Bound to the Crime Lord (Dark Mafia Tales #2)

Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Manuel POV

T he journey to my homeland was shorter than I had remembered it being.

Leaving Juliette behind had been a hard choice, but she was safer in Chicago than she was with me here in Guadalajara.

The sun beamed down on my skin, scorching my back as I walked down the long, dirty road.

We had come to a small village in the south of the city. It was a village that I had visited often when I was a child. I could barely remember the finer details of this place, but I had all the important things I needed stored in my memory.

Children screamed with laughter as they barreled the way down the hill I was climbing.

I used to be one of them. I laughed and played with the neighbors every time I came here with my parents. My fondest memories had occurred in this place. After those 8 years of life, my entire world shifted when my father integrated me into the business.

I swiped away the sweat that had gathered on my forehead.

I could have driven my car up the dusty mountainside to reach the village, but I needed to keep under the radar while I was here. The last thing I needed was The Triads realizing I had walked into their den willingly. It was not lost on me that this could all be a trap. But I was willing to risk the chance of retrieving my mother and it being a trap.

I had promised Juliette that I would come back to her in one piece, and I had never broken my word before.

The higher I climbed, the more memories that trickled into my mind. The kinds of memories that I had hidden far away in the deepest and darkest pits of my subconscious. I had refused to revisit them due to the anger they had induced. They had been marred by the images of my mother, the woman whom I had thought betrayed my father but instead was innocent.

The pieces were all coming into place, but I was still missing key information.

I walked a few more miles under the hot Mexican sun until the red roof of tío ’s house came into view.

I needed answers, and this was the place I would find them.

I saw a small, frail man with his back turned to me holding a hose that dripped with water. He hummed to himself as he cared for the flowers that decorated the short wire fence.

“ Has engordado un poquito, tío .” I called to him as I neared the small house.

His back stiffened for a second before he looked over his shoulder at me. I didn’t miss the long scar that ran down the side of his face that he’d gotten from his years spent in the Brotherhood.

“ Sobrino …” The word left his lips as if he wasn’t sure. He dropped his hose, the water still gushing out of it. He turned his entire body to face me. The tears that brimmed his eyes reflected the afternoon rays that beamed down on us mercilessly. “No, it can’t be.”

I came to a halt in front of him.

I could see the evidence of time etched into his face in the form of deep lines, some of which covered some of the scars that had riddled his face apart from the one on the side of his head. He’d had a life that was lived. From the tan on his skin, it was evident that he still spent a lot of his time outside in his garden.

“ Mijo ?” Tears brimmed his eyes as he stared at me. “Is that you?”

I hadn’t been called that in a very, very long time.

I nodded as I swallowed down the emotion that had lodged itself in my throat. “ Hola, tío . I was in the neighborhood.”

He let out a heavy breath before he closed the distance between us and threw his arms around me. He was a good foot shorter than I was, and yet he still managed to make me feel like that small boy I had been who often sought out his uncle’s comfort on hard days.

I hugged him back, allowing myself a short moment of vulnerability. The past two weeks had been nothing short of turmoil for me. My entire world had been up and ended from this new revelation, and this reunion offered some semblance of stability.

I pulled away still trying to keep the emotion at bay. My uncle, on the other hand, had tears streaming down his face like a little baby.

“It’s good to see you, Manu.”

That nickname had been one my mother had given me. It was a name that only she and my father had used when they spoke to me. Hearing it from my uncle was like being thrust back to that time.

“It’s good to see you too, tío .” I cleared my throat, trying to rid myself of the heaviness other emotions inside of me carried. I had a mission that I needed to complete. Sadness could wait for now.

“I know you didn’t travel all this way just to see your uncle. What’s going on?” The smile slipped from his lips. “What’s happened?”

As I stared at his face, all I could see was my father. Tío Alberto was my father’s younger and only brother. He had been my father’s second up until his wife died of a heart attack two years before my father’s assassination.

Looking into his eyes was like looking into the eyes of my father, Alejandro. They shared the same deep chocolate eyes that reflected the light of the day in them.

As much as my father had ruled Guadalajara with an iron fist, he was a fair and noble leader. Alberto shared the same traits as my father, and it was why I had come to him in the first place. I knew he had to know something.

“She’s alive, tío .”

When I said those words, he merely blinked.

“Manuel…”

“I know my mother is alive. I know that she’s here, and that she didn’t betray my father. She was set up. But you already know that, don’t you?”

He regarded me for a moment before he dipped his head low in resignation. When he lifted his gaze, I could see the resolution in them.

“You’ve grown into a fine young man, mijo.” He patted my shoulder. “Your father would be proud.”

“Where is she, tío ?”

In the years after my mother’s supposed death, my uncle had kept the same resolve that my mother was innocent even though there had been solid evidence stacked against her. He believed that my mother would never betray my father and, by extension, the Brotherhood. She was too loyal, and she could not dare to part with her only child.

I had dismissed and, for some time, even resented him for taking her side over my broken-hearted father. But now I was glad he stood firm in his view of her.

“Where is she?” I asked again.

Tío might have retired from the Brotherhood, but he was still a master of whispers. I knew that he had eyes and ears all over this city, if not the entirety of the country.

“She’s alive, mijo . You’re right in that. But she is locked up in the deepest pits of hell. Not even you can get her out from them.”

“I know hellfire well, tío. I can brave the heat.” I was willing to go to great lengths to get her back and have my family reunited again. “It’s The Triads, isn’t it?”

“Yes and no,” he remarked.

“What do you mean, yes and no? Speak plainly, uncle.”

“I need to tell you about Diego Gomez.”

My eyebrows pulled together. “Who?”

“Your brother.”

My what now?