I raised my brows. “Who doesn’t,” I muttered, and then swallowed my drink. I cleared my throat. “Well, Juanito. I guess that’s it.”

“And you’re not going to kill me?”

“My promise is my promise,” I told him solemnly as I made the sign of the cross over my heart. He probably didn’t believe me, but when he realized he wasn’t dead yet, he would. I gestured to the door with a flick of my wrist. “You better be on your way. Este will pay you your deposit tonight. You’ll get the rest after you deliver Luisa Reyes.”

He licked his lips eagerly and got off the stool. “Fifty thousand American dollars.”

I nodded with a tight smile. The longer I was in the business, the less I liked spending money. People like Salvador and other narcos, they wasted it on lavish bullshit. I liked the finest things in life, but anything better than the finest was just gratuitous.

But in order to get ahead, you needed a loss leader. Luisa was my loss leader.

I stuck my hand out and Juanito stared at it in surprise before he shook it. Call me old-fashioned but a deal was not a deal unless you shook on it. There was still a code among men in this business.

His eyes widened as I squeezed his hand and pulled him slightly towards me. I lowered my voice, my eyes fixed on his, and said, “But just so we’re clear, if you fail, if you do not bring me the girl, I will hunt you down and skin you alive. I have a couple of pigs that get fat on human jerky, and I make them promises, too. Do you understand me?”

He blinked a few times, nodding quickly.

I let go of him and leaned back, raising my glass in the air. “Well then, cheers.”

“Right. Cheers.” He awkwardly took a sip of his beer, then wiped his hands on his shirt, and took off out of the bar and into the black night.

I sighed and finished my drink before pulling out another cigarette. At least Juanito would be putting in one hundred and ten percent now. Any boss worth their salt knew how to best motivate their employees and I was no different.

We had good news from Juanito a week later. He’d located the Reyes compound and had started infiltrating their security system, taking it slowly, so that no one would even know something was amiss. He did nothing but observe Luisa day in and day out, not exactly the toughest part of the job. At least it wasn’t when you had something as easy on the eyes as she was.

A week later, he suggested we start getting ready to move. The perfect opportunity would eventually present itself, but we couldn’t do a thing unless we were set up and primed for action. That meant a lot of waiting in the trees, scouring neighboring houses, and hiding in unmarked vans. It all took patience, but luckily I had grown to be a very patient man. I could chase something for years before I felt the need to catch up with it.

While Este and Franco went to Culiacán to join Juanito in the operation, I used two of my bodyguards, Tito and Toni, to help me set up the safe house. We needed the location to make our demands and to keep Luisa for the first few days or at least until Salvador gave in. When we were all done, I’d return to The Devil’s Backbone a smarter man, and Luisa would return to her husband, perhaps a bit more broken than when she’d left.

I’d also included The Doctor as part of my arsenal. The Doctor was, yes, an actual physician and very shrewd. Though nearing his late sixties, he had been an integral part of Travis Raines’ cartel and now he was a key figure in mine. He knew a lot, especially about the kidnapping side of the business. In Mexico, taking hostages and demanding ransom was as ordinary a job as operating a food cart. The Doctor had been involved in many of them over his lifetime and was the best of the best.

He was also supremely skilled at torture—another good reason to have him around. In some ways, with his knowledge and his groomed, elegant appearance, The Doctor would have made a superior assistant instead of Este. But as much as I respected The Doctor, there was something about him that reminded me of my father, and for that reason I didn’t want him around me all day long. The dead were better off dead.

It wasn’t long after we headed off to the safe house that I got the call from our driver, The Chicken. He reported that Este and Franco had captured “the girl,” and they, Juanito included, were heading right back to us.

I hung up the phone and grinned stupidly at The Doctor, who had been standing beside me in the modest kitchen where he had been frying shrimp and rice for our dinner. There was something kind of nice about operating out of the safe house—it was basic and simple, like camping for kingpins.

I immediately smoked a cigar, both in celebration and in anticipation. I hadn’t been this excited and anxious about something since … well, since a very long time ago. But that memory needed to stay in the deserts of California, where it belonged. The new memory was upon me, and I could practically smell it. I could practically smell her.

Luisa Reyes.

She was mine.

After we made quick work of the cigar and the meal, The Doctor and I headed down into the basement to get everything set up for her arrival. We had the chair and the ropes, and chains if we needed them. We had the digital camera set up and ready to record our ransom note which would then be uploaded and emailed directly to Salvador’s account, thanks to Este’s expertise. We even had bottles of water and carafes of hot tea and coffee—for us, of course. I liked for my men to be hydrated and have a clear head at our most crucial times, and this was most definitely one of those times.

With the safe house being much closer to Salvador’s compound, The Doctor and I only had to wait a few hours for them to arrive. We drank our tea and discussed local politics to pass the time and smoked another cigar—anything to calm the nerves. I didn’t even know why I was so nervous; it was very unlike me. If things went wrong with our hostage, it wasn’t that big of a deal. She’d die and that would be that. There would always be another card to play.

I suppose, if I was being honest with myself, I wanted more than just to get the shipping lane into the Baja, the one Salvador controlled. I wanted to humiliate him, to prove that I was as big of a player as he was. All my life I struggled to get ahead and be the best, but my personal best no longer mattered. Each step I took, the higher and higher I went, the more power I had, it never satisfied me. I wanted more, always more.

I wanted Salvador to fear me, to be looking over his shoulder for me. Perhaps he already did—I’d been known to commit some unsavory and highly publicized acts over the years—but I wanted him to feel that fear firsthand. And what fear is greater than the fear of feeling stupid?

I got up from my seat and picked up a knife I had placed on the table earlier.

“Is that for show?” The Doctor asked, raising a neatly trimmed white eyebrow. He sipped his tea carefully.

I shook my head. “No. It will be put to use. Every day.”

“On the girl?”

I nodded. “Yes. On her. One letter a day. When she goes back to Salvador in a week, I want him to see my name on her back.”

He crossed his legs and gave me small smile. “You’re getting more twisted and snarled the older you get. Like a root over the years. Are you sure you’re only thirty-five?”

I managed a grin. “I’ll take that as a compliment. And I’m only thirty-two.”

“Wouldn’t know it.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “Guess Salvador might not want his wife after you give her back with your name carved into her. Ever think of that?”

I let my fingers slide around the blade. “That’s not my problem, is it?” I picked up a nearby stool and placed it in front of Luisa’s empty chair. I put the knife on top of it with reverence. “As long as I get what I want, what Salvador does with his wife afterward is none of my business.”