vulture, the company my father built from red earth and sweat.
He thinks he can sense a weakness, and so he seeks an opportunity.
My marriage certificate is safely tucked away in Matthew’s briefcase, ready to be filed at the city court tomorrow, making it official. That piece of paper is like a dam holding back a flood, but a fragile one, built on coercion and a woman’s vulnerability.
At the same time, I’m on the phone with my brother and right-hand man, Santiago. His voice is a low static on the other end—a calm counterpart to the storm brewing inside of me.
“El cargamento pasó el punto de control fuera de Nogales. El rastreador no manda ninguna senal y tampoco nos podemos comunicar con el conductor. Desapareció por completo; es como un fantasma.”
I stare at the schematics for the new distillery for the merger. The images begin to blur into meaningless lines. A full transport of automatic weapons, gone, just evaporated in the Arizona desert.
“Los fantasmas no existen, Santiago. Encuentra al conductor y al camión. Manda al Charro, que se encargue del que tuvo el puto que se atrevió robarnos”
“I’ve got men already sweeping all possible routes. Our informants are being squeezed for any information, but this is clearly a clean job, Ernesto. Way too clean. It feels internal.”
The muscles in my jaw ache from how hard I've been clenching them. Betrayal is like cancer, and it seems to be spreading throughout every crack of my life.
“Then find the tumor and cut it out. Burn the entire checkpoint down if you have to. Me vale madre lo que hagas, pero encuentra el cargamento.” I’m about to go into a rage when I hear a soft knock from the office door.
“I said for no one to disturb me!” I bark the command out. The staff and even my own flesh and blood know the rules. When I’m in this room, I cease to exist for the outside world.
“Too busy even for your wife?” The voice is quiet and laced with insolence that grates against my raw anger. I snap my head up and see Alejandra standing at the doorway. In her hands is a silver tray with small dishes and steam curling from them.
Her presence feels like an anomaly in my space. My eyes trace the line of her jaw and the defiant way she tilts her chin. I used her to solve one of my problems, but she’s already proving to be more complicated than I anticipated.
I can still hear my brother speaking on the phone when I simply say “Handle it,” and hang up. As I place the phone face down on my desk, I see her take hesitant steps further into the room, her gaze sweeping over the files spread across my desk before landing on me.
“Chelito told me you didn’t eat dinner, and she was worried.” She answers in explanation as if it’ll keep me from throwing her out. Also, Chelito? What the fuck, I didn’t bring her here to make friends with my staff.
“I thought it’d be nice if I brought you something to eat.”
“You thought wrong and wasted your time. I don’t eat dinner, and when I do, it’s only with Camilla.” I say, turning my attention back to the merger paperwork in front of me as a dismissal. I let her stand there holding the tray of pathetic food, so she’ll understand her place.
To my surprise, she doesn’t leave; instead, the scent of warm bread and meat drifts closer. I hear the soft clink of metal on wood as she sets the tray down on the coffee table near the leather chairs. She makes herself comfortable, sitting on a chair as if she belongs here in my space.
“I didn’t give you permission to stay.” My words come out flat and cold.
The fork she uses to eat scrapes against the ceramic plate, and I glance over.
She’s fucking eating in my office. Cutting little pieces of carne asada and placing them on a tortilla con arroz y pico de gallo.
My mouth is watering. I may have said I didn’t want dinner, but I didn’t say I wasn’t hungry.
She continues to eat and ignores my dismissal as if I had merely commented on the weather.
This woman, this infuriating and defiant woman.
I’ve known her for one night, but she’s been a challenge every minute of it.
“So, how am I supposed to do this?” She questions, as she flings a piece of carne around.
“You want me to be here, but I also need to be in East LA for my papá’s chemo appointments.
I also need to make sure he’s picking up his medications.
Oh, not to mention I’m the one who needs to talk to his doctors because, like every Mexican man I know, he doesn’t tell the entire truth and then complains about it when he gets home.
” She drones on and on about her dad, all the while I try to keep my focus on this paperwork.
Those are her problems, not mine. The contract was very clear; her family would be cared for, but to me, the details are irrelevant.
I continue to sign my initials at the bottom of a page, the scratch of the pen all of a sudden the only sound in the room.
“How do I explain all of this to him? That suddenly I’m living in Beverly Hills and that I’m married to…
” she trails off as she looks to the ceiling as if having to search for the right words.
“That I eloped with one of the richest men, not only in California but in Mexico, too. That somehow I’m now part of the Damos dynasty, and without even having said a word to him about you.
For fucks sake I had to come up with the stupid idea that you hired me to be a home health nurse. ”
A bitter laugh escapes me at the thought of her as a nurse in my home.
I feel her presence before I see her. The faint scent of her perfume, something clean and warm like vanilla, cuts through the sterile air of my office.
I look up from my work as she stands directly in front of me.
Her body blocked the light from the lamp, casting us both into a shadow.
Her attention isn’t on me, but on the papers scattered across the desk.
Specifically, a satellite map of the Sierra Madre, marked with transportation routes–cartel routes.
Rage erupts from inside me. My father’s legacy and my empire threaten to fracture, and she stands here, gnawing at them as if they were a painting.
“Your father’s appointments are of no concern to me,” I say, moving the maps out of sight.
“I will provide you with a driver, and your father’s needs will be met.
That was our agreement.” I lean my hands on the desk and bring my face closer to hers.
“But you seem to be confused about your own role. You want to see your family? Fine. But you will tend to your responsibilities here, as my wife and lady of the house, and only when your duties are done to my satisfaction will you be permitted to leave.”
Her eyes, those soft brown pools that held such defiance in my office downtown, now flash with that same feeling.
“Why do you have to be such a dick about everything? Is it that hard for you to show a single shred of human decency? You made me sign that certificate. We’re in this together, whether you like it or not,” she presses on, her voice getting louder.
“Marriage means you need to learn how to speak to me. I’m not one of your guards you can just bark orders at. ”
Her words feel like she lit a match and tossed it into a barrel of gasoline.
I round the desk, closing the space between us in two long strides until she’s forced to crane her neck to look up at me.
I see a flicker of fear in her eyes, but it’s quickly replaced with that stubborn pride of hers.
I invade her space until my body is caging her in against the desk, my voice a venomous whisper inches from her face.
“Let me make one thing clear, wife. You are a means to an end for me—a solution to a business problem.
You are Mrs. Damos on a piece of paper that keeps my company out of my uncle's grasp. Nothing more.” I watch as her jaw trembles in defiance.
“You think this ring, this house, gives you some kind of power? It gives you nothing. You are a placeholder. A warm body in a contract for me to use. Nunca serás mi mujer.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Her chest rises and falls with sharp, angry breaths. Her fear is there, raw and in her eyes. But then she hardens that fear into something cold and sharp. She shoves me and manages to make me take a couple of steps back, a surprising show of strength.
“Pudrete, Ernesto.” She shoulder checks me, storming out the door, leaving it to slam shut behind her on its own. The slam vibrates throughout the office in her final act of defiance. The silence she leaves behind is more deafening than her shouting.
I stand there with my fists clenched; the scent of her vanilla perfume still lingers in the air.
A red haze descends over me, and my hands sweep across the desk.
Papers and million-dollar contracts, my father’s gold-plated letter opener, the half-full glass of whiskey all crash against the far wall in a cacophony of shattering glass and ruined work.
The carefully constructed order of my world lies in a pile on the floor, destroyed by the force of my own anger. In less than a day, this woman has defied my commands and ignited a rage in me I thought I had long since buried. She’s not the solution I thought she would be; she’s the fucking fuse.