“Alive!” Adán yells. “I want him alive!”

He reaches around and feels the hot, sticky blood seep through his fingers. Francisco grabs him, then Magda, and then he blacks out.

—

His would-be assassin doesn’t know who hired him.

Adán believes him, and didn’t think that he would, actually. Juan Jesús Cabray is a good man with a knife, serving a pair of sixty-year sentences for dispatching two rivals in a Nogales bar with a blade. He did a couple of jobs for the old Sonora cartel back in the day, but that means nothing now. Now he’s tied to a pillar in a basement storage room as Diego lazily shoulders a baseball bat and prepares to swing.

“Who hired you, cabrón?”

Cabray’s head lolls forward like a broken doll, but he manages to shake it feebly and mutter, “I don’t know.”

Adán sits uncomfortably on a three-legged stool. The seven stitches itch more than hurt, but his side is starting to ache. Whoever hired Cabray used multiple layers of cut-outs to approach him. And they chose a man who had nothing to lose. But what would he have to gain? That his impoverished family would receive a bundle of cash—money that he could no longer provide. So he would keep his silence, use the one resource that God gave to the Mexican campesino—the ability to suffer. Diego could beat this man to death and it wouldn’t matter.

“Stop.” Adán edges his stool closer, and says softly, “Juan Cabray, you know you’re going to die. And you will die happy, thinking of the money that will go to your wife and family. That’s a good thing, you’re a brave man. But you know…Juan, look at me…”

Cabray lifts his head.

“…you know that I can reach out to your family, wherever they are.” Adán says, “Listen to me, Juan Jesús Cabray, I will buy your wife a house, I will get her a job where she doesn’t work hard, I will send your son to school. Is your mother alive?”

“Yes.”

“I will see that she is warm in the winter,” Adán says, “and that you have a funeral that will make her proud. So, the only question is, do I take your family under my wing and make them my family, or do I kill them? You decide.”

“I don’t know who hired me, patrón.”

“But someone approached you,” Adán says.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“One of the guards,” Cabray says. “Navarro.”

Two of Los Bateadores hustle out.

“What did he offer you?” Adán asks Cabray.

“Thirty thousand.”

Adán leans in and whispers into Cabray’s ear, “Juan Jesús, do you trust me?”

“Sí, patrón.”

“Save us time,” Adán says. “Tell me how to find your family.”

Cabray whispers that they are in a village named Los Elijos, in Durango. His wife’s name is María, his mother is Guadalupe.

“Father?” Adán asks.

“Muerto.”

“He is waiting for you in heaven,” Adán says. Wincing a little as he stands up, he says to Diego, “Make it quick.”

As Adán walks out of the room, he hears Cabray mutter a prayer. From the hallway, he hears the tiro de gracia, the mercy shot.

—

“Who?” Adán asks Diego.

They’re sitting back in his cell. Adán sips on a glass of scotch, to ease the ache in his side.

Diego looks at Magda sitting on the bed.

“We can speak in front of her,” Adán says. “After all, she saved my life, not your men.”

Diego flushes but has to acknowledge this truth. The men responsible for guarding Adán have been transferred to Block 4, the worst unit in the prison, where the child molesters, the murderers, the lunatics go. There will be no movie nights, no women, no parties. They’ll be fighting and killing over scraps of food.

New men will be coming in over the next few days.

They’re volunteers, men who willingly get themselves convicted and sent to prison, knowing that when they get out in a few years they’ll be offered opportunities to traffic drugs, to make fortunes that they could never otherwise dream of.

The guard Navarro ran as soon as word got out that the attempt failed. They’re tracking him now. The warden was apoplectic with apologies, promising a full investigation and increased security. Adán simply stared at him. He would do his own investigation and provide his own increased security. Even now, five Bateadores stand outside the door.

“Suppose it was Fuentes,” Diego says, naming the chaca of the Juárez cartel. The Juárez plaza was always connected to Sinaloa, and now Vicente Fuentes might be concerned that Adán wants it back. But he had asked Esparza, related by marriage to Fuentes, to reassure him that Adán Barrera only wants to make a living from his own territory.

Or the murder attempt could have come from Tijuana, Adán thinks. Teo Solorzano led a revolt against my sister in my absence and might well be afraid of the consequences now that I’m back. This could have been a preemptive strike.

“What about Contreras?” Magda asks.

“He has no reason to kill me,” Adán says. “Contreras is better off with Garza in prison. He’s the co-boss of the Gulf cartel now, he makes more money, and has me to thank for that.”

And I sent Diego personally to speak with Contreras, to assure him that I have no designs on the Gulf or ambitions to take back my old throne.

But Contreras has ambitions of his own, Adán thinks.

It could have been any of the three, but we won’t know, Adán thinks, until we find Navarro, and maybe not even then. If this attempt came from any of the men they’re thinking about, the guard is probably already dead. Some man he trusted offered to get him out, then took him somewhere and killed him.

He looks at Diego and smiles. “We’ll see who comes first.”

Diego smiles back. Each of the three groups will send an emissary to deny responsibility. Whoever comes first is probably the most nervous, and for good reason. If they’d succeeded in killing Adán, they’d be in negotiations with Diego Tapia and Esparza already.

But having missed, they’d be at war with them.

Not a good place to be.

“This village of Cabray’s,” Diego says, “I’ll have it bulldozed to the ground.”

“No,” Adán snaps. “I gave the man my word.”

Find the family, Adán tells him, and set them up with exactly what I said. And put a school in the village, or a clinic, or a well—whatever it is they need—but make sure they know who it came from.”

After Diego leaves, Magda, flipping through Mexican Vogue, says, “Perhaps you’re looking too far away.”

“What do you mean?”

“For the people who tried to kill you,” Magda says. “Maybe you should be looking closer. Who was in charge of protecting you? Who failed to?”

The suggestion makes him angry. “Diego is blood. More like my brother than my cousin.”

“Ask yourself, who has the most to gain by your death?” Magda asks. “Diego and Nacho have their own organizations now, they’ve become used to being their own bosses. Has Nacho even come to see you?”

“It’s too risky.”

“Diego came.”

“That’s Diego,” Adán says. “He doesn’t give a damn.”

“Or he does.”

Not Diego, Adán thinks. Maybe the others, although I doubt it. Nacho was a close friend and adviser to my uncle, and was as good an adviser to me. He’s married to my sister’s brother-in-law’s sister. He’s family.

But maybe.

But Diego?

Never.

“I’d bet my life on Diego,” he says defensively.

Magda shrugs. “You are.”

He sits down on the bed next to her.

“If they tried once,” she says, “they’ll try again.”

“I know,” he says. And one day, they’ll succeed, he thinks. I’m a stationary target in this prison. And, whoever it is, if they really want me dead, I’m dead. But there is no use dwelling on it. “You saved my life today.”

She flips a page and says, “It’s a small thing.”

Adán laughs. “What do you want in return?”

Magda finally looks up from the magazine. “You’ve saved my life many times over.”