Chapter 3 #3
I head into the cabin and close the door behind me since I need to call my family.
The men know why I came back here, so none think twice about it.
They understand it’s a private conversation.
It’s why none took seats in the row closest to the cabin.
I turn on the white noise sound machine I travel with—not to help me sleep, but for when I have calls or meetings where I don’t need anyone overhearing us.
“Hola, tío.”
“Hola, sobrino. ?Cómo te va?” Hello, nephew. How’s it going?
“Muy bien. Happy to be on the plane. Happy to be on the way home.” Very well.
We continue the conversation in Spanish.
“Do you have anything to report?”
“Yeah, our men took out all the Oskolkis’ Elite Group yesterday. Left none of them. The only one alive is their pakhan.”
Maks should’ve taken care of him when he had the chance. We’ll give him one more shot.
“The guy knows that if Maks doesn’t kill him, we will. I told him he should call Maks and let him know I came for a visit.”
“Did he shit himself?”
Javier’s tone is purely mocking. He’s the most misanthropic of all of us, even though we each have a touch of that, since we’ve seen humanity at its cruelest too many times.
We’ve been guilty of it just as often as we’ve witnessed it.
But none of us are as jaded as he is. He can thank watching his father get murdered when Jorge was eight, he was nearly ten, and Joaquin was nearly eleven.
“He definitely came close each time I said Maks’s name.
He begged me not to make him call Maks. Stupid man was more scared of a guy all the way in New York than the one in front of him.
However, when I busted both of his kneecaps, I disabused him of his belief that Maks’s torture would be worse than mine.
He believed he was going to get off easy with me. ”
There’s a round of chuckles on the phone since my cousins and I are all enforcers for our family.
We’ve had plenty of training on how to ensure people understand what it means to cross los Diaz.
We don’t handle day-to-day shit. Only the people who fuck up badly.
I deal with our Latin American counterparts while Tres J’s and Pablo handle the ones here in the States.
The worst face Pablo alone. I only came to Chicago because of my connection to Julián.
“Anything interesting happen?” Tío Enrique is almost always straight to the point.
“The man sang like a fucking canary. Unfortunately, it was nothing new. He just confirmed the Kutsenkos and O’Rourkes are still funding the war in Italy. The Kutsenkos might not be laundering money through the Oskolkis anymore, but they’re still taking sides in that battle.”
“Puta madre.” Motherfucker.
That’s Jorge. He’s pissed, and rightly so after everything he just went through to protect his fiancée. He proposed just before I headed to Chicago, and I’ve never seen him happier.
Joaquin and I are the only single men left standing.
When shit went sideways in Germany, Joaquin and I flew out there to help.
It’s where we learned it’s two against two in an Italian turf war.
Marriage connects the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and Venetian Mala del Brenta, and both are Salvatore’s in-laws.
They’re gunning for the Camorra and ’Ndrangheta.
“Jorge, what do you want to do with them?”
Ultimately, it’s Tío Enrique’s decision. However, he’ll listen to my cousin’s requests since Jorge’s fiancée’s family were the casualties.
“I don’t know yet, but we’ll see how Maks reacts to Alejandro’s handiwork. Maybe for a moment he’ll think it was Dillan who gave the order, but I doubt it. I want to see if he follows through on his word and does away with the Oskolkis’ pakhan like he said he would.”
“I wouldn’t hold your breath that he will, Jorge.”
“I know, Javier.”
My cousin’s sounding a little testy toward his next older brother.
I wonder what I’ve missed, though I’m sure Jorge’s still exhausted from the last month.
Not only did he have to protect Anneliese, but he also had to find and rescue her father.
It’s taking a toll on him, even though he does his best to hide it from Anneliese.
Joaquin and I talked about it more than once while we were over there. Joaquin was definitely worried about his baby brother, and I was right there alongside him.
“There was another development while I was with Julián at his bachelor party.” I get us back on track.
“Oh?”
It sounds like one deep voice that makes that single syllable, but I know there’s six of them there since I can see all of them on my phone screen. Papá is with Tío Enrique and my four cousins. Tío Luis is in Bogotá right now.
Papá rarely attends meetings like this since he’s the forward face of our biggest legal enterprises. Since this involves me, there was no way he’d miss the meeting. I might be thirty-five, but it still reassures me to see Papá’s face and hear his voice.
I look so much like Tío Enrique that throughout my life, people have assumed I’m his son.
That is, until they meet Papá. Our expressions, our tone of voice, our sense of humor, and how we walk and stand are exactly the same.
Even though my looks come from the Diaz side of my family—which are certainly among the strongest genetics I’ve ever seen since we all look so much alike—the Dos Santos family genes had just as much say in me. They just aren’t as obvious.
“There was a dancer at the bachelor party.”
“You don’t say.”
“Papá, it was a bachelor party.”
I may be thirty-five, but my father can still make me feel as guilty about something as I did when I was six.
“This dancer struck me as different. I don’t know if she was a local cop or a fed, maybe even someone from another family, but it felt weird.”
I’m doing my best to keep my tone neutral, so they don’t guess how much she affected me. I keep telling myself my reaction’s entirely physical. That the jealousy I felt was more about me not wanting to share her cunt than it was anything about her personality.
Pablo leans forward, so he’s clear for me to see. We use a teleconferencing system that has a three-hundred-sixty-five-degree camera. It sits in the center of the table in Tío Enrique’s office. When we are on calls like this, we can see and hear everyone.
“Just how tempted were you?”
My cousin laughs, but I don’t. Joaquin can’t let it rest either, so he takes a turn as well.
“Were you distracted enough that you wouldn’t have felt a needle in the neck for all your troubles?”
So much for hiding my thoughts. The problem with such a close family that has five guys all within a couple years of each other is you can’t have a private thought without everybody else knowing.
We were all trained by our tíos and fathers who’re just as close as we are.
There are no secrets, not even mental ones.
“Well, it doesn’t matter whether I thought she was attractive because I definitely think she would’ve drugged me if she’d had half a chance.”
Tío Enrique isn’t exactly dour, but I can tell he’s ready to move on now that my cousins have teased me a little.
“Is she worth investigating?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe.”
“Keep an eye on her, Alejandro, even when you get back here.”
“Sí, tío.”
The call ends, and I flop back on the bed, ready for a nap.