The call came at 3:17 a.m., slicing through the house like a guillotine.
Jamieson was still awake, shirtless on the weight bench, pressing four plates a side until his pecs burned. The house phone—Victor's private line—rang four times before the old man snatched it up in the master suite. Jamieson heard the muffled bark, then silence, then Lourdes's sharp intake of breath.
He was already pulling on jeans when Victor's voice boomed down the hall.
"Jamieson! Pack a bag. We leave in twenty."
No explanation. Just orders.
The Gulfstream was fueled and waiting at Dulles by the time the black SUVs rolled up. Victor in the lead Escalade, Elias riding shotgun, Valentina curled in the back with a silk eye mask. Lourdes sat beside Jamieson in the second vehicle, thigh brushing his every time the driver hit a pothole. She smelled like jasmine and panic.
"Abuelo's dying," she whispered, voice cracking on the Spanish. "He asked for all of us."
Jamieson stared out the tinted window. The old man—Don Armando Castillo—hadn't spoken to Victor in seven years, not since the wedding when Victor refused to kiss the ring. Now the king was summoning the court.
The Villa – Cartagena,
Dawn bled red over the Caribbean as the jet touched down on the private strip carved into the cliff. The villa sprawled like a fortress: white stucco walls, red-tiled roofs, bougainvillea dripping blood-colored petals onto the drive. But today the beauty was armored.
Black SUVs idled in formation. Men in tailored suits—shoulders too square, eyes too flat—stood at every corner, hands inside jackets where holsters lived. AKs slung low, not hidden. Jamieson counted twenty before they reached the gates.
Inside, the air was thick with incense and antiseptic. Family poured from every shadowed archway: cousins Jamieson hadn't seen since childhood, aunts with rosaries clicking like machine guns, uncles whose smiles never reached their eyes. The grand salon had been converted to a hospice—hospital bed under the chandelier, monitors beeping slow and steady.
Don Armando lay propped on silk pillows, once a bull of a man, now a skeleton in pajamas. Oxygen hissed through the cannula in his nose. His eyes—black, sharp, alive—tracked them as they filed in.
Victor first, chin high, but Jamieson saw the twitch in his jaw. Elias beside him, hand on Valentina's lower back like he owned her too. Lourdes floated forward, robe swapped for a black sheath dress that hugged every lethal curve. She knelt at the bedside, took the old man's hand.
"Papá," she breathed.
Armando's gaze swept the room, lingered on each face, then locked on Jamieson standing at the rear. "Nieto," he rasped. "Ven."
Jamieson moved. The crowd parted like water. He felt every stare—Victor's narrowing, Elias's smirk faltering. He stopped at the foot of the bed, boots planted wide.
The doctor—a thin Colombian with a Harvard accent—cleared his throat. "Señores, the cancer is everywhere. Hours, maybe less. He insisted on this meeting."
Armando waved a skeletal hand. The room emptied on silent feet until only blood remained: Victor, Lourdes, Elias, Valentina, Jamieson. And the old man.
He beckoned Jamieson closer. Jamieson leaned in, close enough to smell death on the breath.
"Escucha," Armando whispered, voice like dry leaves. "I built this empire with my hands. Guns. Ports. Politicians in my pocket. Your father—" a cough rattled his ribs "—he wanted the clean money. The lobbyist suits. He married my daughter but spit on my name."
Victor's face went stone.
Armando's eyes burned into Jamieson's. "But you, mijo. You have the hunger. I watched. Every summer you came, you lifted crates with the men, learned the routes, asked questions your brother never thought to ask. You are Castillo."
He reached under the pillow, pulled out a thick envelope sealed in red wax. Pressed it into Jamieson's hand.
"Everything. The shipping companies. The banks in Panama. The soldiers outside—they answer to you now. My will is signed, witnessed, unbreakable. Victor gets nothing. Elias gets nothing. Valentina—her trust remains, but the power…"
The room exploded.
Victor lunged forward. "You senile old fuck—"
Two guards materialized, pistols drawn, pressed to Victor's temples before he took a second step. Elias froze mid-stride. Valentina's mouth opened in a perfect O.
Lourdes stood slowly, eyes wide, fixed on Jamieson. Not fear. Calculation. And something hotter.
Jamieson felt the envelope like a live grenade. Inside: deeds, account numbers, a ledger thick as a Bible. Power that could buy countries. Power that made Victor's millions look like pocket change.
Armando's hand clamped Jamieson's wrist with surprising strength. "Protect her," he gasped. "Your mother. She is the heart. But you—you are the fist."
The monitors screamed. Nurses rushed in. The old man's eyes rolled back. Chaos.
Jamieson straightened. The guards looked to *him* now, not Victor. He tucked the envelope inside his jacket, against his heart.
Victor's face was purple. "This is bullshit. I'll contest—"
"You'll contest nothing," Jamieson said. His voice—low, calm, alpha finally unchained—cut the room like a blade. "Abuelo's word was law for fifty years. It still is."
He turned to the family. Elias's smirk was gone, replaced by pale shock. Valentina bit her lip, eyes flicking between Jamieson's chest and the bulge of the envelope. Lourdes—Lourdes stepped closer, hand rising as if to touch his face, then falling.
"Jamieson," she whispered. His name sounded different in her mouth now. Not mijo. Not baby, just his name, heavy with possibility.
He met her eyes. The hope that had festered for years flared white-hot. Someday had arrived early.