Page 15 of Loving Smoke

“So, what are these big, bad bikers like?”

“Big and bad.” I kept my response short and sweet, because yes, I had noticed. Blood was huge with bulky muscles, but Smoke . . . He had the long, lean, sculpted muscles that came from regular workouts.

“Very funny.” Manny revved the engine. “I was thinking about getting myself a Harley. What do you think?”

“I think you get yourself in enough trouble with the Lambi.”

Manny’s playboy persona didn’t match his accomplishments. He’d graduated from the University of Miami with a masters degree in accounting and passed his CPA on the first round, yet he spent his days working on his tan and dropping thousands on clubbing and gambling.

He turned to me and grinned again. “You’re the son our father always wanted.”

I laughed because that’s what Manny expected, but I didn’t miss the hint of angst or jealousy in the comment. Genetics and personalities sometimes got twisted. Where Manny had a gentler side like our mother, I was my father’s daughter. Sharp, on-point, and resourceful.

Although I had to admit, I enjoyed spending the night playing Marisol Marquez the ditsy bartender who came to work late. I found it liberating and far less stressful than my true identity?—

Marisol Sandoval.

Daughter of Rico Sandoval, wrecker of havoc all over Mexico. The man whom everyone feared, the man who made the decisions, the man everyone listened to—or else.

A half hour later, Manny eased the Lamborghini onto an unpaved beach road, turned into a driveway, pressed the remote control in his car, and the large white gates slowly opened. He nodded to the armed guards on either side of the pavement, then pointed the sports car down a palm lined driveway until we reached the ultra-modern styled villa where we grew up.

A nervous tick kicked up my heart. My father would want a full report and although I agreed to do his bidding the reason for our vengeance was far too personal, and still too traumatic.

Manny stopped the car and nailed me with a long, serious look. “I still can’t believe you agreed to do this for him.”

“I’m not doing it for him as much as for our mother.”

Nightmares plagued my sleep daily, some worse than others where I could actually hear the staccato of the assault weapons, the screams of my sweet mother, and then the blood—so much blood.

The traumatic experience affected us differently. Manny became reckless and seemingly carefree, but I wasn’t fooled. I’d heard him weeping behind his bedroom door, and no amount of weed, alcohol, or coke could squelch his pain or his anxiety. Sadly, he would have to realize this fact for himself.

I handled the tragedy with controlled emotions. Family couldn’t understand how I didn’t shed a tear at the funeral. They labeled me heartless and insensitive, but they were wrong. My anguish hollowed out my heart leaving only hate and regret. Hate toward my father and his heinous business for taking so much from us and regret that I will never share another smile, laugh, or conversation with my sweet mother.

Manny shook his head. “Just don’t be fooled by him or the act he wants you to believe.”

I chose to ignore Manny’s cryptic warning, and although I’d read all the press about Rico Sandoval, we were told he was a businessman of a large empire who sold goods to rich Americans. My mother failed to mention our father’s business was drugs and the goods he sold were cocaine, heroin, and all varieties of artillery.

As naive as it sounds, as a child, I never once suspected my father of any wrongdoing. There was never violence in our home or tension when my father was present. He was always my handsome hero, attentive and caring to me, my brother, and my mother.

I entered our large marble-floored foyer of the only home I’d ever known, and inhaled deeply, hoping the fragrant scent of tropical flowers would calm my nerves. Living in our gated estate on the Baja Coast, I was doted on by numerous nannies and my beautiful mother, Angeline.

Manny and I were schooled at home, by tutors and after school, we played on the beach, or swam in our Olympic-sized pool. We traveled by private jet to magical places like Spain, the Amalfi Coast in Italy, and the beautiful islands of Greece. We never thought our lives were different than any other children.

Suddenly exhausted, I longingly eyed the staircase leading to my bedroom suite, but my father would be waiting up no matter what the hour. He boasted only needing a few hours of sleep a night, and just like when I would come home on school vacations he would be awake and waiting for a full report.

When I reached high school age I was sent to Santa Catalina Private Girls School in Monterey, California. That was the first time I used the name Marisol Marquez. My mother told me it was a precaution, and because of our wealth it was dangerous for me to use my real last name.

It wasn’t until I attended Stanford that I found out my father’s true identity. I’d overheard some professors talking about the different celebrities they’d had in their classroom when my name popped up. I refused to believe what they were saying so I confronted my mother and she brushed it off as idle gossip. Saying it was a form of prejudice, when Mexican people were wealthy others accused them of being drug lords.

I veered around the stairs and down the side hall leading to my father’s office, or rather the set of rooms my father occupied more than the rest of the house. The guard standing outside the closed door nodded to me, then knocked once against the thick teakwood door.

“Enter,” my father’s muffled voice came through the door.

The constant guards roaming our property day and night, the security who traveled with us were another anomaly. My father’s insistence both Manny and I learn how to shoot a gun and learn self-defense. As a result we were both excellent marksmen and I excelled in Jiu Jitsu. When I was young I thought those things were normal until I visited my high school friends’ homes and saw a completely different scenario. No guards, and no security with an emphasis on Pilates not self-defense.

My father’s office boasted four monitors for surveillance of the house and property, a large sitting area overlooking the tennis courts, and an enormous glass and chrome desk from where he stared at me with his ebony eyes.

I stopped four feet in front of his desk and waited. When he motioned to the chair in front of his desk, I sat.

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