Page 96 of Cartel Rose (Jorge)

With our earpieces in, Joaquin whispers to me on our secure channel. Our cousin’s the one who speaks Russian in thefamily. It would be fucking useful right now as we surround the property.

“We can always call him. He’s better than any app.”

“I suppose your German will do.”

My older brother elbows me and grins. I give him an internationally crude hand gesture.

When everyone’s in position—Joaquin to my right on the back patio—I give the signal. I swing the mini battering ram into the door, and the door bursts open. I toss the home invasion tool aside, and I storm inside.

We all keep low, crouching as we progress forward. It comes as no surprise when bullets sail over our heads as our target shoots first and hopes to ask questions later. He’s got real bullets, and this time, so do we. I pivot and aim into the living room, taking out his kneecap.

“Hör auf zu heulen wie ein kleines Mädchen, du Dreckskerl.” Stop crying like a little bitch, you piece of shit.

I lunge forward, far closer than he expected. My fist strikes his left cheekbone, and his head snaps back. If he were going to live to see tomorrow, he would wake up with whiplash. Since that’s not happening, he’ll just have to survive the ensuing pain. I drag him to the dining room chair Joaquin pulls out for him. My brother holds our prisoner’s head in place, so he has no choice but to look at me. I keep a healthy distance, so he can’t spit in my face.

I launch my interrogation in German. Joaquin can’t understand me, but we’ve played these roles so many times that we don’t need verbal cues to know how to work together.

“Why did Maks take Gunter Schlossberg?”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You and your goons took Gunter Schlossberg from his office nearly a week ago. You sent his daughter body parts. Why?”

The guy tries to ignore me. I kick him in the shin of his wounded leg. He howls with pain.

“Don’t make me ask things more than once.”

I withdraw my knife from my pocket and embed it in the bullet hole in the guy’s leg. It matches Joaquin’s knife that I know is tucked away in his right pocket. We’ve carried ours since we each turned twelve. It’s that fucked-up tradition among the Four Families. We may have played sports together, but once each of us turned twelve, we got a knife. We’d go from being teammates to enemies every week. Now we’re still enemies and almost never teammates.

“I haven’t spoken to Maks in a couple weeks. I haven’t had a reason to.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t give you orders months ago. My patience wears thin.”

My brother grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks back as hard as he can. The Russian’s neck arches as he screeches in pain. I slam my fist into the guy’s nose. Blood gushes, and I give him another kick in the shin for good measure.

There’s something he isn’t telling us; however, doubt creeps into my mind that he doesn’t know anything about Gunter. He may know something about Liesel or me. I exchange a glance with Joaquin. I suspect he feels the same way.

“You have a couple of choices. You can speak now without us coercing you, or we can slowly hack you into pieces that could go down the garbage disposal without a problem. Which do you think is the better choice?”

The man chokes from the blood pooling in his mouth—shitty postnasal drip. It’s a good thing I’m standing to the side because he spits a wad of gunk before he speaks.

“Just kill me.”

“Oh, that’s not a choice. That’s definitely happening, so you don’t get to count that as an option. Either tell us what we want to know, or we’ll coerce you with a few friendly nudges.”

I put my knife to his left earlobe. Joaquin lets go of the Russian’s head and steps around the chair to stand parallel to me. He fishes out his knife and flicks it open. Before the man can suspect what’ll happen next, Joaquin has his arm turned and slices diagonally three times on the guy’s inner wrist. They aren’t deep enough to kill him, not even over time, but they are enough to make a mess.

“You can either tell me what we want to know, or you’ll die looking like Van Gogh.”

I use my knife to carve a chunk off his earlobe before I pry his mouth open.

“Do you want to eat your own flesh, or do you want to tell me what the fuck is going on?”

True fear enters his eyes, and the defiance dwindles. Stupidly, it still outweighs common sense. I don’t think he believes I’d make him into a cannibal, certainly not one who would eat a chunk of his own flesh, but I’ve been known to do some fucked-up shit in my life. There’s a first time for everything. I’m certain he’s figured out we’relos Diaz. He knows our reputation.

“I’d speak up because right now I can’t hear you.”

The only thing we hear are his howls of pain. I curl my lip in disgust.