There's a lot of things she could complain about, could wail and scream about. The fact that she'd seen and spilled more blood then she could account for, that was one. Even worse, she managed not to feel bad for said blood, or at least that's what she told herself. Having to pick up her life and move it across the country, to fucking Texas of all places, that was another. Being forced to endure time with a family that she had never met before the untimely death (murder) of the father she'd never known, well that had to be the worst.
Yes, there were a lot of things Katrina Portokalos complain about, but at the ripe age of twenty four years old, she was a millionaire. And that's why, in her opinion, complaining about the things she had to endure to get to this point was completely fucking useless.
The big house she owned, her range rover, her closet. She couldn't complain about those, could she? Even if they were paid for in full by drug money.
She could take all that guilt, and dress it up in Chanel.
She'd gotten good at it.
Kat's sat in her bed, propped against the headboard as old reruns of Jersey Shore light up the otherwise dark room. There's a cherried blunt between her fingers and she brings it up to her lips and puffs on it every once and a while, careful to avoid disturbing the drying facemask she has on her face.
When her phone rings, chirping from its place on the bed beside her, her stomach does a little flip flop.
Camila the caller ID boldly reads and she swipes her thumb across the screen and lifts it to her ear.
"Is everything okay?" Kat questions. Because it's four o'clock in the morning. Any normal person would be asleep; it's not really the time to be making nonchalant, pleasantry phone calls.
Plus, when was anything really nonchalant with Camila?
"Yes, don't worry" Camila reassures from over the phone, Kat feels her shoulders shrug, but only a little. "I was just calling to tell you Epifhano's been in an accident"
"What kind of accident? Is he okay?" Kat inquires at Camila's bucolic tone. You'd think she'd be a little more worried about her husband being in an accident. Kat knew the two were having…issues. But still.
"He's fine, calmarse, Kat. You really need to stop smoking so much of that mota before bed, it makes you paranoid" She'd gotten used to that mothering edge Camila pulled on her frequently "He's fine, but he's got some problems. He's looking for a girl"
"What girl? What'd she do to him?"
"A girl who just happened to stumble into our mule route" Kat's eyebrows raise as she takes a quick puff of the blunt "I'm not sure what she did to him yet, I'm going to question her soon and find out"
"Okay, do you want me to come to the warehouse?" She's already sitting up.
"No, that's not necessary. I just wanted to make sure you heard it from me first, and that you know I would like to keep this…an internal business for the time being"
Internal business? Kat lets that roll around in her head for a moment.
Ah, so we're going to be keeping this from Don Epifanio, she thinks to herself.
So if, and when, she got a call asking if she knew where the girl was she was to keep her mouth shut.
"I understand" She assures.
"Good, I knew you would. Not get some sleep, hija. I'll see you in the morning" And with that the line goes dead and Kats left with her phone in her hand, the blunt in her mouth and
"Rahn Staph" echoing from the TV.
She just knows the coming day is going to be a bitch.
The next day is long, for all parties included.
Teresa notices her the moment she walks into the room; the sound of heels clicking against the concrete floor catches her attention and sends her gaze in the direction of the door the full-figured girl had just come through.
Not Camilla, Teresa thinks to herself as she sees the girl. The girl who looks painstakingly familiar with her smoky eyes and her long highlighted hair that falls past her well ample bosom.
She's obviously not a mule. Not a worker.
Not one of these girls that surrounded Teresa on cots, who had makeshift desks made out of old plastic crates and who wore clothes that probably came from 'Walmart' could afford the leathery black bag the girl who had just walked in had hanging at the crease of her elbow.
Givenchy, Teresa notes with a pang of incredible longing for the past. She remembered when Guero had boughten her nearly identical one, remembers the feeling of utter disbelief.
"You could've bought me a pinche car, Guero, with how much this costs!" She had scolded him, but held the raw leather satchel, worth over twenty thousand pesos, close in awe.
The girls hair bounces in a way that indicates a recent blow out and even from Teresa's spot on the hard ground she can see nails so manicured, Teresa can almost smell the acrylic of the salon.
But, it's not only the material things that give away the obscure girls status; because if anyone of these mules could make enough money they'd be all dolled up too.
But they couldn't stand with the caviler importance that this girl did. There was no fear, no hesitance as she talked to the men, who clambered around the warehouse with her arms folded over her chest, her green eyes shining. No, piercing. Everything about her demanding attention.
And they seemed to give it to her, respectfully, if not in a friendly- almost playful way. Comrades.
And that's when Teresa, who had been assessing the girl since she came in realized that she had to be some one big. Someone in charge of something.
When that pair of cat like green eyes turns and meets Teresa's own chestnut orbs Teresa' expects them to be filled with...well she doesn't know, but she doesn't expect them to be so vibrantly questioning. And not in a cold way, but in a blatant 'I'm looking at you, and you know I'm looking at you, and I know you know I don't care if you can see me questioning your entire existence' kind of look.
The kind of look Teresa had seen children give art exhibits at museums.
"Hey" Teresa's attention is snapped away from the green eyes and to the woman in front of her. "Here" said woman hands her a cloth full of ice, made to be an ice pack.
"Gracias" Teresa thanks as she puts it up to the throbbing cut on her lip, the one she'd earned by being pistol whipped through the chain-link cage by a burly man. All she'd fucking asked was to see Camila. Cabron.
"It's okay, I know you're scared. My names Aveline"
"Teresa" She replies after a moment, hesitant because this kind of kindness- the kind this girl was showing her, usually had an ulterior motive behind it.
"Are you a pro or mule?"
Teresa had heard that word, pro, thrown around a few times since she had been bought in. She still didn't exactly know what it meant. But she had an idea. And she most definitely was NOT a 'pro'.
"Neither"
"Do you even know where you are" the soft tone of Aveline's voice makes her annoyed for some reason. It's almost patronizing.
"Dallas"
Aveline shifts, seeming to get more serious.
"My advice to you, the guy who just gave you that: that asshole, he's the nicest guy in here"
That's comforting.
"And who's that girl?" Teresa implores, turning to look again at the girl who stands across the room with a group of the Narcos.
"That's Kat, she's a head, a kind of 'Donna' in training. Her padre was an Alma" Ah, Teresa thinks. She knew it. The Alma's we're a known branch of the Colombian cartel "She's cool though, she brings us in stuff all the time. She'll even do your makeup if you ask her"
"It's not so bad here, once you get used to it. You stick close to me and I'll help you out. I help a lot of girls. If you follow me you'll see; and before you know it you'll be in my position"
Teresa listens to Aveline, listens to her tell her the ways of navigating the world of being a mule and her stomach churns as she attempts to keep a composed face, to not let the dread she's feeling show.
She has absolutely no desire to be like this girl.
To have to do "some things" for better food or for better money. And being quiet like a mouse had never been her strong suit.
She'd been in this position before; dirt poor with nothing but the clothes on her back. So why was it such a hard pill to swallow now? Maybe because she knew what it was like to live, really live, and not just eat crumbs to survive.
She'd feasted on filet-mingon, and couldn't really imagine being satisfied with frijoles ever again.
Unbeknownst to Teresa, across the room those green eyes had never really left her and were still assessing her.
Kat was still trying to figure out what in the world this girl could have on Epifanio that was causing him to be in such a panic.
Learning how to pick up on peoples body language, on the tone of voices kind of came with the job and when she got the phone call from Epifanio earlier this morning she knew some weird shit was up.
"Don Epi, I'm happy to hear that you're doing okay" The cheerful, pleasant little girl act? Yeah, Kat had that down.
"Thank you, Katrina. I'm feeling very fortunate" And their short conversation had gone pleasantly, like most of the conversations she had with him did. She'd always been on good terms with the man; even thought he was a good guy. Well as good of a guy as a man in this business could be.
But they both knew where her loyalties lay, which is why her phone had been on speaker the entire time as she sat across from Camila in her office. The dark eyed elder woman listening to it all.
"You remember her, from the Christmas party back a couple years ago? Guero's girl?"
Not really, she'd been completely wasted at said party. But she said she did anyway.
"What's so important about her though? I mean I get that she stole from you guys, but this sounds really serious" Kat pushes, at the silent request of Camila.
"Nothing important about her at all. We just need to make sure that people like this, and their families are made an example. It's when people start to sense weakness that things start to get messy. We need everyone to know they can't steal from the Vargas cartel and get away with it"
Kat had shared a look with Camila from across the desk. That's a load of bullshit. People already knew not to fuck with the Vargas cartel; there were a sting of bodies over the last decades to prove it.
"Okay, I'll keep an eye out for her. If I come across anything I'll make sure to have Camila call you"
"No, mija, you call. I quite enjoy our little talks" Epifanio cajoles and Kat rolls her eyes, Camila's grin at her is a bit unnerving "Give my love to your grandfather. Tell him he still owes me money from that poker game, eh"
Epifanio really is a charming man. Almost as charming as his wife.
"I'll make sure to do that"
And when the phone line goes dead, both women know now, for sure, that something isn't adding up.
"You see what I was talking about? She means something to him"
"Yeah but what? Guero was pretty high in the ranks. Do you think she's dangerous? To you as well as him I mean?" Kat points out. Because even if Epifanio and Camila are going through this martial spat, they're still connected, when it comes to financial and political aspects in the very least. You still hurt one of them, you hurt both of them.
"I don't know yet, but I intend on finding out"
"Hey! Hey! There's something wrong with her" Kat had only taken her eyes off of Teresa for two seconds when the girl screaming pierces the air of the warehouse.
Wrong with who? Hadn't Teresa just been taking to Aveline…
"Fuck! Fuck go get her!" She yells at the men as it dawns on her what exactly is happening. She clambers behind them in her heels, cursing James in her mind.
That idiot had found the most useless fucking chemist in the world, and their girls kept dying because of it.
"Aw, she's dead" The Charger lets out an irritated groan as he bends down to the obviously dead Aveline and Kat hisses a god damn it.
Not again. Not on a day as important as this one.
"They burst again, fuck"
"Get her to the table!" Kat barks, already taking out her phone to 1. Inform Camila that they had a problem
and 2. To tell James that his chemist had fucked up again and he needed to get down here. Now.
"Get her up" "Come on, come on, come on"
"Quick! Before they dissolve!"
Kat looks down at Teresa, just for a second, before following behind The Charger, Zeferino and the other men.
She knew what was coming, what had to be done, and for the moment she couldn't think of Aveline as Aveline. As a human being, as the nice girl who didn't deserve to be a corpse.
No. For the moment Aveline was nothing more than a mule, one that was full of over fifty grand worth of coke. So when The Charger cuts into her middle, the crimson that pools out of the girl doesn't make Kat gag. Or even wince.
If anything, she's more concerned about the dissolving product which would dissolve their relationship with Han if they couldn't make the delivery.
"Okay, baby. Give me something" The Charger begins to pull gore covered pellets of coke from Avelins stomach; ones that weren't completely ruined and Kat lets out a relieved breath.
"Thank fuck. How many are salvageable?"
She doesn't notice the terror stricken Teresa who watches it all from behind the chain wall, she does how ever notice the movement out of the corner of her eye when the curly haired girl makes a run for it.
"Hey! She's running!" Kat hollers as she watches Teresa spring across the floor, and under one of the garage doors. "Shit. Don't let her get away, Tonto!"
And she wants to go make sure that they get Teresa, that the girl can't escape because she still has no idea what information she had, but, instead Kat stands back at the table with the Charger, counting the pellets as he continues to pull them from the mules insides. Grabbing the bloody drug filled capsules and going to run them under the faucet, cleaning them of blood and stomach acid in an attempt to save them.
One crisis at a time, she reminds her self.
Plus? How was she going to even run after Teresa with the shoes she has on? Breaking her ankle was not on the agenda for the day.
"They better catch that girl or there's going to be hell to pay"
Standing with The Charger over the corpse, Kat's quietly seething. Calculating, as she picks at her nails.
What are they going to do? How are they going to get this shipment out?
Even they don't own TSA, and muleing was the only way to get it past security.
Teresa, of course, had been caught and was now securely locked up. Which was at least one thing Kat didn't have to worry about.
She's brought out of her internal fretting by the sound of the chain door opening and she looks up to see a familiar tall man entering the room.
Good. Someone she can be pissed at, can place the blame on because where the fuck had he even found this "chemist"?
She shoots him a hard cold glare before looking away, her arms folded over her chest.
"Twenty two" The Charger states to him. The number of capsules they'd been able to save.
Rolling the sleeves of his leather jacket up to his elbow, James reaches a hand into Avelines still cut open body. She's gone room temperature and he scrunches his face fighting disgust. He digs around in there for only a moment before pulling his gore covered hand out of her and flinging another pellet into the metal pot.
"Twenty three" He corrects, flicking some of the blood off before going to the sink.
James catches Kat's eye; her jade colored iris' baring into his as they seem to share an unspoken word.
Fuck. The whole situation was totally fucked. Between Aveline's undeserved death and the fact that they were currently screwed on getting the delivery to Han; the word was fitting.
"And Camila?" The Charger wonders.
"She's at Rubins' kids' quinceanera. I'm shocked you're not there too" James answers him, still looking at Kat who makes a face.
"If I have to go to another quince this year I'm going to blow my brains out" She'd been to four already in the last few months and she was done. She'd just send her "love" and an expensive gift.
She stands straight, grabs her bag off of the counter beside her and walks out of the chain-link room without another word to either of the men, in a vain attempt to catch her breath.
You can figure this out just don't freak. It can be fixed. Yoga breaths Kat's repeating it like a mantra in her head as she pulls her phone out of her purse, texting Camila.
'Teresa tried to run'
Okay, when I started watching this series I didn't expect to become as hooked as I am. Like scary, I watched all of season one in two days hooked. And then I came on here looking for some fanfiction and there was only one. Fucking. Story. That is unacceptable. This show is too good, too juicy and fiction worthy to only have one story. So of course I have to write a few of my own. Ya'll know my love for OC's, and James Valdez is too droolsome not to write an OC love story about. So enjoy