Page 33 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

Chapter Seventeen

Javier

Maddy’s gaze doesn’t waver, but I know she’d rather talk about anything besides her past with Drew.

She’s promised to tell me more, but she’s not ready to do it now.

However, procrastinating may not be a luxury she has for much longer.

If what she knows can endanger my brothers, then I’ll be unrelenting.

I won’t intentionally be cruel, but I won’t let her past end my brothers’ futures.

“Javi, I don’t know what you know about the O’Sheehans’ businesses.

I assume it’s far more than I can guess.

They have dealings with the O’Rourkes when they must, but they’re usually happy to avoid Dillan’s attention.

With all that’s happened in Boston and Trenton over the past few years, Drew’s family has flown under the radar most of the time.

They answer when Dillan or any of the other O’Rourkes call, but they don’t pick up the phone first. However, they do business with the Tremblays. ”

The Tremblays are Montreal’s leading mob family.

Talk about a complicated cultural ancestry.

A French-speaking Irish mob family. Tremblay is a fairly common last name in Quebec, but there’s nothing common about the man who runs that family.

He happens to be Sean O’Rourke’s grandfather-in-law now.

His daughter had a regrettable one-night liaison with the former head of the Boston mob nearly thirty years ago.

His granddaughter is a highly intelligent and remarkable woman, but it’s bound the Tremblays to the Boston O’Malleys ever since.

It means the O’Rourkes now have indestructible ties to both cities that go beyond business.

That’s been a royal pain in my family’s derriere ever since.

“How much of that business does Sean know about?”

“Not as much as he probably should.”

“Maddy, what does that mean? I need you to just tell me. I don’t want to badger you, but you can’t be evasive anymore. Not with my brothers’ lives at risk.”

“I know, Javi. But it’s not as simple as just opening my mouth and letting all the secrets I’ve been punished for knowing come tumbling out.”

That makes me pause. My gaze skims over her, and it would be easy to pretend I didn’t see the bruises on her wrists days ago or how she shied away when I brushed my fingers over her kidneys at the reception.

My life is like a theatrical performance every day since I reinvent myself depending on the situation.

I can pretend anything does or doesn’t exist depending on how it serves me.

But there’s no forgetting what Drew’s done to Maddy, and I barely know any of it.

“He forced you to know his secrets, then punished you for it?”

“Yes. It’s part of how he controlled me.

He put me in situations where I couldn’t help but learn his secrets, then he’d threaten me if I ever told them.

He’d blame me for things that made no sense, but he’d try to gaslight me.

I didn’t buy into it being my fault, but it didn’t change how I had to react to avoid him lashing out. ”

“How did you react?”

“I’d tell him?—”

The windows rattle, and we look toward the helipad that’s visible outside the kitchen. The door slides open as the helicopter touches down. The blades haven’t slowed by the time Jorge and Joaquin jump out, bent low toward the ground.

“Shit!”

She scrambles to grab her clothes and rushes to put them back on as my brothers run toward the dining room glass doors.

“I’ll let them in and keep them in there until you join us.”

I hurry through the pocket door and slide it closed behind me. Just as I open the left French door, the security system beeps. Someone’s at the first gate.

“ Hola, mano .” Hello, brother.

Jorge gives me a loose hug, and I return it, but I’m looking toward the driveway. There’s no way I can see it with half the house in the way.

“Hey. Did you see anyone pulling up to the gate?”

Joaquin glances in the gate’s direction, but he can see no more than I can. “No. Did one of the guys run out to town?”

“They were all accounted for when I checked the video feeds when we got here.”

I checked them while I turned on the bath.

Every room has screens with the surveillance feeds, so you know where everyone is at all times.

There aren’t cameras in the main house’s bedrooms, but there are ones right outside the doors.

There are cameras in all the rooms in the guards’ bunkhouse.

They aren’t afforded the same privacy my family gets.

The alarm beeps again, and we know that means whoever arrived just made it through the second gate. I don’t like this.

“I need to get Maddy.”

Jorge and Joaquin pull their guns from their lower backs as they spin around and step back onto the patio.

Jorge fishes in his pocket and pulls out an earpiece he tosses over his shoulder to me.

My brothers and I all put ours in, knowing they’ll operate on a different frequency from the ones our men use.

But we can easily flick them over to that one.

We can hear everything the men say, but we can also communicate privately.

We won’t speak Spanish either. We’ll use Macaguán , one of sixty-five Amerindian languages spoken in Colombia.

Only about five hundred people still speak it and almost exclusively in a remote region near the Venezuelan border.

It’s my family’s ancestral language and great for keeping things private these days.

I watch my brothers move back-to-back as they creep toward the end of the patio before I slip back into the kitchen.

“Javi?”

“Something’s going on, Maddy, but I’m not quite sure what. We need to get you in the safe room.”

“Drew?”

“Possibly, but I don’t know for sure. Come on.”

I reach for her arm and wrap my hand around her right elbow, but before we can move toward the door that’ll lead to the foyer, all hell breaks loose.

The sound of automatic weapons firing blasts through the air.

My grip tightens on Maddy as I tug her toward me, pulling a gun from the drawer closest to me.

We have weapons scattered throughout this house, in places people are least likely to imagine.

“Javier?!”

“In the kitchen, Jorge.”

My brother’s voice bellows at me, even though the tone is neutral. His volume makes me realize those gunshots weren’t fired by anyone on our side. Both of my brothers burst into the kitchen, not having made it far down the patio before turning back to find Maddy and me.

“We need to get Madeline up to the safe room.”

“That’s what I just told her. Come on, Maddy. Who is it? Did you recognize them?”

“No.” It’s Joaquin who answers this time.

His back is to us as he scans the scene outside the kitchen window.

Maddy covers her mouth and smothers a scream as the window next to my brother’s left shoulder shatters.

We all dive for the floor, taking cover.

I land on top of Maddy, trying not to squash her but shielding her with my entire body.

“Javi, I recognized that man.”

I barely make out what Maddy says since her voice is muffled from me being on top of her. I push up onto my forearms and roll slightly to my right, giving her enough space to lift her head and look at me.

“That’s one of Drew’s men. How did he get here?”

I look over at my brothers. “Did someone follow you?”

Jorge shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know how they could have. Our flight pattern didn’t follow any roads. It was as the crow flies. The only way anyone could know we were here is to already know where we would be headed.”

More gunfire rips through the air, drawing closer to the house.

Where the fuck are our men who’re supposed to be loyal to us?

Obviously, at least one of our men has sold us out.

Otherwise, these people wouldn’t have made it through the gate.

No vehicle would survive ramming them. They’d come back as mangled metal.

So, the only way strangers are on our land is if somebody let them on.

There’s a moment of silence, so I push up onto my hands and knees, then crouch before reaching out my hand to Maddy.

I only straighten long enough to look out the broken window to see if anyone’s approaching our part of the house.

It’s still quiet for now. The four of us ease out of the kitchen and into the foyer.

But we don’t make it beyond there before we hear voices yelling out Maddy’s name.

“Madeline Doyle, this is the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. We are here to serve a warrant for your arrest. Come out with your hands raised.”

Maddy turns a panicked expression to me and shakes her head.

“We know it’s not real.” My whispered reassurance does little to ease her visible fear.

“Madeline Doyle, come out with your hands up.”

“Javi, that’s Jacob McIntyre. He’s Drew’s cousin. He is a DEA agent, but there’s no way he’d serve an arrest warrant on me.”

“If he thinks you’re gullible enough to turn yourself over to him when you’re on a Diaz property, then he’s insane.

I wouldn’t let you go to anyone outside of my family, period.

Let alone anyone connected to law enforcement or to another syndicate.

He knows you’re not leaving my side. He’s banking on you fearing Drew more than you trust me and going along with what he says to avoid whatever Drew’s told him to do to you if you don’t cooperate. ”

I’m focused on Maddy, but I hear Joaquin speaking to somebody through our earpieces. The radio’s suddenly gotten noisy with men loyal to us calling out orders to help barricade us in the house. I caught the name of the man who betrayed us. But there’s nothing I can do about him right this minute.