The United Cartels of America, Season 6 (Queen of the South)

Part 7 - House Clean-Up

Alina Alicante couldn't hide her amusement with Pote's face when he and Teresa Mendoza walked in her apartment without waiting for her to invite them.

"I need you to tell me all you know about the smuggling that takes place on my property!" Teresa felt her voice and face freeze just at the sight of the other woman.

"Smuggling?" Alina's features were serious.

"Listen, perra (bitch)!" Pote's hand went to his belt in the old gesture of drawing his gun. And came out empty: "We are certain you're involved because I spent the night watching the pinche coke and your personal assistant came with a gym bag and took a few bricks. So, you better talk!"

Alina had been preparing her exit because Carlos hadn't sounded happy with the fact that she had been unsuccessful in seducing her target. Her assistant was her real lover and she didn't like the thought that Mendoza and Galvez now knew of her involvement.

Pote raised his hand and Alina cringed: "All right! I don't know much, but what I know is that it's an experimental shipment ...for a dealer in Shanghai....who sends pills back!"

"Someone named Wong?" Teresa asked drily. She remembered Castel Fioto mentioning this particular Chinese name.

Alina nodded: "I am getting paid to work on the expansion...and on Valdez. I don't know more!"

"Work on him how?" Pote grumbled.

"Like a woman works on a man! Now are we done?" She assumed a stance ready to go.

"Hardly!" Teresa said through her teeth. "Why use my resort? Is there such activity in the other resorts?"

Alina shook her head to show she didn't intend to speak, as Pote's hand pressed her to sit on the couch.

The woman turned around fast, and her arm hit Pote in the shoulder. It took him a few seconds to register the resistance and then he slapped her hard across the face grumbling: "Just because my face looks like shit doesn't mean I'm letting you off the hook, perra! Talk!"

Alina visibly shook: "Mr. Wong wants territories that belong to the Fioto cartel in southwest Mexico. The Chinese are behind him...I don't know much. I'm on a need-to-know basis!"

"Who knows more? Bustamante?" Teresa said coldly.

"He is Wong's main contact!" Alina's hand touched her burning cheek. Then she glared at Pote, then at Teresa and finally said: "You don't wanna mess with him!"

"And why is that?" Pote grumbled.

"He knows what he does...and he does it well!" She was stumbling.

"Oh...So do we, don't you doubt it!" Pote sounded meaner with every sentence.

"Carlos has a special relationship to you..." She nodded in Pote's direction noticing curiosity on both their faces. "Yes, you personally!"

Teresa's mind jumped back to the name Bustamante, that Pote had recognized, to the information Marcel had given her, and her heart executed a blip: "What relationship?"

Her voice must have sounded stressed and high pitched as both Pote and Alina looked at her startled.

"Carlos Bustamante claims you are his father!" The woman glared at Pote, seeing his face contort as his breathing got shaky.

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After a minute of silence as Pote kept sitting on the couch and staring at his feet, Teresa told Alina that her best course of action was to 'get out' with the coke she had stolen last night because The Fioto family was a lot more than a Colombian cartel.