“We still keep tabs on everyone. That’s all we can do for the moment.”
“But I feel like a sitting duck.”
“I know the feeling, but keeping watch is where our best efforts are needed. We’ll change things up the moment we need to strike.”
“All right. I’ll be ready for that.” He nods, looking as ready for war as I am.
I know he feels as betrayed as I do by whomever is screwing with us. Cristiano was shot five times at Eduardo’s house. He was in the hospital for four months, and it took another two before he could walk properly. He nearly died.
“Anything happen at work today?” I ask, changing the subject.
His face softens, morphing into the lighthearted friend I know. “Nothing at work, amigo, but I got you a nanny.” He sets the envelope down on the desk between us and points at it. “Take a look.”
I’d be thrilled to hear the news if I didn’t know the definition of nanny in his fucked-up mind translated to fuck toy.
Cristiano did the advert for the job and took the opportunity to dabble in our darker tastes. The advert read like the standard type you’d see for a live-in nanny, but then he added the clause of doing anything I wanted her to do. With a list of sexual activities. Half a million US dollars a year to basically fuck me.
“No, Cristiano.” I shake my head. “I’m too old for shit like that.” And I have to be a parent and set some form of an example in my home. I also want someone to look after Mia fulltime, so it can’t be a fuck toy.
“Since when are you too old? What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“I’ll look for my own nanny.”
“Alejandro, this girl is a perfect fit.”
“I’m sure you’d think so.”
I might be the fucking pot calling the kettle black, because I’m hardly that different from him when it comes to women. We’re both the perpetual bachelors who’ve never lacked for a woman in our forty-eight years. But at least I was almost married.
Cristiano thinks marriage should be a cardinal sin and finds any excuse to get easy pussy. Now that I have a child to take care of, things are different.
He flips me off and smiles. “Her application came in earlier today. I think she’d be the perfect distraction.”
“Sure, a fuck toy who can take care of Mia during the day and me at night?” His words, not mine.
He laughs. “Alejandro. I’m just trying to lighten the load. Things are bad enough. It can’t be easy trying to replace Estelle in this situation.”
“It’s not.” That’s one thing we can definitely agree on.
Estelle was my nanny when I was a boy. She continued to work for me.
The problem is, she’s nearly ninety, and with her declining health she’d like to retire and spend the rest of her days with her family in Argentina. I’d be a bastard if I didn’t understand that.
I know she would never say this, but I’m sure she’d like to live out the rest of her life free of the cartel. She and her family have served us for many generations. It’s time to set her free. No matter how much I still need her.
“Besides,”—he gives me a pensive stare—“when was the last time you had a woman?”
He knows not to ask me that question. He fucking knows the answer and the spell of shit that happened previously. And after. He knows I haven’t been with anybody since I brought Mia to my home and assigned myself her guardian angel.
He knows the truth about her, too.
“This is not about that.”
“Why can’t it be both? I already took the liberty of getting our applicant checked out, and she came back clean.” He gives me a toothy grin and pushes the paperwork closer to me.
Motherfucker. I can’t believe he already did that.
Now he has my damn interest piqued. It has been too long since I had a woman. Last time, I fell off the fucking path of life in a drunken mess and fucked to forget the last woman I should never have been with.