Page 62 of Cartel Viper (The Cartel Brotherhood #2)

Chapter Thirty-One

Javier

It’s been three days since Maddy visited Laura.

She wouldn’t tell me what happened in the sunroom, but she came out and walked straight to me, wrapping her arms around me.

She didn’t appear upset, but Laura didn’t look pleased at Maks.

I figured Laura figured shit out or Maks told her shit that pissed her off.

If it were just Maks, I’d gloat. But I don’t wish any of Maddy’s family to be unhappy.

Maddy was quiet the entire way home, so I didn’t press the issue.

We went to bed early, then I waited until she fell asleep before slipping down the hallway to my office to call Maks.

It got contentious, but we came to a truce.

He accepted that I will strike back, but I agreed not to do anything that could affect Laura.

I’ve waited a few days, so Maks can wonder when and how.

He’s about to find out.

“Is everything set?”

“Yeah.”

Pablo’s a trained biologist and chemist. We are Colombian, after all.

It comes in handy for our family business.

He’s not the only one with a fascination with science.

I may be a lawyer, but I also double majored in electrical and mechanical engineering.

I’ve always had a fascination with physics.

I can remember a hell of a lot more than the rate of gravity is nine-point-eight meters per second and Newton’s three laws of motion.

In this case, if Maks hadn’t bothered me, I wouldn’t have been bothered back.

An object at rest remains at rest. If he hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t be pushing back.

When an object exerts force on another, the second object will react with an equal and opposite force.

If he hadn’t fucked up so badly, I wouldn’t have gotten so pissed so fast. The acceleration of an object depends on the mass and force applied.

I’m a big fucking guy who’s big fucking pissed.

Right now, the laws of motion and gravity will apply to the fireworks my brothers, cousins, and I are about to watch.

I built the explosives, and Alejandro set them with no problems. The Kutsenkos’ security is slipping.

My cousin shouldn’t have approached the warehouse with such ease, but he did.

Then again, Alejandro is a fucking ghost.

He’s the biggest of us but the most light-footed.

He can disappear right before your eyes.

He’s been like that since he was a toddler.

He’d just slip away, and no one would know where he went.

It would terrify Tía Catalina and Tío Matáis until they realized he usually went one of three places: the kitchen, the swings in their backyard, or his room to read.

It’s why he spends so much time going back and forth to Colombia. He’s our best spy.

“In three, two, one.”

The sky illuminates with a burst of red and orange. The noise is a cacophony of shattered glass, rattling metal, and bricks crashing to the ground. I grin like a fucking fool.

“That’ll be inconvenient.”

Even though talking is often my job as the family lawyer, I can be the master of understatement.

This warehouse is their equivalent to our bodega.

It’s where they handled—blessedly past tense—the shit no one can see.

It’s where they disposed of their refuse.

Now they’ll have to find somewhere else to hide.

That won’t be easy since we just bought several abandoned warehouses in Queens that we’ll flip. We also knocked down ones that weren’t on city records because they were already so fucking dilapidated most people wouldn’t even look in their direction.

We watch the blaze for a few minutes, no feelings of remorse for the men inside who never saw this coming.

When I’m certain nothing will rain down on me at those nine-point-eight meters per second, I stroll over to the blast. I leave a bouquet of seven Flor de Mayo —May Flower.

They’re really Cattleya trianae orchids—the Colombian national flower.

There’s one for each of us: Joaquin, Jorge, Pablo, Alejandro, Tío Enrique, Tío Luis, and me.

A little calling card, so they know who’s pissed at them today.

Besides, I don’t want the fucking Mancinellis or O’Rourkes claiming this win. Those fuckers would. Fucking cheaters.

It’s broad fucking daylight as we drive away in our SUV. It takes some huevos to pull that off when anyone could have seen us—when men should have seen us.

“How soon do you think you’ll get a call?” Jorge looks at me in the rearview mirror while he drives.

“Five minutes?”

“No. He won’t call. He’ll know about the building and figure out it was you. If he calls, he has to admit that not only did we find their lair, we also got one over on them.” Pablo frowns and shakes his head.

We make it back into Manhattan without any of our phones ringing, and we didn’t get a call from Tío Enrique who sanctioned this retaliation.

Jorge drops me off at my place, and I head up to the penthouse.

Maddy was looking at hospital and clinic openings for midwives when I left. I’m not sure what she’ll be up to now.

“Honey, I’m home.”

I call out to her, loving the cliché since she agreed to move in on our way home from her sister’s. She steps out of my office, and I know something is wrong. Did Maks fucking call her? Or did he make Laura call her?

“ Chiquita , what’s the matter?”

“My license is suspended.”

“What? Driver’s or nursing?”

“Nursing. I can’t find any history of complaints or reprimands, but the state system shows it as suspended for misconduct.”

I walk over to her, and she steps out of the way, pointing to my computer monitor. I move around the desk and take a seat. Sure as shit. She’s not allowed to practice in the state of New York. I look over at her, unsure how she’s feeling since I could only sense something was off.

Is she scared? Angry? Confused?

“Javi, I’m pretty sure I know who did this.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Drew’s mother.”

“How could she do this?”

“She might not have hacked the system herself, but she knows several people at the Board of Regents and State Education Department. They’re who oversee midwives.

We usually don’t have direct oversight but rather are independent practitioners who work for a hospital or private practice.

But we still have to have our license, and now I don’t. ”

“Does it say what kind of misconduct?”

“It claims ‘failure to report and treat’ as the grounds. It doesn’t give specifics about an event, but it states I didn’t give adequate care to a high-risk pregnancy which resulted in miscarriage at twenty weeks. That’s when a pregnancy is generally deemed viable.”

“Did you search for any alleged malpractice suits?”

“Yes. Nothing came up, but I hoped you could check. I figured you can probably get into shit I can’t since you’re admitted to the bar here.”

I pull up a couple of sites and do some searches. Fortunately, nothing comes up.

“It looks like she settled for this.”

“Fucking cunt. I always disliked her, but I made nice for Drew’s sake.

Now that I look back on it, she probably resented me for my bratva connections.

She asked about Laura a few times when Drew and I first got together, but he changed the subject each time.

She tried when we were alone, but I mentioned it in passing.

He got quiet, then she never asked again.

Reflecting upon that, I think she hoped to find something to leverage. ”

“I’ll have Joaquin sort this out. He’ll get it reinstated by morning.”

She shakes her head as she stares at the computer then looks up at me.

“That’s not enough. She won’t stop. They might have named Drew’s successor already, but she’ll still be eyeballs deep in their shit.

She’ll prod whoever’s the new boss until they give in.

She controls the books, according to Elle.

If that’s the case, she’ll make life financially difficult for anyone who gets in her way.

She’s a fucking battleax. I saw how she treated Drew’s dad.

Talk about pussy whipped. Drew usually ignored and avoided her, so I didn’t have to spend time with her often.

When I did, she fucking nagged Drew’s dad like it was her fucking full-time job. ”

“We have things in the works, chiquita . They’ll all know you’re untouchable now.”

“It’s not like I don’t take everything else personally.

But this strikes deeper. I gave up my career because it was my choice.

I knew I wouldn’t practice under an assumed name.

I accepted that. This is about her revenge for her son, for me dating her son, and for me escaping her son. You won’t strike her, but I will.”

“Stay out of it, Maddy.”

She practically bares her teeth at me when she crosses her arms and lifts her chin. She hasn’t been defiant since we reconnected. She’s digging her heels in now.

“I won’t tell you not to be pissed or want revenge, but if you get involved, I will punish you.”

“Fine.”

She’s not backing down. She’s telling me she’ll take whatever I dole out.

I rise and push in the desk chair. I prowl around the desk until I’m standing in front of her.

She’s unprepared for how fast I move. I spin her and press her to lean over the desk.

She’s wearing a dress she ordered a couple days ago since she packed light when she ran away.

My brothers went back up to inspect the estate.

The surveillance was down, but there was next to no damage besides losing the garage.

They brought back her bag that she left up there.

Even with that, she didn’t have a full wardrobe.

I flip the dress up and find her without panties. I crack my hand down, landing it across most of both cheeks. I spank her four more times in rapid succession.

“This is a warning. It’s a hint of what I’ll do if you involve yourself, Maddy. Stay out of it.”

“It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

The next swat is far harder than I intended, and I fear I went too far. But her comment infuriates me.

“You sorely underestimate my creativity, little one. I told you my forgiveness is unconditional, and it always will be. But that doesn’t mean I’ll forego punishing you.

I’m warning you, Maddy, stay out of this.

If you endanger yourself recklessly or purposely, you will find yourself under house arrest. I will lock you in this penthouse until I can trust you again.

There is nothing I won’t do to protect you, so don’t push me into something neither of us will enjoy.

That might break us, but I’ll do it to keep you safe. ”

She freezes at my last comment before looking back at me. “You’d break up with me?”

“That’s not what I said. It’s more likely you’d leave me if I tried to imprison you. But I will if I can’t trust you not to do something that’ll put you at risk.”

“Then help me.”

I run my hand over her pinkened ass before taking her hand to guide her away from the desk. I know I’ll regret asking.

“What do you want to do?”

“The money and product I buried. I want to go back to Albany and get it. I want your family to have it to do what you want with it. I know where other shit is stashed in the place I shared with Drew. Shit no one knows about. I wasn’t supposed to, but he wasn’t the only one who watched our place.

It wasn’t hard for me to figure out the login to the app he used.

I’d wipe my activity on it, so he never knew I spied on him just like he spied on me. ”

“Tell me where to look and what I’ll find.”

“He never knew I added my biometrics to lockboxes and safes. Unless you want to blow shit up in a residential area, you need me to slip in and out of the house.”

“No. I’ll find a way to get the shit out of there and bring it to you.”

“He had it sunken into the foundation. You can’t take it out.

That was the point. Apparently, he had a small team of guys work on the foundation.

A fire burned some of the building materials at a warehouse, so it delayed the build.

Really, it kept people away from the site while the foundation set and the slab was laid around these safes.

He killed the guys on that first team, including the foreman.

People knew they went afoul of him, but they never knew why.

It kept his new team from asking questions.

I found out all of this a few months ago when he was talking to Jacob.

His cousin warned him about a potential raid, and Drew reassured him shit was so well hidden, the feds would never find it. ”

“If it’s in the foundation, it means removing the flooring.”

“Yeah, which is tile in the areas above the safes. There are lockboxes hidden in the attic insulation too. There’s cash and drugs.

My guess is also forged documents and identification.

There could be more, but I don’t know what.

I know which tiles are loose and how to get them out without disturbing the ones around them.

There was a power outage during a storm while he was in LA a year ago.

I went into the attic and found the lockboxes and added my biometric credentials to them.

We had a cable and internet outage six months ago, which meant the app couldn’t record or transmit anything.

I used that opportunity and him being down here in the city to deal with the safes. You need me, Javi.”

It would be faster to take her up there, but I don’t like it. We don’t need anything the O’Sheehans have, even if I might want the shit. It’d be impossible to excavate the place without knocking it down first. Someone might notice.

I can have a wry sense of humor even at times like this.

“Let me talk to the others before I rule this out. I won’t advocate for it, but I will share your ideas.”

“That’s fair. If you agree to it, I will follow whatever rules or instructions you give me, Javi. I want a long life with you. I’m not looking to end it because I fuck up the mission.”

“You also don’t want the sore ass and needy pussy I leave you with after I punish you.”

“I definitely don’t need those, Daddy. Thank you for listening.”

“Always.”