Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Alejandro
Hearing any man—especially one Vita clearly has a past with—threaten her makes me want to bay at the moon.
My best guess is that he was a serious boyfriend for a long time.
The way he looks at her is part longing and part resentment.
He’s not over her. She’s the one who got away.
From her tone and how we’ve fucked, she doesn’t feel the same way about him.
If only I could make his death slow, but I won’t have that luxury.
Whoever tied my ropes wasn’t meant for the navy.
I’ve been slow with each step to ensure my shoulders don’t move.
I’ve already untied one knot, and the rope’s loosened significantly.
I don’t know if Vita’s been buying us time by dragging out the conversation or she knows these two won’t be more forthcoming.
Either way, I’m making progress. I wish I could look over to see if she is too.
“Zorzi, did you put the hit on me? Or did you find out Vittoria moved on with me, got pissed, then stuck your nose in this?”
“He couldn’t afford the hit.” Vita’s comment is nothing less than snide.
I still can’t reason through who wants to kill me enough that they’re taking on my entire family.
There’s no way they wouldn’t avenge me. When my great-uncle murdered his own brother—Mamá’s papá—my tíos went on a rampage through Bogotá.
There’re places that are still in rubble thirty-odd years later.
They destroyed everything in their path—buildings, careers, lives, government offices.
They punished anyone who’d ever looked upon Tío Humberto with a moment’s approval.
They ensured no one doubted los Diaz rule Colombia.
What we giveth, we taketh.
When Tío Humberto helped pay for a rival to murder Tío Esteban right in front Tres J’s, Tía Luciana made my tíos’ brutality look like child’s play.
She caught the men, beheaded them, and threw their heads into busy streets in the most dangerous part of Bogotá to be knocked around like soccer balls.
Then she had the men’s bodies strung upside down from the busiest bridge in the city.
She hacked off a huevo from the man who orchestrated the hit and sent it gift wrapped to the man’s wife.
She included a note that said if she couldn’t have her man, then the woman wouldn’t have hers either.
She ensured everyone understood that the Diaz women don’t play when it comes to family.
Needless to say, this incident won’t go over well with them.
Tía Luciana’s the most easygoing in the family even if Mamá and Papá are more outgoing.
If my tía’s reaction to her husband’s death was anything to go by, I can’t even conceive of what my death would do to my mother.
And I say this as a man with no limits. Papá won’t stop her either. He’ll guard her back.
I consider what Vita just said about this Zorzi fuck not affording the hit.
“You have Mala del Brenta men, but I suspect you’re working independently. Who did I piss off enough to convince you to go against your don and agree with an unsanctioned hit?”
“Who said it’s unsanctioned?”
I laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
Zorzi sounds like an irritated toddler who had his favorite toy taken away. Before I can answer, Vita speaks up.
“You’re holding the nephew of the most powerful man in the Western Hemisphere.”
“Bullshit. Enrique Diaz has an overinflated opinion of himself, and his family spouts that shit, hoping to intimidate people into obedience. He’s nothing but a vu cump—”
“Don’t you dare finish that, you pezzo di merda!”
Vita sounds like she’s about to come unglued. Whatever Zorzi was about to say was enough for Vita to go on the attack. I finally fully look over at her, and she’s beyond livid. She glances at me.
“He was about to use an extremely derogatory term for immigrants.”
“Immigrant? I was born here.”
I don’t know how that phrase could be that bad, but it struck a nerve with her.
Maybe she’s just as over the top protective as I am.
It’s an odd realization since she’s not part of my immediate family.
Nothing in the world comes above family, and from that, loyalty, honor, and duty are ingrained into our core.
I expect that kind of defensiveness from someone I share DNA with.
I’m unused to it from an outsider. Maybe it’s a sign she’s accepted what I already know—we’re soulmates.
I feel the rope loosen enough to pull it over the heel of my hand. I strain to sense anyone else who might lurk far behind me but could assist Zorzi and Cosima. Unless the person has a high-powered rifle, I doubt they could hit me faster than I can get my knife out and kill both Zorzi and Cosima.
I’ve carried the knife that’s in my left pocket since I was twelve.
The rivalries in NYC are so heated that boys carry knives much younger than in other syndicates.
My generation might not have gone on missions until we were sixteen, but we got into bloody fights while in middle school.
The closest we’ve come to an outright street war was high school when a melee broke out at a party the Four Families all accidentally showed up to.
We had different friend groups, so we never socialized together.
That night, no one got the memo.
Maria Mancinelli’s Spanish wasn’t as good as it is now.
She misheard Javier and thought he called her a flat chested bitch when he was warning Joaquin, who was a senior, to stay away from Maria’s friend, who had a crush on him.
Maria lost her shit and called out to Carmine, who had Gabriele next to him—of course, because they share a set of huevos.
The Kutsenkos heard Tres J’s insulted a girl, so they had to jump on their white horses and storm in like knights to the rescue. And the O’Rourkes—those asshats—egged on the rest of us until they got drawn into the fight too.
It was Maria who saved all our asses. She recognized a police officer whose father was Cosa Nostra and convinced her to have the cops leave.
Everyone fled in different directions when we heard the sirens.
Afterward, our respective leaders were so irate, we all thought we were safer with the knives and guns at the party.
Punishment was swift and merciless for all of us.
Tío Enrique hated it, but he had to make an example of all of us.
He couldn’t appear soft toward us if we were one day to stand beside him as leaders of the Cartel.
Since then, there’s been an unspoken rule that if someone’s injured or killed in a mission that goes sideways, then so be it. But the Four Families don’t target each other. That’s why I can’t imagine it’s the Mancinellis, Kutsenkos, or O’Rourkes.
Even if the Kutsenkos think we’re bogarting their deal to fund the Mala del Brenta and Cosa Nostra, they wouldn’t do this.
The O’Rourkes might be pissed that we’re tipping the scales away from their side, but they wouldn’t do this.
The Mancinellis might hate that any outsiders have influence in Italy, but they wouldn’t do this.
“Alejandro.”
“Huh? Sorry. Spaced out. Got bored.”
Cosima snapped at me. I have no idea what she or Zorzi said when I was strolling down memory lane.
“You pissed off the Galicians.”
What the fuck?
If anyone should be pissed off, it’s me.
Those motherfuckers fucked me out of over three million dollars in imports.
Spain is a major European hub for importing Colombia’s most notorious semi-organic product.
The Mafia there was supposed to run a shipment through Galicia and distribute it to Madrid and Barcelona.
Instead, the caremondas—faces of a penis—let it get seized.
They took the fall since they were the ones in possession, but it cost us all the trade.
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah. You reneged on your end of the deal.”
“The hell I did. It wasn’t my fault they didn’t take care of the port properly. If this were true, what does it have to do with you?”
Cosima glances at Vita, and there’s a flash of regret before she smirks at me yet again.
“Your expansion into Spain won’t happen.”
“Into? We’re already there. We deserve more.”
Entitled much?
You better fucking believe it.
My family’s earned it, so we deserve every motherfucking thing we want.
We’ve invested in communities, putting new roofs on churches and six figures into the coffers for orphanages.
We’ve supported political campaigns to ensure the least corrupt people get into office.
That we remind them to say thank you—frequently—is neither here nor there.
But if Spain is the issue, then it’s the bratva that has an issue with us.
We cut off their trade expansion into Spain and Portugal for not truly retaliating when this proxy war sucked in Anneliese and Jorge.
They’re feeling the squeeze because the O’Rourkes have made serious inroads in Eastern Europe, which used to be a given for the bratva.
Mother Russia hasn’t been anyone’s favorite since the Eastern Bloc fell, so the people there welcome the Irish American backing.
“If you weren’t such self-involved pricks, maybe no one would want to kill you.”
“I don’t believe for a single moment Maksim sanctioned me as a mark.
The man’s not the smartest potato in the field, but he’s not entirely stupid.
He isn’t going after someone like me to teach my tío anything.
This is your family trying to stick your noses so far up his ass that you can smell the vodka on his breath.
All that’ll happen is he takes a massive shit on you. ”
“That’s a lot of speculation.”
“You’re not denying it, Senora.”
“It doesn’t merit recognition.”
“Sure.”