Antonio’s story is a contemporary story set in Tijuana Mexico. Antonio Gonzales appears as an important character in La Santa Muerte. We do not know much about what happens to him in La Santa Muerte and in this novel, part two of the Trilogy, we learn about the chain of events featured in La Santa Muerte, from his point of view. 
Antonio when he is sixteen and in his last term of high school. He is bright and sporty and attractive. His home life is bleak, we learn in La Santa Muerte that his father and two brothers are dead and he lives with his mother and younger brother. We learn that the circumstances of his decimated family are shrouded in mystery and that whilst Antonio is a popular boy at school, captain of the basket team, he is elusive and disappears from the scene quite regularly leaving no explanation or trace. His Friendship and love for Maria is an important part of his story and anchors him.
The story opens with him at home in a run down dirty tenement building in Tijuana’s poorest neighbourhood, his mother barely alive and he eats only when the local deli owner feeds him. 
We see him at school when he plays in a national league basket ball game, he is popular and a leader. At school, he is friends with Maria and this causes a few incidents of jealousy and threats. They meet and establish themselves as lovers.
Shortly after this Antonio meets two men whilst walking home who warn him to stay away from Maria. They intimidate him, Antonio is confused and he disappears for the first time after the end of school. He begins to feel that he is now in mortal danger from men who want to keep him quiet about his father and that they were just waiting until he is old enough. He gets drunk in a bar and ends up in a fight. He is beaten up and dragged off to a location outside the city where he is threatened and tortured. However the police intercept and he gets away unhurt.
Back in Tijuana he finds Maria again at the Festival.
He tries to explain to her that he can’t tell where he has been but that he really cares for her and remains loyal, it hurts him that she doesn’t trust him but he understands that she couldn’t understand. He feels isolated now. He begins to examine examines his conflict; he desperately wants to tell the truth but knows this will hurt Maria and his family.
He makes a plan to submit to a gang and try to understand how they work from inside, it is very dangerous but he feels that he has nothing to lose. He escapes one night and finds his way back home where his mother barely recognizes him. He is angry about her state he resolves to go back and fight but first he wants to see Maria. He is on the run again and begins to move carefully. He feels that he has very few friends he can trust but he does manage to get a message to Maria at college to meet him in secret. The plan goes wrong and she misses him. On his way home he is picked up and taken back to the gang he has been on the run from. They beat him up again, and dump him in Tijuana where he is found and taken to hospital.
He ends up fighting for his life in A and E and sees Maria there who is visiting her mother. He warns her off and he pushes her away. He doesn’t believe that he can have any kind of future now either with or without her.
The police collect him and put him in a correction center, he meets El Nino, who is 15 years old and whose circumstances as a juvenile delinquent are desperate and serve to remind Antonio of all that he has that is worth fighting for. He begins to recover his physical and mental health. The staff are so impressed by his transformation that he is signed off early. They give him clothes and money and he sets out to re-build his life. He heads back to Tijuana. He is intercepted en route and taken to meet Maria’s uncle and he does not realize the connection at first. These are dangerous cartel men. They torture and threaten him until he submits and agrees to work for them although we know that he believes he can use the information he will acquire to ruin them as soon as he can.  He meets a producer with a son called Marcello. He likes Marcello and seeks out his company until his bosses put an end to their friendship.
During his time on the run he tries to get messages to Maria but his opportunities are few. He learns that she came to find him in the correction center. He goes to a bullfight one night and believes he sees her fleetingly.
Daily we see him do the bidding of some of the West’s most wanted men. He sees their folkloric appeal with the growers and those around them. We learn about the life styles of those who profit from illegal drug production and distribution.
He learns of the connection between Pablo and Pedro Rodriguez and who Maria’s father really is, this scene parallels the idea of Jesus and the paralyzed man twisted into the powerful Sinaloa cartel boss as a god like figure to whom he is taken when he is brutally injured after a fight between the rival gangs. He expects to die but his life is spared whilst the mob call for his lynching. 
All the time, Antonio is plotting his escape and by quietly building their confidence in his loyalty they agree to send him on a run to Tijuana and the border. He sees this is his opportunity to make contact with a man who he believes can help him get a new identity and leave the country. He wants to take Maria with him. He takes the man with him and finally Maria learns his story and that his father was fighting to close down the drug cartels. He was a very honorable man much loved in his community. Maria feels exonerated in loving him and agrees to leave illegally even though she can wait a few months and leave legally as she is due to start college in USA. He feels that he will finally be able to continue his fathers fight and find a way to bring his mother to safety across the border. 
Although they both know how dangerous their journey is they are not careful enough and an hour into their journey to the border they are driven off the road and he is shot but Maria’s father and Uncle. Maria manages to persuade them that he is dead and they leave her to get him to safety. He is badly injured and whilst the doctors do not think he will recover Maria waits by his side. Barely 24 hours pass when a helicopter lands in the grounds at the back of the hospital compound. American soldiers enter the hospital and then the room where Maria and Antonio are. They represent FBI and they show a warrant for Antonio‘s and Maria’s arrest by the US government. Maria submits and once inside the helicopter they tell her that they have intervened because they want information and help from Antonio. They land outside San Diego hospital where Antonio is taken into a high dependency specialist treatment unit. Maria is free and she knows he will live.