I stared at him, at the white Panama hat on his head that gave him this air of sophistication that hid all his depravity. “And you know I don’t like women to be tortured.”

“Right,” he said slowly. “You think it’s ugly.”

“It is ugly.”

“Are you sure it’s all women,” Este spoke up, “or just Luisa?”

What a fucking shit disturber. I gave him a dull look as I blew a cloud of smoke toward him. “All women.”

He grinned and crossed his arms. “Interesting. You know, I could have sworn I heard you torturing her last night. There were screams…”

“Would you like another knife in your shin?” I asked. “No? Then shut the fuck up. For now, that is your job. Shutting the fuck up.”

“No need to get violent again,” The Doctor said, leaning back in his chair. “Not today. It’s fine, Javier, if you don’t want to torture Luisa. A bullet to the head will work, as long as we can remove her head afterward. And other parts of her. We’ll mail it out to Cabo San Lucas, have Juanito here display her just so on the steps of city hall. It’s her city, and that city has avoided the violence of the cartels for far too long, don’t you think?” He ran a finger over his mustache, smiling at the thought. “Yes, that would send the right message. It will show the world, the whole world, that we don’t fuck around.”

“Um,” Juanito said, speaking for the first time that morning, “wouldn’t it also show that Salvador doesn’t fuck around? I mean, if I saw a cartel boss’ wife’s body, I would assume that it was because he didn’t negotiate. That his own wife wasn’t worth it. That says some seriously fucked up shit right there.”

Before I had a chance to run that terrible scenario through my head, the phone rang, causing us all to jump.

I snatched it up before anyone else could. It was a horrid ringtone to boot.

I flipped it open. “Hello.”

“I take it this is Javier Bernal.” The man’s voice was raspy, heavy, like talking was an effort.

“I take it this is Salvador Reyes,” I said.

“You’re correct. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you earlier. You see, it took me some time to figure out who you were.” He snorted in through his nose and I heard him spit on the ground. I grimaced. “I’d never heard of Javier Bernal. But one of my friends pointed out that you were the one arrested in California. Rumor has it that you were turned in by a woman, is that right? And now you appear to have my woman.”

She’s not your woman, I thought, but the thought didn’t stick around for long.

“That I do. I have your wife, Luisa. Pretty little thing. You really shouldn’t have let her out of your sight.”

He grunted. “Have you ever tried to tell a woman what to do? It’s not always easy to lay down the law.”

His jovial tone was making me troubled.

“You’ve heard our demands, then,” I prompted him. I looked over at The Doctor, Este, and Juanito who were all watching me, on edge.

“I did, I did,” he said. He cleared his throat and spat again. “I did. And you must know that I love my wife very much. So very much. But you’re asking a great deal from me. The Ephedra lane is a lot of money, a lot of work went in to that. Surely, as one master to another, you can appreciate that. I’ll have no problems securing another one, but you get so attached to these kind of things.” I could practically hear him smiling over the phone. The happier he sounded, the worse the knot in my gut.

He sighed. “How about this. Give me another week. I’ll see what I can work out.”

Every instinct told me to tell him there was no deal. That I was negotiating here, not him. That I was the one in control. I wanted to tell him that it was over, and I would personally fuck and kill his wife, and then I would hang up the phone. My instincts told me that because that’s what they had been trained to do.

But my instincts were pushed to the side. “Fine,” I told him. “You have another week exactly. If you don’t deliver, we will. Her raped, mutilated body will be on the front page of every newspaper. And perhaps a few toes in your morning cereal. Goodbye.”

I quickly snapped the phone shut and pushed it away from me. I hadn’t realized I was breathing hard, my chest racing. Everyone was staring at me, seemingly in shock.

“What?” I snapped.

“You negotiated?” The Doctor asked in disapproval. “Javier…”

I pulled a cigarette out from behind my ear. “So what? It’s another week. What’s another week when we can get what we want instead of nothing at all?”

“You’re giving him the upper hand.”

“How? How the fuck am I doing that? I have his wife. If he didn’t want her back, he wouldn’t have asked for an extension.” I lit the cigarette angrily then leaned forward in my chair, my eyes blazing into his. “You’ve done this a million times. Sometimes people can’t come up with the money right away. So we work with them. We all know that is how this is done.”

“For civilians,” he said slowly. “That is how it is done with them. Salvador doesn’t need to come up with anything, he has everything. He is playing us.”

I shook my head. “No, you are wrong.”

“This woman is clouding your brain,” he said, getting to his feet. “I should just do us all a favor and kill her right now.”

I shot up, leaning across the desk, fury rocketing through me. “You do that and I will kill you.” I jabbed my finger at him. “You know I will. I will torture you the same way you torture everyone, and I will smile the whole fucking time.”

He stared at me in surprise before his face crumpled into laughter. “You are serious. I like that about you, Javier. I like your edge. So, a word of advice then from your elder—don’t lose it.”

With that he turned and walked out the door. I looked over at Juanito, wondering if he had any more interesting anecdotes, but he quickly followed in The Doctor’s footsteps. Only Este stayed behind. He closed the door behind him and then sat down across from me, putting his hands behind his head.

“Well, that was a doozy,” he remarked.

“What did I tell you about shutting the fuck up?”

He nodded, looking away. “Yes, yes, I should do it more often. I’m just curious, Javi.”

“About what?” I asked in annoyance. My heart was still racing along, my pulse beating wildly against my watch.

“About what you hope to gain from all of this.”

“That’s fairly apparent.”

“Is it?” he asked as he picked up the cell phone and began to dismantle it. “You know at the end of next week, you’ll still have to either kill her or send her on her way. You’re delaying the inevitable.”

“I’m delaying what I can to get what I want.”

He shot me a look. “Look, I want to fuck Luisa just as much as you do. Or perhaps, just as much as you have. Her screams last night were not from being tortured. I’m not that much of an idiot.”

I wasn’t sure if I should own up to what I did; after all, I was the “master” as Salvador had called me, and that was our right as the master, the boss, to take what we wanted. Or I wasn’t sure if I should gloss over the whole thing and pretend nothing happened. I didn’t know what would be better for Este to hear. So I said nothing.

He continued, “I also know that another week with her is a mistake.”

“How so?”

“It will be harder for you to … say goodbye.”

“Then you don’t know me very well.”

He shrugged and displayed the phone on the desk, now in tiny little pieces. “That’s true. I don’t really. I should, but I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned for you.”

“And why would you be concerned about my well-being?”

“I dunno. Being a good friend, I guess.”

I laughed. “Friend. That’s a good one.”

His expression grew serious. “This organization means a lot to me, almost as much as it does to you. I just don’t want us to be in over our heads. I don’t like that Salvador has control back and I don’t like that this might leave us looking like assholes.” He bit his lip, thinking something over. “Are you still in contact with that chick from the DEA?”

“Lillian Berrellez,” I told him. “And I haven’t been in contact with her for a while.”

“Do you think if things go south with Salvador, we could give her Juanito? He can give her all the intel. They could pinpoint one of his safe houses, one of his mansions. I’m sure with some extra inside info, they could make an arrest, make it happen.”

I shook my head. “I am not a snitch, Este. There is still honor among cartels. We don’t rat each other out to the Americans.”

He snorted, shaking his head like I’d just said the most ridiculous thing. “Oh, come on, Javier. You and your stupid moral code that doesn’t exist. There is no honor. How do you think Chapo was caught before Salvador took over? Huh? The cartels put up those wanted posters around the continents, not the Mexican government, and not the American one. This is a new Mexico. There is no code among men because there are no men anymore. Only monsters who sit behind their desks and give orders.” At that, he looked at me with a touch of exaggerated disgust.

“You think I’m a monster?” I asked. Funny how Luisa said I wasn’t.

“I think you’ll get there one day,” he said carefully. “If you don’t mess up.”

He was talking around me and I hated it. I waved my hand at him. “You’re starting to bore me, Este. Go and pack everything up.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back to my place.”

“What about a safe house?”

“I miss nice things.”

“You can’t bring Luisa there.”

“I can do whatever I fucking want,” I said, and instinctively reached under the desk for the gun I had put there. Este picked up on it and nodded, quickly leaving the room. He was right. He wasn’t that much of an idiot after all.

Once he was gone, I was alone with my thoughts. Then my thoughts became too convoluted for me to wade through. So I got up and went to tell Luisa the news.

As usual, there was no answer to my knock. I opened the door and poked my head in. She was up, staring out the window, wearing that hot pink dress again, her hands behind her back. She didn’t look over at me when I came in the room. I was glad. It gave me a few private seconds to appreciate the marvelous things her ass did to my dick. I had another week of this luxury.

“I have news,” I said, clearing my throat.

Her shoulders tensed up but she didn’t turn around. “Oh? Good or bad?”

“I’m not sure. What would be good news to you?”

“That you’ll just let me go free.”

I pursed my lips. “Well, that means I have bad news, I’m afraid. Because I can’t let that happen.”

She didn’t say anything to that. I walked over to her and paused at her back. I lifted up her thick, soft hair and placed it gently over her shoulder, and peered at my name underneath. It looked less ugly now that it was done. I began to swirl around in the memory of the night before, the way she begged for me to finish it, to brand her, the way she told me she wanted me. I closed my eyes briefly and took in a deep breath through my nose.

“My name looks good,” I said softly.

Her shoulders slumped. “Am I going back to Salvador?” Pure desperation tore through her voice.

“No,” I said.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

Finally she turned around and looked at me, puzzlement on her beautiful face. “Did you even hear from him?”

I nodded.

“What did he say then?”

I ran my tongue over my teeth. “Well, we’ve made a new bargain.” Her eyes widened. “He said he needs time to give me what I want. I gave him one more week.”

A cynical smile flashed across her lips. “You see. He doesn’t want me.”

“You sound happy.”

“You have no idea what happy sounds like,” she sneered, her eyes flashing with bright fire. “I am only relieved, but I am still here and I still face the same fate in a week. You’ve bought me more time to face my own death. How can I be happy about that?”

I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t feel the way my heart pinched from her words.

I stepped closer to her and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. “I think I showed you last night just how easy it can be to pass the time,” I said, lowering my voice. “I think you can find happiness in the time I’ve bought you. Don’t you?”

She rubbed her lips together and looked away.

Where was that sexually curious girl from last night? I leaned down and grazed her satiny earlobe with my lips. “You’re mine for another week, Luisa. Why not make it count? The tip of my tongue was only the tip of the iceberg. Trust me, you’ll want to see—and feel—the rest.”