Marcos wasn’t entirely wrong, and it infuriated me a bit.
“You suspected it,” he continued. “Don’t act like you didn’t. You seem too smart for that. And yet, you still got in the car, still drove, and followed every instruction to the letter. If you suspected drugs and you still ran it?” He lifted a brow. “Then you proved you’re capable of being a mule… even when you’re nervous… even when you don’t have all the details."
His tone softened, but not by much, maintaining a hint of authority.
“Look, I get why you’re upset… kinda. But you weren’t supposed to know…yet. That nigga oversteppedbig time. But he’ll be handled. No worries there.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“I’m not saying it does. But Ajori, in this business, there’s a lot of shit that’s on a need-to-know basis until you prove you can handle it. Trust is earned… on both sides. If I’d told you outright, you might’ve overthought it, panicked, maybe even second-guessed yourself. So yeah, you didn’t like how you found out… and I can respect that. But don’t pretend you didn’t already know what world you were stepping into.”
I exhaled hard through my nose and briefly looked away, then snapped back. “Well, nowI know. Still, it would’ve been nice to hear it from you instead of some guy flirting with me like I was in line for a club wristband.”
“You’ll get used to it,” he commented quietly.
I stiffened, my fists tightening. “Used to what? Being kept in the dark? Getting blindsided at gun-filled drop-offs?”
“To the pace,” he corrected. “To how fast things move… how little warning you get. It’s not personal, Ajori; it’s survival. And I needed to make sure you didn’t panic under pressure.”
“I didn’t panic.”
“No, you didn’t,” he agreed, eyes scanning my face, almost impressed. “And that’s why this conversation is even happening.”
Silence stretched for a second.
Then he added, softer, “I’ll keep you more informed moving forward… not on everything, butmore.”
I took a breath, grounding myself. “Good. Because if I’m doing this, I need transparency—no half-truths or hidden agendas.”
“And you’ll get what you earn… starting now,” Marcos replied, his tone assuring but his eyes betraying a hint of guardedness.
“Promise?”
Marcos half-smiled—the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes but still counted. “Ajori, don’t make me start lying to you this early. But yeah… I’ll try.”
I shook my head in disbelief, muttering under my breath, “Una mula… una maldita mula. Esto va en contra de todo lo que creo!”
(A mule… a fuckin’ mule! This goes against everything I believe in!)
Marcos’s head snapped slightly in my direction, eyes narrowing just a bit.
He commented in Spanish without missing a beat,“Bienvenida al mundo real. Aquí nadie hace solo lo que cree.”
(Welcome to the real world. Out here, nobody gets to only do what they believe in.)
“I didn’t know you knew Spanish,” he added, almost accusingly, but definitely impressed.
I folded my arms, heat still buzzing in my chest. “And I didn’t knowyouwere keeping half the truth from me until a stranger spelled it out.”
He blinked, then let out a breath that sounded a little like a laugh. “So that’s how we doing it? Both fluent? Both keeping secrets?”
“Seems fair,” I shot back, momentarily pleased by our verbal sparring.
Marcos stared at me in that same, quiet, evaluating look from the night in the Uber, as if the Spanish had unveiled some hidden facet of my character that had previously gone unnoticed. He seemed to want to delve deeper into who I was.
“Alright,” he finally said. “Good to know you’re not as easy to read as you look.”
“And it’s good to know that you’re not as smooth as you think,” I countered.