Page 99 of Chris

What happened?

She didn’t dare ask.

Really, she shouldn’t be standing there at all. The second Jorge realized she was still there listening to his conversation, he would snap at her to leave. Until then, however, she planned to stay right where she fucking was because she couldn’t move.

Her feet had become cemented to the floor with panic.

“Which hospital?” Jorge demanded again.

“Hospital de Jesús Nazareno,” the man said, “but I sent a man over, and they checked him out.”

“Where the fuck is he?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

Jorge’s voice slithered across the room to Valeria’s spot in the doorway. Deathly calm, and a little too quiet. That tone meant violence was about to happen.

“Someone attacked the Canadian on the way to the airport, with my men inside the car, and now he is missing, but you don’t know where he is?”

“It was the Garcías, boss. They did it.”

Jorge stiffened behind his large desk. “Why—”

“The deal with the Canadians, I heard. Word is going around. They’re letting it be known they are aware you planned to use that deal to ruin the merger.”

“Fuck. Who let that information out?”

“I don’t—”

“I don’t care what you don’t know!”

Another day, and the sound of Jorge’s growing rage would have sent Valeria running. A part of her wasn’t as scared of it as she had used to be. Oh, she needed to be careful, and to watch her step when he was in a mood, but it didn’t leave her paralyzed with fear anymore.

“You best find out where the Canadian is, because if that man dies before we can get him the fuck out of Mexico, his father will never go through with the deal. As for the fucking Garcías, fuck the bastards. The deal is done, we don’t need the merger now. Let them have their tantrums.”

“It’s more than that … they said something else, boss. The officials at the scene—one of them is on our payroll, and he said the Canadian told him the war with the Garcías is on. They’re coming for us. We have to get ready.”

Jorge noticed Valeria in the doorway, or rather, that she was still standing there. His glowering scowl landed on her before he snapped, “What are you still there for? Don’t you have a child to take care of? Get the fuck out of my face!”

She didn’t want to move.

She wanted to ask about Chris.

Jorge cocked an eyebrow at her, his stupid mouth already opening to bark at her again like she was a dog who couldn’t be trained. Valeria didn’t bother to give him that satisfaction before she turned on her heels and headed down the hallway. And even still, his rage continued to flow out of the office, chasing her even after she sat with Maria in the living room again to play.

Her daughter looked to her for an explanation to the man’s rage. Valeria said nothing. She couldn’t; her heart was still breaking.

She didn’t have answers, either.

Jorge said they would handle the Garcías.

He could not.

That had never been more apparent to Valeria as she watched the chaos between brothers unfurl in a mess of shoves and shouts between Jorge and Samuel.

“I told you—I fucking told you!” Samuel pointed a finger in his brother’s face, for once refusing to back down when he had always been willing to do it for Jorge before. “We lost two storage facilities the night after they attacked the Canadian on the way to the airport, and—”