Chapter 6
Elliot
Ihate Las Vegas.
No, let me rephrase that. I loathe Las Vegas. Possibly more than Chicago.
Why, you may ask? Why do I loathe Las Vegas and I’m only reminded of this hatred whenever I step foot in the city again? Because no fucking place should feel like you are in the deepest pits of hell and up the devil’s asshole. It’s so damn hot and so fucking dry.
I don’t know what was going through my head when I decided to not only buy land here, but also come personally during one of the hottest months of the year.
This trip would have been fine had it all been inside, but that hasn’t been the case.
As soon as I showed up, the seller wanted me to see the plot for myself. Outside. During the hottest time of the fucking day. If I had known that was going to happen, I would have dressed differently. Instead, I showed up in a full suit, and I regretted that decision instantly.
When I got back to my hotel, I wanted nothing more than to get out of my sweat-soaked pants and rip my shirt off to get away from the wet fabric.
Now that I’m done sweating my ass off with somewhat of a deal in place, I could possibly go back to Chicago or somewhere else that might capture my attention for a few days, but I can’t.
Not yet.
Not now that I know who’s also in the city.
I got word there are a few important members of a Mexican cartel staying on the strip this weekend, and as much as I should stay in my own fucking lane, I can’t really do that.
Not when their business decisions could possibly affect mine.
Not when I need to keep myself in their good graces.
And definitely not when the blood running through my veins may be a lot closer to theirs then they’d ever know.
To them, to Leo Morales, the kingpin’s son, and his right-hand man, Santiago Reyes, my only connection to the Muertos Cartel is them and them alone.
To them, I’m just a rich kid they went to high school with, someone they can talk to about cartel business and know their secrets are safe.
They know if they need help, I will try everything I can.
Which is a tactic I learned from Bennett Lane himself.
Sometimes, it’s good to have the cartel as a friend. It benefits everyone.
Leo and Santos may be my friends, but they don’t know my darkest secrets like I know theirs. They don’t know my family ties. They don’t know there was a reason I made sure we became friends in boarding school, and I’m going to try my fucking hardest to keep it that way.
Which is why when I see Santiago, or Santos for short, sitting by himself at one of the many restaurants on this fine Saturday morning, I approach him.
He’s too enthralled with what he’s writing to notice I’ve started to close the distance between us. With him distracted, I take a peek at what he’s doing.
I don’t usually go snooping into people’s shit, but when a member of a well-known cartel is writing down something with all his concentration, it’s hard not to take notice.
This motherfucker is writing in code, a mixture of French, English and Spanish. I almost snort. It’s supposed to confuse people, throw them off, but I’m able to grasp every word.
Not wanting to get caught snooping, I take a few steps back and make my presence known. “Well, if it isn’t an old face.”
I sound chipper and peppy, like this run in was just pure fucking coincidence.
Santos jumps up at my words, closing the journal he was writing in and doing a double take when he sees me. It’s definitely been a few years since we’ve seen each other.
“Definitely not a face I thought I would be seeing so early in the morning,” he throws back with a smirk.
It is early, even by Vegas standards, but I’m not one to throw a day away in bed.
“Not disagreeing with you there.” I hold out a hand to him.
He takes it, and within seconds, I’m sitting in the table across from him.
“How the hell have you been, Santos?” I ask, almost too chipperly, as if this was any other normal conversation.
“Keeping alive.”
His response doesn’t surprise me whatsoever.
Working for the cartel must take a toll on him in a way I could never comprehend. He must wonder if he’s going to make it home every night or if the cartel is going to take his life like it took his father’s.
Just the thought of his father has the next words slipping from my mouth.
“I heard about your old man. My condolences,” I say.
I only met the man once or twice a decade ago, but Cristiano Reyes seemed like the hardest dude known to man, but that bastard softened up whenever his son was around.
He gives me a nod, and for a few seconds he looks like he is getting lost in the memories of his father. I can’t help but to wonder if he thinks about his father just as much as I do.
“Same to you. Heard about your dad passing away while he was overseas a few years back.” There is sincerity in his voice, and hearing it makes my skin prickle—not in a good way. Hearing that lie always makes me want to roll my eyes.
Passed away while overseas.
What a bunch of bullshit.
I wonder if Santos would still give me his condolences if he knew the truth, if he knew Robert Lane has never been officially declared dead.
We don’t know if he’s actually dead or roaming the world unbeknownst to us.
If he knew the man I said was my father in high school was actually Henry, one of the men who helped raise me?
There’s a reason why no information comes up when you search for my parental lineage online, and it’s not because we scrubbed it.
Dad basically fell off the face of the Earth nearly twenty years ago when he went to rescue his wife.
Alas, I continue with the lie. “Thanks, man. Yeah, the man didn’t know when to quit, but he did his country proud.”
That’s partly true. Robert Lane did serve in the military, but not for as long as Santos may think.
“Not his kids?”
His question hits me hard. I wasn’t expecting that. I could lie with my answer, but I find myself answering somewhat truthfully.
“I’m proud of him.” And I am. I’m proud of him for the person he was the first ten years of my life. “But he left his four kids for his brother to raise. Can’t help but resent the man sometimes.”
What I don’t say is that I resent my mother more than my father. He put us first and took us to a place that he knew was safe. She left without any explanation.
Wanting to steer the conversation away from my familial baggage, I change the subject, which turns to talk of cartel business and even me offering my help.
It looks like Santos and Leo are trying to bring down someone with the potential of not only hurting the cartel but the Morales family, and they can’t do it themselves.
I’m more than willing to lend a helping hand. It’s beneficial to have the Muertos cartel in my pocket, and I actually enjoy having friends who can be just as deceptive and corrupt as me.
The conversation ends with a simple thank you and a promise to get in contact if I find anything on the thorn in their side. That was supposed to be the end of it, so why is it not even ten minutes later that my phone rings with a Texan number I know belongs to Santos?
“Miss me already?” I answer, intrigued as to why he would be calling me this quickly.
The right-hand man gets straight to the point. “I need to call a meeting. You, me, and Leo. To talk business.”
Business. With the Cartel. Right away, my body is on high alert.
But color me intrigued.
“Are you going to tell what it’s about?”
The possibilities are fucking endless, but it wouldn’t hurt hearing them out, whatever it might be.
“Nope. Not until we are all in the same room.”
Fair enough.
I’m not usually one to agree to these types of meetings. Actual business dealings with the mob or any criminal entity is Bennett’s thing, with his closet friend being the head of a mafia family. I’ve never done this on my own, but like I said, I’m intrigued.
“Okay. My room. I will text you the number and the time.”
The least I can do is hear them out. I don’t have to agree to anything.
With a simple okay, Santos ends the call.
I’m not one to be left speechless, yet here I am.
I came to Vegas for one thing, and now, I have a meeting with a kingpin’s son and his best friend.
This should go well.
* * *
The meeting with Leo and Santos took a lot longer than I thought it would and went in a direction I expected but still was surprised to hear.
A proposal.
One that would come into play if their meeting with a hotel tycoon goes south. It would be a complicated trafficking path, one that would cross state lines, either through Michigan or Wisconsin, but it’s doable, especially with a Lane Enterprises packing slip. But there are other complications.
Like the fact that if the Muertos move into Chicago, they can cause issues with the Italian family that has the run of the city’s underground dealing. Taking this on, going into business with the cartel, isn’t a decision that I can make on my own. Something like this has to be run by someone.
And that someone is my uncle.
It’s late on this fine Saturday, and even though it’s even later in Chicago, I pull up my uncle’s contact and give him a call.
The man is a night owl. More times than I can count, I’d find him awake when I went down to the kitchen for a snack as a kid or was trying to sneak out. There is no way he is sleeping right now.
“What happened?” he answers the phone in a panic, which takes me aback.
“Why do you sound so panicked?”
“Because you’re calling me in the middle of night, which you never do unless you’re in trouble. So what happened?”
I roll my eyes. He acts like I get in trouble all the time. I’m twenty-seven. I can handle my shit. “Nothing happened. I just got out of a meeting, and I wanted to run something by you.”
“A meeting? Isn’t it almost ten there?” I hear something that sounds almost like a bed squeaking, and I get a disgusting mental image of him and Ella having sex. I need to burn my brain. I almost gag at the thought.