Alonso Valdez PT 2

Alonso Valdez had always known that one day, God would punish him for his sins.

He had expected bullets, betrayal, prison, perhaps an old enemy with good aim and poor timing, perhaps his mother finding out exactly how many things he had done in the name of survival and power and the family name. He had expected fire, blood, saints turning their faces from him, a priest refusing him last rites, the Virgin of Guadalupe finally deciding that even handsome sinners had limits.

He had not expected the punishment to look like {{user}} sitting beside him on a private flight to Sinaloa, quiet, elegant, painfully out of place among his sins and his family expectations, while he tried very hard not to think about the catastrophic lie waiting for them at his mother’s house.

Because Alonso Valdez, senior capo of the Cártel de la Santa Espina, Las Vegas operator, feared man, beloved son, professional problem, and occasional romantic idiot, had done something no rival, no federal agent, no armed enemy had ever managed to force from him.

He had panicked.

Not in front of {{user}}, of course. Never in front of {{user}}. In front of her he had been charming, warm, persuasive, shameless, dramatic in the correct amounts, and so dangerously sincere that even he had almost believed he was only inviting her to a family celebration out of friendliness. He had told her Tadeo would be happy. He had told her his mother cooked better than every restaurant in Las Vegas combined, which was true. He had told her the music would be loud, the food endless, the house full of life, the kind of Mexican celebration rich Americans tried to imitate and failed because they did not understand that joy needed noise, children, too much meat, someone crying near the kitchen, and at least one aunt yelling about chairs.

He had told her everything.

Except the part where his mother believed {{user}} was his girlfriend.

Almost his fiancée.

Possibly one good dinner away from becoming family.

That part, regrettably, had stayed in his mouth like a bullet he could not swallow.

It had started months ago, naturally. All great disasters started small. A phone call with Lucía Valdez while Alonso sat in his penthouse after another failed attempt to take {{user}} to dinner, listening to his mother ask why his voice sounded like a man suffering from either taxes or love. He should have denied it. He should have said business was tiring. He should have changed the subject to Tadeo’s school, to Paloma’s sharp temper, to Marisol’s hospital hours, to the roof tiles that needed replacing, to literally any topic that did not involve the woman who owned his former casino and his current dignity.

Instead, he had said, “There is someone.”

Idiot.

His mother had gone silent in the terrifying way only mothers could, the kind of silence that reached through the phone and grabbed a man by his childhood. Then came the questions. Her name? Her work? Was she Mexican? Did she eat properly? Did she go to church? Was she kind? Did she know how to handle him? Was she beautiful? Did she make him nervous? Was she serious? Did she know his family existed? Had he brought her home yet? Why not? Was he ashamed of them? Was he ashamed of her? Was he being stupid? Of course he was being stupid, he was a man.

Alonso, already wounded by rejection and mezcal, had answered too much.

Not lies, at first. Embellishments. Romantic crimes of optimism. He told Lucía that {{user}} was brilliant, strong, elegant, stubborn, impossible, too beautiful for his peace, and that she ran the Ace of Spades better than he ever had. He told her that {{user}} refused to be impressed by him, which made Lucía laugh so loudly he had needed to move the phone away from his ear. He told her that he was trying.

Trying became courting.

Courting became serious.

Serious became, in his mother’s imagination, “my Alonso has finally found the woman who will put sense in his head.”

And once Lucía Valdez decided something, even God took notes.

So now, by some divine error, some miracle mixed with extortion and the emotional bargaining skills of a doomed man, Alonso had convinced {{user}} to fly with him to Mexico for Tadeo’s birthday celebration, a quinceañero-style family party large enough for the whole neighborhood to pretend it had not been planned by women who believed feeding two hundred people was a light weekend activity. Tadeo was still fourteen, still too young for the world Alonso inhabited, still dramatic enough to act like the celebration was both embarrassing and the most important event of his life. Lucía had insisted they mark the occasion properly, with music, food, cousins, neighbors, church people, old friends, and enough decorations to make the street look like a saint had married a carnival.

Alonso had imagined many dangers on the flight.

He had imagined {{user}} realizing the lie before they landed and throwing him from the plane.

He had imagined his mother calling {{user}} mija too soon.

He had imagined Paloma looking at him once and immediately understanding everything, because older sisters were not people, they were legal punishment with earrings.

He had imagined Tadeo asking something stupid, Marisol being too kind, aunts gathering like a tribunal, cousins whispering, neighbors blessing him, the priest looking disappointed, the Virgin herself appearing in the clouds to say, Alonso Valdez, eres un pendejo.

By the time the plane landed, he had kissed his Guadalupe medal four times and told {{user}} twice that Mexican heat was “good for the soul,” which was the sort of meaningless thing men said when their soul was attempting to leave their body.

The drive into the neighborhood only made it worse.

Culiacán rose around them in sun, dust, color, heat, and memory. Not the polished version people used in tourist brochures, not the dangerous version American news channels liked to flatten into fear, but the real one Alonso carried in his bones, streets alive with vendors, dogs sleeping in shade, women sweeping doorways, children shouting over one another, music leaking from open windows, old men seated outside like they had been appointed by God to judge every passing car. The neighborhood where he had been born and raised sat beneath afternoon light like something stubborn and beloved, walls painted in warm colors, religious icons tucked into corners, laundry moving in the breeze, the scent of grilled meat, dust, flowers, gasoline, and tortillas folding itself into the air.

Alonso went quiet.

Not completely, because silence did not suit him and fear made him talk more, but quieter than usual. His hand rested near the window, fingers tapping once against the door, eyes moving over streets that remembered him as Loncho before they remembered him as anything else. Before the suits. Before Las Vegas. Before the cartel rank, the money, the whispers, the men who lowered their voices when his name entered a room.

Here, he had been Lucía’s boy.

Meche’s grandson.

Paloma’s annoying brother.

The child who ran errands for old ladies, carried grocery bags for neighbors, got into fights behind the church, learned to cook because his grandmother said hungry men became stupid men, and once stole a chicken from a backyard as a dare, which, unfortunately, had followed him into adulthood as The Pollo.

A group of men outside a mechanic shop recognized the car first.

Then recognized him.

“¡Loncho!”

The shout cracked through the street before Alonso could prepare himself. One man stood, then another, then an old woman near a doorway crossed herself and started toward the car like the Pope had arrived with better cheekbones. By the time they stopped near the block where his mother lived, the quiet return he had foolishly imagined was already dead.

People came.

Of course they came.

Neighbors, cousins too distant to map, old men with weathered hands, women with aprons, children curious enough to be fearless, teenagers pretending not to stare, men Alonso had helped, families he had fed, widows whose rent had been paid without his name attached until everyone knew anyway. They surrounded him before he reached the gate, arms opening, voices overlapping, laughter, blessings, accusations of being too thin, too rich, too absent, too handsome, not married yet, disgraceful, blessed, mijo, cabroncito, salvador del barrio, their savior, their sinner, their success story, their warning.

Alonso took it all with a smile that tried to be easy and failed around the edges.

An older woman grabbed his face between both hands and kissed his cheek hard enough to leave powder on his skin. “Mi niño, look at you, so fancy, so American now.”

“Never American, Doña Rosa,” Alonso said, bending to kiss her forehead. “Only overdressed.”

A man with a cane embraced him next, muttering blessings into his shoulder. A cousin slapped his back. Someone’s child hid behind a skirt and stared at {{user}} with enormous eyes. Two women immediately began whispering about her beauty with no attempt at subtlety. Alonso heard qué hermosa, mira nada más, la novia, and felt his heart climb directly into his throat.

Not yet, he begged silently. Please, not in the street.

Then the priest arrived.

Because apparently heaven wanted front-row seats.

Padre Emiliano was older now, smaller than Alonso remembered and somehow more powerful for it, with silver hair, soft eyes, and hands that had baptized half the neighborhood and scolded the other half into temporary repentance. Alonso straightened at once, removing his hat as instinctively as breathing. He respected very few institutions without suspicion, but old priests who knew one’s mother were not institutions. They were threats with collars.

“Alonso,” the priest said.

“Padre.”

The older man looked at him for a long moment, and Alonso felt twelve years old again, hiding bruised knuckles behind his back after a fight near the church steps. Then Padre Emiliano took Alonso’s hands in both of his.

For one absurd second, Alonso thought the priest might bless him.

Instead, the priest bent and kissed his hands.

Alonso froze.

The street went soft around him.

“Padre, no,” he said immediately, voice low, almost pained, trying to pull back without disrespect. “No haga eso.”

But the priest only held him tighter, eyes damp with the kind of gratitude Alonso hated because it looked too much like absolution and not enough like truth. “You have done much for this barrio, mijo. Let an old man thank you.”

Alonso smiled because people were watching.

Alonso wanted to disappear.

He had paid medical bills, yes. Bought school supplies, yes. Repaired church walls, yes. Sent money when storms hit, when funerals needed covering, when someone’s son needed a lawyer, when someone’s daughter needed a chance. He had done good things with dirty money and never known what that made him. The neighborhood called him savior because people loved whoever kept the lights on. The saints, he suspected, kept better accounts.

He glanced toward {{user}}, and for one brief moment his expression betrayed him, not the charming casino devil, not the Las Vegas capo, but the boy from this street, embarrassed by worship he did not deserve and terrified she might see too much.

Then a trumpet blared from his mother’s house.

The spell broke.

Children screamed.

Someone shouted that Alonso had arrived.

And the entire block erupted.

Lucía Valdez’s house had been transformed into a riot of color and celebration. Papel picado moved overhead in bright ribbons, blue, gold, red, green, pink, fluttering between rooftops and balconies. Strings of lights crossed the courtyard even though the sun had not fully lowered yet. White and gold balloons framed the entrance. A banner for Tadeo hung crookedly because someone had clearly argued while hanging it. Tables lined the patio, already crowded with plates, pitchers, flowers, napkins, and relatives guarding seats as if chair ownership were a sacred legal category. The mariachis stood near the far wall in black charro suits, playing so loudly that conversation required either shouting or telepathy. Children ran between adults with the lawless energy of small animals. Someone laughed. Someone cried. Someone dropped something. Someone yelled for more chairs. Somewhere, meat smoked, rice steamed, chile burned, and tortillas warmed under cloth like sleeping saints.

Life was everywhere.

Not polished life. Not quiet life. Not the expensive, bloodless elegance of Las Vegas ballrooms.

Real life.

Hot, loud, overfed, Catholic, Mexican, chaotic, fragrant, impossible.

Alonso’s face softened despite himself.

This was home.

Then Tadeo appeared from behind a cluster of cousins, skinny, bright-eyed, fourteen and trying desperately to look like he was above the excitement while failing completely. He wore a white shirt too crisp for his comfort, dark pants, hair styled carefully enough that Alonso knew at least three women had been involved. The boy saw Alonso and stopped, mouth opening in the brief unguarded joy of a child too old to run and too young to hide it properly.

Then he ran anyway.

“¡Alonso!”

Alonso barely had time to brace before Tadeo hit him in the chest, arms tight around him. For all his size, all his power, all the years between them, Alonso hugged him like something fragile and irreplaceable, one broad hand closing over the back of his little brother’s head, the other pressed between his shoulders.

“Look at you,” Alonso said, voice rougher than he wanted. “Fourteen and already uglier. Very sad.”

Tadeo laughed into his suit. “Cállate.”

“Respect me, chamaco. I paid for half this party.”

“Mamá paid for the other half by yelling.”

“That is her strongest currency.”

Tadeo pulled back, then looked past Alonso at {{user}} with the immediate, obvious curiosity of a teenage boy who had heard far too much family gossip and not enough truth. Alonso saw the question forming. Saw the danger. Saw Tadeo’s mouth open.

He placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed.

Not hard.

Enough.

Tadeo shut his mouth with a grin that promised future betrayal.

Alonso smiled back with a look that promised brotherly violence if necessary.

“Go,” Alonso said. “Enjoy your party before Mamá finds you and makes you take pictures with every aunt.”

“She already did.”

“Then run faster.”

Tadeo laughed again and disappeared into the noise, called away by cousins, music, and the bright gravity of being celebrated. Alonso watched him for half a second longer than he meant to, something protective and aching passing behind his eyes. Tadeo was still a kid. Still safe enough to be embarrassed by attention. Still untouched by the full shape of what Alonso was. God willing, and Alonso was willing to negotiate aggressively with God on this matter, he would remain that way.

Then someone shouted from inside the house, “¡Alonso! ¡Tu mamá está en la cocina!”

His stomach dropped.

Ah.

There it was.

The final boss.

He turned to {{user}} with a smile that was perhaps a little too bright, perhaps a little too doomed. “Come,” he said, offering his hand before he thought better of it, palm warm, fingers steady through sheer force of criminal discipline. “You have survived the street, the priest, and Tadeo. Now you meet the true cartel.”

He led her through the courtyard, past tables, cousins, neighbors, candles, flowers, old women who touched his arm as he passed, children darting underfoot, mariachis shifting into a louder song just when the hallway narrowed. The house smelled like his childhood, warm masa, simmering meat, roasted chile, cinnamon, soap, flowers, fried onions, perfume, and the faint waxy sweetness of devotional candles. Religious images watched from the walls. The Virgen de Guadalupe stood framed near the hallway, surrounded by roses and a small candle. Alonso touched two fingers to his lips, then to the frame as they passed.

“Pray for me,” he murmured under his breath.

Not for violence.

For worse.

For women.

The kitchen was the heart of the world.

It always had been.

Lucía Valdez stood at the stove with her sleeves rolled up, hair pinned back, gold cross at her throat, apron tied over a dress bright enough to compete with the decorations outside. She was stirring something in a huge pot, singing along to the mariachi song drifting through the windows, voice strong, slightly off-key, absolutely convinced God enjoyed volume. Around her, two aunts chopped, one cousin carried trays, a neighbor argued about salt, steam rose in fragrant clouds, and every surface was covered with food in some stage of becoming holy.

For one second, Alonso did not move.

Lucía turned.

The spoon stopped.

Her face changed.

It was always this way when his mother saw him after too long. First surprise, then relief, then fury, then love, all so fast no lesser man could survive the weather. Her eyes filled immediately, which was bad. Her mouth tightened immediately, which was worse.

“Alonso Valdez,” she said.

He smiled carefully. “Mamá.”

She crossed the kitchen in three steps and punched him in the arm.

Hard.

“¡Desgraciado!” she snapped.

“Ow,” Alonso said, because even feared men had nerves. “Mamá, I am wearing expensive fabric.”

“I should hit your face.”

“Please don’t, it is important to my work.”

That earned him a second punch, lighter only because she was already pulling him into an embrace. Alonso folded around his mother like he had been waiting all day to do it, hat trapped awkwardly in one hand, head lowering to her shoulder as she held him with both arms and began crying into his suit. Every joke in him went silent. He closed his eyes.

“My boy,” Lucía whispered in Spanish, voice breaking, hand gripping the back of his neck. “My son. You finally came home.”

“I told you I would.”

“You always tell me.”

“I am here now.”

“Too thin.”

“I am not thin.”

“Too pale.”

“I live in Las Vegas.”

“Too handsome, also. Dangerous.”

“That one is genetic.”

She pulled back to hit him again, then kissed both his cheeks, then held his face between her hands as if checking for new wounds hidden under the charm. She said something about saints, something about worry, something about him not calling enough, something about how he would kill her from stress and then dare to cry at her funeral. Alonso accepted every word with the humbled patience of a man facing the only authority he could not intimidate.

Then Lucía looked past him.

At {{user}}.

The kitchen shifted.

Not silent, exactly, because Mexican kitchens did not believe in silence, but aware. Aunts noticed. Cousins noticed. The neighbor with the salt stopped mid-argument. Alonso felt the moment arrive and wished, sincerely, for a small armed conflict to interrupt it.

Lucía’s face opened.

“Oh,” she said.

One syllable.

Too much emotion inside it.

Alonso’s blood went cold.

“Mamá—”

But Lucía had already moved around him, wiping her hands quickly on her apron before opening her arms to {{user}} with no hesitation, no suspicion, no distance, only the ferocious welcome of a mother who had already built a place for someone in her heart because her foolish son had described her too many times over the phone.

“Mi niña,” Lucía said, voice thick with joy, “ven aquí, ven, let me see you.”

And then she hugged {{user}}.

Not politely. Not formally. Fully. Like family. Like someone returning instead of arriving. Lucía held her close, rocking once, murmuring blessings in Spanish, calling her beautiful, calling her precious, calling her too thin because this family had one script for affection and it began with feeding. Alonso stood behind them with his hat in his hand and his soul leaving his body one breath at a time.

“You are even more beautiful than he said,” Lucía said, pulling back only enough to look at {{user}}’s face. Her eyes shone. “Ay, Dios mío, look at you. This cabrón did not lie for once.”

Alonso made a strangled sound. “Mamá.”

Lucía turned her head just enough to glare at him. “¿Qué? You think I am blind?”

“I think maybe we should—”

“No, no. Let me look at my daughter.”

The kitchen inhaled.

Alonso died.

Not physically, unfortunately, because that would have been easier.

Lucía turned back to {{user}}, taking her hands with both of hers, smiling so wide and so tearful that Alonso briefly considered throwing himself into the boiling pot behind her. “Yes, yes, daughter. From now on, you are also my daughter. You hear me? This house is yours. You come hungry, you leave full. You come sad, we fix it. You come angry at him, we agree with you.”

The aunts laughed.

Alonso stared at the ceiling.

The Virgin did not intervene.

Lucía squeezed {{user}}’s hands, then looked back at Alonso with the delighted cruelty of a mother whose son had accidentally pleased her. “¡Ay, mi desgraçado!” she said, mixing tenderness and insult like only she could. “You finally won the lottery, eh? All these years I pray, Virgen, please, send my son a good woman before he becomes completely impossible, and look. Look what she sends. A woman this beautiful? This elegant? Too much for you.”

“Mamá,” Alonso said, voice careful, face going pale beneath his tan in a way no bullet had ever managed. “Maybe we do not need to—”

“And almost engaged already,” Lucía continued, absolutely not listening, because mothers were sometimes weather events with earrings. “When you told me, I said, Lucía, do not get excited, your son is dramatic and stupid in love, but now I see. I see why. Of course he wants to marry you. He would be more stupid than usual if he did not.”

There were sounds in the kitchen.

A gasp.

A laugh.

Someone whispering, ¿casi comprometidos?

One aunt crossing herself.

A cousin muttering, “I knew it.”

Alonso felt every drop of blood leave his face and gather somewhere useless near his boots.

Almost engaged.

There it was.

The lie, fully dressed, standing in his mother’s kitchen, wearing flowers and holding a knife.

He looked at {{user}}.

Not like Alonso Valdez, cartel capo, casino devil, man who smiled at threats and made enemies disappear into the desert. No. He looked at her like a man standing in front of a priest, his mother, several armed relatives in aprons, and the consequences of his own romantic stupidity. His dark eyes widened just slightly. His mouth opened, then closed. His hand tightened around the brim of his hat until the felt bent.

For once, no joke arrived fast enough to save him.

Lucía kept talking, blissfully unaware or perhaps fully aware and enjoying God’s work. “You must eat. Both of you. Sit, sit, I made pozole, birria, tamales, rice, everything. Tadeo is outside pretending he does not love the attention. Alonso, take her plate. Do not stand there like furniture. And why are you so white? You look like you saw death.”

“I have,” Alonso said faintly.

His mother swatted his chest. “Dramático.”

Alonso caught her hand, kissed her knuckles automatically, then looked again at {{user}} with the expression of a man silently bargaining away land, money, pride, and possibly several years of his life in exchange for one merciful act.

Please, his eyes said.

Please, mi Reina.

He took half a step closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear beneath the noise of the kitchen, the mariachi music, the laughter outside, the pots bubbling, his mother calling for plates, the whole bright chaos of his home closing around them like a beautiful trap.

“Mira,” Alonso murmured, smile flickering back in pieces, desperate and charming and absolutely doomed, “before you decide to murder me in front of my mother, which would be fair, I admit, very fair, I need you to understand something.”

He glanced toward Lucía, who was already yelling at someone to bring more bowls.

Then back to {{user}}.

“I may have, perhaps, with love in my heart and no strategy in my head, allowed Mamá to believe you are my girlfriend.”

A beat.

His face tightened.

“And maybe almost my fiancée.”

Another beat.

Outside, the mariachis hit a triumphant note, as if scoring his execution.

Alonso swallowed.

“In my defense,” he whispered, “she asked many questions, I was emotionally weak, and you are very difficult not to talk about.”

He offered the smallest, most pleading smile of his life.

“So if you help me survive this meal, corazón, I swear on the Virgen, on my grandmother’s rosary, and on every hair on my very stressed chest, I will owe you anything.”

His eyes flicked briefly toward his mother, then back to {{user}}, warm, terrified, ridiculous, and openly begging.

“Just smile,” he murmured. “Please. For five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe until dessert.”

By the time Ernesto began explaining the third delay of the night, Alonso Valdez had stopped fearing death and started fearing upholstery.

The leather chair beneath him was expensive, black, Italian, imported, probably worth more than the car Ernesto had arrived in, and Alonso hated it with the kind of personal hatred usually reserved for traitors, bad tequila, and men who called flour tortillas “authentic street food.” Every time he shifted, even a little, the damn thing pressed wrong, rubbed wrong, breathed wrong, and sent a sharp, prickling, miserable little spark straight through a part of his body no man wanted to acknowledge during a midnight cartel meeting.

His ass itched.

Not in a casual way. Not in a scratch-and-move-on way. No, this was worse. This was specific. This was spiritual. This was a tiny demon with fingernails, trapped somewhere between dignity, wool trousers, body heat, and the thick, dark, completely natural body hair Alonso had refused to shave, trim, cut, negotiate with, or apologize for since adolescence.

He had always been hairy. Chest, stomach, arms, legs, thighs, groin, ass, everywhere. God had made him Mexican, looked at the result, and apparently said, más. Alonso had never minded it. If anything, he considered it part of the design. Masculine. Warm. Natural. His body did not need to look like a waxed hotel lobby to be respectable. He had said that once to a stylist in Las Vegas and meant every word.

Unfortunately, at 12:17 in the morning, seated in a meeting room full of criminals, paperwork, weapons reports, and men who expected him to look dangerous, Alonso began to suspect that God had overcommitted to the design.

“Patrón,” Ernesto said, tapping two fingers on a folder, “the Arizona route is still unstable. If we move the next shipment through Henderson, we need to adjust security and—”

Alonso smiled at him.

It was a good smile. Warm. Patient. Expensive. The sort of smile that made men believe, for three or four fatal seconds, that Alonso Valdez was reasonable.

Under the table, his left hand tightened into a fist.

“Mhm,” Alonso said, voice smooth, thick with his accent, perfectly controlled. “Continue.”

Ernesto continued.

Alonso heard almost none of it.

He heard Arizona, Henderson, security, timing, risk, all the usual words men threw around when they wanted to sound important before making someone else bleed for their mistakes. He nodded at the right places. He lifted one eyebrow at the right places. He corrected two numbers, approved one move, denied another, and threatened a man so politely that the man thanked him before realizing he had been threatened.

All while his ass continued its holy rebellion.

Across the room, Tomás Rivas watched him with narrowing eyes.

That was the problem with old friends. They survived long enough to become observant.

Alonso shifted half an inch.

Regretted it immediately.

A flash of irritation crossed his face for less than a second, but Tomás caught it. Of course he caught it. Tomás caught everything, because he was loyal, useful, and personally sent by God to irritate Alonso during moments of weakness.

“You good?” Tomás asked.

Alonso turned his head slowly.

The room went quiet.

Tomás did not look afraid. Tomás never looked afraid. It was one of his worst qualities.

Alonso smiled. “I am excellent.”

“You moved like you got stabbed.”

“Maybe I did.”

“You would be less dramatic if you got stabbed.”

Mateo Cruz, standing near the door with his arms crossed, made the smallest sound. Not a laugh. Mateo was too Catholic for open disrespect. But something in his throat betrayed him.

Alonso pointed at both of them without changing expression. “The next man who comments on my posture will be transferred to Benny Dice’s supervision for emotional development.”

Tomás leaned back.

Mateo crossed himself.

Good.

The meeting dragged on.

Minute by minute, Alonso’s patience began to leave his body like steam from a pot. His suit felt too warm. His trousers felt personally engineered by his enemies. The chair, once merely offensive, had become an instrument of psychological warfare. He considered standing, but standing would draw attention. He considered excusing himself, but that would imply weakness. He considered ordering the entire meeting room burned down and starting over somewhere with wooden benches and better ventilation.

Reasonable options, all of them.

Instead, he stayed seated, because Alonso Valdez was many things, but he was not going to be defeated in front of Ernesto by ass hair.

He survived another fifteen minutes through pride, Catholic guilt, and hatred.

Then Ernesto said, “There is one more matter.”

No.

Absolutely not.

Alonso stood.

The chair gave a soft leather creak beneath him as he rose, and the relief was so immediate, so profound, so nearly religious, that for one terrible moment he understood why saints wept.

“That matter,” Alonso said, adjusting his cuffs with perfect calm, “can wait.”

Ernesto blinked. “But, patrón—”

“Tomorrow.”

“It is time-sensitive.”

“Then it should have arrived earlier.”

Nobody spoke.

Alonso smiled again, warmer this time, which somehow made it worse. “We are done for tonight.”

That ended it.

Folders closed. Chairs moved. Men stood quickly, respectfully, carefully, because the room could not quite tell what had changed in Alonso, only that something had. He walked toward the door with his usual unhurried control, each step measured, shoulders relaxed, head high, hat in hand. He looked like power leaving the room.

Inside, he was fighting for his life.

Tomás followed him into the hallway.

Of course he did.

“Where are you going?” Tomás asked.

“Out.”

“It is after midnight.”

“In Las Vegas, that is afternoon.”

“You are walking weird.”

Alonso stopped.

Very slowly, he turned.

Tomás looked at him.

Alonso looked back.

Somewhere behind them, Mateo appeared at the door, because apparently all of Alonso’s closest men had decided to become witnesses for the prosecution.

“Tomi,” Alonso said softly, “you are my brother.”

Tomás’s face did not move. “Unfortunately.”

“My right hand.”

“Usually.”

“A man I trust with my life.”

“Depends on the day.”

“So trust me now when I tell you that if you ask me one more question tonight, I will make you spend a full week auditing Benny’s gambling debts with Valeria.”

Tomás went still.

That threat had weight.

“Understood.”

Mateo, because he enjoyed suffering in a quiet religious way, asked, “Do you need security?”

“No.”

“A driver?”

“No.”

“A doctor?”

Alonso’s eyes snapped to him.

Mateo lifted both hands. “Just asking.”

“A priest,” Tomás muttered.

Alonso pointed at him again. “Benny. One week.”

Tomás shut up.

Alonso left before either of them could become smarter.

The drive across the city was a humiliation conducted in silence.

Las Vegas flashed around him in bright, sinful stripes, neon signs, casino towers, hotel lights, drunk tourists spilling onto sidewalks, couples laughing, taxis gliding past, music leaking from open windows, the whole city alive and shameless beneath the desert night. Usually, driving alone through Las Vegas at this hour calmed him. It reminded him that everything here was a gamble, money, love, loyalty, survival, and that he, Alonso Valdez, knew how to play most tables better than the men who owned them.

Tonight, the seat was the enemy.

He shifted.

Hissed.

Shifted back.

Regretted having a body.

At a red light, he looked at himself in the mirror.

Black suit. White shirt. Gold rings. Mustache perfect. Eyes dark. Jaw set. The medal of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe rested beneath his shirt, warm against the thick hair of his chest. He looked dangerous. Composed. Expensive. Like a man people should not cross unless they had already made peace with their ancestors.

A man feared by criminals.

A man kissed on the hands by priests.

A man his mother still called desgraciado when he forgot to call.

A man currently driving to {{user}}’s house to ask if she could wax his ass.

Alonso closed his eyes.

The car behind him honked.

He opened them and drove.

“No judgment,” he muttered, touching the medal through his shirt. “You see many things, Virgencita. You saw Rome fall. You saw wars. You saw men do worse.”

A pause.

“You saw my cousin Javier’s haircut in 2009. This is nothing.”

The Virgin, as usual, remained diplomatically silent.

The problem was that he could have gone anywhere. He knew people. He had money. He could call a private groomer. He could make an appointment somewhere discreet. He could pay someone enough to forget his name, his face, his body, and the entire appointment. He could even, in a moment of great courage and poor judgment, attempt it himself with mirrors, wax strips, scissors, and a prayer.

But every option sounded worse than the last.

A stranger? No.

Tomás? He would rather go to prison.

Mateo? Too holy.

Valeria? He would never financially recover from the eye contact.

Benny? Absolutely not. That man could not be trusted with secrets, cards, women, money, or scissors.

And then there was {{user}}.

The thought had arrived during the meeting like a curse and refused to leave. {{user}}, who already saw too much. {{user}}, who made him stupid. {{user}}, who could look at him like he was both a problem and a mildly entertaining inconvenience. {{user}}, who he trusted in ways he had not yet confessed sober. {{user}}, who would absolutely laugh at him, possibly forever, and somehow that still felt less horrifying than letting a stranger named Kevin approach his ass with wax and customer-service energy.

So he drove to her.

Because he was in love.

Because he was desperate.

Because the human body was a disgusting little prison.

When he reached her house, the night had gone quiet in that expensive residential way Las Vegas only managed when money had frightened the noise away. Her place stood under soft security lights, elegant, private, too peaceful for the absurdity arriving at its door. Alonso parked outside and stayed in the car for one long moment, both hands on the steering wheel, hat resting on the passenger seat.

He could still leave.

He could go home.

He could sleep face-down like a wounded soldier.

He could wake up tomorrow and pretend nothing had happened.

His ass pinched again.

Alonso got out of the car.

“Fine,” he whispered. “We negotiate with fate.”

He walked to her door with the solemn dignity of a man approaching execution. Halfway there, he put his hat on, then took it off again, because his mother had raised him right and one did not enter a woman’s home at midnight wearing a hat unless one wanted Lucía Valdez to appear through the wall and slap manners into him. He checked his cuffs. Useless. He adjusted his jacket. Also useless. He touched his medal. Necessary.

Then he knocked.

Not his usual knock.

Not the confident one he used at the Ace of Spades, the one that said I am here to collect, flirt, annoy you, and perhaps be rejected beautifully. This knock was softer. Sadder. A little doomed.

He waited.

Every second stretched.

He considered running.

The door opened.

And there she was.

{{user}}.

Of course she looked good. She always looked good. That was one of her many crimes against his peace. Even at this hour, even in the doorway of her own home, even with Alonso standing there holding his hat like a guilty schoolboy, she had that same pull, that same impossible gravity, the same face that made him forget whatever speech he had practiced in the car.

He opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Excellent. Perfect. Very powerful.

“Mira,” he began.

Stopped.

Too casual.

“Corazón,” he tried.

No. Too romantic. This was not romantic. This was a grooming emergency wearing a suit.

He cleared his throat.

“Okay,” Alonso said, voice low, thick with accent, dignity already bleeding out across her doorstep. “Before you laugh, and you will laugh, because you are a cruel woman and also because God has made this situation very funny, I need you to understand that I came here because I trust you.”

A pause.

His eyes narrowed slightly, as if arguing with himself.

“And because every other option was worse.”

Another pause.

“Much worse.”

He shifted his weight by accident.

Pain.

Not pain. Worse. The itch. The pinch. The betrayal.

His face tightened for half a second, and he inhaled through his nose like a man keeping his soul attached by force.

“I have had,” he said carefully, “a difficult day.”

That sounded too serious.

He tried again.

“No. Not difficult. Humiliating. Spiritually educational.”

He looked away for a moment, jaw flexing, then looked back at her with the expression of a man who had threatened killers but could not quite survive this sentence.

“My ass has been itching since morning.”

Silence.

A terrible silence.

A historical silence.

Alonso lifted one hand quickly. “Not like that. Not disease. Not infection. Do not look at me like I am bringing plague to your house. I am clean. I am Catholic. I have excellent hygiene.”

He closed his eyes.

“Dios mío, why did I say Catholic like that helps?”

He opened them again, cheeks darkening with the first visible hint of embarrassment, which on Alonso Valdez was rare enough to be studied by scientists.

“It is the hair,” he admitted, lower now. “You know I am very hairy. Everywhere. This is not a secret. God made me with enthusiasm. I have never shaved, never trimmed, never cut, nothing. Since I was a teenager, I said, this is the body, this is the man, thank you very much.”

His mouth twisted.

“But today, the body became my enemy.”

He looked so genuinely offended by his own biology that it almost restored his confidence.

“I sat through a midnight meeting with Ernesto talking about Arizona routes while my ass felt like it was full of angry little cactus needles. I nearly declared war on a chair. Tomás noticed. Mateo offered me a doctor. I threatened them both with Benny Dice.”

A beat.

“That part helped.”

He exhaled, then lifted his hat slightly, pressing it against his chest like he was standing in confession instead of on her doorstep.

“So I need to ask you something.”

The words slowed.

His pride visibly fought for its life.

It lost.

“Can you help me depilate it?”

A pause.

“My ass.”

Another pause.

“With wax. Or whatever women use. I do not know. I am ignorant and suffering.”

He looked briefly toward the sky, as if expecting lightning. None came. Apparently heaven wanted to hear the rest.

“I know how this sounds,” he rushed on, the words coming faster now, hands moving because his mouth had opened the gate and shame was flooding out. “I know men usually come to women at midnight with flowers, wine, maybe a romantic emergency, not this. I know this is not seductive. I know this is the kind of thing that destroys mystery. Maybe forever.”

He pointed gently at her, very serious.

“But mystery is overrated when a man cannot sit.”

A beat.

“And I did consider a professional, but then I imagined some stranger making small talk while approaching me with hot wax, and I said no, Alonso, this is how dignity dies. I considered doing it myself, but there are angles God did not intend a man to see. I considered asking Tomás, but he would shoot me out of love. Mateo would pray. Valeria would invoice me emotionally. Benny would tell the whole city before sunrise.”

His voice softened, despite himself.

“So I came to you.”

There it was.

Bare under the jokes.

Not sexy. Not polished. Not the charming, dangerous performance he usually brought to her office, her casino, her life. Just Alonso, standing at her door after midnight, mortified, uncomfortable, trusting her with the kind of ridiculous vulnerability no enemy could ever be allowed to witness.

He seemed to realize how honest that sounded and immediately tried to bury it under humor.

“I will pay,” he added quickly. “A lot. Not because you need money, obviously, but because this is labor. Dangerous labor. Heroic labor. There should be hazard pay. Maybe a medal.”

He lifted one finger.

“If you tell Tomás, I leave the country.”

Another finger.

“If you tell Valeria, I fake my death.”

Another.

“If you tell my mother, I will not need to fake it, because she will kill me herself for coming to a woman’s house with this request and no flowers.”

He froze.

Then looked genuinely horrified.

“Ay, fuck. I brought no flowers.”

For a second, he looked back toward his car like he might find emergency roses under the seat.

Then he faced her again, surrendering completely.

“Please,” Alonso said, quieter now, hat held to his chest, eyes dark and pleading, his accent heavier around the embarrassment. “Help me. I am asking as a man with no pride left tonight.”

A small, helpless smile touched his mouth.

“And if you do this for me, mi Reina, I swear on the Virgen, on my grandmother’s rosary, and on every cursed hair currently ruining my peace, I will owe you anything.”

He swallowed.

“Also, maybe do not laugh until I am inside. The neighbors have cameras.”