Page 2 of Jagger's Remorse
The silver at his temples seems more pronounced, the lines around his eyes deeper. "I took what I thought they'd never miss. Small amounts, over time. For you,mija. For your future."
"How much?"
"Fifteen million."
The number sits between us like a loaded gun.
You don't steal from the Sinaloa Cartel.
You especially don't steal from family.
I've grown up in this world, seen what happens to thieves.
The barrel acid. The videos sent to families. The way they make examples that echo through generations.
"Tío Eduardo knows?"
"Not yet. But they're checking the books. Someone talked." He cups my face, thumbs brushing my cheekbones the way he did when I was little and scared of monsters under my bed.
Turns out the real monsters wear suits and call you primo. "I have passports. New identities. We can run. Argentina, maybe. You always wanted to see Buenos Aires."
"Papa—"
"I know what you're thinking." His voice cracks. "That I'm a fool. That I broke the most sacred rule. But you're almost done with school, almost free of this life. I wanted to give you choices I never had. Start a firm, help our people the legal way. Maybe find a nice boy who doesn't know what his father-in-law really does."
I'm already thinking about the logistics—which routes to avoid, which borders we can cross, how long before they freeze our accounts—when I hear them.
Motorcycle engines, distant but getting closer.
Not the rice rockets the young soldiers ride, but the deep, throaty rumble of Harleys.
Papa hears them too.
His face goes from pale to gray.
"The safe," he whispers, spinning toward the wall where Mama's portrait hangs. "There are drives. Everything about the operation. Routes, contacts, stash houses. Take them. Run. They're your insurance?—"
The door explodes inward.
The man who enters doesn't look like death.
Death would be a mercy compared to the void in his eyes.
He's tall, lean muscle wrapped in a leather cut, the Iron Veins MC patches proclaiming him their Vice President.
The one-percenter diamond, the Redding bottom rocker, the tattoo of the crow on his neck—I catalog it all in the space of a heartbeat.
Brown hair falls into eyes so dark they're almost black, and there's a scar through his left eyebrow that makes him look like a fallen angel.
Beautiful. That's my first thought, and I hate myself for it.
Papa pushes me behind him, but I can see around his shoulder.
Can see the Glock in the biker's hand, steady as stone.
Can see the rosary beads wrapped around his wrist—wooden ones, worn smooth.
Just like the ones my abuela gave me before she died.
