Cartel Protector (The Cartel Brotherhood #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Alejandro

The things we do for friends.

Especially the ones we’ve known since we were three and making mud pies together in preschool.

This just isn’t my jam. Those four women in dental floss bikinis dancing in front of us are undeniably attractive.

Hell, one’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen, and she’s definitely got my dick’s attention.

But strippers don’t interest me. They never really have.

“Is she your type?” My friend Julián’s voice is so low, I barely hear him over the music and the other guys cheering the women on.

“Somewhere—anywhere—else, maybe.”

Maybe it’s because my family owns several strip clubs, and I associate them with work. Maybe it’s because I just don’t like that much glitter. The one who keeps catching my attention seems different from the other three.

I’m in Chicago attending Julián’s bachelor party. Everyone in Chicago believes it’ll be a quiet destination wedding for him and his bride. That’s because they don’t know how deep undercover he is. It’ll be a large Colombian Cartel one in Queens.

“Come on, baby, shake those tits around. Yeah, right here in my face. I got a hundred dollars right here if you let me motorboat those big old titties.”

I look over to the guy on my left. What a total douche caboose. He looks like he’s ready to jack off right here in front of all of us. Nobody needs to see his pequena polla—little dick—trying to stand at attention.

I shift my gaze back to the woman in front of me.

She doesn’t have to try to get my attention.

She certainly has it—even if I can think of a million other places I’d rather be.

The three women working with her look like your typical Midwestern all-American girls.

This woman is different. Mediterranean—Spanish, Greek, but most likely Italian.

Like real Italian, straight from the motherland.

There’s nothing about her that screams affiliated—like Chicago Mafia Italian—either.

That’s who I’m here with. Julián—these guys know him as Vinny—may be a second-generation American by way of Colombia, but he’s definitely not Italian—though these fuckers don’t know that.

They believe he’s one of them—Mafia. He comes from a long line of members from various cartels, but the guy does impersonations like nobody else I know.

He can adopt any accent out there. So, he’s been the perfect plant in Chicago for a couple of years.

His fiancée’s a New Yorker too. Her family’s Cartel—as in the Cartel—the Diaz Cartel—my family’s Cartel—just like Julián is now. She plays the part as well as he does, having ingratiated themselves into the Rizzo Mafia—the Chicago Cosa Nostra branch.

“What does a good old Southern boy like you want tonight?” The brunette leans forward to line my gaze up with her magnificent tits.

“I don’t know, baby, whatcha got to offer?”

I’ve disguised my New York Spanish accent with one from the South.

I only allow a little of the Spanish part to flavor my words.

The guys on this private yacht with us think I’m from Texas, where Julián supposedly grew up.

They think I’m Mexican, which I sure as shit am not.

I’m Colombian through and through—as in, my parents were fresh off the plane when they had me here in the States.

These fucknuts look like they just left the Jersey Shore, even though they’re from Chicago.

A couple used some colorful terms for Mexicans they thought I couldn’t hear.

One of them cracked a joke about me being in a Mexican cartel.

Pride made me want to respond, but years of training taught me to suppress those reactions to insults.

They definitely were misplaced. There’s an unofficial social hierarchy in Latin America.

And I can promise you, Colombians are above most other countries, including the U.S. ’s neighbor to the south.

“I can offer you a whole lot. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you how much it is.”

And there’s why I’m just not into strippers. I’m just not into paying for my pleasures like that. Sure, I’ll pay my membership to my BDSM club, but I’m not paying a woman directly to gyrate on my lap.

“Give me a little preview, and I’ll tell you what I want, Mamí.”

She keeps running her hands up and down her body.

The longer I watch her, the more my intuition screams something’s wrong.

I’ve learned to listen to it. It’s kept me alive into my mid-thirties.

I’ve had way too many close calls where the hair rising on the back of my neck is the only warning I get before a bullet sails past me, sometimes even into me.

I don’t know what it is about this woman, but it’s off.

“Mmm. Let me see what I can come up with.”

Even if I want to fuck her, I don’t want to pay for that or a lap dance. And something about her makes me think she’s here for more than just tips. Her tits sway in my face as she runs her hands up my thighs, then tries to step around them to give me a lap dance.

I know she’s seen my dick’s reaction to her.

There’s no way she couldn’t in my suit trousers, even if my boxer briefs are snug.

I’m not worried that she knows she got me hard.

I’d be more worried how she’d respond if she hadn’t.

I’ll play along for now, even though I know something’s not quite right.

“Come here, Mamí. Sit on Papí’s lap. You wanna go for a ride on this crotch rocket?”

I can barely take myself seriously, and I’m certain Julián just chuckled.

He was even less thrilled to see strippers aboard the private yacht than I was.

He knows if he goes home with another woman’s perfume on him, his fiancée’ll castrate him.

He made it very clear when the women appeared and the music started that his friends—including me—could enjoy.

However, he wouldn’t take part. He’s barely looked in the women’s direction, preferring to watch the skyline as we sail on Lake Michigan.

“I hope that crotch rocket doesn’t go too fast, Papí.”

When Julián and I realized his friends got these women on board without Julián or my knowing, we both wondered what else they might’ve smuggled aboard.

If you can even call them friends. I suppose colleagues would be a better term, since they have no idea who Julián really is and never will.

We’d exchanged a look I’m sure no one else noticed.

It’s the same one we’ve shared since we were five and got in trouble together for the first time. It was the “I’ll cover for you no matter what, and how can we blame this on somebody else while we’re at it” look.

Conspiratorial is what my mother has always called it.

I don’t know too many other five-year-olds who knew what that word meant, but Julián and I soon learned it.

Right around the same time we learned how to weed a garden.

I’m not like my cousin Jorge who enjoys gardening.

My mother knew making me work outside but not allowing me on our swing set was the worst form of torture.

“Don’t you worry about that. I can take you for a long ride.”

The brunette presses her tits together practically under my nose. I’m certain I smell sugar on them. It’s a serious temptation to lick her since she’s offering. My dick’s egging me on. But I stopped listening to my smaller head a long time ago.

“Shake ’em for me just like you shook that fine ass of yours.”

I sound nearly as bad as the guy to my left.

The woman grins and obliges, so maybe I don’t sound as cheesy to her as I do to myself.

Or she’s so used to dumbasses acting like this that all she sees are dollar signs for the tip.

I glance around the room at the other men.

One’s getting a lap dance, and the others are watching two women dance around each other.

They’re not touching, but they look like they’re ready to fuck each other.

I can definitely be down for that type of porn.

I’ve seen women fuck plenty of times at my club, but it does nothing for me here.

Only the brunette has my cock begging to come out.

“You like ’em?”

“You already know I do.”

I glance over at Julián, and he cocks an eyebrow.

I know he’s wondering if I’ll take the woman up on her offer for more than just the dance.

As much as one part of me begs, the other part refuses to indulge.

It would be a loss of self-control, and that I can’t allow.

It’s a great way to lower your inhibitions and get distracted from the mission.

“How about you, Mr. Bachelor? Wanna take me for a ride?”

Sure, tonight is about Julián having a good time—not that he looks like he is. However, it’s also an opportunity for me to hear anything these cabróns—assholes—might share, thinking I don’t understand what they’re talking about. I’m here tonight to do the same job Julián does every day.

“I think you’ll enjoy my friend far more.” Julián tilts his head toward me.

He worked his way up in the Rizzo organization.

He may only be mid-level, but he’s earned his way to being a bodyguard for Don Edoardo Rizzo’s son.

It means he hears things, but he’s also invisible.

We created an entire phony persona for him.

When the Rizzos inevitably did a background check for him, he came up as an unaffiliated guy.

“I’m definitely enjoying the show. You should have a bachelor party more often.”

I waggle my eyebrows at the dancer even though I’m speaking to Julián, and it keeps her distracted as I sink back into my thoughts.

We staged a minor attack on Edoardo’s son and made sure Julián was in the right place at the right time to defend the guy.

It earned Edoardo’s gratitude and opened the door for Julián to get a low-level job as a courier.

It didn’t take long for him to keep earning Edoardo’s trust to where he became a bodyguard.