The Untouchables

10. Betrayal

I am Carlos Quintero, the most powerful drug lord of the fucking decade. How could a stupid girl take control of my empire so fast? I shouldn't have let her leave. I shouldn't have even given her the chance to talk with the others, ¡maldición!

I sip my new liquor, enjoying the burning sensation on my tongue. I need more peaceful times like this, but the yelling in the corridors get closer to my office.

I kick the door open and talk to my guards. "¡Te pago para que mates a quien venga, cabrones!"

I get a grip on myself as soon as I see that my angry guests are Navarro and Hernandez, striding to my office.

"I should've killed you yesterday," Navarro says.

"Let's try to face the problem like business men before we all get fucked." Hernandez combs his fingers in his mop of gelled hair.

"Someone didn't sleep tonight," I observe. And that someone is the one that must've made the mistake.

"He stole my drugs!" Navarro says.

"All of the drugs I sent were recorded in a receipt. Someone should've stolen after they've been put on the truck, it can't be me!" Hernandez looks desperate, but we all know who's responsible for the deliveries here.

"Quintero?" Navarro calls out for my explanation.

"Someone stole from my trucks. I'll find out who it was and pay you back. How much was taken?" I ask.

"Just one package of heroin," Navarro says. "Someone decided to start a war."

"No. They're just playing with us. They're trying to distract us from something. Who steals a single package of heroin in a truck full of drugs that are worth at least twenty million dollars?" Hernandez asks.

"Someone that wants to prove something. But what? Why? Who is involved?" I try to think, all my friends' faces cross my mind.

"¡Patrón!" One of my guards runs to us.

"We have important things to discuss here. Come back later," I say.

"I saw who took the heroin! It was a girl. She was blonde, hair parted in the middle, blue eyes, a very thin body... she looked like a model."

Navarro rolls his eyes. "Hija de puta."

"She doesn't know what she's doing. It's just a young woman." Hernandez tries to show off his heart of gold for once, but even he knows that this time she's fucked.

I burst out laughing. I guess the problem was resolved by itself. That's what happens when you taste power without any past experience with it, even as an observer: you end up wanting too much and you act like a kid, taking what you shouldn't touch.

༻✧༺

A few hours earlier

Don't do it. I tell it over and over in my mind, but I want him back too bad. I've always struggled to be afraid, who knew it could be such a curse instead of a blessing?

David needs proof that I'm out of trouble and proof that I still love him. I can prove to him that I'm the baddest bitch ever and I'm his property at the same time with just one pack of heroin. I keep my hands on it and I'm pretty sure I won't let it go.

But is this really a question of love, or am I taking this risk just to feel the thrill of fear and the sensation of power again as yesterday? That mix was bliss, even better than any drug I ever tried in my life. But is this worth risking my life for? Well... what else is worth it if not a pleasant experience that not even money could give me? This is my best opportunity to make peace with David. I'll bring him this fucking high-quality merch to sell and he'll be able to boast about it, and me, for years.

I should take just one package of whatever drug is ready to be delivered. Nobody will notice that, maybe. I remember Navarro's words: even if you stole a single dollar from my empire, you'd have to pay. I wonder who's gonna pay for me between the guards that should've been here surveilling the merch in the truck. I doubt anyone will find out I'm the thief, but I can't be 100% sure I'm safe and will get away with it, even just know. I should probably hurry up.

I have one foot in Hell and one on Earth. I guess I'll jump and hope to fall on the right side!

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" a man yells behind me.

I turn to him. "Nobody's going to believe you over me." I wink at the guard and start running to my home, a stinky apartment in the Mexican quartier of hell.

I want to have my us back with David. I've no one else and life is too boring when I'm alone.

I remember a legend narrated in the whole country. My parents used to tell me about that whenever I was being a bad girl. The legend says that there's a precise amount of hours of sleep for all the people every night, and each minute is nothing but a grain of sand in an hourglass that gets turned upside down every morning. Not everyone deserves sleep: the more you work, the more you produce grains, and the better you work, the better you have a chance that those grains will be given back to you for your own sleep. There will be no sleep for me tonight.