Page 2 of No Merciful Corruption

The pieces of Lisandro’s lounge were lovingly and painstakingly put together with his vision of a better future for his family in mind. A vision Alejandro and I labored over for years. I stepped into this role thinking I wouldn’t lose myself to it completely and confident we could forge our own path forward together.

Lisandro longed for legitimacy so deeply it became a legacy his children couldn’t escape. Rather than propelling his family into a period of prosperity free from the shackles of its criminal past, it sent the rest of us spiraling into disaster because there is no way out. You simply die trying.

A regular girl from New York marries a titan of industry with a dark past and she thinks it’ll all be okay. How naïve I was. This life is bitter and cruel and even the most innocent among us pay for sins they didn’t commit. I don’t know why I thought this transformation would be kinder to me; the moment I began bending and twisting my rigid morals into something more malleable, I should’ve know there was no going back for me.

There is no such thing as a merciful corruption. When the glass on our moral compass shatters, it ceases to exist completely.

Don Cayetano clears his throat. “What happened to Don Alejandro⁠—”

My eyes snap to his. He immediately falls silent.

“Alejandro may have sworn himself to your honor code but I did not. I’ll have answers. One way or another.”

Beto Garcia’s back stiffens. “My family doesn’t answer to idle threats.”

“Threats are for people who don’t follow through.” I tell him. “That was a warning.”

“Threat or not,” Don Jose Betancourt’s eyes narrow. “You’ve just announced to a table of twelve powerful families that you’re coming after them. Maybe it isn’t in your best interest to accumulate so many enemies at once.”

“My husband never exerted the full extent of his power over the men sitting at this table but I will. Whether it’s twelve families or one, I’ll knock each one of you off the city map like pieces on a chessboard. I refuse to believe a hit of this magnitude was orchestrated without help from someone at this table. So I’m coming for every family sitting at this table, innocent or not. And you know I can,” I say quietly. “I just inherited billions.”

I abandon my place at the head of the table and make for the stairs. Regina is behind me, one hand on my shoulder as she keeps me steady.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she whispers.

“Of course I do.” I turn to look at her. “They’re going to fold in on themselves like a house of cards.”

FIVE YEARS EARLIER

LIFE AND DEATH

Dahlia

New York City

When I was a little girl, New York City experienced the third snowiest winter in its recorded history.

My father bought me a plastic sleigh from the old Genovese near our landlord Mario’s bakery. Marcia was a teenager at the time and one of the counter girls so Papi left me at the bakery while he went to the store. The cement building was out of place among the neighborhood’s hundred-year-old brick family homes and had a series of different logos competing with one another. Rite-Aid on the doors, Ecerkd spray painted and fading on all the awnings, and the massive Genovese pylon sign in the parking lot. Each chain had been bought out and subsequently converted and with each conversion, the effort to rebrand became lazier and lazier.

Not that it mattered. All the snowfall had covered the awnings and frosted the doors and windows, meaning the Genovese logo in the parking lot reigned supreme over the neighborhood’s local pharmacy. They dug out a section of the parking lot and packed it with plastic sleighs in every color imaginable. Papi got me the last red one.

I begged him to take me to Bushwick Park because I knew all the kids in the neighborhood would be there but Mom said she’d kill him if he did. Our next door neighbor’s brother had been killed in that park when he was fourteen years old and every year on June 1st, they decorated one of the lampposts in his honor.

He took me to Grover Cleveland instead. There wasn’t anything particularly fancy or luxurious about this place but up until that point, it was the biggest park I had ever seen and recently renovated. It had high hills, trees, dirt paths, and massive boulders kids climbed like mountains. We played in the snow all day. When the sun finally set, Papi told us it was time to go and I was so upset I tried running away. Instead, I tripped and fell and hit my head on a rock hidden by the snow. Blood gushed all over and stained red what had once been beautiful and unblemished.

Over and over again, the memory runs on a loop in my mind as I kneel before the limp body at my feet. Fresh blood spills across white snow, reminding me of the afternoon I spent with my father all those years ago.

The bullet came from somewhere in the trees and it’d been aimed at me. I managed to dive behind a nearby tree in time but not before I made eye contact with the man who took my place. Older, tall, dressed in black from head to toe, save his face, which remained uncovered. A face that in the tricky darkness resembled one I haven’t seen in nearly seven years.

I didn’t tell anyone but the sedative Li gave me hasn’t fully worn off. Whatever is still working through my system has not only made me unsteady on my feet but is making me hallucinate too. Because I could’ve sworn I just saw my father take a bullet meant for me.

The man lies face down in the snow as blood pools around him. Judging by the exit wound on his back, I suspect the bullet went straight through his chest before changing trajectory. With trembling fingers, I grip him by the shoulders and gently turn his body over, closing my eyes at the last second.

This isn’t real

This isn’t my dad

For all I know, he could’ve been one of Li’s men and got hit by mistake. Or backup for Damiano and Rian. Seconds pass before I’m brave enough to open my eyes and stare at the ice-covered face in front of me. Brown skin, brown eyes, graying hair, maybe twenty-years older than me.