Alejandro veered us away from the party and toward the living space we’d walked through earlier.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He gestured in front of us. Some of the main room’s French doors had been opened, and the scent of rain and wet soil drifted in from the patio I’d seen earlier, the pool just beyond. Cristiano sat at a round table with a group of men, his back to Alejandro and me, an ankle over one knee and a cigar in his hand. Alejandro continued outside and went to take the last open patio chair, leaving me in the doorway.
Cristiano drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair looking anything but bored. He almost seemed relaxed as he acknowledged Alejandro but didn’t notice me behind him.
“It’s all right,” he said after a few moments of silence. “Continue.”
“As I was saying, Cortez is demanding more from us than the buyer paid,” the glass-eyed man said after a sip of his drink. Max. He’d brought me from the church garden to the wedding earlier that day.
“The shipment is invaluable, but he doesn’t need to know that,” Cristiano said. “Pay him a fair sum, nothing more.”
Max nodded through a cloud of white smoke. “If he doesn’t like it, he’ll like the alternative even less.”
I stepped lightly onto the patio so as not to draw attention. Though both Alejandro and Max knew I was there, it still felt like I was doing something wrong. But picking up even a few words of Cristiano’s conversation could help me puzzle together what exactly was happening inside the Badlands’ walls.
Cristiano placed both feet on the ground, leaned his elbows on his knees, and pointed his cigar at Max. “But make sure he understands that our payment is a courtesy I won’t extend twice.”
I held my breath, certain Cristiano would turn around and tell me to leave any moment.
“Next time we catch him transporting for BR,” Cristiano said, “I’ll take the shipment. Nobody gets paid shit. And I can’t guarantee he’ll walk out alive.”
“Agreed,” Max said.
Cristiano sat back in his seat. “Gentlemen, there’s one thing you should know about my new wife: you should be even more alert than usual. She has been taught since childhood that eavesdropping is the only way to get information.”
A few of the men chuckled as my cheeks warmed. He hadn’t even looked in my direction—how had he known I was standing there?
“So you’ll handle that then, Max?” Cristiano asked.
“Sí, jefe.”
Waiting to be dismissed, I folded my hands, and my knuckle caught on the diamond on my finger. It would take getting used to. It seemed blasphemous to wear it, a mockery of the marriage I could’ve had.
“What else?” Cristiano asked. “As much as I like you all, there’s only one person I want to spend my wedding night with.”
“There’s the matter with Sandra,” Alejandro said.
“Right. You think she’s ready?” Cristiano puffed his cigar, but he still didn’t send me away. He knew better than to assume I’d leave my own, which meant he was allowing me to listen in.
Sweet, woodsy cigar smoke wafted toward me. Only Alejandro refrained from partaking. “She won’t look this young forever,” he said. “She can easily pass for fourteen.”
“How long has she been going to Solomon?” Cristiano asked.
Alejandro exchanged a look with another man. “About six months.”
“Then she’s ready. Put her on the corner.”
I gasped, only mildly more shocked by Cristiano’s suggestion than I was that they were talking business in front of me.
“If Sandra says she’s too scared, send her to me,” Cristiano added.
“You can’t put a fourteen-year-old on the streets,” I blurted.
Everyone except Cristiano turned to me. “She’s not fourteen. She’s eighteen.”
“But you’re trying to pass her off as underage?” I asked. “It’s sick.”
Cristiano finally looked at me. “Perhaps it was a mistake to let you stay. You’re asking the wrong questions, and you don’t have the stomach for this yet.”
I pressed my lips together. He was giving me a choice, which was more than anyone in a position of authority had ever done before. I could stay and continue to gather information that might help me understand what was happening under this roof, or I could run and hide in my room.
As if responding to some silent signal, the men ashed their cigars, stood from their chairs, and nodded at Cristiano on their way inside. The one with the face tattoo and limp—Eduardo, I thought Cristiano had called him—was last to get up, hesitating before he shut the door behind himself.
Once we were alone, Cristiano turned to me. “Sit.”
I obeyed, hoping it would earn me some leeway. Because despite being in a similar situation, or maybe because of it, I couldn’t stay quiet when a young girl was being taken advantage of.
“I do have the stomach for this,” I said as calmly as I could so he wouldn’t get defensive. “But that could’ve been me on the corner. You protected me as a young girl once. Do you still have it in you?”