Chapter 2: Betrayed By Familia

“In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us pray for the soul of the faithfully departed…” The officiating priest chanted the familiar words with a straight face, although his voice couldn’t hide his sadness.

Lola gradually pushed the priest’s voice to a distance in her head and tried distracting herself by looking around.

The lilies. Gods, the lilies. It was like someone had decided to embalm the entire cemetery in floral perfume. Lola felt nauseous. Usually, she would appreciate a good bouquet, but this felt less like a funeral and more like a giant, stifling celebration.

‘I swear, I still can’t believe Papa is gone,’ Lola thought. Carlos Volcan, her beloved father, the great Volcan patriarch, gone just like that. The man who raised her brother Diego and her with all the love in the world.

Although, she had noticed that since she came back from Europe, Diego was more like Uncle Matías’s right-hand man. She did ask him about it after a few weeks, and he had laughed it off, claiming Papa was becoming too old school to hang out with.

Now they were orphans, as Papa lay in the gold-rimmed white casket ready to be lowered into the earth. They were left to sift through the ashes of his life.

Lola felt her hand grabbed and squeezed in a familiar way. She turned to see her best friend, Luisa, squeezing her way through the small crowd. She immediately pulled Lola into a hug, a hug Lola hadn’t realized she needed so much. They didn’t speak but Luisa understood her.

Papa’s funeral felt like a blurry black and white movie played on fast-forward, with Lola as the bewildered, slightly nauseous star. The agave pendant, Papa’s last gift, felt heavy against her skin as she squeezed it tightly.

She looked through the sober little crowd. Most were dressed in their best funeral black. Which in my small town, meant a lot of ill-fitting suits and dresses that had probably been mothballed since the last major fiesta.

The air was heavy with the usual funeral fair. Weeping mourners genuinely saddened by Carlos’s death, whispering aunties sharing gossip even now, stuck-up cousins looking bored. And of course, the faint, unmistakable scent of tequila hidden in hip flasks and jacket pockets.

Aunt Delores had taken her mourning to a whole new level, loudly sobbing while Eva held her, putting on a show.

‘She’s acting as if it was her husband who died, hmpf,’ Lola thought with irritation. She didn’t need this hypocritical drama right now.

Lola’s eyes, usually bright and full of life, were now narrowed and very suspicious. Her father’s last words still echoed in her head – Trust no one.

She scanned the crowd, trying to spot the odd ones out. And there they were. The Men in Black, or as Lola mentally dubbed them, the “Cartel Chic” squad.

They stood apart near the edge of the gathering, like vultures at a picnic, their expensive suits and stone-cold faces a stark contrast to the weeping villagers. Their observers noted Lola’s scrutinizing eyes but remained impassive, their job simply to ensure the transition went smoothly.

And their tattoos… oh, the tattoos. Majestic falcons soared up their wrists, disappearing under the pristine cuffs of their designer shirts. The sigil of the Cali Cartel, a brand as obvious as a falcon’s keen gaze.

Diego, Lola’s brother, looked like he’d swallowed a lemon whole. He looked unusually pale, sweating despite the mild heat, and kept avoiding her gaze, just like he had been since Papa’s passing. He felt her eyes on him and shifted uncomfortably.

He had always been a bit of a pushover, easily swayed by Matías’s promises of fast cars and faster chicas, but this was different. ‘What was he hidding or scared of?’

Meanwhile, Uncle Matías was the picture of serene composure, moving through the mourners like a politician at a save-the-children outreach, accepting condolences so, naturally.

“We’ll handle everything, Lola,” he had said earlier, patting her shoulder with a warmth that felt as genuine as a reptile warming itself on a rock. “You just need to grieve.”

‘Grieve?’ Lola scoffed inwardly. She was too busy trying to figure out who had sent her father to the afterlife before his time to have time for grieving!

Matías had told the police it was an unfortunate home robbery gone wrong. A blatant lie. The funeral felt like a farce, a cover-up play, and Lola was determined to find out who was pulling the strings.

Luisa kissed Lola’s cheeks as she left with the last of the true mourners, their faces etched with a sadness that felt personal. Lola understood; many of them were beneficiaries of her father’s kindness and charity.

She gave Diego a brief, sharp nod, which he obviously ignored. She slipped away from the gravesite, her footsteps silent on the worn stone path leading back to the main villa.

Papa’s study was the only place that might hold the answers she needed. The door was locked, of course. ‘That snake in a suit uncle of mine had always been paranoid about Papa’s “business dealings,”’ Lola remembered.

Which, she was now relearning, was likely code for “mountain of debt and a death wish.” But she wasn’t some naive little girl anymore. She had a pendant, a dead father, and a burning need for answers.

She found the spare key hidden in the cracks of the Blessed Virgin’s statue near the entrance. It was a secret Papa had shared with her when she was a kid, probably thinking it was some cute bonding moment.

‘Well Papa,’ Lola thought grimly, ‘our cute bonding moment just became my “find out who murdered you” moment.’

The lock clicked open, and Lola entered the study. The familiar scent of old paper and stale cigars hit her like a comforting… no, scratch that. It felt like a heartbreaking hug now.

The room looked like a storm had passed through. Papers were scattered everywhere, and drawers were yanked open. Someone, likely Matías or Diego, had been searching for something, and they weren’t discreet about it.

Ignoring the chaos, Lola quickly went for the hidden compartment behind a loose panel in the bookshelf. It was where Papa kept his “important stuff.” Now, given the current situation, “important stuff” probably meant “evidence.”

Her hands were shaky as she pulled out the heavy, leather-bound ledgers. The numbers swam before her eyes, a dizzying array of zeroes that added up to one big, fat debt – but surprisingly, not just any debt. A massive debt to the Cali Cartel. A debt Papa had kept hidden, like a bad rash one only showed the doctor.

And then she found it. A crisp note, tucked between the pages, written in a strange, elegant script she didn’t recognize. “Payment due: One Volcan heir.”

One heir. ‘Is it me or Diego? Who am I kidding? That’s obviously me. I am the heir according to my mother’s will.’

The words hit Lola like a shot of vodka. Very sudden, brutal, leaving her wanting to curl up and cry.

She remembered Diego avoiding her eyes since the incident. Of course. She quickly pieced it together. He and Uncle Matías knew. The guilt meant she was the price.

They wanted her. She was the collateral, the human sacrifice in some twisted cartel deal arranged by her own family.

Lola slammed the ledger shut, the sound echoing in the silent room like a gunshot. She had to confront them, rip off their masks and see the snakes underneath.

She found Uncle Matías and Diego in the living room, looking like they were about to audition for a “World’s Most Worried Men” contest. They looked up sharply as Lola stormed in, the ledger clutched in her hand like a weapon.

“What is this?” she demanded, her voice shaking with rage. “What did you do?”

Diego looked like he was about to faint, his face paling even further. Uncle Matías, ever the smooth talker, tried to play it cool, standing up slowly. “Lola, you don’t understand. This is… very complicated.”

“Complicated?” Lola yelled, throwing the ledger onto the polished coffee table between them. “Papa is dead! And you sold me to the Cali Cartel?”

Diego finally found his voice, though his words were a pathetic whimper. “You’re the price, Lola. They want you.” He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Why?” Lola screamed, tears finally stinging her eyes, blurring her vision. “Why me?”

Uncle Matías’s eyes hardened, the mask of false concern slipping completely. “It’s either this…” he said coldly, gesturing towards her, “…or we lose everything.” His own ambition and survival were obviously more important.

And just like that, the ugly truth was laid open. They had traded her life for profit, for their own pathetic survival. They had sacrificed her.

Before Lola could launch herself at them, before she could scream every curse word she knew, two men stepped silently out of the shadows near the doorway. The Cartel Chic squad, punctual as ever. Here to collect their payment already?

They moved with the kind of practiced, detached ruthlessness that stopped Lola in her tracks. One of them firmly held her arms from behind while the other pressed a sickly-sweet smelling cloth against her face.

The world began to spin violently. Through the haze, Lola thought she heard Diego mutter something like, “Silly girl.”

The last thing she heard clearly was Matías’s voice, cold and distant, instructing the men. “Sleep, princesa. El Halcón awaits.”

Then, there was nothing. Just the suffocating darkness, and the echoing dread of what was to come.

She had a feeling, a very bad feeling, that her life was about to turn 180 degrees into a disaster.