Branded by the Capo

My father borrowed money he never planned to repay. Now the man holding the marker has come to collect. Armando Reyes wears pressed shirts and a gold buckle and runs more than cattle. His family moves product across this desert and pays for it in other people's blood. He says he needs a horse trainer. He says it could be worse. So I take the job. I take the ink on my wrist. I take the long rides at dawn while the men sleep off last night's business. I don't take his silence. His grief. The way he looks at me when he thinks I'm not watching. When the cartel orders a load through the only land I ever loved, I have to choose. I rode for him already. This is the day I ride again — against him or with him, depending on what he does in the next sixty seconds.