Chapter 11 - The Shadows of Topo Chico
The cold concrete walls of Topo Chico Penitentiary offered no warmth, but for Mateo, hatred became his furnace. Dressed in the dingy yellow jumpsuit reserved for high-risk inmates, he spent his days in solitary confinement staring at the rusted ceiling. He had been stripped of his name, reduced to Inmate 4092.
Yet, deep inside the prison's underground network, money still talked.
During the two-hour rec yard privilege, Mateo approached Don Hector—a feared former cartel kingpin serving consecutive life sentences, who still controlled half the black-market trade in northern Mexico. Don Hector sat at a stone table, surrounded by heavily tattooed bodyguards.
"What does the famous 17-call coward want with me?" Don Hector sneered without looking up from his chessboard.
"I need a phone," Mateo rasped, his voice cracked from disuse. "And I have something worth tens of millions of dollars that Alejandro Vance and my ex-wife missed during their asset seizure."
Don Hector paused, his hand hovering over a wooden bishop. He slowly turned his cold, dark eyes toward Mateo. "Speak quickly, boy."
"When I managed the Swiss off-shore trusts, I created a ghost account under my mother’s maiden name. Twelve million dollars in untraceable cryptocurrency," Mateo whispered, leaning in. "Get me out of this hellhole, or give me the means to break them, and half of it is yours."
Don Hector smiled, exposing a gold-capped tooth. "I don't just want half, Mateo. I want the whole pie. But I do love a good revenge story. Sit down."
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By nightfall, a contraband smartphone was slipped into Mateo’s cell through the food slot. The screen glowed in the dark, casting a sinister light across his hollow cheeks. He opened a secure messaging app and typed a single message to a shadowy mercenary group based in South America.
Target: Camila Vance. Execute Phase One.
