Cristiano drank some mezcal and studied his glass. “I do.”
Of course he did, but I wouldn’t allow him to insert himself in my deal. “I’ll make it work.”
“Then at least let me try to reason with the Maldonados,” Cristiano said. With his elbow resting on the back of his seat and a passive expression, he could’ve been discussing anything from wine varietals to horse racing.
“Why would that make any difference?” I asked.
“We have history,” he explained, “and they need my guns more than I need their money.”
As Cristiano and I locked eyes, his plan began to take form before me. His timing wasn’t a coincidence. Cristiano wanted in on this deal. But if I knew him, it wasn’t about the money. He wanted the credit. By saving my Maldonado deal, he’d be the hero. He’d win back Costa’s favor. And he’d undercut me in the process. Everything he wanted with one fell swoop.
“I can’t guarantee anything,” Cristiano continued, “but perhaps it’ll help ease the sting if I tell them they might not get the results they were promised.”
The results I had promised was what he meant. Results that were challenging but should’ve been attainable. Unless someone with a motive to bring me down had interfered.
Costa nodded along as if Cristiano spoke the word of a patron saint. “That’s a generous offer, but a last resort,” Costa said. “I’d rather not get the Maldonados involved until we have to. We’ll take you up on help consolidating what’s left, though.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Cristiano said. “Get your most trusted men together, and I’ll get mine. We can store the product in one of my warehouses. Nobody will know the location, and if they do, they wouldn’t dare cross me.”
Cristiano was hijacking my deal in front of my eyes. How would it look to Costa that I needed to be rescued? How would it look to Natalia? With a deep ache in my jaw, I unclenched my teeth. “You expect me to trust my livelihood to you and your unhinged cabrónes?” I asked.
“Cristiano is offering to help,” Costa said. “Where is this warehouse?”
“At the border of town where the desert starts,” Cristiano said and glanced at me. “Nothing to do with the Badlands if that’s what you’re referring to.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Costa said. “With both cartels working together, we can pull this off.”
“With our two cartels working together,” Cristiano said, returning his gaze to Costa, “we can pull anything off.”
I narrowed my eyes on him. Aha. There was more to it than I’d thought. The Calaveras had their own solutions for trafficking, but if they joined forces with us, they could move double the volume and restrict their competitors from our services.
But that would mean a merger—one I’d be excluded from.
And not just any merger, but one between the de la Rosas and the Cruzes.
Anyone at the helm of both the Calavera and Cruz organizations would be afforded a power few others could match. Did Cristiano feel he was owed that after the decade he’d lost? Was it not enough that he’d taken our parents from me? Now he was back to take the rest? If so, his endgame was bigger than I’d guessed.
He had reason to push me out . . . but no—it was impossible for him to know that. I was nothing if not careful and always had been. Cristiano would’ve gone to Costa by now, and this conversation would be happening atop a fresh grave.
“Perdón.” Cristiano rose from the table with his cell phone in hand. He started to turn but paused. “You may want to consider putting Natalia on a plane, don Costa. In case things get any worse.”
I wondered, not for the first time, why Cristiano was concerned with Natalia at all. I hadn’t missed the way he’d looked at her at the costume party, first predatorily from the balcony, then later, the way a man regards a woman who has something he likes.
I recognized his interest in Natalia because I shared it as well.
She was more than an interest to me, though. I loved her. She was my weakness.
Did we share that as well?
Did Cristiano have a tender spot for her that he might not even be aware of . . . until someone stepped on it?
As Cristiano left the table, Costa turned to me. “Are things going to get worse for my daughter, Diego?”
He said everything he needed to in that one question. It had nothing to do with how the Maldonados could hurt her, but how I could. “Natalia is my best friend,” I said carefully. “I’d do anything to protect her.”
“That won’t be necessary. The best thing you can do is put her safety above all else and release her.”
I didn’t have to be explicitly told to stay away from her—that had always been implied. But it was the closest Costa had come to acknowledging my relationship with her. I wasn’t going to get his blessing. Which turned the question from how to get his approval . . . to whether I needed it.