The Paper Swan(51)

“Now we lay low and wait for the dust to settle. Think of it as an intermission.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes to put together the next plan, Rafael. As long as it takes.”





“WE’VE COME A LONG WAY from Caboras,” said Rafael, clinking his beer with Damian’s.

Damian surveyed the tiki-torch lit patio overlooking Mission Bay, the exotic, tropical fish swimming in the ceiling-high aquarium and the pristine table setting before them.

“It’s taken a long time to get here,” he said.

“Eleven f*cking years.” Rafael scanned the menu. “What are you having?”

“A burger,” replied Damian, without opening his menu. He fidgeted with his cuff links. “Was this really necessary?” he asked.

“You want to blend into fancy circles, you’ve got to look the part. How do you like the shoes? I had my guy custom make them.”

“I get that they’re standard issue for a hotshot financial advisor like you, but f*ck it, Rafael, there’s nothing like a pair of shoes broken in by hard labor and sweat.”

“Screw hard labor and sweat. You deserve this. When are you going to start enjoying some of your hard-earned cash? If you don’t start relaxing, Damian, your face is going to set into a permanent scowl and you’ll scare the girls away. Permanently.”

Damian waved his hand dismissively. At twenty-seven, he was completely oblivious to the polarized reactions of the women around him. When Damian walked into a room, he went for the shadows and dark corners. He never fit in and he never attempted to. But the very attention he sought to avoid always found him, because it was like dragging in a caged animal. The women flocked around him, afraid to touch him, afraid to talk to him, but at the same time, completely fascinated.

“The money means nothing,” he said. “It’s a means to an end.”

“I know that, but take some credit for what you’ve achieved. After El Charro, we had nothing but the money you’d stashed away. And you managed to turn that around. From one boat to two, to five, to ten. From a small fishing company to a motherf*cking shipping conglomerate. You put me through college while you worked your ass off. Everything I am, I owe to you. And now here you are. On the brink of toppling Warren Sedgewick over.”

Damian thought back to those early years after El Charro’s death. He had kept his ear to the ground about Warren. El Charro was a stranger who had sought to eliminate a threat, but Warren . . . Warren knew MaMaLu. She had looked after his daughter for nine years—nine f*cking years—six of which she’d tried to fill the void his wife had left. She had loved Skye as dearly as she loved her own son, going so far as to put Damian second when it came to her time and affection. And how had Warren rewarded her? By betraying her to save his own skin. He was a coward who needed to atone for his sins, not by dying, but by living. Damian wanted him to feel pain his whole f*cking life. He was going to strip Warren of his extravagant mansion in La Jolla, his fleet of chauffeur-driven cars, his line of immaculate, luxury resorts, scattered across the most idyllic spots in the world. One by one, Damian was going to take it all away—his fame, his fortune, his prestige—the very foundation his world was built on. And to get there, to battle Warren in his ivory tower, Damian had to amass his own weapons, build his own fortune, a fortune fueled by something far more powerful than anything Warren had in his arsenal: a rusty box of cigarettes and the memory of MaMaLu’s incomplete tombstone.

Wherever Damian went, the Lucky Strike tin went with him. It was there when he scouted remote islands and atolls, looking for a place he and Rafael could lay low. It was there when the dust settled over the deaths of El Charro and Emilio Zamora, and everyone had forgotten two insignificant boys who had been there that day. It was there when they relocated to a fishing port, where Damian bought his first trawler, El Caballero, a name he took on as part of his new identity. It was there when he saw Rafael off to a prestigious boarding school, and again when he attended Rafael’s graduation from college. It was there when Damian was big enough and wealthy enough to apply for a U.S. green card as an investor, and then years later, his citizenship. And it was there now, in his inner coat pocket, as he had dinner with Rafael, in Warren’s Polynesian themed flagship resort: The Sedgewick, San Diego.

When Warren had started out, he was still under the cartel’s thumb. He had managed to get out of Mexico, but only because it suited their purposes. They needed ways to turn the dirty cash from drug sales and other illegal activities into clean, usable currency, and Warren was one of the cogs in their money-laundering machine. Damian understood his role well. Warren would buy a prime piece of U.S. real estate. He would build a five star resort, fill it with the finest linen, cutlery, china, the best furniture. From there, he would report his hotel at maximum occupancy, except it was never completely full. Every day, a security van would roll up and collect all the cash taken in from the rooms, nightclubs, casinos, bars and restaurants—dirty cash mixed in with legitimate income. Warren got a cut of the action. The rest made its way to offshore accounts that belonged to El Charro, who then dispersed it to his top men.