Alexander
The plane is already on the runway when I arrive, the doors still open, but it looks like they’re getting ready to leave.
I launch myself out of the town car and sprint toward it, knowing I’ll never forgive myself if I miss this opportunity. The opportunity to say my peace and goodbye to the woman who loved me like no one else ever has. I swallow hard, pain clutching around my heart. I miss her every single day.
Running across the tarmac, I get to the steps just as they’re about to remove them. “Wait! I need to be on this plane.”
One guy raises a brow. “And you are?”
“Alexander Morales.” I glance up the steps to see my uncle appear in the doorway, and acrid hate coils through my gut at the mere sight of him.
“Let him on.”
The men stop removing the stairs and I bound up the steps two at a time, struggling to draw in enough oxygen.
“Talk about cutting it fine,” Uncle says, eyes narrowing. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
I glare at him, knowing that despite how much I hate him for what he did to my mother, he’s my only shot at getting to visit her grave. “I wasn’t sure whether I was until the last minute.”
He just nods. “Take a seat. We’re leaving in a minute.”
I hate taking orders from him, now more than ever, but I take a seat near the back of the plane and gaze out of the window. My mother’s death feels like such a long time ago, but it was only six years today when I witnessed her beaten bloody by my father. I swallow hard, trying to forget the images that have been etched into my mind since that day. No boy, no matter how old, should have to watch his own father kill his mother, whatever shit she’d done.
My memories of it were hazy, but I had assumed the reason my father had done it was because she didn’t want to leave Mexico. A lot of that night I’ve blocked out, but I could never get the image of my mother’s broken, beaten and bloodied face out of my mind.
To my annoyance, Uncle Hernandez sits down next to me. Even though they are plenty of empty seats on the jet.
“I know you think I’m a monster for ordering your father to murder your mother.”
I glare at my uncle and then look out of the window again.
“What you can’t understand, Alexander, is that to be a leader of a cartel outfit you must make difficult decisions.” He sets a hand on my shoulder, making me tense. “You will never be in that position, but leading isn’t easy. She may have been my flesh and blood, but she betrayed me to my enemy. I couldn’t allow it to go unpunished.”
I shrug his hand off of my shoulder. “I understand. Now leave me alone.” I glare at him. “I just want to say my peace at her grave.”
My uncle sighs heavily. “You and me, both.”
“How do you live with yourself?” I ask, shaking my head.
To my surprise, my uncle doesn’t get angry. Instead, he gives me a smile full of sorrow and shakes his head. “With a lot of alcohol. It’s not easy living with the terrible things I’ve done in life.” He claps me on the shoulder and then stands. “In time, I hope you will be able to forgive me for my sins against both you and your mother.” With that, he walks over to the other side of the plane and takes a seat, as it hurtles down the runway.
I rest my head back against the headrest and shut my eyes, hating flying ever since the first time I did it.
As the plane takes off from the runway, it feels like I’m that scared little kid again, leaving Mexico behind and my dead mother.
Hernandez is insane if he honestly believes I’ll ever forgive him for killing her. She may have betrayed him, but she was his blood.
And I don’t believe everything he says.
Just because she was sleeping with a Vasquez, it doesn’t mean she was betraying her brother.
Did he even give her the option to explain?
I highly doubt it.
As the plane makes its ascent into the air, I try to forget it all and fall into an uneasy sleep.
I don’t wake until the plane bumps down four hours later at a small private airstrip just outside of Reynosa, the town where I was born.
My uncle is already up on his feet, ordering his three men he bought along with him.
It’s not often that Hernandez makes the trip back to Mexico, even though his bosses live here.
He may be Don Hernandez in Chicago, but down here he answers to Don Pablo, boss of the Estrada Cartel in Mexico and his cousin.
“Come on, Alexander. We haven’t got long here.”
I rub my eyes and then stretch my arms over my head before jumping to my feet and following my uncle out of the plane. “Why don’t we have long?” I ask.
“Because the Vasquez cartel runs this territory, and we don’t want them to know about our presence.”
My brow furrows. “Since when do the Vasquez Cartel run Reynosa?”
“Not long after we left, they took control.” His jaw clenches. “Your mother had given them all the information for them to snatch it from us. It’s why we left in such a hurry.” He shrugs. “As well as the lucrative Gurin deal my cousin had bartered with Mikhail Gurin.”
I swallow hard, as the more I learn about that time, it appears the more Natalya’s family had less and less to do with the reasons for my move.