It was about three times the size of a normal cell. There was a toilet in the corner with a slight partition around it. A large, clean queen bed was in the middle, as was a small table and two chairs, a bookshelf filled with books, an MP3 player with earphones and speaker. There was a large window you could open and though there were bars on it, it had a nice view of a dried up river and the rolling brown hills in the distance. If you squinted past the parking lot of the prison, you could pretend you were in the middle of the country on vacation.
But this wasn’t a vacation. I didn’t take vacations, even if I was in prison. I had work to do. A lot of it. I had an empire I had to hold on to. It was all I had left.
“I hope this is comfortable,” Hiberto said as they ushered me in. I stuck my hands in front of me and he quickly undid the handcuffs.
I looked around and shrugged. “It will do. Do I at least get my suits?”
He gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, patron. You must wear the jumpsuit, just in case someone shows up.”
Someone that wasn’t on my payroll.
I nodded, understanding. Orange flattered me anyway.
They removed the cuffs and headed back to the door. Emilio said over his shoulder, “We’ll be by soon to bring you dinner. What type of wine would you like with it?”
“No wine,” I told him with a shake of my wrist. “Espresso afterward will do.” I needed to stay sharp.
After they left, I walked to the window and stared out at the horizon, blue sky melting into the haze of earth. I took in a deep breath through my nose and tried to pretend that everything was okay.
Everything wasn’t okay, of course. Everything was absolutely horrible. But at least Este and Luisa’s betrayal, though a surprise, didn’t leave me ruined. Not on the outside, what they wanted.
The thing was, I wasn’t stupid. I never completely trusted Esteban. He was good for some things, lousy for others, but I never in a million years thought he was loyal. After all, I could pick up on that bitterness, that desperation that swam behind his eyes and laced his every words. He wanted everything I had, he was always that way. When you combined that with the fact that I had been screwed by my partners and co-workers before in this business, I knew I always had to keep Este at arm’s length.
I always knew he would try and fuck me over.
So, like any good King, I had a back-up plan. You had to prepare for the worst if you wanted to stay at the top. You had to expect it and in some ways, welcome it.
I knew that if I were ever captured by the federales, I would be put into Puente Grande. That was just the way it was. Of course if I were captured by the Americans that would be different, but I had good lawyers and I always had a chip to bargain with. Plus American prisons weren’t as bad as shitholes like this, where prisoners died every damn day, beaten to death in their cells over nothing and no one batted an eye.
Knowing my eventual fate, for the last year I’d had my men round up the best men in the prison system. They were all paid an extra salary from me, $75,000 for the guards, $100,000 for the warden and director. There were twenty of them in total that called me their boss and would do whatever they could to not only ensure I had a pleasant stay here and that I would be fully protected, but they would let me escape as well.
Of course, the government and other officials couldn’t know of this. They blindly thought their workers couldn’t be corrupted but I was oh so good at corruption.
I owned them now and it was just a matter of time before I would be smuggled out of here, unbeknownst to the world. By the time that anyone of importance would catch on that I wasn’t in prison anymore, I would be long gone. I would be reclaiming my throne.
That was the main problem now. That while prison couldn’t hold me, I worried I couldn’t hold on to my cartel. It was one thing to be captured. Most kingpins ran their business behind bars. But it was another thing to be captured, set-up by a man who aimed to take everything you had, wife included. He would try and ruin everything I had worked so hard for. All that blood shed over the years and the sacrifices I’d made, just for him to take the reins.
Luckily, I had prepared for that too. I had a good amount of men from different cities and plazas that Esteban hardly knew about. They hadn’t been at the compound with me for that very reason, but they were also very big, very bad, and very dangerous. My reach stretched farther than Esteban’s ever could. So while I knew he was probably settling down in my old house, with my old wife, with his own crew of whatever fucking delinquents he could have mustered up, he wouldn’t stay that way.
Problem was though, that he was going to try. I didn’t have TV in my room but I was sure I’d get the newspaper. I knew that Esteban would make an announcement soon and it would reach my ears, news to the people of Mexico that now he was in charge.
I would lose face a little from that, at least to the public. I hated losing face.
I took in another deep breath, feeling the rage begin to boil. I needed to keep thinking analytically, without emotion. I needed to put my plan in motion to get out of here and then put an end to Esteban, to get my revenge.