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Derek and Javier came over to the back of the Escalade, Derek with only a small backpack Javier opened the trunk and Derek quickly slid inside

I smiled at him but he didn’t smile back Instead, he nodded curtly and then lay down, still as death, staring up at the ceiling

I exchanged a nervous look with Caer, each new person adding an uncertainty that wasn’t there before But worrying wouldn’t do et Gus and h with it I laid uarded now

We drove for a bit until the city was far behind us along with its overgrown trees and layer of sot coffees and churros to go It was stinking hot out, waves of heat rising fro down relentlessly

"We’re closer to the equator now," Este had said, watching as I wiped the sweat off et out of the restroole"

"So how is this going to work exactly?" Ca bit of the churro in his mouth

Este looked to Javier as on his cell phone, talking to sonored hi to the other side of the car Este shrugged at Ca up froht there"

"iPad?" Caave hi? You’d be a them You can’t buy them on iTunes but they can save your life And your , we can alh the forest in real time"

Este went on about the o in until a certain point and then split up There were the people ould need to go in silently, and the ones ould go in blazing They weren’t quite decided yet on ould go where I guess that remained to be seen

While he chatted to Ca silent, I decided to go and look for Javier

He had just hung up the phone and put it in his pocket, facing away from me I walked over to him, carefully, like he could attack at any minute He seeainst predators In this case, the predator was me

"Javier," I said softly

He turned slowly and I stopped where I was, dust flying up fro in the air around us like spilled flour His mouth was set in a hard line and his eyes were even harder like that, glinting like golden stones He appraisedme in, not sure what to do or say or feel I could tell half of him wanted to hate me, hit me, make me bleed And the other half, well that was the sadness I could see h to knohen he was burying shit deep inside

I reached out for hi my hand on his shoulder He didn’t flinch but he eyed my hand like I carried soht of it would translate the weight in my heart, before I took it away

I stuck both round "I’h his nose, his eyes cutting into me with curiosity "About?"

"Violetta" Even saying her name hurt

He looked away for a moment and tilted his head to the side "It has happened It is done"

"I gave her the car keys," I said, fighting the stiffness in uilt that wouldn’t go away

He nodded once and quick "It wasn’t your fault I didn’t realize soon enough as going on I played it too safe" He exhaled and checked the tih If she had left right away back in Mexico City, none of this would have happened She chose to get involved She made her choices when she friended the Zetas"

He wasit sound so simple But, like Violetta said, s complicated if they didn’t need to be

"She’s dead," he said with finality "That’s the cost of doing business sometimes"

And just like that, whatever vulnerability, whatever hurt and pain I thought I had seen beneath the surface, was all gone Wiped clean All that was left was Javier Bernal a drug lord with only one thing on his mind – his own rise to the top He was steel and hard lines and ice in thethat would never melt, no matter what pressure was applied to him He was a human, a machine, a man who I knew had lost his soul forever He lost it soet it back for him Maybe it never was my job

I sed hard and said, "Well, just so you know I liked her"

"And that was your probleotten close to her, you wouldn’t care so et close to the people you knoill die Don’t get close to anyone We’ll all die at some point"

Do back a coffee and cli into the driver’s seat He eyed us over his aviators "Tihtly duer side of the car I shook ot in the back

It turns out ere close to the Honduran border, which proved to be an easy checkpoint I don’t knohat the guards would have done if they had searched the car and found stacks of weapons in the back with Derek, but fro it wouldn’t have mattered Money went further than honor here and we certainly paid our way