But his words on that paper showed a side of my father that I never thought existed. Perhaps the side of him before two of his sisters were killed, before he lost this supposed love of his life. Ellie seemed like the hand that slowly pushed his heart closed.
And that’s when I knew, I needed to find her.
I want to talk to her. I want to know who she is. What she has that cracked my father open all those years ago. What she knows.
I want to see his weaknesses.
And I want to use those weaknesses against him.
That’s what I’ve been stewing on all week. I never found the papers on the Tijuana Cartel but by then my mother quickly dropped interest in it.
The paper with the latest date, from a few years ago, states that Ellie lives in San Francisco. I don’t know why my father has this up-to-date intel on her, but then again I’m not too surprised. The older my father gets, the more personal he takes any slight. He’s also obsessive, manic, and bat-shit crazy at times.
A quick Google search showed me that Ellie still works as a photographer, and with some more digging I found out her husband runs a tattoo shop in the city. Further digging brings up a son, age twenty-four, the spitting image of his father right down to the tattoos, who is an MMA fighter. They also have a daughter. I can’t get much dirt from her aside from an Instagram account full of art and professional photos, but her bio tells me she’s studying photography at the arts school. The picture of her is too far away, shot in black and white, so you can’t get a good look at her, but if she is anything like her mother, she is probably stunning.
And now I have permission to go. To just leave and set out on my own for the first time in my life. Maybe this Ellie turns out to be nothing at all. Just some chick who broke my dad’s heart. But even if that’s the case, it doesn’t change the fact that this is my first step out of this prison.
“What the fuck are you smiling for?” my father asks me, pouring himself another glass.
I let the smile turn into a grin. “Just looking forward to the day I leave.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You’re coming back, mark my words.”
I just nod at him.
We’ll see.
A week later and I’m leaving.
I say goodbye to my mother as she gives me a tearful hug. I send my regards to my sister, Marisol, who is staying with my aunt Marguerite in New York for her first year of university.
My father gives me a firm, albeit reluctant handshake. I tower over him by a few inches and yet he seems taller.
“Tio and Nacho will be your eyes when yours fail you,” he says to me, voice grave, and jerks his head toward the waiting SUV. Bulletproof glass and carriage, shiny black. Tio and Nacho stand outside of the open back door, hands clasped in front of them, waiting for me.
They’re my babysitters.
Armed to the nines.
“And here is everything you need,” my father says, pressing a leather pouch into my hands. “Passport, two in case you need them, one American, one Mexican. California Driver’s License. A bank card. Credit card. Nine thousand dollars cash. You’re Vicente Rodriguez, American citizen, born and raised in Sacramento. You’re twenty-five years old, born in two thousand twelve. At least this way you can rent a car, fucking bullshit laws they still have there. Your parents are Mexican immigrants who came over to America before the embargo. They were self-made millionaires.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Whatever the fuck you want them to. You know how to lie, don’t you?”
“I’m your son, aren’t I?”
He raises a brow, staring me down for a moment with glittering eyes, and gives me a hard slap on the shoulder. “Behave yourself, Vicente. Starting trouble over there is completely different than starting trouble over here. One gets others killed. The other gets you killed.”
I nod.
Get in the car with my two amigos.
And we’re off to the Mazatlán airport.
Off to a new land.
Where I am no longer Javier Bernal’s son.
Where the prince can become the king.
Chapter Three
Violet
The envelope haunted me for the rest of the week.
I could barely concentrate on my assignments and I walked through the school and streets of San Francisco like a zombie, seeing everything and taking in nothing at all. As if school wasn’t overwhelming enough with the need to get my projects exactly right, now my thoughts were pulled to a puzzle I desperately wanted to solve.
I had to talk to someone, but at the same time I knew I couldn’t confide in just anyone. The article had talked about my father in a negative way. And that’s putting it mildly. It said he was involved with a drug cartel and presumed dead, and he’s clearly not. Dead, that is.
Plus, there’s a reason that this has all been kept away from me, the big, dark secret that I always imagined hung above their heads.
Either way, I can’t say anything to Ginny about it so I let it fester inside me, a slow simmer of black heat, all week.
Ben comes up from Santa Cruz most weekends. It’s Friday evening and he’s downstairs right now, talking to Mom about something. Dad is still at work.
I don’t want to appear overly anxious—as I’ve said before, my parents are paranoid as fuck—but I also don’t want to hang out in the house much longer.
I go downstairs and play the part of the bored, petulant child, something I do very well. I lean against the kitchen counter and sigh dramatically.
My mom gives me a wry look as she pushes her long dark hair behind her ears. “What?” she asks.