Chapter 14
Atlas
Copper and gunpowder are practically an aphrodisiac to me.
The splash of blood that hasn’t yet dried on the concrete stains the bottom of yet another pair of jeans this week and bullet shells ring as they slide across the floor, disappearing into the darkness of the far room.
Bodies pile up in the corner where Kortez drags them to be burned, the first round of our enemies already ash floating away in the salt water off the coast of Havana.
All this violence…all this pain…And yet, the only thing I feel is the small dose of excitement I get from letting my more violent side out.
It’s the only thing I ever feel anymore.
I used to be different. My heart used to be filled with love.
For two months, I knew what it was like to feel real love.
I had a woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, one I wanted to protect and cherish because fuck if she wasn’t a goddess come to life.
I wanted – no, needed – to see her with my ring on her finger, swollen with my child, ruling my kingdom by my side.
Then my father ruined it all.
All it took was one man telling him I was seen too many times with a certain blonde-haired angel, and he fueled up his jet and followed me down to Florida to see for himself.
He saw me let her into the driver’s seat of my car. He saw me drive her to a warehouse no one breathing was supposed to know about. He saw her leave with the ring box that held my late mother’s wedding ring that I got Roman to steal from the family safe.
He saw it all and felt threatened.
He ended my reign before it could even begin.
He stormed into my warehouse as soon as Eve had left, demanding I come with him. I tried to fight him, I was bruised to hell and back before I even made it downstairs. Then when I did, it was to get attacked once again.
This time by none other than Eve’s best friend – a man who was possibly even more in love with her than I was. The same man who is currently dragging the last body to the corner.
I shouldn’t have been surprised he put a tracker in Eve’s purse. I did the same thing. I was surprised he had the balls to track me down and attack me on my own turf.
Apparently, so was my father.
He was so surprised that he insisted Kortez come with us. The idea that there was another man who he could mold into his image, one who he knew hated me and could keep me in line…that was his best idea yet. Or so he thought.
He never expected we would bond over the hatred we felt for my father and the pain we felt over losing the woman who held our heart. He never expected our loyalty would soon shift to one another instead of the man who sent us on bloody, violent missions.
When he realized it, he sent us away. It took five years for us to get out of my father’s house. By then, Kortez’s computer skills were honed to perfection, and he could beat every man my father had employed in a fight.
By then, I had decided I had to kill my father.
I think he saw that in my eyes.
He tries to keep us busy, but he can’t watch us as closely as before. We’ve been able to take over quite a few of his businesses and formed relationships with not only more than half of my father’s contacts, but quite a few new ones as well. We’re almost ready for the final step.
We’re almost ready to end him.
There’s just one thing standing in the way of us and the final, glorious day when my father’s blood splatters his gold encrusted walls.
Well, not thing. Man.
Wade.
I don’t know his last name, no one does – despite me having a dozen men looking for information for the past four years. He’s a ghost but he’s a ghost who wants nothing more than to bring my entire family crumbling to the ground.
Five years ago, right before my father let me and Kortez go off on our own, there was an attempt on my father’s life. A rival family wanted our territory upstate, and while we were able to neutralize the threat within a few days, we lost a lot of good men.
One of those men was Wade’s father, John Baric.
Within a year, our shipments, storage facilities, and even our safehouses began to get hit.
It didn’t take long for Wade to own up to the damage, but when we began to look into his identity, we realized we couldn’t find him anywhere.
We assume Wade’s last name is his mother’s since we were only able to find correspondence and photos of Wade and John when he was about ten.
Their shortened relationship didn’t make a difference to Wade, though, and John had apparently left him hundreds of files on my family and our organization. A part of me is glad he died when he did, because we haven’t been able to uncover what he planned to do with the information.
Now it’s four years after we learned Wade’s name and each year, he kills more of our men, steals more of our money, and destroys more of our property. I have no doubt he’s who is behind Roman being set up for the murder of our club employees. It reeks of Wade.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, as if thinking of my cousin was a form of telepathy asking him to call me for the hundredth time today. I reach into my jeans and press the button to quit the incessant buzzing as Kortez throws a match onto the gasoline covered bodies.
The smell of rotting flesh immediately overwhelms my nose, and I snap my fingers to get Kor’s attention. “Douse the place and light it, I’ll get the car.”
He sends me a nod, his skull printed balaclava glinting in the moonlight that shines through the warehouse windows.
Even from here I can see the spots of dried blood across the white paint.
That combined with the dark look in his eyes, the can of gasoline clutched tightly in his hand, and the handle of the gun poking out from his waistband has turned him into a man straight out of the mafia movies.
It’s the complete opposite of who he was.
It’s the complete opposite of who he should be.
Eve wouldn’t even recognize him.
I don’t think she would recognize me, either.
My once bare face is now filled with dark scruff and acts as the inspiration for nightmares instead of daydreams. Right after my father brought us home, he shoved me in the basement for some reflection that included letting his men come in and beat me one by one before he came in a week later with his favorite blade clutched in his hand.
I left that basement with four broken ribs, a fractured jaw, a dislocated ankle and knee, a burn on my chest, and a slash across my face.
My hand comes up to trace the scar as I walk out into the humid night air, fingers trailing from the bottom of my jaw on the left side, across my lips and nose, over my eye, and up my forehead to the right.
Even my hair grows differently where the blade continued into my scalp before my father drew it away from my body.
He told me it was a reminder that I belong to him and the family, and love would never be a priority for me.
Valente men cannot afford to love, and now no one could ever love you.
It’s not like it matters. Eve is gone, a ghost in the wind that’s even more elusive than Wade.
Kortez and I went back to Florida the first chance we got, but the mothers at the orphanage said Eve had raced off after graduation and never came back. We packed up a few things the mothers had kept and left Jacksonville behind, but not before stopping by my old warehouse just to check.
It was empty, spotless. Someone had come to clean the blood from where I killed the man that knocked Kortez out, angry for Eve that someone would hurt her best friend and scared that he would be subject to the same horrors I came to Florida to get away from.
The only thing to show that I, or Kortez, was ever there, was the burned-out husk of his old Mustang.
I told him I would get him a new one, but he said the car wasn’t meant for him and wouldn’t be the same without her in the passenger seat.
I knew what he meant. It’s the same reason I’d never gotten a new Maserati.
Instead, we decided to get the newest Porsche Taycan, an absolute beauty of a car with all leather interior and an upgraded engine that can hit just under two hundred miles an hour. She’s our new woman.
Kortez walks out of the warehouse as soon as I pull our car around, the engine purring as he opens the door and slides into the seat, bringing the smell of smoke with him. “We’re going to need to air this baby out on the plane.”
He grunts, sliding his mask off and throwing it into the backseat. “Have you heard from Roman again?”
All work and no play, that’s Kortez. I didn’t know him very well before my father took him, but I don’t think this is the man Eve loved – and I know she loved him.
Cars honk as I glide onto the freeway, the warehouse already going up in flames at our back as I make our way to the private airstrip where we park our jet. “He called a few minutes ago, either for an update or to tell us to get our asses to Denver.”
I see his phone screen light up in the corner of my eye as he begins to scroll through his messages. “Fuck man, I have twenty messages just in the last hour. Didn’t you tell him we would be on the way soon?”
“I did, but he’s been acting weird. I want to wait another day or two once we land to look around and see if Wade’s got eyes on him.”
His phone begins to trill as a call comes through and he answers with a sigh. “Hello, Roman.”
I nudge Kortez with my elbow and a second later, Roman’s voice is coming through the speakers.
“I know you said a few days, but how many is a few? Things are, uh…things are getting pretty heavy here and…” A woman’s moan begins to sound throughout the car, and I hear Roman curse.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” A door closes, assumedly his, and the moaning gets so faint I can barely hear it.
My laughter fills the car and I see Kortez break a little smile from the passenger seat. “Where the hell are you, Ro?”
My cousin is silent for a moment, before grunting, “My lawyers. I told you the judge put her in charge of me until the trial.”
I shoot a look over at Kortez to see him already looking at me. I grew up with Roman and Kortez has known him for the past ten years – we know when something isn’t right. Is Roman…jealous?
Kortez puts the phone on mute, making sure Roman can’t hear us before saying, “He likes her. It’s a good thing we’re going because you know Roman isn’t good about not mixing business with pleasure.”
Oh, don’t I? More than once I’ve had to bang his head into a wall for breaking the hearts of our best dancers and making them quit. The man just doesn’t know when to give up.
I shoot a wink at Kortez as I pull into the airstrip, my guys already waiting by the back ramp for the car. Kortez unmutes us just as another soft moan comes through the speakers and we hear Roman hit something on the other side of the phone. “Your lawyer, huh? At least she moans prettily enough.”
“You know what Atlas? My lawyer is – “ Roman cuts off, his breath shaky as a deep exhale rattles the speakers. “Never-fucking-mind. Just get here.”
The phone beeps as the call ends, Kortez’s screen lighting up with a photo he managed to find of Eve on her graduation day ten years ago from the school’s website.
I shrug, getting out of the car and tossing the keys over to Jax, my head of security and the only other person besides Kortez that I let behind the wheel of my car. “Guess he’s a little tense.”
Kortez shakes his head as we walk over and begin to board the plane, “One day, you two are going to kill each other.”