The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(45)

My eyes widened. “Seriously? That really works?”

“It’s a method cartels have been using to clean dirty money for years.”

“But you lose millions.”

Ignacio rubbed his thumb and forefinger along his chin. “Most cartel members think of it as a tax of sorts. We help the casino’s bottom line. They help us legitimize the money.”

“Wow,” I muttered, utterly dumbfounded because it was almost brilliant in its simplicity. “Impressive.”

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t his money. He stole the money from me…from the Vargas Cartel. He betrayed his family, his history, his heritage, and my legacy. He wanted to start a new life. He didn’t like being under my thumb, so he threw us away like we meant nothing to him.”

I shrugged, even as the intensity of his heavy-lidded stare burned up my skin. “Well, good for him. He succeeded. It sounds like he found his new life… a justified prison term. What’s he looking at? A life term?”

Ignacio slammed his hands on the leather seat. “I won’t let the U.S. government determine his punishment. It’s not their job. It’s mine.”

“Fine. Then, go get him, but leave me out of your plans. I didn’t steal your f*cking money. I didn’t shit on the Vargas Cartel and its criminal legacy. I’m just a graduate student with a dad who has an important job. That’s it. I don’t deserve this. I want my life back.”

“Exactly. You’re the woman with a dad who can wave his bureaucratic wand and make all my problems—and the problems of some very important people—disappear.”

Frost coated my veins. “What important people?”

“People who don’t want Rever to leak their connections to the Vargas Cartel.”

My mind raced with the implications of his confession. “What kind of people? Corrupt politicians?” I speculated. Who else would orchestrate something like this? I wasn’t na?ve. I grew up in D.C. I heard fragments of hushed conversations in shadowed rooms. Some politicians had as many connections with criminal organizations as they did with lobbyists, unions, and government officials.

“So cynical,” Ignacio chided. Then, he grinned. “But you’re on to something, though it goes much deeper than that.”

“What am I? Collateral damage? You don’t care you’re ruining my life to get what you want, just like you ruin innocent people’s lives with the drugs you smuggle into my country. All for what?” I raised my hands in the air. “To line your pockets with dirty money built on the destruction of countless lives.”

His eyes combed over my body, studying me, analyzing me…judging me. My mom knew how to stare down her nose with the best of them. I channeled her. I became her. I narrowed by eyes. I tipped up my chin. I pursed my lips. I curled my hands into a tight fist, refusing to blink, refusing to look away. I demanded respect. In that flash of time, he was my overlord. He could do whatever he wanted with me, but I wouldn’t cower. I wouldn’t bend.

“Collateral damage,” he whispered, almost as though he tasted the words as they rolled over his tongue. “Interesting choice of words.”

I raised my eyebrows and lifted my chin. “How so?” I shouldn’t argue with him. He could kill me any second, but I was tired of accepting my fate. I wanted answers. I deserved answers. Ignacio probably didn’t agree, but I needed to try.

He raised his open palms in the air with a faint smile on his face. “The United States and Mexico have a unique relationship. The countries share one of the longest borders in the world, stretching nearly two thousand miles, and they also share a narcotics problem. Mexico is one of the largest suppliers in the world, while the United States is the largest consumer. As long as the demand exists, the supply will be met. It could be my cartel, or another one servicing the demand. It’s irrelevant. If we don’t do it, somebody else will. The addicts are collateral damage…just like you.”

I glared at him, and my body shook as outrage spiraled through me, twist after twist, each one hotter and wilder than the previous one. “And you don’t care that those drugs ruin people’s lives? That you’ve built an empire on the backs of the lives you’ve destroyed?” I challenged.

“I don’t ruin lives. Bad choices ruin lives.”

“But you give them the ability to make a bad choice.” I corkscrewed my fingers in the hem of my shirt.

“They use drugs to fill some hole in their life. I didn’t put that hole there. Drug addiction is the symptom of a deeper problem.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Great. Wash your hands of any moral responsibility.”

He chuckled, sounding way too much like Ryker. I didn’t want to see any similarities between this cruel drug lord and the man my heart and soul craved even though my mind knew it was wrong. “Speaking of moral responsibility, what’s going on between Ryker and you?”

Heat flooded my cheeks, and my heart skipped a beat or two. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ignacio smiled. “Ryker and Rever have different mothers. Did he tell you that?”

I sucked my lower lip into my mouth, debating how to answer this, but in the end I decided it was irrelevant if I told him the truth. Ryker would likely tell him everything and anything he wanted to know anyway. “Yes.”