Chapter 28
Chapte r
Twenty-Eight
Reinaldo
“ Y ou got Jasmine out of there just in time,” Jano said as we walked toward Padre’s office.
“In time?”
“Myshkin had Kansas City’s streets on fire last night.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
His lips quirked into a smile. “Oh, that’s right. You’ve been out of the loop, too busy popping the ginger’s cherry.”
My jaw clenched. “Just know, if you weren’t my brother, you’d be bleeding out right now. And after what Jasmine told me about Mia, I wouldn’t even feel bad making her a widow again.”
My brother’s cocky grin disappeared. “Sorry about that. I talked to Mia. It’s a long-standing feud, and my wife’s more than a little emotional lately. She said she knew it was wrong when she got up from the table and promised to talk to Jasmine.”
I shook my head. “I had no fucking clue, but I should have. All the capo’s talk about Jasmine not being a Luciano. It makes me want to do whatever I can to make Jasmine feel like we’re her family. It’s like she’s spent her whole life on the edge of luxury, but still outside looking in.”
“Entren aquí ,” Padre yelled from his office.
Jano and I entered, walking past Padre’s personal guard.
Wearing his customary white linen shirt, our father sat behind his large desk. “Have you filled him in?” Padre asked Jano.
“Haven’t had the chance.”
“We’re spread too thin,” Padre began. “Our men in México haven’t seen Herrera since the attack. Rumor has it that he’s not at his compound, but hiding elsewhere, waiting for our next move.”
“I say,” Jano said, “we give it to him. Blow his fucking place up and let it burn to the ground.”
“What happened last night in Kansas City?” I asked.
Padre flattened his lips to a straight line. “There were four coordinated car bombs that went off in Luciano territory beginning at 3:00 a.m.”
“After we were gone.”
“Salvatore Luciano accused you of coordinating your exit to the bombs.”
“The fuck?” I questioned. “I wouldn’t do that to the alliance or the capo and besides, we all know explosives are Myshkin’s calling card.”
“The capo knows that,” Padre said. “What they don’t know is why the acceleration.”
“Herrera,” I said, “is running Myshkin’s playbook.”
Jano sat forward. “The question is where is Herrera? Can we get coordinates on his yacht?”
“You think he’s out in these waters?” I asked.
“When Camila was kidnapped,” Padre said, “the kidnappers were supposed to fly her to Catalina Island. We need satellite coverage of the entire region.”
“That’s a lot of space,” I said. “We’re talking off the Latin American and California coasts. Fuck, that’s nearly thirty-two hundred kilometers or two thousand miles. And his yacht isn’t as big as this one. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Jano had his phone out, his fingers flying over the screen. “I just told Nick to see what he can find. The government has the technology. We just need to hack into their system.”
“What if Herrera is hiding out with Myshkin and encouraging him to accelerate the attacks on the famiglia?” I asked.
Padre leaned back in his chair. “It would be like shooting ducks in a bucket if we could get the two of them together.”
My cheeks twitched as I tried not to laugh. Mí padre botched up the saying: shooting fish in a barrel.
“We need to send our best men,” Jano said, “to Kansas City and get confirmation of Herrera.”
Padre leaned forward and put his elbows on the top of his desk. “I’m looking at our best men.”
“I’m not leaving Mia,” Jano said, looking at me.
“I just fucking got married yesterday.”
“The women will be safe on Bella.” He looked at Jano. “Mia’s not due for what…a month.”
“Babies don’t necessarily follow schedules,” Jano replied. “With Mia being thirty, the doctor said the baby could come early or late.”
“I don’t follow schedules either,” Padre said. “You’ll both go today. When you return, I want either the confirmation of Myshkin’s and Herrera’s location or their blood on your hands.”
Jano’s nostrils flared as his gaze met mine. There was no getting out of this mandate.
Ten minutes later, I was with Jasmine in our stateroom, me dressed for battle and my wife in a sexy black bikini.
“You’re leaving?” she asked with fresh tears in her eyes.
I reached for the floppy hat covering her gorgeous hair and pulled it from her head. “I’ll be back. I promise. You’ll be safe here with my parents and Mia.”
“Mia.”
Snaking my arm around her trim waist, I pulled her hips against mine. “Jano said she felt bad about leaving the table.”
Jasmine shook her head. “I’m not worried about Mia. We’ll learn to navigate this.” She looked down at how our bodies were pressed together and back up. “Rei, you promised we’d get to know one another. I expect you to keep that promise.”
This was fucking difficult.
I lowered my lips to her forehead, the aroma of sunscreen filling my senses before I kissed her soft skin. “I’m a man of my word.” My lips quirked. “And while I’m gone, you have permission to pleasure yourself, as long as you’re thinking about me.”
“It isn’t the same.”
I lifted my brow. “Good.”
“I’ve never come like I did last night or this morning. I can’t do that alone.”
“Your choice, preciosa. When I return, I want you ready to take me, all of me. Fucking or making love is your choice.”
She nodded. “I’ll never stop thinking about you.”
I cupped her cheek. “Fuck, Jasmine. This is what I do. When mí padre says jump, we fucking jump. If he thought other men could do what Jano and I can do, he’d send them. We’re fucking good at this.”
“I understand.” She reached for my arm, the one with the bullet scar, and lowered her lips to the circular reminder. “Don’t get shot.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Will you at least call me?”
“I’ll try. It will depend on if we can without calling attention to ourselves.”
“Are you going to fly inland on the helicopter?”
“No, we’ll take a boat. Again, less spotlight. Boats come and go from San Diego’s ports.”
“Down to where the man with the machine gun is? ”
I nodded. “Come with me?”
With my duffel bag over my shoulder, we quietly walked hand in hand through the passageways and down the stairs until we made our way down to the boat ramp. Jano and Mia were there when we arrived. It was obvious by her swollen eyes that Mia had been crying.
I squeezed Jasmine’s hand.
Joaquín, one of Padre’s guards and boat captain, pulled a forty-eight-foot cigarette boat up to the floating platform. After I left Jasmine with one more kiss, Jano and I stepped from the deck to the platform and down into the boat.
“Mia isn’t taking this well,” I said as we both took seats.
“I’m not fucking either. Let’s get this shit done. I want to see my son come into this world.”
As Joaquín accelerated the boat, my eyes widened. I slapped Jano on the shoulder. “A boy. Fuck, congratulations.”
He looked at me as if he was shocked I knew the information he’d just shared. “Don’t you dare tell Mia you know. That goes for Jasmine too.”
“Won’t say a word. A little Reinaldo.”
“No way am I telling you his name. You’re going to wait like everyone else.”
Diego and Felipe met us at the docks and drove with us back to the airport. As the cartel’s Gulfstream came into view, I shook my head. “I was just on this plane and now I’m back.”
The four of us boarded the plane. After a brief talk with the pilot and attendant, we started working. I had my computer in front of me as did Jano. Felipe and Diego were coordinating with the famiglia guards through their tablets.
We hadn’t landed in Kansas City yet when Nick sent us the geocode coordinates of four yachts possibly belonging to Elizondro Herrera. “We need to send boats out to surveil these yachts. If we get license numbers, we’ll have a better idea if Herrera owns them.”
“The ownership would be buried under layers of LLCs,” I said. “It’s not like it will have Elizondro Herrera on it.”
“No shit,” Jano replied. “Check the file I just sent you. It contains sixty-eight LLCs we’ve connected to Herrera.”
“When did you get this?”
“Been working on it while you’ve been running around like a lovesick puppy.”
I wasn’t fucking apologizing. Opening the file, I scanned the spreadsheet. “Good work. What if we reverse search to see if any of these LLCs can be associated with Myshkin?”
Jano nodded.
Padre was right. We worked well as a team.