Saving The Capo's Heir

Three

Esmé

The moment the SUV turned into the drive, my throat tightened. The estate didn’t look like my home—it looked like a battlefield dressed in marble.

Men patrolled the lawns with AK-47s slung across their chests, radios crackling, eyes slicing through the night. Spotlights swept the gates. Even during my father’s reign, the property had never looked this militant.

Mason had done this. My husband—raised clean, not cartel—had turned our sanctuary into a fortress.

Coming home should have felt like victory. Instead, the air was heavy with everything I’d lost.

I’d imagined walking through these doors with Aaliyah in my arms, her small weight tucked against me. I’d pictured showing her the bassinet by the window, the mural I painted myself when contractions started.

Now I stepped out of the car empty-handed. The wind was sharp; the silence sharper.

“Are you okay?” Mason’s voice brushed my ear. His palm settled at the base of my spine, steady and warm.

“Yes.” The lie scraped my tongue. He knew it. He always does.

I reached for him anyway, fingers brushing his. He intertwined them, squeezing once, a silent I know. We walked side by side up the three marble steps.

Inside, time hadn’t moved. The baby bassinet still waited beside the couch, a pink blanket folded neatly over its rim. A single stuffed rabbit sat inside, untouched. Every detail stabbed.

Mason tried to guide me upstairs, shielding me from the reminders—the outlet covers we’d installed for when she started crawling, the bottles lined up in the kitchen. I loved him for it, but I didn’t need protection from ghosts. I needed my daughter.

Pressure bloomed in my chest; milk, grief, biology conspiring to remind me what I’d lost.

“Have you been pumping my milk?” I asked quietly.

He froze, caught. “You wanted to breastfeed. I thought you’d want it saved.”

“Where have you been storing it?”

“In a freezer I had installed. Labeled, dated.” His thumbs rubbed slow circles over my arms. “It’s waiting for when she comes home.”

My throat closed. The man could plan an ambush or install a freezer with equal devotion. I leaned into his chest, my ear over his heartbeat. It raced beneath my cheek like a war drum. Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

“Where’s Javier?” My voice cracked.

Mason exhaled. “In the office.”

“Then we’re wasting time.”

I pulled free, ignoring the pull of my stitches, the fire in my abdomen. Pain meant I was still alive.

“Esmé!” he called, but I was already halfway down the corridor. The portraits of my ancestors lined the hall—men who’d ruled with bullets and women who’d ruled those men. Their eyes seemed to follow me, cold approval in their oil-painted stares.

I pushed open the double doors to the office. Javier spun from the monitor, startled. He’d expected Mason, not me. Guilt and exhaustion carved deep lines around his mouth.

“Please tell me you found something—anything.” My breath came hard, too fast. My body trembled, but my voice didn’t.

Mason’s arms were suddenly around my waist, catching me before I could collapse.

“Capo, I’m sorry,” Javier said, stepping forward. “Every trace dies halfway. Whoever’s behind this—they’re ghosts. The IPs reroute through dead servers, firewalls stacked like puzzles. Not even Mason’s software can crack them.”

The apology in his voice hit harder than the words. He’d been working around the clock; I knew that. I’d chosen him because he never stopped until the job bled dry.

Thomas. My throat closed at the name I hadn’t spoken aloud. He’d been more than a lieutenant. My friend. My brother in every way that mattered. The man who’d seen me at my lowest, who’d wanted me once and learned to want only my success instead. He’d believed in the bloodline when I didn’t.

“I owe him,” I said softly, half to myself. “I owe them both.”

Javier’s eyes flicked down. “We’ll get them back, Capo.”

“There has to be something.” My voice was hoarse from earlier crying, from screaming at doctors, from praying into pillows. “No one disappears without a shadow.”

“Maybe a new set of eyes will help,” Mason said quietly behind me. Finally, he understood what I needed—to do, not to wait.

He released me. I crossed to the desk and lowered myself into the chair, biting back a groan. The pain was sharp, but the anger burned hotter. Javier watched me, a flicker of pride in his exhaustion.

“Welcome back, Capo,” he said, dipping his head before taking the seat across from me.

“Thank you.” I folded my hands on the desk. “Tell me everything.”

He clicked a few keys. The monitors bloomed with camera feeds, timestamps, lines of code.

“This footage is from the hospital’s north entrance,” he began. “Time-stamped thirty minutes before the attack. Van—unmarked, no plates. Same model used in at least three kidnappings in the past six months. But the faces—blurred. Someone used digital masking.”

“Show me.” I leaned forward. The blur looked intentional, not random static—like the pixels had been rewritten. “Not police work.

Professional. Military or cartel.”

“Could be both,” Mason muttered, jaw tight. “The overlap’s getting uglier.”

I ignored the throb in my abdomen and scanned every frame. A gloved hand on a door. A tattoo partially visible near a wrist. Too fast to catch—but something about the pattern—

“Freeze it,” I ordered. Javier stopped the frame. “Zoom there.”

The image sharpened. Three dots inked on the inside of the wrist, arranged in a triangle. My pulse jumped. “That’s Los Perros.”

Mason’s brows knit. “The Honduran crew? I thought they disbanded years ago.”

“Disbanded,” I said bitterly, “doesn’t mean dead. Someone revived them—or bought them.” My chest tightened. “Someone wants my bloodline gone.”

Javier looked between us. “You think this is about power?”

“It’s always about power.” I stood slowly, gripping the edge of the desk. “But this isn’t just an attack on me. It’s a message to the entire network: the Reina can bleed.”

Mason’s hand touched my shoulder. “Then we’ll remind them you don’t stay down.”

For the first time in a week, a small, dark smile found me. “Exactly.”

The pain in my side pulsed in rhythm with my heart, but I didn’t care. The fear was gone. In its place—a purpose sharper than any blade.

“Javier,” I said, voice firming. “Triple surveillance on every Perros contact still breathing. Check ports, warehouses, airstrips.

Anyone moves, I want to know before they do.”

“Yes, Capo.”

“And Mason—call Leo Caputo. Tell him the Reina’s awake.”

He grinned faintly. “He’ll piss himself.”

“Good. Let him.” I turned back to Javier. “Pull that tattoo, cross-reference with arrest photos from San Juan, Miami, and Honduras.

If they’re using Los Perros muscle, someone had to recruit them. Follow the money.”

Javier nodded, already typing.

Mason leaned close, voice low enough for me alone. “You should sit.”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“You’re bleeding through the bandage.”

He wasn’t wrong. I glanced down: a small bloom of red beneath my blouse. Pain flickered, but so did something else—fury, pure

and clear. “Let it bleed. It reminds me she’s still out there.”

He brushed his thumb over my cheek. “You scare me sometimes.”

“You married me anyway,” I said, turning toward him. “Now help me burn them.”

The office went silent except for the tapping of keys and the hum of servers. The air tasted like steel and resolve.

Javier finally looked up. “Capo… there’s more.” He hesitated. “A transmission was intercepted fifteen minutes ago from an encrypted line bouncing through South Florida. It mentioned a package. A ‘little princess.’ ”

My heart slammed against my ribs. “Trace it.”

“We’re trying, but the signal keeps shifting—almost like they know we’re listening.”

Mason straightened. “Then we’ll make them hear us.”

I met Javier’s eyes. “Patch it through everything we own. I want every hacker, every mole, every ally on it. They touched my daughter. They took my second-in-command. The whole f*****g world is going to hear me coming.”

He swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Reina.”

I turned toward the window. Outside, the guards moved in formation across the lawn, silhouettes against the security lights. My father used to say that power was about fear. He was wrong. Power is about love—the kind that makes you ruthless.

Mason stepped behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. His breath warmed my neck. “We’ll find her,” he whispered. “We’ll bring her home.”

“I know.” My voice was a promise, not hope. “And when we do, the people responsible won’t die fast.”

He kissed my temple. “There’s the woman I married.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the storm rise again. I wasn’t healed, not even close. But the Reina was back on her throne, and someone out there was about to learn exactly what that meant.

“Let’s bring our daughter home,” I said.

And somewhere deep inside, the world began to tremble.