Page 44 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Javier

I’m about to knock on my bedroom door when I hear Maddy’s voice. I lower my fist, though I know I shouldn’t listen to her call with her sister.

“Laura, I am not going to your house. You already admitted you understand why I came to Javi and why I’m staying here.”

I can’t hear what Laura says, but I can guess.

“No. Absolutely not. I didn’t tell you what Drew made me do because I’m asking for help.

I’m admitting the fucked-up shit I’ve done for the past two years.

The weight of these secrets has been strangling me, and you need to know because he threatened your family.

What I did for the O’Sheehans has no bearing on whether the Diazes can protect me properly. ”

Yet again, I don’t know what Laura’s saying. However, I’ve known her for more than twenty years. I might not guess the exact words, but I know the sentiment.

“I’m not going the fuck over there, Laura. I?—”

Fucking hell.

I knock, and Madeline goes silent for a moment.

“Who is it?”

“Maddy, it’s me. May I come in?”

“Yes.”

I step in and shut the door behind me. Splotchy red patches darken her cheeks.

She’s pissed. A year before I rescued her, she found out about a huge fight—a melee—the guys in my family got into with guys from the other rival families.

She was pissed and disappointed in me the next time we wound up at my aunt and uncle’s for Sunday dinner.

My brothers and I were complete douche’s to Maria Mancinelli because we were all too immature to handle finding out one of her friends had a crush on Joaquin.

We all thought our balls had dropped. He thought, as a senior, he was too good for some freshman girl.

Maria stood up to him, and I made a comment she misunderstood.

I didn’t say it loud enough for her to hear clearly.

Before I could correct her, she was yelling for her cousin Carmine.

With him came his goon of a friend Gabriele.

That got all the Mancinellis’ attention along with the Kutsenkos and their Andreyev cousins.

They stuck up for Maria, and the O’Rourkes egged us on along with telling the Mancinellis they couldn’t defend Maria without the bratva’s help.

She swore I said perra de pecho plano . She told her family I called her a flat-chested bitch.

Before I could correct her, fists were flying.

Then there were knives and guns. It was an utter shitshow.

All of us wound up in more trouble with our respective leaders than any of us could’ve ever imagined in our relatively brief lives.

Tío Enrique was ready to cut out my tongue.

I barely had a chance to tell him what I really said.

I was fifteen and hiding behind Mamá to do it.

The only part Maria caught was perro aplanado —flattened dog—which is what I said my brother would be if any of our uncles found him sniffing around a fourteen-year-old girl. She was only proficient in Spanish back then, and there was too much noise with the music for her to hear me properly.

Maddy looks the same way now as she did that night at dinner when she had to sit next to me.

“Is everything all right?”

“No.”

Laura must have heard me because they answered at the same time, and I could hear Maddy’s sister.

“Can you call Laura back in a few minutes? I need to talk to you.”

I see her hesitation, but she understands that if I don’t want Laura to overhear, it’s something private about our family—my family is Maddy’s family now.

“I gotta go. I’ll call you back … I’ll call you back. Bye.”

Laura must have argued, but Maddy taps her screen, then tosses the phone on the bed. She scrubs her hands over her face. I scoop her into my arms and carry her to the bed, where I perch on the end.

“I’m sorry you fought with your sister.”

“It wasn’t a fight. She’s scared, which just makes her feel out of control. Neither of us do well when we’re like that. It’s why you and Maks?—”

Her cheeks darken, but this time she’s blushing.

“If we weren’t enemies, the Four Families would probably all be best friends.

Chiquita , it’s no secret how similar the men are in each family.

Not just within one but across all of them.

We’re all into similar things, and the couples all have similar dynamics.

It stands to reason Maks and I would have similar personalities, and you and your sister would have similar preferences. ”

“She did call me out on us being kinky, and it was pretty much an admission too.”

She whispers that, and I know she’s only confiding that in me as her partner. She would never tell anyone else something so private.

“Little one, we got some information while you were up here. I need to go out, and the others are coming with me. You need to go to Maks and Laura’s after all.

You’re safe here with Tía Elle, but we think you’ll be more comfortable being around people you know better. I don’t know how long this will take.”

“You have a ‘place,’ don’t you?”

A wall drops between us. How the fuck does she know that? Did Laura tell her when they discussed Maks’s family? Or did she accuse us of something and mention it?

“Daddy, I went to the O’Sheehans’ multiple times.”

“What?!”

Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. It burns hotter than anything I felt earlier today.

This…

This…

This I cannot forgive. Not that I could forgive Drew anything, but this is whole other level shit.

She sighs and closes her eyes as she leans against me. I gaze down at her as my right hand strokes her left hip.

“The first time he took me there, he did it to shock me. To make me realize what he’s capable of.

To frighten me into thinking he’d do some fucked-up shit like that to me if I narced or ran.

After that, there were a few times I led or took people there as though we’d do the deal somewhere private.

I know he never let me see the worst of it.

Just enough to terrify me and control me.

I saw shit that confirmed my worst fears about him.

When we got home after the first time he took me there, he explained all syndicates have a place they go where they control all of it.

A place off the records and maps. A place cops know not to go if someone reports screams. A place that doesn’t officially exist, so the feds can’t get a warrant.

They go to a barn in the western part of Albany, the hill towns.

When he’d go there, he couldn’t talk to me.

His phone was off, so law enforcement and rivals couldn’t track him.

They were the best days because I didn’t have to see or hear him.

Fucked-up, I know. It meant someone else was dying, but I didn’t care.

It meant I was safe. If you’re going to be away for a few days, my guess is you’ll be at your family’s place. ”

My heart races, knowing she witnessed any type of torture.

She’s killed before and obviously seen other people get shot.

But the things that happen at these places—it’s far worse than any mobster movie or the news could guess.

The Mexican cartels leave heads in the streets and bodies dangling from bridges and overpasses.

They use that to intimidate people into obeying. That’s messy and leaves a trail.

New York Colombians prefer to make people disappear without a trace. We erase a person’s entire existence. That absolute control is far more powerful. I don’t want her to know these things about my family—about me. It’s one thing for her to wonder. It’s another for her to have confirmation.

“Javi?” She cups my neck and presses a kiss to my cheek.

“Hmm.” I’m still lost in thought.

“Daddy, I know you hate that I know this. Knowing isn’t a bad thing. It means I won’t fear for you because I’ll know you’re in control. I won’t question where you really are.”

“You mean who I’m really with?”

She shrugs her right shoulder. “That too.”

“I’m certain you know some places I do business are nothing short of seedy.

My family owns strip clubs because men like to measure their dicks in places like that when they do business with families they think they’re superior to.

If they didn’t need us, they wouldn’t do business there.

Strippers and dancers have never been my thing.

There’s only one set of tits and ass I’ll spend my life looking at.

It’s not possible for me to always admit when I have to go to one of the clubs, but it’ll never be recreational.

Have I led women on before to get information?

Yes. Have I been with women because they’ve been as useful to me as they hoped I’d be to them?

Yes. Will either of those things ever happen again?

Absolutely not. I swear, Maddy. If I couldn’t be faithful to you, I never would have touched you. ”

She nods, but she takes a moment to appear confident in her agreement.

“I believe you, Javi, even if I feel insecure. If nothing else, any member of your family would castrate you if you cheated on a woman you’re committed to. I think your mother’s disappointment would be enough to keep you from doing that regardless of the woman you’re with.”

“That’s all true. I can understand why you’d feel insecure knowing I spend time in a place that operates on beauty and sex appeal. But the way I want you—fuck. I can’t get enough of you. There will never be enough time with you even if we spend the next seventy years together.”

“You expect us to live into our hundreds?”

“I might not get my dick up by then, but I’ll still have my fingers and tongue.”

She giggles and shakes her head. “You’re ridiculous, but I get your point.”

She sighs as she burrows against my chest. Would that we could stay just like this, but we both know we can’t. She pulls away as I loosen my hold. We share a soft but far-too-quick kiss, then she’s climbing off my lap.