Page 134 of Cartel Devil

“They’d be idiots not to take a cash offer with no contingencies and a quick closing.”

“Can we talk to her about it at Sunday dinner this week?”

“That’d be perfect.”

Tre looks at me suspiciously when my tone sounds like I’m ending the conversation. I attempt to look innocent. She’s learning to read me far too fast. It’ll be harder to keep things from her than I imagined.

“Aleks is ready to beat down your door, hermano. He found out about the patent.”

Javier chuckles since he has a particular dislike of Aleks. The guy tried to outbid him on an antique car at auction. It was the same model Jag as the one our papá had. A lot of our memories have faded, but all three of us remember going for rides with our parents in the countryside and along the coast with the car’s top down.

Aleks found out what the car meant to Javier while they were bidding. It didn’t stop him. They got into a bidding war neither of them won. They just drove the price up until some oil oligarch got bored with their squabbling and bid ten million. It far exceeded the car’s value and was nine and a half million more than where my brother and Aleks were at with their bids. Both of them were too stunned to bid again. The auctioneer called it far faster than he should’ve just to get it over with.

Javier was the angriest I’ve ever seen him. It took Tío Enrique putting his foot down and commanding Javier not to send Aleks a Soviet-era soldier’s uniform. We all knew that was a bridge too far. Aleks’s father died stepping on a landmine during one of the Chechen wars. He was protecting a friend, and his older brother witnessed it. Javier thought stealing a memory of our papá deserved them getting a reminder they lost something too.

A car doesn’t equate to a parent. Instead, he sent six bouquets of fresh chamomile and ten pounds of the tea. It’s the national flower of Russia and makes Aleks break out in hives.

“Let him come. But the walk would be shorter to your place since you live three houses away, and you’re the one who filed all the paperwork.”

“Throw me under the bus, why don’t you?”

Jorge bursts into Tío’s study, and I have a flashback to when he was five, and I was nearly eight. He’d beaten Javier at checkers and couldn’t wait to tell everyone, so he ran into Papá’s study without knocking. The first and last time he ever did that. Our father praised him, then gave all three of us a reminder that we’re not unwelcome in the room, but it was the one place we absolutely mustn’t go in without knocking and being invited in.

I understand now that our parents were just as bad as we are with our women. Even their bedroom wasn’t as off limits as Papá’s study. Once I was fourteen and started my training, I realized why.

“Get a load of this shit. It’s good!”

“Don’t tell us you found another tax loophole. Be still my beating heart.” Javier barely looks up from his computer, still sour thinking about Aleks.

“Pillo. No.”

Our elders would take a chancla—the wooden-soled house slippers abuelas wear and threaten to spank naughty kids with—to our asses if we ever truly swore at each other. My youngest brother calls our middle brother a—I guess the closest English is rascal. It’s only a mild insult, but we all know Jorge would probably call him cabrón if Tío Enrique and Tío Luis weren’t with us.

Javier tsks and rolls his eyes.

“Anyway, Aleks clearly tattled to Maks about the patent like the little bitch he is. Maks could’ve saved himself time and just asked us. We would’ve gladly told him why. Apparently, Katerina told Misha that Tricia was in the hospital and had been attacked in Boston too. That got their attention before the patent thing, so Sergei and Anton poked around to find out what was going on with us. They must’ve found the Volkovs doing something shady. Probably shit we didn’t even find, but it set off alarms. They had to know something happened to provoke us, so they dug into the Boston families some more. Basically, long story short, they figured out the Volkovs were letting people think they were just doing the Kutsenkos’ bidding when they went after Tricia.”

“Were they?”

“That’s where it gets really interesting. Maks got pissed that Rurik allowed anyone to target Tricia because Maks knew we’d eventually find out about it. The problem was—and this is what Rurik tried to cover up—it was those old guard fuckers who not only wanted to stick it to the Vizzinis but show Rurik he’s powerless. They hoped Maks would kill Rurik, so they don’t have to.”

“Why’d the New York bratva get involved?”

“What we originally suspected. They’re pissed at us for intervening in the Italian turf war. They felt like they were winning, then we brokered the truce. They planted a bug in Francesco’s ear that Salvatore was shirking his duties as the Torettas’ ally. That Salvatore was too busy making friends with Tommaso and helping out Tricia to remember where his true loyalty lies. Francesco must have decided Salvatore was too hard a target—the man’s got more lives than a cat—so he targeted the Vizzinis. With Tricia living in New York, she was supposed to be an easy mark. When her mission to gather intel on us inevitably failed, Francesco could claim his pound of flesh from Tommaso.”

“So, when I started dating Tre, Francesco’s head probably exploded. The family that kept them from winning a war by bringing them peace is now standing in his way again.”

“Exactly. Francesco knew los Iglesias won’t stand against us. He knew Tricia’s connection to the O’Rourkes, so the O’Malleys were out—plus Ewan’s a fucking idiot. That left the Volkovs. He knew they hated us as much as he did. Maybe even more. The way Francesco planned it, the Volkovs were supposed to get the job done, then take the fall for it. If shit didn’t stick to them, then the Kutsenkos would get blamed.”

Alejandro leans forward in his armchair. “It would’ve been a great plan if not for incompetent men.”

“Thank God for incompetent men.”

I might actually say the rosary tonight. We all turn to Tío Luis when he speaks.

“The Elite Group had to know about all of this since they started it. Maks could’ve called it off—convinced Francesco to stop—when it got out of hand and Tricia got hurt the first time. None of the Elite Group—not Maks, Aleks, Nico, or Bogdan—said enough was enough. They could’ve owned what they did and warned us. They have derided us and blamed us for everything under the sun when something bad happens to a syndicate woman. Never mind all the times the Mafia and mob were involved. It’s never mattered how many times we’ve helped more than harmed. They must have saddle sores on their huevos from riding their high horses all day, every day. We know the shit they’ve pulled that could’ve gotten syndicate women hurt, but we silently intervened. We kept their fucking secrets—yes, because it suited us but also because we were never as horrible as people painted us out to be. It’s time to call in all their debts.”

“How?” Pablo’s a mirror image of his dad from my earliest memories.