Chapter 47 – Alejandro
Chapter
Forty-Seven
ALEJANDRO
My cell vibrates on the desk in front of me. I see Jax’s name on the screen and put him on speaker. “Please tell me you have some fucking leads for me, amigo.”
“Maybe. I’m not sure.”
“Go on,” I say as I lean forward in my chair.
“I still got nothing on who might want Lucia dead. I think we’ve dealt with that threat effectively, amigo. So that got me thinking, who would want her alive?”
“And?”
“I didn’t even know where to start, but I spoke to a few people from her old neighborhood. The ones I’d spoken with when you first had me look into her.”
“Yeah?”
“You remember that hooker I mentioned. Crystal? The one who made me buy her four cheeseburgers and kept me talking in her apartment for three hours?”
“Yes,” I snap, wishing he would get to the fucking point.
“Well, she was stoned off her ass, and she talked a lot of shit. At least I thought she did. But, something stood out among her ramblings. She mentioned something about Lucia not being a real Ramos. I thought she was referring to her being different to her brothers, but, fuck, amigo, I had no other leads to follow. So, I went back to speak to her just now. It took me a hell of a lot more than four cheeseburgers, but she admitted that Lucia was not Miguel Ramos’s kid. ”
“How the fuck would she know that?”
“Seemed she was friends with Lucia’s mom.
That was why Ramos hated the girl so much.
He always suspected, but it was never proven.
He never wanted it to get out that his wife had fucked someone else behind his back, so he let it be.
Imagine what that would have done to an ego like his if people found out she’d screwed around?
So, instead, he made his wife’s life miserable and punished her daughter for her mother’s sins.
Not that he was any better to his sons from what we heard, the sack of shit.
Some people just shouldn’t be allowed to have kids. ”
I turn it over in my mind. Could this all come back to Lucia? “And you believe this Crystal?”
“I’m not sure why she’d lie about it now.
I gave her the money upfront so she had no reason to.
She might be a hooker now, but she wasn’t always.
Her life took a turn. But before that, she seemed to be a confidante of Lucia’s mom.
She never told anyone while Ramos was alive because she knew he would kill her.
And then Lucia disappeared and she had no-one left to tell.
Seemed like she was telling the truth to me anyway, amigo.
I think she was relieved to get it off her chest. She sure as fuck was happy to hear that Lucia was still alive. ”
I sit back in my chair. I don’t know who or what to believe any more. Jax stays silent while the cogs in my brain tick, trying to slot this new piece of the puzzle into place.
“Did Crystal say anything about who Lucia’s real father was?” I ask.
“Lucia’s mom told her he was Spanish. Handsome. And even more powerful than her husband.”
Lucia was born seventeen years ago. It was a summer that my family never spoke of. The summer that my dad was so distracted. I swallow the bile as it rises in my throat.
“Fuck, Jax!”
“What?”
“Get your ass on a fucking plane right now because if I’m right, I’m going to need you by my side.”
“The jet is at O’Hare. I’ll be back by tonight, amigo.”
“Good. You’d better be ready for a fucking bloodbath, amigo.”
Those puzzle pieces are finally falling into place.