The Border: The final gripping thriller in the bestselling Cartel trilogy. Don Winslow

      The hammer clicks on the empty chamber.

      “Jesus fucking Christ!” Iván yells.

      They all freak out. The crazy chava actually did it, and then she calmly sets the gun back on the table and says, “Next.”

      Except Rubén picks up the gun and sticks it in his pocket. “I think we’re done.”

      “Pussy,” Belinda says.

      If it were a guy who’d said that, Ric knows, it would be on, a reason to go, and Rubén would either pull the trigger on himself or on the mouth that called him that. But it’s a girl, a chica, so it’s all good.

      “What a rush,” Belinda says. “I think I came.”

      The door opens and Rudolfo Sánchez walks in. “What the hell is going on in here?”

      “We’re just having some fun,” Iván says, assuming leadership.

      “I heard,” Rudolfo says. “Do me a favor? You want to kill yourselves, don’t do it in my place, okay?”

      He asks politely, but if it were any other club owner, there’d be a problem. Iván would feel a need to face him, maybe slap him down, or at least cause some damage, break some shit up, throw down some bills to cover the damage, and walk out.

      But this isn’t any club owner.

      Rudolfo is Adán Barrera’s nephew, his sister Elena’s son. A little older, but an Hijo like them.

      Rudolfo looks at them like, Why are you in my club raising dust? Why did you have to pick this place? And he says, “What would I say to your fathers if I let you blow your brains out in my club?”

      Then he stops, looking embarrassed, only now remembering that Iván’s father is dead, killed by the Zetas in Guatemala.

      Ric feels bad for him. “Sorry, ’Dolfo. We’re fucked up.”

      “Maybe we should just get the check,” Rubén says.

      “It’s comped,” Rudolfo says.

      But Ric notices he doesn’t say anything like, No, please stay. Have another round. They all get up, say good night to Rudolfo, thank him—show some respect, Ric thinks—and walk out onto the street.

      Where Iván goes off. “That malandro, pendejo, pinche motherfucker lambioso fuck! Does he think he’s funny?! ‘What would your fathers think?’”

      “He didn’t mean anything,” Rubén says. “He probably just forgot.”

      “You don’t forget something like that!” Iván says. “He was stepping on my dick! When I take over …”

      Ric says, “The guy hasn’t been the same since he got back.”

      Unlike any of them, Rudolfo had gone to prison. Did time in an American supermax and the word was that it wrecked him, that he came home messed up.

      “The guy is weak,” Iván says. “He couldn’t take it.”

      “None of us know what we’d do,” Rubén says. “My old man says prison is the worst thing that can happen to you.”

      “He came out of it okay,” Ric says. “Your dad is tough.”

      “None of us know,” Rubén repeats.

      “Fuck that,” Iván says. “This is our life. If you go, you go. You have to hold it together, like a man.”

      “Rudolfo did,” Ric says. “He didn’t bitch up, he didn’t flip.”

      “His uncle got him out,” Iván says.

      “Good,” Ric says. “Good for Adán. He’d have done the same for you.”

      They all know that Adán did it before, too, when his nephew Sal got busted for killing two people outside a club. Adán made a deal to get the charges dropped, and the rumor they all heard was that he flipped on the Tapia brothers, launching the bloody civil war that almost destroyed the cartel.

      And Sal got killed anyway.

      Blown to shit by Crazy Eddie Ruiz.

      Sal should be here tonight, drinking with us, Ric thinks.

      Go with God, ’mano.

      Iván notices the girls staring at him. “What are you looking at?! Walk ahead, get in the fucking cars!”

      Then, just as quickly as he got furious, he gets all happy again. Throws his arms around Ric’s and Rubén’s shoulders and yells, “We’re brothers! Brothers forever!”

      And they all shout, “¡Los Hijos!”

      Coked, drunk, and orgasmed out, the girl falls asleep.

      Belinda shakes her head. “No stamina. I wish Gaby was here.”

      She rolls over and looks at Ric.

      Shit, he thinks, she wants to go again. “I can’t.”

      “I’ll give you a few minutes,” Belinda says. She finds a blunt on the nightstand, lights it up, takes a hit and offers him one.

      He takes it. “That was crazy tonight, what you did.”

      “I did it to bail you out,” she says. “You talked yourself into a trap.”

      “You could have died.”

      “Could have,” she says, gesturing to get the joint back. “Didn’t. Anyway, it’s my job to protect you.”

      Belinda Vatos—La Fósfora—was the jefa of FEN, Fuerza Especial de Núñez, the armed wing of the Núñez faction of the Sinaloa cartel. It’s unusual to have a woman in that position, but God knows she earned it, Ric thinks.

      Started as a courier, then a mule, then took a major step up when she volunteered to kill a Zeta operative who was playing hell with their people in Veracruz. The guy didn’t expect a young, beautiful woman with big round tits and a head of wavy black hair to walk up and put two bullets in his face, but that’s what Belinda did.

      She and her girlfriend, Gabriela, had a technique. La Gaby would go into a bar, stay awhile, then leave pretending to be drunk. She’d fall down on the sidewalk, then when the target bent over to help her, La Fósfora would come out of the alley and blast him.

      Ric soon learned that she had more exotic tastes. She and Gaby and a few of her men liked to kidnap victims, chop them up into deli meat, and then drop the pieces off at their families’ doorsteps, as a message.

      The message got through.

      La Fósfora became a narco rock star, posing in sexy garb for Facebook photos and YouTube videos, having songs written about her, and Ric’s father moved her up to the top spot after the previous head of security was sent to prison.

      Ric first fucked her on a dare.

      “It would be like sticking your dick into death,” Iván said.

      “Yeah, but a chava that crazy has to be great in bed,” Ric said.

      “If you live,” Iván said. “She might be like one of those spiders who, you know, kill the male after mating. Anyway, I hear she’s a lesbian.”

      “She’s bi,” Ric said. “She told me.”

      “So go for it,” Iván said. “You can maybe get a threesome out of it.”

      “That’s what she said she wants,” Ric said. “Her and that girl Gaby, I can dick them both.”

      “You only live once.”

      So Ric went to bed with Belinda and Gaby, and the fucked-up thing is that he fell for