Robert Deluca

The Pact with the Devil Robert Deluca

When compelling economic circumstances catapult a headstrong and eminently successful Texas business executive on to a collision course with Mexico's most authoritarian and ruthless drug lord, only one is likely to survive. One man bullies his way through life leveraging the force of his personality and the advantages of his executive position. The other rules strictly though the intimidating power of an iron fist of physical violence. Neither has ever known a peer in his own domain. Basking in personal affluence, Travis Nelson is a highly respected, and universally admired businessman, who owns housing development company. Handsome and articulate Nelson runs in elite social circles and has an impressive home in a prestigious gated community. His "perfect" family with two grown sons, college age daughter, and trophy wife seem the impeccable complement to his professional achievements, except that, in reality, the home front is a virtual sham. Suddenly his company is suffering an unprecedented cash crunch and is being pressed by lenders. Coincidentally, the Los Toros drug cartel in Durango, Mexico is desperate for new ways to distribute contraband across the Rio Grande border. A brash US educated cartel member proposes to the supreme drug lord, Rodolpho Morales, using the Texan's border properties as halfway houses in their smuggling operations. Nelson, who has never let ethical issues deter him, quickly strikes a deal, which promises to bring him the cash he desperately needs. The devious arrangement works well for a while but sours just as Nelson's tenuous personal life falls utterly apart. Feeling jilted by the American's perfidy, the cartel boss kidnaps him to a remote outpost in the bleak Chihuahuan desert, where sitting alone in a cold adobe hut he finally realizes what his obsessive ways have cost him. He is facing a firing squad while his sons rush to rescue him. Fate steps in at the drug lord's compound when the condemned Nelson's impulsively acts during a surprise suicide attack by a hated rival warring cartel and creates an immense debt which the drug lord cannot ignore. The Mexican cannot release his dishonest ex-partner, but should he execute him as planned?