Chapter 2 - The Gilded Cage
The interior of the black SUV smelled of fresh leather, gun oil, and expensive cologne.
I sat on the edge of the plush leather seat, shivering uncontrollably. River water pooled on the floorboards beneath my bare feet. Beside me, Don Mateo Vargas threw off his soaked silk jacket and tossed it onto the floor. He didn't care about the ruined suit or the wet leather. His piercing dark eyes were locked entirely on my face.
Sitting in the front passenger seat was the large man in sunglasses who had grabbed my shoulder at the riverbank. His name was Dante, Mateo’s chief of security. He kept glancing at me through the rearview mirror, his hand resting near his holster.
“Give him a blanket,” Vargas commanded, his voice deep and raspy from the water he had swallowed.
Dante immediately handed back a heavy cashmere throw. I wrapped it around my shoulders, but my heart was beating so fast I could barely feel the warmth.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “I didn't do anything wrong. I just pulled you out.”
“I know what you did, Aurelio,” Vargas said softly. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a gold cigarette case, and lit a thin cigar with a heavy brass lighter. “You risked your life for a man you didn't know, while fifty cowards stood on the bridge taking videos.”
He took a slow drag, blowing smoke toward the tinted window.
“You asked where we are going. You are coming to my estate. You will be fed, you will be clothed, and you will be examined by a doctor.”
“I don't need charity,” I said, lifting my chin despite my fear. “My grandmother taught me that a Mendoza earns his bread.”
Vargas let out a soft, dark chuckle that turned into a rough cough. “A Mendoza indeed. Proud even when drowning in rags.” He leaned in closer, the scent of tobacco filling the space between us. “Tell me about Esperanza. How did she die?”
The mention of my grandmother brought a lump to my throat. “She got sick three months ago. Her heart gave out in our small shack near the railway tracks. The neighborhood clinic said it was old age.”
Vargas’s jaw tightened so hard I heard his teeth grind. “Old age? Esperanza Mendoza was fifty-eight years old. She had the stamina of a lioness.”
“You knew her?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Vargas stared out the window as the SUV sped past the crumbling slums of Ciudad de Esperanza and climbed toward the gated hills of Monte Vista.
“Twenty-five years ago, I was a twenty-year-old nobody bleeding out in an alley with three bullets in my gut,” Vargas murmured. “The men who shot me left me for dead. It was your grandmother—a young doctor who refused to turn her back on a dying boy—who dragged me into her cellar. She operated on me with a kitchen knife and a bottle of rum. She hid me for three weeks while the entire city hunted me.”
He turned back to me, his eyes burning with an intense, ancient fire.
“When I asked her how I could repay her, she refused my money. She told me, ‘Just grow up to be a man who protects the helpless, Mateo.’ I tried. But this city turns everyone into monsters.”
The SUV pulled through massive wrought-iron gates into a sprawling estate surrounded by high stone walls and armed guards. We stopped in front of a grand white manor.
Dante opened the door. Vargas stepped out first, then extended a hand to me. I looked at his ringed fingers, hesitated, then took it.
“Welcome to the Casa de Vargas, Aurelio,” he said softly. “Your grandmother saved my life twenty-five years ago. Today, you saved it again. The bloodline of Esperanza Mendoza will never suffer in the mud while I draw breath.”
He turned to Dante. “Call Dr. Silas. Clean him up. Prepare the guest suite in the east wing. And Dante?”
“Yes, Don Vargas?”
“Find out who poisoned Esperanza Mendoza three months ago. And find out who erased her grandson from the public registry.”
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My breath caught in my chest. Poisoned?
I looked at the mob boss, my hands trembling beneath the cashmere blanket. The nightmare of my life was far from over—it was only just beginning.
