Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Joaquin
If I didn’t love my cousin, I’d throat punch him. Is this his revenge for my story at the reception?
“You looked like someone kicked your puppy, stole your balloon, and ate your last piece of candy right in front of you. You might be the most brooding of us?—”
“That’s Pablo.”
“—but you don’t usually sulk.” My cousin ignores my interruption, talking over me.
I can’t argue with what he says because he described how I feel. Not just stole my balloon but popped it. I am sulking like I’m five and Papá’s telling me to let Javier and Jorge join my teddy bear picnic.
“Leave off, Alejo.”
I shoot him a glare that he recognizes. He knows he’s pushing too hard, and my usually restrained temper is barely holding on.
His eyebrows shoot up as he stares at me.
I see the moment he understands I’m not annoyed at the teasing or meddling.
He gets I’m way more into Tre than I’ll ever admit to someone before I admit it to her—which looks like never.
Toria’s astute, but she doesn’t know me that well yet. She can’t read me like my cousin does, so I don’t blame her for not sensing the signal.
“Joaquin, Tricia’s into you. Why didn’t you talk to her tonight?”
“I didn’t have an opportunity to.”
I shrug and hope she takes the hint. She does not.
“I heard she offered to bring you cupcakes.”
I stare at my newest cousin and debate my answer. I know she means well, so I keep reminding myself of that.
“Only because she felt obligated to do something.”
Toria shakes her head. “No. Tricia has plenty of obligations, but that wasn’t one.
She’s like Sera. She might not be a gifted baker, but she’s still amazing at it.
She cooks better than anyone I know. She shows appreciation and affection with food.
She’s more Italian than I am when it comes to that. ”
I try not to scoff at the idea of her showing me any affection when she planned to sneak away.
And appreciation? Yeah, I was a good lay.
But not so good that she wanted to see me in the light of day.
Not that morning and not this evening. She couldn’t have looked less enthused, even if she were having a root canal.
“Why didn’t you make a move, Joaquin?”
I stare at Toria because I don’t want to tell the truth.
I may be a seniormost member of the most powerful Cartel in the world, but I can admit when I’m afraid.
I don’t see it as a weakness. At least, not usually.
But I’d rather be the one having a root canal than admit just how scared I am that she’ll reject me again.
“Do you expect her to make the first move?”
I dart my gaze to Alejandro over Toria’s head, praying he’ll intervene and get his wife to back off. But he looks as curious as she does. He’s letting her do his dirty work.
“I’m a modern man. She could.”
I practically sigh as we walk through their property’s gate.
Even though this is a gated community, every syndicate home has a fence and gate.
Some were there when the couples bought the home while others had them installed.
If anyone in the neighborhood didn’t know it was syndicate Switzerland with all the who’s who of the underworld living here, the gates and armed guards give it away.
“Find your huevos, primo, before you miss your chance.” Alejandro turns toward me when he realizes I’m not walking past my car.
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
I don’t mind Key Largo, but I’d rather be here for vacation than business.
I listen to Javier as he negotiates with a Jamaican “farmer.” That’s what the man calls himself since he grows some coffee.
Take one look at him, and no one believes that’s his only crop.
He doesn’t look like he’s spent a single day working in a field.
The man’s real crop is far more profitable than that.
So much so that he has more than a hundred field hands picking his real product and about two dozen picking coffee beans.
“Your promises mean shit if you can’t get the shipment to us. You promised to transport it. If we have to step in with our ships, fuel, and men, then we’re taking thirty percent off the gross.”
“That’s insane.”
I cock an eyebrow, cross my arms, and lean forward. Jorge does the same thing at the same time. He sits to Javier’s left, and I sit to our middle brother’s right. Javier sits back, his fingers steepled with his elbows on his chair’s armrests.
“You signed a contract and are in breach.”
“What’re you going to do? Take me to court?” The man mocks Javier’s observation.
“I will. You must not have read the contract I drafted closely. This isn’t my first rodeo, and you aren’t the first pile of shit I’ve stepped around to get the prize.
I’ll sue for your entire coffee enterprise, which is what the contract says my family buys.
You’ll pay damages that’ll wipe out any chance you have to invest in more cannabis, which wouldn’t matter anyway once I make sure no one’ll buy from you.
When you inevitably default, I’ll make sure the government seizes your property to pay your debt.
I’ll buy it out from under you when it goes to auction.
Your government’s too corrupt to burn your crops, so when they seize those, I’ll grease some palms to get those too.
Or you can get the shipments to us on time. ”
My brother’s an attorney no one wants to meet in court or sit across from at a conference table.
He simply doesn’t like people, so he has no shits to give when someone wants to be difficult.
He’ll give someone one chance to fix their shit.
If they don’t, then he takes them for everything they have.
He writes contracts like no one else I’ve ever met. He’s a master of loopholes and nooses.
“It’s not my fault your Coast Guard keeps intercepting them. We’ve varied our routes and times, Javier, but they keep finding us.”
Of course, they do. We tell them where. They grab the product we paid them to seize, then we charge our partners penalties for not fulfilling their end of the deal.
The breach of contract penalty is way more than what we pay for the theft, so we still profit.
Then we turn around and sell the product for an insane markup because we can.
We have a captain who runs interdiction missions on our payroll.
The guy’s on all Four Families’ payroll, so no one is na?ve enough to think he’s loyal.
We all know he sells each family’s “secrets,” but as long as he keeps his business to the Four Families and not any of our outside rivals, we let him live.
It’s not like we don’t already know each other’s business since we hack each other all the time.
But when someone draws in our lesser rivals and tries to give them a leg up, none of us stay so laid back.
Javier gestures to me, then Jorge. “My brothers are far more patient than I am. Be glad I’m not here alone. But even they have their limits.”
That’s the signal for the three of us to stand.
We’re intimidating on our own, but when we’re together—very few people want to take on three men who’re each nearly six-four and two-twenty with six percent body fat.
That’s not a skinny six percent either. That’s two workouts a day, five-minute miles for at least six miles, and benching three hundred. We’re big guys.
The Jamaican looks like he’s ready to piss himself. We were already sitting when he arrived. Same as our first meeting. We didn’t stand up for him—we only stand for our mother, tías, and tíos—so he didn’t realize what he sat across from.
“All right. All right. I’ll make it work.”
My brothers and I leave the meeting and head to the SUV convoy.
It’s not until we’re inside the middle vehicle that we speak.
With a driver and bodyguards with us, we skip English and Spanish, switching to Macaguán.
It’s an Amerindian language indigenous to the Colombian region our ancestors settled in.
There are about five hundred people who still speak it, so we never fear anyone understands us.
Let’s just say our men know better than to learn it and are confident we’d discover if they did.
“Do we tell Nielson to back off a bit?”
I look at my brothers as our vehicle pulls away from the curb, following the two SUVs in front of us while two more bring up the rear. On wider roads, they surround us that way no one gets close to us unless we allow it.
“Maybe for a bit, but it means we have to pay more attention to Misha and Pasha. Those carechimbas are still pissed that we’re pushing them out of the Caribbean market.” Vagina faces. There’s not really an equivalent phrase in Macaguán.
The bratva cousins own Bear Imports/Exports. Bear—because they’re Russian.
Original.
Fucking twats.
“So maybe it’s our fault the DEA got a tip that their Jamaican coconuts were full of more than just milk. They should be over it by now.”
Jorge gives a dismissive shrug as he pulls out his phone.
I’m certain he’s texting his wife, Anneliese, to let her know we’re on our way back to Florida.
Javier’s doing the same thing for Madeline.
I’m the only one left with no wife to reassure I’m safe, so I text Mamá.
We slip our phones back in our pockets before continuing.
“Well, they aren’t over it. What if we appease them with those tax documents Lorenzo misplaced?”