Mira has already cured me of my own kind of ignorance.

“By predecessors, do you mean parents?” I ask.

Roth turns to me, clasping his strong hand on my shoulder. His grip feels heavy. Inescapable. “When my grandmother held the governorship of Texas . . .”

I feel my skin shiver and my blood curdle, realizing he’s referring to my great-great-grandma. Of course she has so many greats to her name. “Meryl Roth the Great,” the history books christened her.

“. . . she instilled in me the importance of endurance,” he presses on, centering all his focus on me. “She trained me the hard way. Governor, as I called her, dropped me and my fantasist notions outside her walls and protection, and into London.”

“London, England?” I ask, gobsmacked.

His lips twist in an impish smile, like this nightmare trip somehow holds a pleasant memory in his diabolical mind.

“A once-thriving, preeminent nation that tried to rescue the world and became its own sinking ship. I quickly learned the sea wasn’t all that pulled it under. The leaders allowed too many in. Disease, lawlessness, and war killed the empire.”

My thoughts flood with visions of Roth keeping me here in Mexico, of airplanes and parachutes dropping me into London. Beijing. Berlin.

Hard lessons.

Great-great-grandma Meryl was a hard-ass. She trained a maniac who now wants to train me.

“Governor made me find my own way back,” Roth continues, pulling me to the here and now. “And when I returned to Dallas, I finally understood our family legacy. The Roths are stewards of our land, Theo. Our duty is to make sure it endures.”

And I guess personal power—a Roth empire—has nothing to do with it?

“You will soon learn like I did,” he imparts to me. “I see it’s in you, unlike Alexander and Halton. You will grow into your role as heir, and thrive.”

I hold back my shock. He really believes I’m his heir? “How?” I let slip. “How will you make the American public accept me, a second-born?”

“Fear, Theo. It always comes down to fear.” His grip tightens. “When the future is dark, blind panic sets in. And when people become terrified, realizing they’ve lost their way, they look up for guidance.”

They look up to the Lone Star.

The chaos that’s happening right now in the States. I now know, for sure, it was by his design.

“My citizens will forgive my choice in welcoming a second grandchild after the Traitorous Twins took my first.”

Roth tells the lie so well even I almost believe him.

He was the one who took out Halton. Rayla. Darren. Why? So his legacy can better endure?

“They will accept my weakness so they can prosper from my strengths. They fear a country without my leadership. My guidance.”

“And Valeria?” I dare to ask. The girl was clearly raised to rule. She’s precocious, beautiful, and ruthless. Everything Roth acclaims. And yet, he remains unimpressed by her. “What is your daughter’s role in the Roth legacy?”

His eyes narrow on my aunt. “She told you, I see.”

Below us on the lawn, a barrel-chested lieutenant refuses to kiss the capo ring on Valeria’s outstretched hand.

Her head cocks dangerously to the side as if she’s asking, Are you sure? Just as the man begins to turn his back on her—publicly spurring Valeria’s claim as his new lord—she snaps her fingers twice. Quicker than a skipped heartbeat, her tiger comes alive and pounces on the lieutenant. He mauls the man’s thick thigh, driving him to his knees.

Again, Valeria holds out the scorpion ring. The lieutenant crawls to her, his whimper reaching us on the wind.

“I declare allegiance to your rule,” he swears, pressing his lips to the blood-red ruby.

Satisfied, Valeria turns to face her dad on the balcony. She instructs her line of lieutenants to raise their arms in salute to Roth. When the tiger raises its massive blood-soaked paw alongside them, she smiles with delight.

Was that display of violence for him?

If so, I’m guessing she didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for. Governor offers only a paltry nod in acknowledgment.

“The alliance was my father’s doing,” Roth explains. “In his time as governor, he did not believe Texas could stand on its own.”

“So you and the former capo . . .”

Roth withdraws his hand from my shoulder. “I was never unfaithful to my wife.”

It was against his ethics to cheat on Mrs. Roth, but he was totally fine with murdering her? My grandma . . .

Governor’s face puckers into a grimace.

“Valeria was an experiment.”

Experiment? What exactly does that mean? Before I can wring out any more details, Director Wix interrupts.

“We’re ready for you, sir,” she announces from the balcony’s sliding doors.

Governor straightens his wide shoulders—whatever Director Wix has him on appears to have completely restored him to his full strength—and as quick as a blink, he’s shut himself off, his hard veneer has returned.

“It’s time to save the country from itself, my boy.” He takes in a final glower of the impressive Salazar compound, his secret daughter Valeria, born not out of love, but to ensure an international alliance, then spins on his heel and walks toward what he’s convinced is his destiny. His birthright.

Roth is about to come out of hiding, live on national news. What’s more, he’s doing it by announcing that he’s reentering the presidential race, taking the late Governor Cole’s place. Painting himself the hero.

And he will be, if I’m right about what he’s trading for at tonight’s meeting with the capo and President Moore.

I can’t get the Director’s threat out of my head. She said we’re returning home. Or more ominously, What will be left of it.

It’s one hundred degrees out here on the balcony, but goosebumps sting across my entire body.

Roth’s here for a weapon. Something powerful enough to cause mass devastation, so that he can be the savior who swoops in to clean up the mess.

It’s time to save the country from itself, my boy.

I don’t want any part of this. But now’s not the time to stop playing the willing protégé.

Turning to follow Governor, I take in the complicated 3D-capture technology that will project a 360-degree hologram of Roth into the nation’s living rooms. President Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats on steroids.

I will escape the family legacy, I promise myself again.

Soon. Tonight, after the execution of Andrés, the People’s Militia rebel.

The mouse, as she likes to call him.

I promised Valeria flames. And I’d better be able to deliver.

Before Roth reaches the balcony door, the timid servant who dressed us in Monterrey approaches with a clothing brush raised, prepared to get the potential US president camera-ready.

But Governor keeps marching forward, plowing through the girl like she isn’t even there. She trips trying to jump out of his way and tumbles to the ground, her kit flying across the terrace to land at my feet.

Without thinking, I gather her tools and reach out my hand to help her up. She doesn’t take it.

A second-rate version of my translator necklace hangs around her throat, made of twisted silver instead of gold. The device relays her words in a subdued whisper.