Vicious Minds (Children of Vice 4)

“Nope,” she lied and took another bite. She winked at me and all I could was shake my head. She had a very cute side to her.

“There was cocaine on the table in Bogota. Miguel sent it to me for inspection. They had added something called ángel caido, another plant they found growing next to the coca—”

“It’s more like a weed,” she interrupted.

I paused, unwrapping my burger. “Aren’t weeds just plants that grow where they're not wanted?”

“Do you want ángel caido to grow with your cocaine?”

“Can I make money off it?” I asked before taking bite.

“As a Callahan you could make money off of anything. But go on,” she shot back as she reached for her milkshake.

It did not escape my notice that she had been giving me orders since we met in the club…and that I was following them. Strange. I wasn’t annoyed, even though I normally would have been.

“Ángel caido, as you seem to know it, boosts the effects and memory of those who take the coke. On its own, it does nothing but apparently leave a bad taste in your mouth. It is simply a spice which could be added—”

“I’m sorry to keep interrupting.”

“Yet you continue to do so,” I muttered, taking another bite.

She gave me a look and sighed. “You don’t seem to know much about it, and it looks like you are trying to decide whether or not to add it your…menu for your customers. However, your family is very traditional when it comes to your dishes. Keep it clean and keep it strong, correct?”

“Correct.” I waited for her to go on.

“Yes, well, tradition is all well and good, but it has a flaw.”

“Really now?” I wiped my hands and took my own milkshake. “By all means, explain.”

“I do hope you aren’t one of those men that don’t like when women give them business advice.”

“Did you forget who my mother was…is?”

“Touché.” She sniffed. “As I was saying, traditions are good, they are needed, at least for a family as big and powerful as yours, they are needed. However, with each generation, these traditions need to be evaluated. Many, even most, will stay, but some have to change, that’s what we call survival. Ángel caido has always existed, and has always grown next to cocaine, only then it was called mierda de planta by the native peoples.”

“Plant shit?” I translated. That was one name for it.

She nodded. “In the early cycles of some coca plants, another plant, mierda de planta, grew around it. It’s brownish, smells awful, and is usually ripped out and thrown away by planters because it can ruin the coca. Plants have one desire: to grow. Yet over and over again it was ripped out as a weed, for generations. Its tradition is to be an ugly smelly weed, until one day, it decides it has had enough and it does what all things that need to survive do: it changes. Slowly, over god knows how many years, it changes its appearance, adapts to the one plant that keeps living next to it…coca. It mimics the look of the coca, not completely but enough so it’s not pulled out as weed, it grows, causally blending in. It tricks the farmer, who picks it with the coca, and surprise, this thing, this weed that everyone threw away, goes from mierda de planta, to Ángel caido.”

It sounded like a certain person I knew and I was having a child with…the moment that thought came to my mind I pushed it back.

“So, you are saying add it. Adapt and change like the plant.” I tried to stay on topic as she drank.

She shook her head. “Yes, and no. Yes, you should be willing to adapt when necessary and change when necessary. What has been done for generations is not always correct or still applicable today. The world changes; we must change too. However, you are not really changing Ethan, you’ve already been adding it. You just didn’t know. The plant was always there. Most was gotten rid of, but occasionally some was added to batches over the years. It’s such a small change it wasn’t really noticeable. Some of your customers might have noticed and just thought they got a really good batch. So adding it now doesn’t go against your family’s way, it just lets you see with a clearer eye than them. Miguel Munha might be an idiot, but he’s a lucky idiot, and he just helped you make more money. So are you going to show your gratefulness by sparing his life?”

“Not a fucking chance,” I answered without hesitation, and she burst out laughing, her whole body shaking. And in that moment she took my breath away. She was beautiful. Her mind was beautiful and as result no matter how she looked on the outside, the word ‘mine’ flashed in my eyes. I wanted her, all of her, to be mine.

What the hell? I looked down at my chest. It was heaving, my heart racing.

“You know it’s love when just want to kill her, but you can’t because you’d regret never seeing her so much, you’d want to kill yourself.” My father’s voice rang out in my mind and I tried to think, how would I feel if she was gone? It made my heart race so fast it hurt.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

I looked up and saw the genuine concern in her eyes. She looked at her food and then mine before she snatched up my burger, even though hers wasn’t finished, and took a bite.

“What are you doing?”

She swallowed, placing her hand on her chest. “You look like you’re in pain, I thought maybe the lapdog did something to your burger.”