Not that Governor seems to accept this.

“I see you’ve replaced those front teeth I knocked out at our last meeting,” Roth says, brazenly.

Did I just hear that correctly? Is his tech faulty? I rewind his words in my mind, both in English and in Spanish, fully interpreting their meaning.

This is not their first face-to-face encounter.

The lieutenant’s smirk widens, his smile of gold bricks catching the light of the chandeliers. “And I see you’ve replaced your grandson,” he retorts blithely, pointing one of his jeweled fingers in my direction. He flicks his hooded eyes up and down, appraising me and sneering.

Next thing I know, I’m pushing myself up from my chair, buttoning the jacket of my uniform, and squaring my jaw to stare him down. I have no pistol, no lineup of my own Guard, no business doing such an action, but whatever is about to go down, I want this Salazar lieutenant to know that I’m made of much more than he thinks.

I feel a pat on my back. Governor telling me he approves. He’s proud.

The nausea returns. This time I have difficulty swallowing it.

“Let’s get to business,” Governor demands, the translator perfectly capturing the forcefulness of his words.

The lieutenant nods, his smirk disappearing. It’s a small move that instantly transforms him into a severe and disquieting figure.

My goosebumps turn to chills.

He focuses his dark look on me. “Why don’t you have your boy roam the grounds while we chat?”

Why? Because this is my new home? No thanks.

I’m hoping Governor, believing me to be his puppet protégé, will take me into the room with him. Then I can learn what he’s planning not only for me, but for two whole countries, apparently.

Instead, Governor nods his consent, then marches through the mirrored doors alongside the lieutenant and Director Wix, leaving me alone with their army of henchmen.

¡Mierda! I almost curse out loud. Shit!

I linger in the reception room for a useless amount of time, paranoid this is one of those scenarios when the captive thinks they’re safe but really, they’re at the zenith of danger.

Ultimately, I decide to take up the lieutenant’s offer and stretch my espionage legs. When I make my move for the exit, none of Governor’s State Guards bother to look my way, but I can’t take my eyes off the soldier by the window.

The guy is the definition of jacked, with a body built like a vault, and although he has about seven different weapons on his duty belt, I opt to ignore these deadly details.

Because sheathed next to his pistol is my stolen knife.

“Hand over my blade,” I bark out like an order.

The Guard’s thick neck rotates to meet my glare. He squints his unblinking eyes straight at me, two black pits that say, Make me.

“You dare disobey me?” I snap, playing my part of a high-ranking officer, reminding him who has the upper hand now. I spent weeks locked in a room with Guards like him beating away my resolve. It’s time I got it back.

“No sir,” the soldier replies, removing my knife from his belt. I yank it from his hand and turn to take my leave before the Guard can fully realize he just handed over a weapon to a prisoner.

I pocket the blade and walk down a wide hall decorated with Black Market art, bolstered by the weight of the steel and how comforting it feels to have a piece of Mira back with me.

Turning a corner, I wedge myself behind an ornate statue of a charro straddling a rearing horse. I down the last of my water and place the rim of the empty glass against the wall, then hold my ear to its bottom.

I’m looking for intel, anything useful to bring back to the Common. Emery and the Elders have no idea Roth’s in league with the Salazar cartel. Someway, somehow, I’ve got to warn them.

But I need more first. And my makeshift listening device is giving me nothing.

Then I hear muffled voices, but they’re coming from outside the room. I lower my spyglass, peer out from behind the statue, and spot two chatty cartel women posted outside a pair of open terrace doors.

Their talk is unintelligible to me, neither Spanish nor English.

What language are they speaking?

My translator device must be out of range, because when I switch it to external mode, it still doesn’t translate their conversation.

Keeping my back against the wall, I creep closer. The two cartel women, sans necklaces, continue to talk in the fast, clipped language that my translator fails to interpret for me. Both have on crocodile S belts over their skintight dresses, and semiautomatic gold-plated pistols strapped to their curvy hips.

Are they speaking a code language?

Fascinated at the thought, I inch closer, running my fingers along the translator to see if there’s a secret button I’m missing, when a silvery voice calls out to me from the balcony in flawless English.

“You won’t find our language on any device, I made sure of that.”

Splayed on a chaise longue, a third woman in an elegant snow-white linen suit beckons me to join her outside. I hesitate, wondering if I’ve reached the apex of danger, but then remember I don’t have a choice.

At the door, the two cartel women ogle me with curiosity, reaching out to fondle my arms and chest. They banter back and forth in their code language, but I can guess what they’re saying about me isn’t chaste by any stretch of the word.

“Restrain yourself, ladies,” the woman in white commands.

Reluctantly, the armed women unhand my body and allow me to pass through the doors and out onto the sundrenched balcony that overlooks a grove of grapefruit trees.

Up close, I realize the woman who summoned me is not a woman at all, but a girl of about fifteen. The low cut of her jacket, which bares enough skin to flaunt her huge amethyst necklace, her designer sky-high heels, and her painted face threw me off. She possesses such a domineering aura she appears way beyond her years.

“What were you doing in the hallway, Theo?” the girl asks.

I stare at her stone-faced, giving no reaction to the fact that she knows my name and potentially caught me snooping. “Nothing,” I say, at ease with my lie.

Something about this girl feels familiar to me, although I’ve never heard or read on the news about Lieutenant Salazar having a daughter.

We take measure of each other, the outdoor fans blowing cool air at my back.

I bet this girl has never once broken a sweat in her life.

“Were you spying?” she asks me, her manner light, her voice playful, almost sweet.

“No,” I say, the translator echoing my free and easy attitude.

The girl’s bronze skin is smooth and poreless, her golden-brown hair long and straight. When I take note of her turned-up nose, my blood freezes. My hand shoots unbidden up to my face.

“You’re right,” she says. “We have the same nose. Which means we can both smell bullshit better than a Texas Scent Hunter.”

I shove my hands into the deep pockets of my uniform. “Who are you . . . ?” I ask, looping my fingers through my steel-ringed knuckle duster.

The girl’s mouth cuts open into a smile sharp as a knife. “Valeria.”

I scour my memory but can’t recall any noteworthy Salazar member by that name.

“Were you hoping to overhear the lieutenant’s meeting?” Valeria asks me point-blank.

“I’ve answered twice already,” I reply evenly, calculating whether I can whip out my blade before one of her guards can get a shot off. “Or do you not understand no?”