But it's also clear that he's had some experience himself, because Adn knows his way around a woman's body and isn't selfish. Magda is surprised when she feels a climax building inside her, more surprised when she feels herself toppling over that waterfall, even more surprised that he's still hard.

When she looks at him curiously, he says, "I was always taught, ladies first."

There's something in his eyes, this small superior glint, that makes her competitive with him, so she does something that she was going to save up for another time and she watches his eyes go wide, feels his breathing get hard, then hears him moan (you're not distracted now, are you?), and she keeps him there for a moment and cranes her neck up so her mouth is by his ear and demands, "Say my name."

He doesn't and she stops what she's doing and feels him tremble.

"Say my name."

"Magda."

She starts to move. "Say it again."

"Magda."

"Scream it."

"Magda!"

She feels him come inside her.

It feels like safety.

- They start a life of odd domesticity, given their circumstances.

Officially transferred from COC into the unit with the two other women, Magda actually moves to the cell next to Adn's and spends most of her nights with him.

He gets up early to work and then joins her for breakfast. She goes back to her cell to read or work out, then they lunch together. He goes back to work and she reads more or watches television until they have dinner together.

Some afternoons he takes an hour or two off and they go out into the yard and join one of the volleyball games with other inmates, play basketball, or just get some sun. In the evenings it's television or movie nights, although more and more often he wants to go to bed early and make love.

He's enamored of her.

Luca was pretty, petite, and thin. Magda's body is lush-full hips, heavy breasts-a fruit orchard on a warm, damp morning.

And she's smart.

A bit at a time, Magda reveals the extent of her knowledge about the business. She lets drop small bits of information about the cocaine trade, people she's met-friends, acquaintances, connections. She casually mentions the places she's been-South America, Europe, Asia, the United States-to show that, while she's a proud Sinaloan, she's no mere chuntara, hillbilly, either.

That she could be an asset to him, and not only in bed.

Adn doesn't doubt that, actually.

It isn't a matter of doubt, it's a matter of trust.

- Magda sees the blade.

A glint in the sunshine.

"Adn!" she screams.

He turns as the small, thin man-perhaps in his thirties-steps toward him, knife leveled horizontally and held back at the waist like a professional. The man thrusts the blade, Adn pivots, and the knife slices the small of his back. The attacker pulls back the blade to try again, but two of Los Bateadores are already on him, pin his arms behind him, and start to drag him off the volleyball court.

"Alive!" Adn yells. "I want him alive!"

He reaches around and feels the hot, sticky blood seep through his fingers. Francisco grabs him, then Magda, and then he blacks out.

- His would-be assassin doesn't know who hired him.

Adn believes him, and didn't think that he would, actually. Juan Jess Cabray is a good man with a knife, serving a pair of sixty-year sentences for dispatching two rivals in a Nogales bar with a blade. He did a couple of jobs for the old Sonora cartel back in the day, but that means nothing now. Now he's tied to a pillar in a basement storage room as Diego lazily shoulders a baseball bat and prepares to swing.

"Who hired you, cabrn?"

Cabray's head lolls forward like a broken doll, but he manages to shake it feebly and mutter, "I don't know."

Adn sits uncomfortably on a three-legged stool. The seven stitches itch more than hurt, but his side is starting to ache. Whoever hired Cabray used multiple layers of cut-outs to approach him. And they chose a man who had nothing to lose. But what would he have to gain? That his impoverished family would receive a bundle of cash-money that he could no longer provide. So he would keep his silence, use the one resource that God gave to the Mexican campesino-the ability to suffer. Diego could beat this man to death and it wouldn't matter.

"Stop." Adn edges his stool closer, and says softly, "Juan Cabray, you know you're going to die. And you will die happy, thinking of the money that will go to your wife and family. That's a good thing, you're a brave man. But you know...Juan, look at me..."

Cabray lifts his head.

"...you know that I can reach out to your family, wherever they are." Adn says, "Listen to me, Juan Jess Cabray, I will buy your wife a house, I will get her a job where she doesn't work hard, I will send your son to school. Is your mother alive?"

"Yes."

"I will see that she is warm in the winter," Adn says, "and that you have a funeral that will make her proud. So, the only question is, do I take your family under my wing and make them my family, or do I kill them? You decide."

"I don't know who hired me, patrn."

"But someone approached you," Adn says.

"Yes."

"Who?"

"One of the guards," Cabray says. "Navarro."

Two of Los Bateadores hustle out.

"What did he offer you?" Adn asks Cabray.

"Thirty thousand."

Adn leans in and whispers into Cabray's ear, "Juan Jess, do you trust me?"

"S, patrn."

"Save us time," Adn says. "Tell me how to find your family."

Cabray whispers that they are in a village named Los Elijos, in Durango. His wife's name is Mara, his mother is Guadalupe.

"Father?" Adn asks.

"Muerto."

"He is waiting for you in heaven," Adn says. Wincing a little as he stands up, he says to Diego, "Make it quick."

As Adn walks out of the room, he hears Cabray mutter a prayer. From the hallway, he hears the tiro de gracia, the mercy shot.

- "Who?" Adn asks Diego.

They're sitting back in his cell. Adn sips on a glass of scotch, to ease the ache in his side.

Diego looks at Magda sitting on the bed.

"We can speak in front of her," Adn says. "After all, she saved my life, not your men."

Diego flushes but has to acknowledge this truth. The men responsible for guarding Adn have been transferred to Block 4, the worst unit in the prison, where the child molesters, the murderers, the lunatics go. There will be no movie nights, no women, no parties. They'll be fighting and killing over scraps of food.

New men will be coming in over the next few days.

They're volunteers, men who willingly get themselves convicted and sent to prison, knowing that when they get out in a few years they'll be offered opportunities to traffic drugs, to make fortunes that they could never otherwise dream of.

The guard Navarro ran as soon as word got out that the attempt failed. They're tracking him now. The warden was apoplectic with apologies, promising a full investigation and increased security. Adn simply stared at him. He would do his own investigation and provide his own increased security. Even now, five Bateadores stand outside the door.

"Suppose it was Fuentes," Diego says, naming the chaca of the Jurez cartel. The Jurez plaza was always connected to Sinaloa, and now Vicente Fuentes might be concerned that Adn wants it back. But he had asked Esparza, related by marriage to Fuentes, to reassure him that Adn Barrera only wants to make a living from his own territory.

Or the murder attempt could have come from Tijuana, Adn thinks. Teo Solorzano led a revolt against my sister in my absence and might well be afraid of the consequences now that I'm back. This could have been a preemptive strike.

"What about Contreras?" Magda asks.

"He has no reason to kill me," Adn says. "Contreras is better off with Garza in prison. He's the co-boss of the Gulf cartel now, he makes more money, and has me to thank for that."

And I sent Diego personally to speak with Contreras, to assure him that I have no designs on the Gulf or ambitions to take back my old throne.

But Contreras has ambitions of his own, Adn thinks.

It could have been any of the three, but we won't know, Adn thinks, until we find Navarro, and maybe not even then. If this attempt came from any of the men they're thinking about, the guard is probably already dead. Some man he trusted offered to get him out, then took him somewhere and killed him.

He looks at Diego and smiles. "We'll see who comes first."

Diego smiles back. Each of the three groups will send an emissary to deny responsibility. Whoever comes first is probably the most nervous, and for good reason. If they'd succeeded in killing Adn, they'd be in negotiations with Diego Tapia and Esparza already.

But having missed, they'd be at war with them.

Not a good place to be.

"This village of Cabray's," Diego says, "I'll have it bulldozed to the ground."

"No," Adn snaps. "I gave the man my word."

Find the family, Adn tells him, and set them up with exactly what I said. And put a school in the village, or a clinic, or a well-whatever it is they need-but make sure they know who it came from."

After Diego leaves, Magda, flipping through Mexican Vogue, says, "Perhaps you're looking too far away."

"What do you mean?"

"For the people who tried to kill you," Magda says. "Maybe you should be looking closer. Who was in charge of protecting you? Who failed to?"

The suggestion makes him angry. "Diego is blood. More like my brother than my cousin."

"Ask yourself, who has the most to gain by your death?" Magda asks. "Diego and Nacho have their own organizations now, they've become used to being their own bosses. Has Nacho even come to see you?"

"It's too risky."

"Diego came."

"That's Diego," Adn says. "He doesn't give a damn."

"Or he does."

Not Diego, Adn thinks. Maybe the others, although I doubt it. Nacho was a close friend and adviser to my uncle, and was as good an adviser to me. He's married to my sister's brother-in-law's sister. He's family.

But maybe.

But Diego?

Never.

"I'd bet my life on Diego," he says defensively.

Magda shrugs. "You are."

He sits down on the bed next to her.

"If they tried once," she says, "they'll try again."

"I know," he says. And one day, they'll succeed, he thinks. I'm a stationary target in this prison. And, whoever it is, if they really want me dead, I'm dead. But there is no use dwelling on it. "You saved my life today."

She flips a page and says, "It's a small thing."

Adn laughs. "What do you want in return?"

Magda finally looks up from the magazine. "You've saved my life many times over."

"Christmas is coming," Adn says.

"Such as it is"-she sighs-"in this place."