Chapter 2 - The Mask on the Pillow
Teresa was sleeping on her side, her dark hair fanned out across the white Egyptian cotton pillowcase. She looked entirely innocent, the soft rise and fall of her shoulders giving no hint of the venomous calculation ticking beneath her skull. I stood at the foot of our king-sized bed, watching her in the pale moonlight that filtered through the plantation shutters.
How long had she hated me? How long had she looked at my face across the dinner table, smiling while Chloe recited her fifth-grade spelling words, all while waiting for the hammer to fall?
I didn't turn on the overhead light. Instead, I quietly sat down on the edge of the mattress. The bed dipped slightly under my weight. Teresa stirred, blinked against the dimness, and rolled over with a gentle smile that had once been my favorite sight in the world.
"Julian?" she murmured, rubbing her eyes. "What time is it? You're still awake?"
"It’s four in the morning, honey," I said, my voice smooth, melodic, devoid of the storm raging in my blood. "Couldn't sleep. The yard smells like rain."
She reached out, her warm hand resting on my knee. Her wedding ring, a five-carat diamond I had purchased after our first million-dollar government contract, caught a sliver of streetlight. "You work too hard. Come to bed. You have that big distribution meeting in Austin on Wednesday, remember?"
"Right. Wednesday," I replied, watching her pupils. "Speaking of this week... I was thinking about taking Chloe down to Rockport for the weekend. Rent a boat, do some flounder gigging like we used to. Just the three of us."
Her fingers tightened on my fabric for a split second—a micro-flinch that ninety-nine men out of a hundred would have missed. But I had spent two decades reading men across poker tables in Tamaulipas and conference rooms in Houston. That flinch spoke volumes.
"Oh, baby, not this weekend," she said quickly, sitting up against the headboard, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "My mother called yesterday afternoon. Her arthritis is acting up again in Kerrville. She asked if Chloe could spend Friday through Sunday with her. I already promised her. Besides, you know how stressful this quarter is for your drivers. You should stay home, rest, get your affairs organized."
Get your affairs organized.
The phrasing was neat, sanitized, perfectly rehearsed.
"Is that right?" I smiled, leaning forward and brushing a stray lock from her forehead. She leaned into my touch, entirely convinced she was still the master puppeteer. "Chloe mentioned something strange when I ran into her in the hallway earlier."
Teresa froze. The warmth in her posture evaporated instantly. "What was Chloe doing awake?"
"Getting a glass of water," I lied effortlessly. "She seemed anxious. She asked me if I was going away on a long trip. She said she had a bad dream that bad men were coming to take her dad away."
A breath escaped Teresa’s lips—ragged, slightly uneven. She forced a chuckle, but her eyes darted toward the nightstand where her iPhone lay charging. "Kids have such overactive imaginations, Julian. She probably overheard the news playing in the kitchen. You know the border cartels and truck hijackings have been all over the local channels lately. I’ll talk to her in the morning."
"Good," I said softly, standing up. "Because I’d hate for my daughter to believe her father is going anywhere. I built this house, Teresa. Every brick. Every beam. I’m not leaving it."
"Of course you aren't, darling," she said, her voice dropping into that sweet, reassuring cadence she used whenever she wanted to settle an argument. "Now come lie down."
"In a minute. I need to review some cargo manifests in my office."
I left the bedroom and closed the door without making a sound. Walking down the hardwood hallway, I slipped into my private den and locked the deadbolt. I pulled my phone from my pocket. Two text messages from Hector were already waiting on the screen:
1. Traced Mrs. Vance’s second device. It’s an encrypted burner purchased under a shell LLC out of Bexar County.
2. Julian... the number she’s been texting for the last four months doesn't belong to a fed. It belongs to Marcus Reyes.
My stomach twisted into a knot of burning iron.
May you like
Marcus Reyes. My former chief financial officer, whom I had exiled three years ago after catching him skimming off our legitimate cross-docking operations. I had spared his life out of respect for his late father, banishing him to the oil fields of West Texas with a warning never to set foot in San Antonio again.
Marcus hadn't just returned to claim my business. He was using my wife to clear the way for him to claim my life.
