Anika’s pulse kicked up a notch when the tentacles slipped under the side-strings of her bikini with what seemed like more than idle curiosity.
A few other tendrils slid up along the side of her body, coiling finger-like around her throat. Anika’s adrenaline spiked. As his tentacles began to pry at her snorkeling gear, she fought to keep her paranoia in check.
There was nothing ambiguous about that. He wanted the apparatus off, clearly. He wanted her face to be bared.
Anika hesitated.
The new establishment was called El Toro, and it was part pool hall and gambling den. Backed by MondragĂłn’s full support, Fernando saw the place finished out in record time.
El Toro appealed without pretense to all of Cortez’s most deeply cherished vices. Because of this, it was eagerly anticipated and well-received—not only by the locals, but by the rural region at large. Drinks and women were served on the side. Underground fights held there were advertised by word of mouth. No less
The creature’s tentacle withdrew from Anika’s grasp. He swam back from her a little, then paused, hovering like a ghost. His silvery look was watchful, expectant.
Anika smiled and swam after him. He leaned back as she did. Sleek and horizontal, he propelled himself through the water like a languid torpedo. About a foot above him, Anika glided along in parallel, close to the surface of the waves.
They swam about like this for a while, retreating to and from the shallows of the cove. The
Fernando smiled. âAnyone who ransoms me is bound to be disappointed. My fatherâs wife holds the purse strings, and she despises me. She would consider my disappearance a blessing. Maybe she even half-hoped for it in sending me here.â
Of course, Juan Francisco’s pride would never suffer such a slight as to have his favored son kidnapped by backcountry lowlifes. The senator might not be a cartel man, but like any man of means in this country he had his dealings. This small-time mafioso would
As the minutes ticked by with no more sightings, Anika’s adrenaline rush began to subside. She was just thinking of giving up and turning back when she glimpsed it againânot just one glowing tendril, but several. Smoothly they coalesced into a banded length of shimmering blue, before vanishing altogether into the shadowy depths beyond.
Anika stared. There was something about the arc of those tendrils as they trailed out of sight. Something in their motion that struck her as strangely deliberate.
Thanks to Fernandoâs oversight, work at the job site had progressed without incident to the final stages of construction. And so he was surprised, as he made his way back toward one of the near-finished rooms the jefe had claimed for his office (in lieu of his afore-sold trailer), to find Pedro and his friend Pablo standing there. They flanked the closed door like theyâd been plucked straight from the street to serve as bodyguards. Likely enough, they had been.
Both nodded to him as he approached.
Fernando dismissed his grandmother’s imagined concerns. He was confident that the success of his ventures would soon allay them. The goats were bringing in a bit of profit already. The exceptional quality of their milk at market outweighed the locals’ superstitious suspicions that the old witch had cast charms on the well water and hay to enrich them.
Fernando’s grandmother didn’t care much for money. He suspected she never much had, even when she was young. But she did like
* * *
By the next week, Fernando had seen the choking ferns and vines routed from beneath his grandmotherâs house and a plot of the rich dark earth plowed under for a garden.
Fibrous weed roots of all kinds riddled the loam. They snapped in sullen protest at their demise. Under the killing blade they became fodder for the crops to come, the good and rightful seed which would inherit.
Apart from his handy friends, Fernando consulted with the greater purview of Cortez. He recruited from among them,
âI donât have any money for you,â Fernando said.
This wasnât exactly true, but as Chico had so sagely put it: Why pay for what you could get for free? The whore shut the door behind them, plunging them both into shadow.
âI donât care,â she growled back at him, driving him up against the closed door.
Her mouth was on his then, lush and musky and wild. Her hair crinkled in his hands, a bristly tangle of half-fallen curls. She scored her nails over him through his thin shirt, scratched