“When were you going to tell me that you allowed someone to flip a lieutenant?” he asked with accusation sharp in his tone.
“I wasn’t.” My jaw ticked from holding back anger. “I handled it.”
“You handled nothing. I handled Nando’s betrayal,” he hissed.
The words sent a chill down my spine and a swirl of acid in my stomach. I knew what he meant, but for some reason, my mouth asked the words I didn’t want to hear the answer to.
“Father, he’s gone. Why?”
The ice in his words bit through the line. “A narco lives and dies by the code. When he joins our family, so does all of his blood.”
I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I knew the code. I hated the fucking code. The code was the reason there were hundreds of movies in Hollywood about Italian mafia wise guys and Corleone bullshit.Omertàwas a joke. Capos got pinched by the Feds and turned state’s witness in a heartbeat to save their own skins. I could wipe my ass with theiromertàpledge. The reason Americans rarely saw a movie about a true cartel or saw headlines about one turning against their own family was simple. It didn’t happen. We had no need for a code of silence when we faced a code of death.
It was beaten into every low-level cartel runner that if they were busted and talked or cooperated with the DEA, their family and friends back in Mexico would be killed. There were no made men or ceremonies or pledges in our world. A simple threat of beheading your wife, children, mother, father, or multiple generations of your lineage, kept your mouth shut.
I hoped Nando’s blow job was worth the death that would soon come for his wife in Houston and his family back home.
“Did you hear me, boy?”My father’s voice carried a twinge of annoyance. I’d missed half of what he’d said.
“Si,” I lied. I didn’t give a shit. I just wanted off the phone. The less I talked to the man the better.
“Watch for the Muñoz Cartel,” he warned. “They just shipped new men across the border.”
“I’ve got it under control. Don’t worry.” I had nothing under control, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Bien.I’ll call soon.” He disconnected the call before I could mention another word.
My father thought I was a moron, but I’d been aware of the Muñoz Cartel sniffing around my operation for a while now. It was because of that knowledge that Nando’s betrayal couldn’t have come at a worse time. I needed all my men close and vigilant. Shipments were being intercepted and it wasn’t by the Feds. With Mateo, Emilio, and Nando, I’d been able to always stay one step ahead of them. With one man down, I was crippled. I couldn’t afford to lose another fifty-two kilos.
Squeezing the phone in my hand, my father’s words rolled around in my head, and I couldn’t help thinking of Nando’s sister and her two small daughters back in Mexico City. Were they already dead? Would my father make it a clean kill with no suffering, or would he be a bastard and mount their heads on a stake, leaving it in their front yard as a warning to the rest of the runners’ families?
“Motherfucker!” Twenty-three years of resentment exploded as I hurled the phone across the desk. It skidded across strewn papers, knocking a glass and pictures over in its wake until it finally came to a stop against the wall.
Rising from the chair, I ran my fingers over the small, three-by-five pewter picture frame lying on the floor. I didn’t give a shit about anything else. It could stay a clusterfucked mess for all I cared. Picking up the frame, I wiped the spilled water from the glass with the tail of my shirt, taking care to dry it before it could leak through to the photo.
As I crashed into bed, my vision blurred. The woman in the photo faded from a smiling, onyx haired image, to a clouded memory. The toothless boy wrapped in her arms grinned, innocent and blissfully unaware of the life that awaited him on the other side of destiny.
Chapter Nine
EDEN
My stomach roiledas my gaze shifted from the sink that washed the evidence from my boss’s hands, to my brother, draped over the butcher’s block. His face had drained of all color, and his lips turned a bluish hue. Blood poured from almost every crevice of his body. Gripping the steel rods of the cart, I sat up on my knees and forced myself to see what the man I trusted had done to him.
Bile crawled up my throat, burning a hole in the delicate tissue. The tips of Nash’s middle and forefinger on his right hand were gone. The digits were scattered across the block, tossed meaningless like scraps from today’s special ready for tomorrow’s garbage pickup.
I couldn’t take it. Blackness crowded the outer edges of my vision, and my grip tightened.
My big brother. My hero. Nash always saved the day and made sure I didn’t screw up everything in my path. He never did anything wrong. He spoke the truth. He wasn’t a junkie. He dedicated his life to getting inner city kids off drugs.
The shaking intensified, and the more Nash bled, the more I panicked. I couldn’t pass out. He needed me. His eyes fluttered, and a slow trail of blood seeped out of his nose. I’d already lost everything that meant anything in my life. If I lost Nash, they’d might as well kill me too.
Releasing one hand from the metal cart, I swiped the tears and pressed the back of my hand to my lips. The pressure was the only thing that quelled the cries of his name from bursting from my chest.
My brother wouldn’t die alone. I was getting him the hell out of here.
Just as I twisted to crawl from behind the cart, my knee caught the end of the bottom tray. The move was enough to cause it to roll forward into the prep table in front of it with a metal clang. Only a slight noise pinged through the air, but to my own ears, it sounded like a gunshot.
Nash rolled his chin toward me, lacking the strength to lift it any higher. His sullen blue eyes blinked, narrowed, then focused in the dim light. In a split second, I knew he saw me, and everything happened before I could react.
