Page 46 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Javier

“Why?”

“ Por qué qué ? If you can’t speak in complete sentences in English, Javier, maybe Spanish will help.”

“Don’t play moderately dumber than you already are, Misha. You know what I’m asking.”

“No, I don’t. Get on with it, Javier. I have other things to do right now.”

“I don’t need to know what you and your wife are up to.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, I figured that’s what you were going to do to your wife.”

“Fuck off.”

It’s no secret all the syndicate couples can’t keep their hands off their partner. Maddy and I are no better—no worse—than anyone else.

We’re breaking a cardinal rule and using the sat phone at the bodega to call Misha Andreyev. Normally, this phone is only for emergencies, but we need to plan what we do next before we go anywhere else.

“Once you tell me why you targeted Madeline.”

My temper is already on its last thread. He needs to fucking answer me.

“Targeted her for what? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Drew O’Sheehan. Why’d you target Madeline to get to him?”

“I didn’t target Madeline.”

Misha sounds pretty adamant, but he could lie to God and get away with it.

“I never would. What does she have to do with this?”

“You knew who she was dating.”

“So?”

I inhale, trying to regain the patience I lost the moment I heard his voice. Going around in circles won’t help us, and me continuing to be belligerent will only shoot me in the foot. I exhale slowly before I try again.

“You know Madeline’s been involved with Drew. You know who and what Drew is. How could you not believe going after him wouldn’t affect Madeline?”

“Because, unlike your family, he keeps women and children out of our business.”

I grit my teeth, reminding myself I can’t explode at him over something he couldn’t possibly know. Obviously, he hasn’t spoken to Maks, or Laura hasn’t told Maks everything yet.

“Misha, O’Sheehan’s the worst of all of us. Not only did he get Madeline involved, he made her one of his mules.”

I don’t want to confess much more than that. But I may have to, and it won’t remain a secret among their family for long, even if I’m not the one to say anything.

“What are you talking about?”

The edge to Misha’s voice isn’t directed toward me. I’ve known him since I arrived in the States, which wasn’t too long after he and his family arrived from Russia. I know when he’s being pissy or threatening me, and when it’s for someone else.

“Ask Laura for more of the details. She’ll know what Madeline would want shared. I won’t divulge anything else.”

“How the hell would you know more than Laura?”

I cock an eyebrow, even though I know he can’t see me. My silence says just as much.

“Motherfucker, you cannot be serious. There is no way in hell Madeline Doyle picked you.”

“Well, I sure am a far sight better than the piece of shit she’s been with.”

“So, you think she’s trading up?”

The snideness in Misha’s voice makes me want to throat punch him. But again, belligerence won’t win the day here.

“Misha, when you went after Drew, you gave him information that allowed him to track Madeline. She ran away from him over a month ago.”

“Ran away? Not broke up, but ran away?”

“Yeah, so what does that tell you about their relationship? She’s been hiding ever since.”

“She wasn’t hiding when she went to your uncle’s reception.”

“Exactly, and she realizes what a misjudgment that was because it meant Drew discovered she was near the city. But you meddling in my family’s business meant he tracked her to her specific location.”

“We don’t meddle in your business.”

I snort a laugh. “ Cabrón , we meddle in each other’s business. None of us have the secrets we want to think we do. Just like you know things about some of our men, we know that about your family.”

He knows exactly who I’m referring to.

“Is that a threat, Javier?”

“No, it’s merely an observation. Why did you sell any of our secrets to the O’Sheehans?

Tell me the truth, Misha, because this is about Madeline’s safety.

You don’t have to give a shit about me or anyone in my family.

But she’s Laura’s sister, and the one thing we can agree upon is keeping her safe.

The only way for me to do that is to know what the fuck is going on, so I’m going to ask you one more time. Why’d you sell secrets to Drew?”

I hear voices in the background, and I’m certain it’s Maks. He’s either asking Misha what he’s talking about or he’s filling his cousin in on more details. When Misha speaks again, the volume is different, so I know he’s put it on speakerphone. I remain quiet now that he’s decided to fess up.

“Unsurprising to anyone, we’ve done surveillance on some of your men.

We observed something interesting by entire coincidence while Niko and I were in Jamaica for a meeting.

We are having complications with some of our deals in Eastern Europe, thanks to the O’Rourkes.

We figured that nugget could be valuable. ”

“Complications, my ass. They’re encroaching upon your territory in Eastern Europe.

You want a way to push them out. Let me guess.

You sold information to the O’Sheehans in order to get them to help you fuck over the O’Rourkes.

They’re pissed at the O’Rourkes for having a stranglehold on all their imports and exports along the St. Lawrence. ”

“Very good. Then again, Javier, you never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.”

“I figured out that part. But you must have sold this information to the O’Sheehans before anything went on between Madeline and me. What did the O’Sheehans plan to do with this against us?”

“You know the O’Rourkes run their guns down the St. Lawrence. But your family has control over the other major product up there.”

Products of the semi-organic type.

I need to keep listening to keep from losing track of his explanation.

“The O’Sheehans are getting pissy that you’re expanding your reach upstate.

They already hate that the O’Rourkes are stronger in Rochester than they are in Albany.

They don’t want you pushing out any of their rivals in Buffalo to take over there.

They think they can handle their rivals, but they know they don’t stand a chance against you once you dig in.

They were going to blackmail you with that information or sell it to rivals in Latin America. ”

“And you—what—thought we wouldn’t find out that all of this originated with you?

You think you’re in any position to sell those kinds of secrets?

Motherfucker, don’t come after my family.

You can piss all the way off, Misha. You pretend your family is so fucking angelic, like your shit don’t stink and nothing sticks to you.

But you’re just like everyone else. You’ll fucking sacrifice anyone—man, woman, or child—to get ahead.

We’re not like you, carechimba. We’ve never used what we figured out about a couple certain someones in your family against you, and we never would.

But you’re fucking hypocrites to the nth degree to tell anybody what you figured out about Tómas and Miguel.

We could very easily do the same thing to your family, but we never would.

You want to call us psychopaths as though we have no boundaries.

But when push comes to shove and women in your family and the Mancinellis and the O’Rourkes have needed help, who the fuck has always been there?

Us. Who the fuck caused problems in the first place?

Not always us. You can’t pin everything that goes wrong on us because you can’t fucking protect the women in your family. Grow some balls, Misha.”

He lets me unleash as I allude to what my family knows about Anton and Sergei. I know he’s letting me vent my spleen because he’s figured out Madeline is mine. He’d do the same thing if we were talking about his wife, Katerina.

“Look, right now that’s neither here nor there, Javier.

I didn’t know the extent of Madeline’s involvement in any of this.

If I had, I would never have spoken within earshot of Drew O’Sheehan.

Regardless of whether she’s a woman, she’s Laura’s family.

You know I wouldn’t do anything to compromise Laura’s family’s safety. ”

“Bull-fucking-shit, cabrón . You knew full well Madeline could’ve been caught in the crossfire of this, and you still did it anyway. You know Drew’s temper. You didn’t think he’d take this shit out on somebody if it went wrong?”

“Yeah, take it out on his men, not on his girlfriend.”

“What about Drew O’Sheehan has ever made you think he can control his temper once it gets fired up?”

Misha’s silent for a moment as he considers what I said. He knows I’m not exaggerating. I can’t fault him for his wishful thinking or believing Drew wouldn’t hurt Maddy since they’ve been together so long. For assuming that if Drew ever hurt Maddy, she would’ve left.

“Look, Misha, what’s done is done, and we’ll deal with that later. But for right now, I need to know what the fuck else Drew knows about my family and what he could do, what he could leverage against us to get to Maddy.”

I’ve tried not to use her nickname, hoping being more formal would keep him from manipulating me if he didn’t know how deep my feelings ran.

But I don’t have the bandwidth to worry about that, and now that I’ve made it clear she’s mine for keeps, there’s no point in downplaying it.

A man like Misha is like any other in this world.

He didn’t draw his wife into his life without being certain he would marry her from the get-go.

He knows it’s the same for me with Maddy.

“There’s nothing else I can think of.”

“Fine.”

“What’s she doing right now?”

“I don’t know. Are you not at Maks’s?”

“I am.”

I glanced at the clock on the desk. “Misha, she should’ve been at Maks’s house ages ago. Is he not wondering where she is?”

“I don’t know. Wait a minute. Maks!”

“Jav—”

“Maks, what do you know?” Do I sound as panicked as I feel?

“The last you told me, she was coming over, but you didn’t say when she would be here. I figured she was still at Enrique’s.”

“Fucking hell, Maks. I don’t have a tracker for her yet, so I don’t know where she is.”

I look over at my uncle, and his expression shows he’s as alarmed as I feel. We’re using our satellite phone for this call, not any of our cells. They’re all off, so he can’t easily ping Tía Elle’s phone or the necklace she wears with a tracker in it.

“I have to go, Misha. I need to get back to my uncle’s house and see what’s going on with Madeline.”

“We can head over there.”

“No. You’ve done more than enough. Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Like you hadn’t already fucking figured it out. Don’t be a douche on top of all of this, Misha. I have to go.”

I hang up the call while I’m unfastening my cuffs, then unbuttoning my shirt.

I changed into my regular clothes—a suit—before I left Tío Enrique’s.

It’s cliché as fuck, but José knew all six of us showing up in suits meant we were there to do business.

I took off the jacket, so I had full range to swing the crowbar.

I strip as fast as I can, hopping from one foot to the other as I prepare to jump in the shower.

It’s not just a way to freshen up after a night here on a cot.

We scrub away any evidence we might have picked up in order to preserve our anonymity here and to protect us against bringing any evidence with us.

It also means we go through clothes faster than a group of sorority sisters.

We burn everything when we leave. Pablo’s already collecting my cast-off clothing to put in the burn bin.

Alejandro’s pulling something out of the community closet we have since we can all share clothes just like sorority sisters.

My heart races with a sense of urgency I’m all too familiar with.

But as I shower, it grows to an intensity that alarms me.

It wasn’t that long ago we needed to rescue my Tía Catalina.

She’s always been like a second mom to me since she and Mamá are best friends and have been since they were little.

There’ve been times when my brothers, cousins, and uncles have been in danger too.

This is different. It’s never been the woman I want to spend my life with.

It’s never been the woman I can’t imagine taking another breath without.

She’s become my everything in what seems like a matter of moments.

But in truth, I’ve always had feelings for her, and she’s had the same for me.

It just took us two decades to admit it.

Considering how long it took, I refuse to give up now that I finally have her.

I’m barely dry enough to get my clothes on without them sticking to me.

“Do you want me to drive?” Jorge holds out his hand for my keys.

We could’ve all come here together in town cars or our SUVs, but I knew I might want to leave before we finished in case Maddy needed something. Did I tempt fate by wondering that?

I nod to my brother, knowing his lead foot will allow me to concentrate on trying to track Maddy. Even though no one knows our place is here on Long Island, we still turn off our phones at least five miles away to give us a perimeter to protect our secrecy.

I know the others will finish up with José, and I know they’ll begin a plan to retaliate against Misha. The bratva’ll lose a few men or a few thousand dollars’ worth of goods over this just to remind them they fucked up.

However, we can’t hit them as hard as we’d like.

Otherwise, we could wind up doing something that endangers Laura, Maddy, or some other woman in their family.

We refuse to be like them. My phone pings within seconds of me turning it back on.

There’s a voicemail from my aunt Elle’s number.

My heart may have just stopped as I listened to Maddy’s desperate plea for help.