Page 4 of Jagger's Remorse
"Tu último deseo?" He asks my father for his last wish, and the formality of it, the respect, makes this worse somehow.
Papa straightens, and for a moment, he's not a scared man who stole from the cartel.
He's Miguel Delgado, who built an empire from nothing.
Who married the most beautiful woman in Culiacán and brought her to California to raise their daughter away from the violence.
"Protect her," Papa says. "Whatever happens after, protect my little dragon."
Little dragon.
His pet name for me since I was five and bit a boy for pulling my braids.
The biker's eyes flick to mine again, and I see him register the nickname.
"I can't promise that."
"Then I'll see you in hell,cabrón."
The gun fires.
The sound is impossibly loud in the small office.
Papa's hand goes slack in mine as he falls, blood spreading across his white shirt like spilled wine.
I catch him, my knees hitting the ground hard, his head in my lap.
"Papa, please. Papa, look at me."
But he's already gone.
Miguel Delgado, who once made federales disappear and had judges on speed dial, dies in his daughter's arms wearing a Berkeley Dad sweatshirt I bought him for his birthday.
I look up at his killer through the tears, memorizing every detail.
The way he holds the gun.
The slight tremor in his left hand.
The St. Michael pendant peeking out from his collar—so he's Catholic.
Good. That means he believes in hell.
"Do it," I whisper.
He lowers the gun.
"What?" The word rips from my throat. "You killed him. Now finish it."
"Your father stole from the cartel. His debt's paid." He backs toward the door, those dark eyes never leaving mine. "You don't have a debt."
"I do now."
He pauses at the threshold, and for one moment, the mask slips.
I see something human underneath—guilt, maybe.
Or recognition of what he's just created.
