Chapter 112 The Cartel Queen.
CHAPTER 112
The Cartel Queen.
ROMEO – POINT OF VIEW
I pull away from her immediately and call one of the best people I have at my Cybersecurity firm. We go way back. Aurelie connected us. It’s hard to reach him, but he’s indebted to me. I find that it comes in handy to have favours scattered all around.
“Sterling,” he responds on the first ring.
“I’ll send you a number. Find out whatever you can on it, and get back to me immediately.” I order, “I wouldn’t come to you if it isn’t urgent.”
“I’m on it.” He ends the call, and I send him the number.
It’s a long shot, I know, but maybe he can find out something, anything. Someone is coming for Scarlett, my Scarlett. I don’t care if she’s hiding secrets from me or playing me for a fool. No one gets to hurt her, no one gets to expose her, but me. Obsessive and toxic, sure, but I don’t care.
I watch her sleep.
The house is silent. Eve is upstairs, asleep. Rick is somewhere with my security team.
I know I shouldn’t leave Scarlett here, not when she was waiting for me, but my thoughts feel fragmented and all over the place. I’m still reeling from what happened at work, and this isn’t what I expect to find when I get home. Everything circles back to her. She is at the centre of it all. How long has she been at the centre? Everything is unravelling, and I am impatient.
Scarlett is the woman men go to war for. I will gladly burn the world to ashes if it means I get to keep her.
I turn around and walk out. I make my way to the ledge and watch the dark waters below. In the grand scheme of things, we are nothing. A bit existentialist, but it’s the truth. Perhaps not existentialist, but nihilist. At the end of the day, most of these will stop being important. We’ll all die eventually, and I hope to have a legacy behind me when the day comes. I hope my death isn’t as painful as my father’s. The fire licked him clean and left nothing. There was nothing that could be done to save him. His last action was protecting my mother. She would have passed painfully if not for him. He gave his life for her, and that is the greatest honour.
Every day I remain with Scarlett, it becomes a conscious choice. A choice I made, and will keep making.
She’s lying to me. She has a lot of secrets stitched unto her soul, and I will unwrap her like a present.
My phone rings, and it jolts me out of my thoughts.
I expect it to be the tech guy, but it’s Luca.
“Care to fill me in?” He goes straight to business.
I massage my forehead and give him a rundown of everything, the inconsistencies, the pattern, embezzlement and trail that led to Emiliano, as well as the text Scarlett got.
“They’re watching, gauging your reaction. I just don’t understand why you are under attack. You have no relevance to the Cartel and Emiliano’s goal. You’re not a piece of the puzzle.” He is exasperated.
I bite my lip and look away from the water, “What is Emiliano’s goal? What does he want?”
Luca is silent for a moment, and when he speaks, his tone is low and heavy.
“Global domination, of course. He wants to spread his presence across the world. The Cartels have always been known for their brutality; they don’t think before acting, they are violent and aggressive, murdering people they shouldn’t. Under Diaz’s rule, it was tame, and there was a semblance of peace. Rafeal Diaz was a perfect Don. Dad liked him. Everyone did, but everything changed when Emiliano killed Diaz and his entire family, his wife and daughter. They say he burned them alive and waited until the fire stopped.”
“What the fuck.” I mutter, goosebumps breaking over my skin at the sheer brutality.
“Emiliano has been on a mission, killing everyone he deems fit, but he’s looking for something. No one knows for sure what he is looking for. Some say he is trying to find Diaz’s daughter –”
I cut in, brows furrowed, “Diaz’s daughter? I thought she died.”
“Exactly. We all think she’s dead. Here’s the thing about fire: it erases everything, it consumes and leaves nothing behind. No witnesses, no forensics, no bodies. Diaz, his wife and his daughter’s bodies were not recovered. Their bones were probably sent through the grinder and dumped in the ocean.” Luca discloses.
My lungs tightens and bile rushes through me.
“Now, let’s for one moment think that the theories are right and Diaz’s daughter survived. Somehow, she escaped the flames. What do you think she’ll do?” He thinks out loud.
“She probably left Mexico the second she could, and is probably in the States. It’s easy to disappear here,” I remark, “And maybe she’s trying to wreak havoc on Emiliano, get vengeance for her parents?”
“But she is a woman. If she were a son, I’d understand, but a young woman thrown into a crazy country, running from a monster. It’s easy for us to think about revenge, but for her, she’ll be focused on survival, on seeing the next day. She can only avenge them if she’s alive, and now that Emiliano is scouring the earth for her, she’ll be in survival mode, hiding, desperate and of course, angry,” he sighs deeply, “I don’t know, Roman. Emiliano is coming after you for a reason.”
I run my fingers through my hair, “And, Scarlett.”
“Because she is yours. Everyone sees that it is not the contractual agreement it’s supposed to be. It’s more, and he’s striking where it hurts the most.” He deduces dryly.
Scarlett is in danger because of me.
“We’ll figure it out. He’ll have to go through me before he touches her.” I declare, shoulders squared.
“He’s probably counting on it.”
I nod, and frown when my catch catches on to a shadow in Eve’s bedroom. I tilt my head to see clearly, but there’s nothing to see. It must have been a trick of light.
“Can you get Scarlett to call my wife? They need to settle this quarrel. Adeline has … shrunk, and I do not like it at all.” He murmurs, and I smile, what a dutiful husband.
We run over our business in Europe, and the call drags on. I am exhausted, hungry, and confounded.
“Do you … do you think Diaz’s daughter is alive and in hiding?” I ask before he ends the call.
“I hope she is.” He speaks sharply, “Being born into the mafia isn’t an easy fit, and it’s more of a burden than a blessing. I hope she is alive, and being a storm. Let the evil men be afraid for once. If she is alive, she can ruin everything. She is the rightful Queen. The Cartel Queen, and she needs to take back her throne.”