Table Of ContentCONTENTS
Untitled
1. How it all began…
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Bastard
Also by Michele Mannon
Acknowledgments
About the Author
“Liar: A Deadliest Lies Novel”
Copyright © 2021 by Michele Mannon
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at
WWW.MICHELEMANNON.COM
Cover Designer: Letitia Hasser
www.rbadesigns.com
Editor: Eve Arroyo
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
To the year 2020
May the heartache
the pain
Be a fading reflection in your
rearview mirror.
UNTITLED
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever:
I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now;
put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
“Funeral Blues” ~ W.H. Auden
1
HOW IT ALL BEGAN…
G
unfire is as common as tortillas and tamales in Loreto. A good day is when the streets aren’t
running red and the gentle hum of nature dwarfs the dismal reverberations of death.
Good days are rare. Good nights even rarer, with tonight being one of the worst.
“Hide, Luciana. Fast.” My brother Diego’s shout cuts through the night.
Nightmares are something you’re supposed to wake up from, not into. But I’m quick to realize
that’s exactly what’s happening.
I roll out of bed, my heart racing. Fearing how this time, the stucco walls of our small house
aren’t enough to keep danger out. I bite my lip in hesitation, briefly consider rolling beneath my bed
but instead race across the small room to the window. With shaky hands, I yank the nails out of the
rotting frame. One by one, until I’m finished and able to open it. But only partially, the warped wood
allowing me to tug it up a quarter of the way. A year ago, I’d have squeezed through the gap. Before
God blessed me with healthy, big breasts and full hips that sway as I walk. A late-blooming growth
spurt that’s changed me from a gangling sixteen-year-old to a seventeen-year-old with a figure that,
unfortunately, seems to make men sit up and take notice, in a town where staying invisible is the only
way to survive.
Invisible . . . I give up on the window as a stream of cursing erupts from the living room. My only
remaining choice is to hide behind one of the floor-to-ceiling bath curtains I’d hung up to hide the
cracks in the walls. I slip behind the vinyl closest to the door and listen attentively as I try to piece
together what’s going on.
“Compadres, cálmate,” I hear my brother say. Hard to know if he’s afraid or not, his tone is flat
and unruffled. I’m terrified. This is the first time company like this has paid us a house call. We’ve
avoided being directly sucked into their business, even when recruitment into the Mexican drug
cartels has become the norm.
What has Diego done?
“You think you’re worthy of being a Cobra? You were ordered to kill someone. Proof you’ve got
los cajones to be one of us. So?”
I stiffen in horror. Diego murder someone? Our parents died in a cartel-initiated shooting. Since
then, it’s been him, me, and our combined wits enabling us to survive in an ever-changing
environment.
No. My brother is not joining a cartel. I won’t allow it.
“Haven’t killed anyone yet,” I hear him say.
Oh, no. That tone—
A loud pop rings out.
“Until now.”
“Mierda. He shot Manuel straight between the eyes.”
There’s gunfire followed by the telltale sound of a struggle. My brother can brawl with the best of
men. He’s no one’s victim. But he’s battling a few men, who’ve busted into our home, and I’m
struggling to come up with a way to help him. I’ve got a few solid moves, learned for self-defense
rather than a full-on attack. Now how I wished I’d listened and not stubbornly refused when my
brother encouraged me to learn how to shoot. A bullet beats an upward thrust of the heel of a hand any
time.
“Grab his sister. We’ll drag them both before Arturo.”
I inhale sharply as fists connect with flesh. Footsteps sound, along with Diego’s lie. “She’s at a
friend’s house, pendejos.”
My bedroom door slams open, yet I’m prepared for it. The door rebounds off my outward facing
palms, leaving a small gap between the wooden surface and me. Enough where from a hole in the
vinyl shower curtain, I can see the man in the dim light as he marches over to my bed, falls to his
hands and knees, and peers beneath it.
Cursing under his breath, he stands and turns toward the small window directly across from me. I
hold my breath as he marches toward it and out of eyesight, praying he’ll think I’ve slipped away and
am long gone.
I wish I were . . . except for Diego . . .
Another shot is fired in the living room.
Another furious screech. “Fuck. Juan.”
The man in my room freezes for two long seconds before screaming, “Juan! You’re gonna pay,
motherfucker.” He charges from the room, but I can’t exhale the air I’ve been holding in my lungs
quite yet.
Dios, Diego. What have you gotten us into?
“You wanted proof, compadres?” I hear him taunt. “I gave you proof. Next time you’ll think twice
about breaking into my home.”
“Take hold of his other arm,” someone barks. “Arturo will deal with him.”
I count to forty before racing into the living room. Two men lay on our carpet. Manuel and Juan,
two lifeless bodies to contend with. Two more victims of a world I’m now being dragged into.
I burst through the open front door and into the street, searching the darkness. Up ahead, I see
them. Three men hauling my brother away.
Following them is unnecessary because I know where they’re taking him. To Arturo. The most
powerful of the organized crime leaders. Or at least he was, until the Bastard arrived in town several
months ago.
For years, Loreto has been at the mercy of waring cartels. It’s location across the Gulf of
California and a ship-ride away from Mexico’s infamous Golden Triangle—a region notorious for
cultivating heroine and other drugs—places Loreto in a precarious position. Sure, the bridge
connecting the Baja Peninsula to Mexico’s mainland lay north in Santa Rosalia. And the ferry from
Sinaloa disembarks in La Paz, which is located south of here. But the lack of direct access hasn’t
stopped the cartels from filtering through Loreto. A few, the Cobras, Z-Veintidós, Sureños, and now
the Bastard’s Lobos, have more of a foothold than the others.
Survival tip number one is knowing who to avoid. I stick to sections of Loreto that are safe—
though no place truly is. These days, even a simple trip to the bank can turn into a huge fiasco.
Which is exactly why I can’t seek help from Ignacio Acosta, the leader of the Sureños and a man
most people go to when they get caught up in cartel business.
I grimace at the mere thought of him.
Ignacio has a strong love for the opposite sex. He’s notorious for always being surrounded by
beautiful women. Young women. Willing or coerced—though with Ignacio the phrase is more like
“willingly coerced,” the attractiveness of his power and his money overshadowing the
unattractiveness of the man himself. Only an act of God can shake off his possessiveness. Fortunately,
God blessed me with quick wits, a wry sense of humor, and passion for tamales that enabled me to
dodge the cartel leader’s attention during our brief, albeit memorable encounter.
It happened several months ago at the bank. I had the misfortune of walking in the door as Ignacio
and his men were exiting, carrying bags of cash, the acrid smell of death on their clothing. Ignacio
stopped short on the steps to stare at me. I’d spun on my heels and fled, disturbed by the sight of the
blood covering his potbellied frame. Except I wasn’t fast enough, and his men stopped me a block
away. I remember thinking, “Witnesses can’t talk from the grave,” and that my life was over. To my
surprised horror, instead of a bullet in my head, I was asked for my phone number.
“You’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen,” I was told. “Ignacio will call you with a time to
meet. Don’t disappoint him.”
I scribbled down the number for my favorite tamale stand and bid his men adios. Nothing soothes
the bitter taste of disappointment better than the sweet deliciousness of homemade tamales. Or at least
I hoped that’d be the case with Ignacio.
I can’t risk another encounter with the deplorable man.
Rumor is the only women he won’t pursue are married ones. Evidently, he has this twisted sense
of morality. He won’t touch a married woman whose been blessed by the holy sanctity of the church.
Perhaps it’s this show of respect for something that has many people asking the Sureños for
protection.
Or is it simple desperation?
Dios, I can relate.
Ignacio won’t do, and I scratch him off my short list of people who might help me.
The police are useless, and in the cartels’ pockets.
Asking help from another cartel leader would be the equivalent of spitting on my parents’ graves.
One of them is responsible for my parents being gunned down, part of a vicious wave of violence that
bright summer day. They were innocent victims. Kind, decent, loving people who treated everyone
with dignity and respect. We don’t know which cartel is responsible. Except for Los Lobos who
hadn’t yet made their presence known, they were all active that day. All of them are guilty. My guess
is the Z-Veintidós—the Z22 for short—is responsible. Witnesses say they were seen near the
Superama that day. A weaker, less powerful cartel that was new to town and had something to prove.
But the Cobras? Until now, I had no idea Diego thought Arturo ordered the bloodbath. And how
long has my brother been planning to do something about it?
Because that’s what this is about, right? Diego getting revenge?
I swallow hard. What if he tries to kill Arturo?
I’ve no time and no options left.
Except one.
The Bastard.
The Lobos have taken up residence in the south end of town. I’ve never seen their leader, our
paths have never crossed.
