20. Carina
CARINA
Having lunch with Elena changed my perspective about being with Maksim. It wasn’t a life-altering revelation that she’d given me but a gentle encouragement to consider that I was perhaps being too closed-minded about how I viewed him.
That he held all the power between us.
That’s not how it was with them.
I stared at the image of my parents. Their wedding picture was a snapshot of the grand and elaborate event that marked their marrying. Even then, on that first day as an official married couple, they had that spark, that hint of love in their eyes as they gazed at each other, not at the camera.
Without a doubt, my father was the boss of the Cartel. Everyone listened to him and all of us respected him. Including my mother. However, when it came to how they partnered and approached life, they shared the responsibility and burden of keeping us all safe and prosperous.
My mother had deferred to him, but he never tried to lord over her.
He never ruled with an iron fist or demanded anything unusual for her just for the sake of his being the boss.
As I zoned out at the image on my phone, one I’d never delete so long as I kept this old drive on the device active, I thought back to all those times when my mother had kept my father in check.
She’d never shied away from giving her opinion at the same time that she never talked over him just to be loud.
She’d never held herself back from hearing him out just like she never let him take her for granted as someone inferior to him.
They were equals, as equal as a boss and his wife ever could be.
And that was a little of what I got from Elena’s advice.
She’d told me how Adrik had needed her and valued her skillset as an accountant. It was similar to how it seemed to be with me and Maksim, where he appreciated all the knowledge I had about the smuggling business.
“Carina!”
I jerked my head up at the sound of one of the guards calling for me.
No. That’s Jeremiah.
The tone and urgency in that summons had me on my feet. He never spoke to me like that, and he never used my name. Formality was the name of his game, but whatever was going on now was something so different and important that he was shouting for me like the world was ending.
Hurrying out of my room, I stuck my phone in my pocket and sought him out. Maksim was out today with his cousins, but he’d be back soon. If something was seriously wrong, then I wouldn’t be the one to settle it.
“What is it?” I called out as I picked up my pace and ran across the foyer.
He stood at the door, his face serious and stern. “Quickly.”
“What is it?” I ran to him, my heart racing high in my chest and my stomach tensing like I was going to get a hard hit.
The bloody and ragged mess of a man on the stoop had me skidding to a stop. I gasped, stunned at how badly he’d been beaten.
“Enrique!” I dropped to my knees, heartbroken and so instantly worried for one of the Cartel’s older runners. He crouched over. Deep wheezes escaped him while he panted so hard and heavily like he couldn’t stand upright for more than one more second.
Blood smeared over my arms as I caught him from crashing to the top wide step.
“What happened?” Fear clawed up my throat that someone from the Bratva must have spotted him. Maybe he was trespassing, trying to reach me. And they’d shot first before questioning who it was.
All this time, no one but Enrique had tried to reach me. My brother hadn’t, but if the Bratva guards recognized Enrique as one of the Garcia Cartel, they had to have suspected something was wrong. That a threat was too close for comfort.
“He was out at the last handoff site,” Dean said, rushing up from parking an SUV out in the front. He ran until he lowered to his knees, too. “We were out doing a run for more chips.”
“From the shipments,” I said. “The latest shipment in through San Diego.” Of course I knew what he was talking about. I’d been involved in mapping that route with the team.
Dean nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. “Yeah. He was there.”
I shook my head, holding Enrique upright so he wouldn’t slump down further.
Blood oozed from a gash on his side, and I didn’t hesitate to grab a bunch of his shirt and press it to the wound, compressing the bleeding.
“No. That wasn’t something my brother would have risked going for.
The Cartel sells for distribution to the north.
He wouldn’t have risked exposing the men and the runners over the border like that to get something from that direction.
” All the contraband the Cartel passed on to buyers like the Bratva were things that were sent from further south, like Colombia.
“Something was off about it. The men at the docks were using the Cartel runners as a stand-in or something.” He winced as he shifted his weight from one knee to the other. “I don’t know. And he was in the back of a car, beaten like this and left to die.”
I frowned, not following. The Cartel never invaded on the turf near the coast like that, over the border. It was far too risky. But clearly, the policies had changed. Arturo was switching up how he wanted things to be done. And it was exposing one of the oldest and most loyal runners to be hurt.
“He realized we were with the Bratva and he asked to see you.” Dean stared me down. “I didn’t know if he’d live long enough, but we hurried back.”
I volleyed my gaze between them. “No other Cartel runners were there?”
Dean shook his head. “No. They had all left. I couldn’t make sense of why they were there to begin with. This handoff had nothing to do with them.”
“Out… Out…” Enrique couldn’t get it out.
“What?” I leaned over, keeping my hand on his wound. There was no hope. He wouldn’t make it. He was too far gone.
“Outsourced. Sometimes, there’s outsourcing. Of runners. As favors.”
I narrowed my eyes, furious about this news. Arturo wasn’t just messing up the Cartel. He was actively ripping it apart. To “loan” out one of our own? What was he thinking?
“Did you get my messages?” he asked in a desperate tone.
“Yes. Yes, I did, and I tried to contact you again to understand more.”
He tried to shake his head. His eyes stayed closed from the slight motion, but his cracked and bloodied lips parted as he spoke again. “The phone… Lost.”
He’d lost the phone? Or was it taken? I wanted to scream and demand to know what was going on!
“He’s going to destroy what’s left of the Cartel, Carina,” he said, his voice croaking so horribly. After a spell of coughing up blood, he cleared his throat. “He’s been hiding and holding out. He’s been withholding.”
“Withholding what?” I panicked, feeling like I was racing against time for answers. It broke my heart that he was dying, but I couldn’t save him. No one could. All I could do was get his deathbed message and try to deliver on whatever he needed to convey to me before he was gone.
“He’s been withholding information,” he whispered. “About his new ‘partner’ he found.”
“Who?” Dean asked, still leaning in and listening.
Enrique shook his head again, slower than before. “I don’t have… name. I don’t know his name. But he’s been influencing him.”
“From where? Where is this partner located? Where did they find the Cartel? Or did he look for— How did this happen?” I licked my lips, hating to ramble and hating to even speak when I needed to listen to all that he could tell me. “Since I’ve been gone?”
“Years.” He coughed again, cut off by the action.
“It’s been happening for years,” he said.
“He’s been holding back information and lying to you for years, Carina.
All those times you questioned him, he felt cornered and trapped and lied.
He’s been trying to make his own mark for so long and he’s been trying to hide it all from you. ”
Red-hot anger lanced through me. All this time. For so long, he’d been ruling and lying to me when I checked on things that didn’t add up.
He’d already gone rogue and had seen me as nothing but interference he didn’t want to answer to. And that could only confirm that whoever he was partnering with or wanting to do business with now wasn’t good.
“Make his own mark?”
He nodded, a faint bob of his head as I cradled him against me. “He’s never wanted to rule in the shadow of your father’s success. He wants to make his own power.”
I shook my head, so livid I could snap. There was no way to create new power. He had to harness what was already there, through negotiations and deals and treating his allies well while holding his enemies accountable for their sins.
“Years, Carina. All these years, and some of us have watched how he’d mock you and ridicule what you said. Every one of those warnings you’d given him. Then he’d dismiss your concerns. Like when he first said he wanted to get in with the group overseas.”
I frowned, looking up at Lev as he ran up. He must have just arrived because Dean was still beckoning him closer.
“A group overseas?” I asked. I believed him when he said he didn’t have a name for this new “friend” Arturo wanted to make, but there had to be some clues, some identifiers. Something that would help us.
“Overseas,” he said. “Someone amassing power through a network of companies and small militias.”
“A network?” I asked, knowing this had to be Gregori. He could’ve worded it any other way, but this was what he’d said.
“A Russian’s network. Someone… from a Bratva…” He coughed and didn’t stop. With every ragged inhale and exhale he endured, his chest rattled and his body shook. Once he calmed from the fit, he moaned quietly, like an animal.
Gregori.
It had to be him.
But I couldn’t beg him for more clues or details. A couple of slow and shallow breaths puffed out of him, and then he didn’t inhale again.
He was gone.
He’d died in my arms, a messenger who’d come bearing the news I never wanted to hear.
My brother wasn’t carrying on the legacy of power my father had built. He was throwing it all away.
Letting the runners be loaned out. Engaging in shoddy deals and lousy handoffs.
Not caring if the elder runners were dead or alive.
Maybe things had all gone down poorly with this specific handoff in such a way that it had nothing to do with him personally, but I was too furious to give him the shadow of the doubt anymore.
All this time, I’d tried to coach him to do what was right, to stay away from bad deals and the lure of more riches that were dangled in front of his eyes by those we should’ve avoided.
He’d lied to me. Mocked me. Dismissed me and finally banished me.
He’s ruined it all.
And I wasn’t there to fix it and save a single damn thing.
Rage boiled hotter in my blood as I processed all that Enrique shared.
Arturo’s partner had to be Gregori, and so long as they schemed against the people I was coming to see as my new family, the new members of operations I could work with, I would do all I could to stop this network and anyone else who would dare to attack.