Chapter 6 - The Long Road SouthThe highway through New Mexico unspooled like an endless ribbon of asphalt between pale scrub brush and red sandstone mesas. The rhythmic hum of the tires against the road offered no peace; inside the cabin, the tension was thick, punctuated only by Maya’s occasional cooing and the rustle of Sarah checking the rear-view mirror every few miles.
David kept his hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel, his mind drifting back to the last time he had stood in his father’s courtyard in Las Cruces. He had been nineteen years old, watching Hector burn the deeds of families who could not repay high-interest loans, demanding that David sign his name to the enforcement ledgers. David had refused, thrown the pen into the fire, and walked out under the barrel of an enforcer's gaze. Hector had not fired that night; he had merely laughed and said, “You will crawl back when the world shows you what you're made of.”
"David," Sarah said softly, breaking his trance as they crossed the border into New Mexico. "What does he actually want?"
"Validation," David answered. "Hector doesn't care about Maya as a human being. To him, the mark is a signature of ownership. He believes the Mendoza bloodline possesses an inherent strength, a ruthless instinct. He wants Maya raised in his compound so he can mold her, the way he failed to mold me."
"He won't touch her," Sarah said with quiet, ironclad certainty.
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"I know," David replied, meeting her eyes in the glass. "Because tonight, we break the legend he built around that mark."
They stopped at a dusty gas station outside Socorro to feed Maya. As David stood by the pump, he noticed an unmarked black sedan idling near the edge of the lot, its headlights dim. The car didn't approach; it simply waited. Hector’s lookouts had already picked up their trail, shepherding them toward the valley like cattle into a chute.
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