Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)

Like now.

Sure, he’s thinking about his wife and how she thinks Vicente will return when he’s good and ready and if he doesn’t, her husband will get him back and when he returns he’ll be grateful and fresh-faced from new adventures and a sore dick from all the American cunts he’s fucking (at least he assumes that’s what Vicente is doing since he would do the same).

But as he sits in his office alone and the booze is seeping into his veins like an IV, maybe now he’s also eying the cabinet in the room that has a locked box inside.

At least, it was locked, until Vicente broke it off.

Small price to pay. It was proof that it worked.

Javier had told Luisa just before he went out of town that he was looking for old information on the Tijuana cartel. Said there were some people involved and he was curious to remember who they were.

Lies.

He told Luisa that Vicente should look for it. Keep him busy. Keep him involved. He told her it was important he do it.

Truth.

So Luisa told Vicente that morning to go look for the files.

And Vicente, the good son, did as he was told.

He nearly tore apart the office looking for them, determined not to give up.

He found the locked box.

He didn’t ask for the key, he just broke the lock off with a hammer because that’s what he’s been trained to do. Micro-manage. Come up with his own solutions. Get the job done.

In that box, Javier had printed out some information on the Tijuana cartel from back in the day, boring bullshit that no one cares about. There were some files on Evaristo, the federale who turned sides, became a priest and went rogue. There were files on old shipments, a few dossiers on a sicario.

The rest of the files were devoted to Ellie.

That was the hardest part for Javier. To spend all that time digging around and reliving the past like that. He has to admit, it hurt. He’s never taken failure very well, always had trouble with humiliation.

He hates to lose.

And that’s exactly what happened with Ellie Watt. It didn’t matter that Javier didn’t truly love her, not in the way he loves Luisa. It didn’t matter that he would be able to get over it with time.

What mattered was that he lost.

He lost like he’d never lost before.

That shit has stayed with him.

It’s never gone away.

It probably never will.

Unless…

Well, that’s for later.

For now, the plan is working. Javier knew that his son was eager for any hint of his father, at who he truly is on the inside. Javier knows this because Javier was once a son himself and the patterns do follow.

History and her bad habit of repeating herself.

He laid his heart out bare in those letters to Ellie. Those real letters that he kept all this time (but, he swears to himself, I never loved her). He had hoped that those, along with all the information he could currently find on Ellie (now McQueen, fucking puta), and the information he hung onto from the past, that it would plant a seed in Vicente’s head.

If it didn’t? Well, what the fuck ever. He would try something new down the line. No skin off his back if nothing came of this.

But the seed took root. Javier knew it would.

Vicente took the papers and withdrew. Javier knew that he would never approach him and ask about it, ask who she was, why he still had information on her. He would never ask his father about something so glaringly intimate.

Later, when Vicente asked about going to America, Javier could barely hide his smile. He knew the reason why.

Curiosity.

And he knows what curiosity leads to.

It was a gamble, for sure.

It still is.

The loss of Tio and Nacho happened a little quicker than he anticipated, giving Vicente the upper hand for a few days there.

But that’s all changed now.

Parada is there in San Francisco watching him, close and from afar.

As in, Vicente’s hotel room is bugged.

So is his car.

Parada and Javier know everything he’s doing.

Or, more like who he’s doing.

And doing a lot.

Javier isn’t sure how he feels about that one. I mean, in his mind this thing could have gone one of two ways and he would have found out a way to make both work. But from the start, what he really hoped for was another way – the longshot.

One way, and this was probably Vicente’s original plan, was to go and kidnap Ellie and bring her back to Mexico as a trophy of sorts. This plan depended more on Vicente’s need to win Javier’s respect and approval, to officially be seen as the head of the cartel, to pave the way for his future here.

The other way was that Vicente would become intrigued with Violet and decide to take her instead. Violet would be a lot easier to handle than Ellie and Vicente would probably look for the easiest way out of this mess.

Because it would end up a mess.

Vicente is bold but he’s young and overconfident. He’ll bite off more than he can chew and mistakes will be made in the process.

Of course, there’s the third way and that’s the way it seems to be working for now. That Vicente would seduce Violet before bringing her back.

The seduction is important.

Very important.

Because Javier knows firsthand (fuck, he knows that firsthand more than a few times now, huh) that even when you have a horrible task at hand, it’s sometimes impossible not to let your guard down. To not become entangled. To not lose a bit of yourself in the person you’re supposed to harm.

There will be conflict and turmoil in Vicente’s heart when he hands Violet over to his father. And in that conflict and turmoil, Javier will destroy her and destroy him.

He can’t pretend it’s all for his son’s good. Yes, it will make Vicente stronger. It will teach him that you can’t be a cartel leader and love like normal people do. It will teach Vicente that if this is the life he wants, people like Violet have no place in it.

Love gets you killed.