Chapter 27 #2
I inhale so deeply my chest expands. It pushes my shoulders back, and I force myself to relax them. I’m so tense I’m a rubber band about to snap.
“I just finished texting Tío Enrique. He’s tracking me and sending los toro to meet us.”
The bulls—official soldiers in a Colombian cartel who’re overseen by a matador.
“Thanks, Alejandro.”
I watched his fingers moving on his phone and figured he was messaging our tío, but I couldn’t be sure.
Since neither of my cousins said anything about their mothers, I’m assuming they’re fine but had no news.
We’d be going in separate directions if Tía Luciana or Tía Catalina were targets too.
I don’t think Alejandro could take anything else happening to his mother after her abduction while Tío Enrique and Tía Elle were dating.
I force myself to look out the window rather than watching the vehicle’s GPS.
We keep our location services off on our phones.
After all, we have the trackers if anyone really needs to find us.
We always turn our phones off entirely when we’re at least five miles from the Long Island bodega because protecting that place’s secrecy is paramount to carrying out our most unsavory duties.
But we keep our vehicle GPS on because we don’t know every nook and cranny of the tri-state area. We can turn it off if we need to.
Since we aren’t headed to the bodega—yet—our phones remain on.
“Finally.”
I mutter to myself, but in the quiet SUV, everyone hears me.
We just passed the sign welcoming us to Yonkers.
I allow myself to look at the map now, then I stare at my phone app that’s tracking Flora.
She’s been in one place for a while. Traffic hasn’t been on our side, so she’s been with her kidnappers for an hour.
When I figure that out, my knee bounces again.
I press my palm against it to soothe my sympathetic nervous system that’s in fight, not flight.
I need my parasympathetic nervous system to kick in and put me at rest.
In times of stress, I force myself to examine situations like a scientist. I do my best to remove emotion from the equation and study the situation objectively.
That includes how I handle my body’s reaction to stressors.
I don’t think it’s a dissociative disorder, but maybe it is.
It’s the compartmentalizing I’ve been good at since I was a child.
It’s the part of me that feels no remorse until after my job is done.
It’s the part that convinces me not to punish myself for what I do in service to my family.
Joaquin taps me on the shoulder. “Los toros are five minutes behind us. They were already in the Bronx.”
It’s a Thursday, so pay day for businesses and families who made shitty decisions and now belong to us.
Some pay us protection money against the other syndicates.
Some have debts they’ll never repay, but they can try.
Some just looked the wrong way when we were around and pissed one of us off.
Our guys were collecting what people owe us.
“It’s up there on the left.”
I point between Jorge and Alejandro’s shoulders. Joaquin and Javier lean forward to see over mine, and Alejandro turns around in his seat. The four of them watch the flashing dot on my phone screen. Jorge takes my word for it.
“Do you want me to pull over here? None of us have seen a lookout, so we should be good to wait for the others.”
“Yeah.”
We have four guards in the SUV that followed us, and there will be ten los toros between two other SUVs.
With those of us in this vehicle, that makes nineteen.
I don’t know if that’ll make things easier or not.
I know, regardless of how many men we face, the odds are in our favor.
The men who have Flora are in this for the money. I’m certain it isn’t personal to them.
My cousins know my feelings for Flora without me saying anything.
They’ll do everything they can to help me.
Javier wants to get home to Madeline, and we’ll protect him to make sure he does.
The other men want to survive us, so they won’t fuck up.
They know they’ll face me if they don’t put Flora ahead of their own lives.
Some have families of their own, but they know what they pledged when they promised their loyalty to Tío Enrique.
It means the Cartel comes before everything else.
It means they support Tío Enrique—and by extension his family—above all else.
We’ve all made that pledge. For other men, being in the Cartel isn’t automatically hereditary.
It pretty much is, but not always. The men make their choice to be in. Now they’ll prove it.
“They’re here.”
Javier announces the other men’s arrival.
We climb out of the vehicle, but we leave the rifles inside for now.
It’s broad daylight, so we don’t need anyone freaking out about men with automatic weapons prowling down their street.
The other guys put their vests on, and we all put our suit coats over them.
It makes us slightly less conspicuous while we discuss what’s going to happen.
“Senorita Aguilar is in the third house on the left in the next block. We don’t know who’s in there with her. We don’t know how many there are. We’re going in blind. We take as many as we can to the bodega, but anyone who does anything to endanger the senorita dies.”
“Sí, El Tigre.”
Right now, it’s clear I’m leading the mission, so I go by the moniker that means general. The men will address Alejandro and Tres J’s as capitán or capo.
“I want you four—” I point to the men I mean. “—to circle around the back. Check for any exit routes for them. Go now and report back.”
They nod as we all slip our earpieces into place. There’s a frequency for us collectively. But my family’s radios have another frequency that is just for us. It’s locked, so no one else can join it.
“You two check how we enter.”
I nod to the two men directly in front of me.
The six guards reach into their SUVs and grab their rifles.
They carry them held tightly against their chests, their suit coats somewhat disguising them.
As long as they appear casual as they walk down the sidewalk, they should be fine.
Old Cartel members train recruits to blend in when they’re in crowds and when they’re in open spaces.
I know these men can spy without being spotted.
Now we wait.
I turn toward my cousins, and the other men step away, surveying our surroundings.
The five of us form the same tight huddle we’ve been making since we were little and driving our parents crazy.
We were a group of five—back then six—energetic boys who loved exploring and climbing, as long as we didn’t get seriously hurt and obeyed our parents.
I take comfort in Alejandro and Tres J’s being with me.
We don’t need our tíos or papás here, even though we wouldn’t turn down Tío Enrique’s help nor my dad’s or Alejandro’s.
Tío Matáis doesn’t go on many missions these days because he works as a financier in Manhattan. He handles the legal money that goes through the Diaz conglomerate. It keeps him busy and very public, so he doesn’t have time. But he will in a second if we need him.
“Gracias, primos.”
“Don’t get sappy, primo. Flora expects your huevos to be where she left them not sucked up inside your culo.” Ass.
“?Cállate, carajo!” Shut the fuck up.
I shove Javier’s chest playfully as I swear at him and he teases me. I need the momentary distraction.
“We’re happy to help. We know you appreciate it.”
Joaquin’s the shyest of us, and the natural peacemaker. Javier just dislikes most people—a total misanthrope and utter introvert. Jorge hates crowds and has social anxiety, so he’s like his brothers and is a homebody. Alejandro lets everything roll off his back like water off a duck.
I’m the worrier.
That’s amplified to the extreme since this involves Flora. Like exponentially worse.
“There they are.” Alejandro shifts to look in the direction of our returning men.
“El Tigre, the house backs onto a lot that’s under construction. There’s a foundation poured, but nothing else.”
“Gracias. What about you?” I look at one guy who went to surveil the house.
“There’s a kitchen door and the front door. There’s no direct access to the basement except for a couple small windows. Senorita Aguilar would fit through them, but none of us would.”
Unless I insist the men address Flora as Senorita Aguilar Bautista, the custom is to use her father’s surname as hers.
Maybe the men talk about her connection to Domingo, but no one in my family’s heard about anyone talking shit about her.
They all really seem to like her because she’s polite and smiles at every guard or employee she’s met.
She’s kind and makes small talk with them, asking about their families in a general sense.
She keeps a professional boundary, and she knows it makes Cartel men antsy when someone seems nosey.
“Can we get to the front door?”
“Yeah. There’s no screen door or metal security door. There’s no gate either. We saw no hint of who’s inside. No one—not even a shadow—in the windows. None are patrolling the yard either.”
Javier’s distrusting nature comes out. “They’re probably hiding but have cameras somewhere.”
“We looked, capitán. We saw none. Not even one of those doorbell cameras.”
“Any windows open? Did you hear anything?” My cousin still isn’t convinced.
“One in the living room is open but not all the way. We barely heard a man and a woman’s voice. The woman sounded disgusted but not hurt. El Tigre, they were speaking Spanish.”
I glance at my cousins. Obviously, whoever this is, is a rival. But could it be a Latin American family or cartel? Are they Latinos working for one of the other three families?
My guard didn’t mention it was Castilian, so I can assume it’s no one from Spain. He would’ve pointed that out. This guy calls it “colonizador espanol”—colonizer Spanish. He had a nasty break up with a girl he met in Ibiza ten years ago. Never got over it. Bitter bastard.
Can I rule out the O’Rourkes?
I’ve known those fuckers my entire life. I grew up in New Jersey, so I never went to school with them, but Alejandro and Tres J’s did. I played peewee and little league sports with them. We read each other nearly as well as our own families do.
I’m leaning toward believing they’re innocent from their reaction to the news.
It wasn’t their denial, but their offer to help without hesitation.
Their family caused the breakdown of the cardinal rule: no women and children.
It wasn’t any of their faults, and the men who did it are now dead.
They’ve been working to redeem their family for the past six years. They might have actually done that.
My mind jumps from one thought to another like a flea in a dog pound. I’m taking everything in and evaluating all the information at warp speed. We need to move, so I don’t have the luxury of contemplating the meaning of life. I have to consider the implications and decide.
“Jorge, you come through the front door with me. Alejandro, lead six men to the back door. Enter that way. Dos J’s take the open window.
The rest of you spread out around the block in case any of them turn rabbit.
No one shoots unless you’re a second away from death.
You protect Senorita Aguilar before me.”
I won’t tell the men to sacrifice my cousins, but I will tell them to prioritize Flora over me.
“No seas un pollon.” Don’t be a dick.
Javier huffs at me before he looks at the men. He doesn’t agree with my altruism. It’s his way of saying Flora’s family. All he has to do is cock an eyebrow, and the men know they’re to protect Flora before my cousins and me.
Once Tres J’s got over the initial shock of me being with Flora and all the fucked-up baggage that goes with that, they’ve been nothing but gracious to her. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had doubts about whether they’ve meant their warm welcome. Now I know they do.
We move into position as we fan out. Alejandro and his men split into two groups and cut through yards.
We’re all praying the people who live in those houses aren’t home.
Joaquin and Javier go ahead of Jorge and me.
They’ve always seemed to line up by age since we were all little.
That would mean Joaquin breaking off to the left first, then Javier to the right, leaving Jorge in the center.
Neither Joaquin nor Javier approves of the idea their little brother be the most obvious target.
The only thing they fight over is who gets the worst spot in the team. They all want that one.
With Jorge alongside me, Joaquin and Javier know where to go.
I walk ahead of Jorge as we reach the path up to the house.
I’ll be the first one inside. I always would be, not just because we’re going after my girlfriend.
I won’t send any man where I’m not willing to go first. Jorge follows to protect my back and to take over if I go down.
I sweep my gaze around the area. The men I can see are in position. I test the doorknob, but it doesn’t turn. I nod, and we all count to three silently. My foot thrusts into the door, sending it flying open.