Ignacio didn’t utter a single word for the first ten minutes of the drive back to the villa. Part of me should’ve appreciated his silence, but I knew he had something to say, and waiting for him to start talking rattled my nerves. If he wanted to yell at me, interrogate me, or hurt me, I wished he’d go ahead and do it.
Turning my head toward the window, I watched the blurred landscape as the car ate up the distance. I concentrated on keeping my breathing even and my mind clear. Ignacio had ruled the Vargas Cartel for a long time. He knew exactly how to torture me without saying a word or lifting a finger. Waiting for his judgment tangled my nerves and transported me on a horror-filled journey of what-ifs.
“I’m sorry I cut your neck. At the time I believed it was necessary, but I don’t like that it happened. I don’t like to hurt women.”
I turned to face him so fast, I probably had whiplash. “What?” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I had a few theories about why he wanted me ride in the car with him, but an apology certainly wasn’t one of them.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I did it to make a point, but I should have found a different way to do it…one that didn’t involve physically harming you. Hurting you wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Okay.” I tapped my fingers on the gray leather seat, trying to release some nervous energy. “Thanks, I guess.”
“As a parent, I would do almost anything for my children.”
I nodded, but I didn’t answer. What the hell did he expect me to say—that I forgave him for orchestrating my abduction because he wanted to rescue his son? Not fucking likely.
Ignacio shifted in his seat. “I couldn’t let Rever rot away in an American prison, regardless of what he did. For better or worse, I love him unconditionally. Ryker too.”
“What did he do?” It wasn’t my business, but I wanted to know the crime he committed. My comfort and my future were being sacrificed to resurrect his freedom. In my opinion, that sacrifice entitled me to something.
“He was arrested in Las Vegas for money laundering.”
I snorted. I couldn’t help it. The charge was hardly surprising or unexpected. Of course he was arrested for something related to the criminal activities of the Vargas Cartel. Ignacio’s words led me to believe he did something else—something unforgivable. “That’s what happens when you launder money for a drug cartel. How did he get caught?” ”
“He exchanged fifty million dollars for a gambling credit in a casino on the Strip. He lost forty percent of it. The casino returned half of his losses in the form of luxury cars and gifts, then cut him a check for the balance of his gambling credit,” Ignacio answered, curling his hands into fists beside his pants.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? That really works?”
“It’s a method cartels have been using to clean dirty money for years.”
“But you lose millions.”
Ignacio rubbed his thumb and forefinger along his chin. “Most cartel members think of it as a tax of sorts. We help the casino’s bottom line. They help us legitimize the money.”
“Wow,” I muttered, utterly dumbfounded because it was almost brilliant in its simplicity. “Impressive.”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t his money. He stole the money from me…from the Vargas Cartel. He betrayed his family, his history, his heritage, and my legacy. He wanted to start a new life. He didn’t like being under my thumb, so he threw us away like we meant nothing to him.”
I shrugged, even as the intensity of his heavy-lidded stare burned up my skin. “Well, good for him. He succeeded. It sounds like he found his new life… a justified prison term. What’s he looking at? A life term?”
Ignacio slammed his hands on the leather seat. “I won’t let the U.S. government determine his punishment. It’s not their job. It’s mine.”
“Fine. Then, go get him, but leave me out of your plans. I didn’t steal your fucking money. I didn’t shit on the Vargas Cartel and its criminal legacy. I’m just a graduate student with a dad who has an important job. That’s it. I don’t deserve this. I want my life back.”
“Exactly. You’re the woman with a dad who can wave his bureaucratic wand and make all my problems—and the problems of some very important people—disappear.”
Frost coated my veins. “What important people?”
“People who don’t want Rever to leak their connections to the Vargas Cartel.”
My mind raced with the implications of his confession. “What kind of people? Corrupt politicians?” I speculated. Who else would orchestrate something like this? I wasn’t na?ve. I grew up in D.C. I heard fragments of hushed conversations in shadowed rooms. Some politicians had as many connections with criminal organizations as they did with lobbyists, unions, and government officials.
“So cynical,” Ignacio chided. Then, he grinned. “But you’re on to something, though it goes much deeper than that.”
“What am I? Collateral damage? You don’t care you’re ruining my life to get what you want, just like you ruin innocent people’s lives with the drugs you smuggle into my country. All for what?” I raised my hands in the air. “To line your pockets with dirty money built on the destruction of countless lives.”
His eyes combed over my body, studying me, analyzing me…judging me. My mom knew how to stare down her nose with the best of them. I channeled her. I became her. I narrowed by eyes. I tipped up my chin. I pursed my lips. I curled my hands into a tight fist, refusing to blink, refusing to look away. I demanded respect. In that flash of time, he was my overlord. He could do whatever he wanted with me, but I wouldn’t cower. I wouldn’t bend.
“Collateral damage,” he whispered, almost as though he tasted the words as they rolled over his tongue. “Interesting choice of words.”
I raised my eyebrows and lifted my chin. “How so?” I shouldn’t argue with him. He could kill me any second, but I was tired of accepting my fate. I wanted answers. I deserved answers. Ignacio probably didn’t agree, but I needed to try.
He raised his open palms in the air with a faint smile on his face. “The United States and Mexico have a unique relationship. The countries share one of the longest borders in the world, stretching nearly two thousand miles, and they also share a narcotics problem. Mexico is one of the largest suppliers in the world, while the United States is the largest consumer. As long as the demand exists, the supply will be met. It could be my cartel, or another one servicing the demand. It’s irrelevant. If we don’t do it, somebody else will. The addicts are collateral damage…just like you.”
I glared at him, and my body shook as outrage spiraled through me, twist after twist, each one hotter and wilder than the previous one. “And you don’t care that those drugs ruin people’s lives? That you’ve built an empire on the backs of the lives you’ve destroyed?” I challenged.