Page 45 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

“Do you need me to do anything to help you get ready?” She glances around the room as she speaks.

“No. I have everything I need. Tío Enrique wants to speak to you, then we’ll head out. Tía Elle will take you to Maks and Laura’s.”

“Is it safe for her to go out?”

“Nothing will happen to her there.”

Her eyes widen. “I never thought it would. I meant on the way there and back. Is it safe for her to leave the house?”

“Yes. You’ll take an SUV and have guards too.”

“Then why does she have to come? Javi, I don’t want her to take any unnecessary risks for my sake.”

“She said she had some errands to run, so she’s going out, anyway.”

That’s sort of the truth. One of countless half-truths I’ll tell Maddy in the seventy years to come.

“I’ll text Laura. I don’t want to hear her or Maks gloat.”

“I called Maks already. He knows.”

She stares at me, then nods. When she turns toward the door, I catch her forearm.

“Maddy, his family and mine had things to discuss, including my over-the-top demands for your protection. For your safety and his family’s, he has to know some of what’s planned.

But he doesn’t know all of it. No one outside my family—not even our men—know for sure.

After what happened at the estate, we trust no one who doesn’t share our DNA within one degree. ”

“Daddy, I believe you, and I trust you.”

She rests her hands on my waist as both of mine cup her neck.

I lean forward to kiss her as she rises onto her toes.

This is more than lust. It’s more than infatuation.

It’s not quite love—at least I don’t think so, but how the fuck would I know since I’ve never been in love—but we’re getting there.

When we pull apart, her expression tells me she knows this is something real.

Something deep. Neither of us is caught up in the moment.

It isn’t danger propelling us toward each other. It’s longer lasting than that.

I hope I survive to enjoy it.

“How the fuck did they know where we were?”

I swing the crowbar at José’s left ribs, making sure the hook catches on the bone.

Miguel brought him to our place. It’s a bodega the other families assume is in Queens.

We have one there where we run our underground—literally and figuratively—gambling rings and where Tío Enrique can hold court with people who survive the meeting but need to understand it’s only by his good graces that they do.

This bodega is on Long Island. The bratva and Mafia have their places in Queens.

We suspect the mob is in the Bronx, and we’re out here.

The O’Rourkes and my family prefer some subterfuge.

The Kutsenkos and Mancinellis couldn’t give two fucks from Sunday and are willing to risk being discovered for the sake of convenience.

José is on death’s doorstep. He looks like shit.

Miguel knew we’d expect to see his former brother-in-law.

That meant he got in a beating before it was our turn.

He knew he risked our wrath by taking it upon himself, but he counted on us understanding why he wanted his pound of flesh.

The damage Miguel did meant José couldn’t put up a fight, but he wasn’t so incapacitated as to be useless.

“They found out.”

“No shit. You told them where we were.”

“No. They found out about Miguel and Tómas.”

“Why the fuck would the mob in Albany give a fuck about a couple of our guys tucked away in Connecticut?”

“Not the Irish in Upstate. The bratva here.”

That gives me pause. There’s not a damn thing homophobic about the Kutsenkos or Andreyevs. They’re modern Russians. They have reason to be very accepting of any lifestyle. Why would a gay couple in our organization matter to them?

“Were they blackmailing you because of it?”

“Yeah. They don’t care, but they know other families would.

They weren’t going to use it against you directly.

It was information to sell to anyone who wanted to fuck you over from the inside out.

They knew not everyone would accept my brothers.

It was tell them where you disappear to, or they’d sell the information to a Mexican or Colombian rival. ”

“You believed them? ?Qué pelota eres! ” What an idiot you are.

“I’d do anything to protect my brother!”

“Shitload of good it did you. He’s dead because of you.”

José wails with grief. For the few hours left of his miserably pathetic life, he’ll regret that to his last breath.

“ ?Lo sé! ” I know!

“So, they told the O’Sheehans where our family’s most sacred place is because you told them.”

I rear back with the pipe ready to crack more ribs on his left side. There are at least two I haven’t gotten to yet.

He shakes his head. “No. I knew they were bluffing about telling any New York family about the estate. That was an empty threat. The Kutsenkos went after the O’Rourkes’ ancestral home to punish them, and it’s cost them millions ever since.

We know Pasha, Misha, and Aleks nearly died last year in the Czech Republic because the O’Rourkes’ reach is that far.

I believed them when they said they’d tell someone in Mexico or Colombia about my brothers.

I figured they’d sell the info to your rivals in exchange for someone in Latin America going after the O’Rourkes for them.

I didn’t guess they’d tell someone in Upstate. ”

“Why were they even in contact with the O’Sheehans?”

“I don’t know. Probably something to do with your woman since she’s Maks’s sister-in-law.

When Drew sent men to find Tómas and Miguel, I tried to lie.

I said they were just best friends since they were kids.

I said I was as close to Tómas as Miguel was.

They had photos of them on vacation in Jamaica. ”

I told them not to go there. I told them too many syndicates do business there for them to ensure their privacy. They didn’t fucking listen. A horseback ride into the mountains to a coffee plantation likely cost them Miguel’s life.

“Why’d you tell anyone about the estate if you knew your brother was there?”

“I was supposed to get a text before the attack. I was supposed to get enough heads up to get my brother and me away from there.”

“And the text never came in.”

José shakes his head again. He’s strung up, naked with his arms over his head. He can’t even hold it up anymore, so it lolls to the side, resting against his left bicep.

“I got the text, but it wasn’t an alert to get out. It said dead men don’t tell tales.”

“No shit. There was no way they’d let you live once they attacked.

They didn’t want anyone to survive that.

You were their first target outside my family.

If they hadn’t killed you, how did you think you’d survive my brothers and me?

If we’d died, how would you have survived my tíos ?

If you hadn’t confessed, they would’ve killed every survivor to ensure the guilty were punished. They’d never have trusted you again.”

“ ?Lo sé! But I had to take the chance if it could save Miguel.”

“You should’ve come to us the moment anyone approached you with that information. You know we supported them. We would have protected them. Instead, you got your brother killed. No one is to blame but you. You did this. It’s all your fault.”

“ ?Lo sé! ?Lo sé! ?Lo sé! ”

He keeps repeating himself, the emotional anguish worse than the physical pain he’s endured.

I know Tómas made José confess all of this to his parents, made him be the one to tell them he got their other son killed.

They’re an old Cartel family, so our relationships with the other families is no secret.

“Let’s go back a moment. I want to be completely clear. Drew approaches you with the knowledge that Tómas and Miguel are a couple. He threatens your brother. How do you get from there to telling them about the estate? They would have been safe there.”

His hands fist and unfist, and he trembles. It makes the rope he’s hanging from vibrate, which makes him swing and twist since only the tips of his toes touch the ground.

“It was the senorita or my brother. I told you we were supposed to have time to get away. It was tell him where you took her, or he’d hunt down Tómas and Miguel.”

“Which Kutsenko told Drew to approach you?” I’ll kill whichever one it was.

“I don’t know. Drew never said.” I believe him because Drew knows if he survives my family, he wouldn’t survive selling out the Kutsenkos.

“Why’d he think you’d know in the first place?”

“He didn’t for sure. I was his only contact who might know anything useful. He called me right after his guys told him she was with someone in your family and demanded to know where you might take her. It was before you even arrived. I only confirmed it when you pulled through the gate.”

“So, you called him? You could’ve kept quiet.”

“ Sí, patron .” Yes, boss.

“Were you involved with the windows?”

His head drops all the way forward before it bobs. It lolls back against his arm as he answers.

“I faked a purchase order and lied about your mother ordering new windows. I had them replaced the day after I spoke to Drew for the first time.”

I stand back and assess him. I consider how much more torture he can withstand.

Plenty. I consider how much more information he has left to give.

Probably not much. What Tómas did was to punish him.

What I’ve done so far was to coerce him.

I haven’t even begun punishing him for putting Maddy and my brothers in danger or for violating the sanctity of Papá’s gift to Mamá.

I turn toward Jorge and Joaquin, who took turns with a set of pliers.

He’s minus a few teeth, and he’s had his balls in a vise for a while.

They shrug in unison. I put the crowbar down on a table near the door to the office we built.

It has a couple of cots and three showers along with a desk and some chairs.

We often spend days at a time here depending on who we’re working over.

We’ve already been here for five hours. To José’s credit, it took longer than I wanted for him to crack.

My brothers and I leave him hanging as we enter the office. We’ll let his fear of the unknown keep him company for a while. I look at Tío Enrique, Pablo, and Alejandro. They’ve stayed tucked away in here. Tío will speak to José before I kill him. A final goodbye.

“Are you ready for me to see him?”

“You don’t think there’s anything left, do you?”

“Probably not. He might come up with something more when he believes I’m the one who’s going to kill him. But I doubt it.”

“I want to know which one told Drew. It seems so unlikely for Maks or any of the others. There’s plenty of shit they’d gladly tell a rival if they knew, but not about Tómas and Miguel.

And Maks admitted he knew who Maddy was dating, but he didn’t know Drew was hurting her.

He wouldn’t have put up with it if he had, and he certainly wouldn’t help Drew, even if it was to strike us. ”

“Could one of their men have overheard the Elite Group discussing our guys?” Jorge poses the question that’s already run through my mind.

The Elite Group is the bratva’s senior leadership.

Technically, it’s the four Kutsenko brothers.

But their cousins, Sergei and Anton, are in the positions just below them.

Their other cousins, Pasha and Misha, are their most senior generals.

When we use the term, we mean the entire eight tentacle octopus. Eight bodies and one communal brain.

Alejandro disagrees. “I can’t imagine why they’d bother talking about Miguel and Tómas.

Even if they had, they’d never do it where any of their men could hear them.

I can’t believe someone in their inner circle who would.

Considering the lengths they’ve gone to protect their cousins, I just don’t think it was them selling that information. ”

No one knows for sure, but the other three families that matter in NYC suspect there’s a reason Anton and Sergei are the final holdouts not to marry.

The Kutsenkos and their Andreyev cousins know no one in the O’Rourkes, Mancinellis, or us would say shit about any relationship those men might have.

It’s not our business, and frankly, none of the families care.

If we wanted either of those men dead, we’d just shoot them. That’s why this makes no sense.

“Who in the bratva approached José? He said he doesn’t know who told the O’Sheehans, but who blackmailed him to start with?” Pablo’s looking out the two-way mirror, knowing we can see José, but he can’t see us.

I follow his gaze for a moment before turning back to the rest of my family. I’ll let someone else finish José. There are more important things now.

“Good question. We already explained enough to Maks. Now it’s time for him to answer my questions.”