Chuito’s heart dropped, because he spoke Marcos well enough to read between the lines. He’d done it. Something rash and irreversible. How stupid had Chuito been to hope some of Katie’s responsibility had rubbed off on his cousin during their time together?
Alaine made Chuito want to be a better person. Even if there was no real hope for them, just being around her made him see a higher potential for himself.
He thought Katie had done the same for Marcos, but obviously not.
He texted back.
WTF did you do????
His phone chimed back almost instantly.
The right thing for once. I got out.
Chuito stared at his phone, realizing that maybe Katie
had
rubbed off on Marcos, but it was the translation of doing the right thing that had differed between Chuito and his cousin.
His phone rang, and, seeing it was Luis, he barked in Spanish, “What the hell is going on?”
And Luis told him.
Chuito listened to the coded, toned-down version of the events that took place, because even Luis knew telling the full story over the phone was a mistake, but he got the gist of what had happened.
When Chuito decided to get out, he did it by removing himself from the situation.
When Marcos got out, he did it like a hurricane, rash and as crazy as ever.
But no one could accuse Marcos of not having cojones.
Only he would do it like that.
What the hell could Angel do with this shit? He had obviously never understood the broad scope of Marcos’s rebellion like Chuito had. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have tried to push him.
Motherfucker understood it now.
Marcos had made a move that put Angel in a situation that would force him to either kill Marcos to make a point and cause a war in doing so, or stand down and look weak.
The smart move would be to let Marcos go. It was what Chuito would do in the situation. Marcos didn’t want to be there anymore. He was useless anyway. Let him go and do whatever the fuck he wanted.
The problem was, Chuito didn’t consider Angel a particularly smart leader. Greedy, yes. Dangerous, most certainly. He’d been the only one from their old crew who wanted the job when Chuito lost interest.
He’d honestly thought Los Corredores would fall apart under Angel’s leadership.
He’d underestimated Angel in that respect.
That was Chuito’s mistake.
Now he was going to pay for it.
“What’s happened?” Katie asked when he hung up. Her voice was quivering; her eyes were still wide and watery. Her cheeks tearstained. “He won’t respond to me. I-I wrote him back, but—”
“What’d he say?”
Katie pushed her phone to him, showing him the text from Marcos.
I love you, chica. Eres bella. Don’t ever forget that.
The text left Chuito feeling like an uncomfortable intruder in their lives. That was something Katie and Marcos obviously had in common. They were just wide open about these things.
Marcos had found the only woman with a smaller filter than him.
And she was a history teacher.
Who fucking knew?
“I feel like he’s trying to say good-bye.” Katie choked on a sob and put a hand to her mouth as she looked at Chuito. “What if—”
He saw her responses underneath.
I love you too.
Come back.
Chuito shook his head at that. “He’s not going to come back, Katie. That’ll be like running. Marcos doesn’t know how to run away from anything. He’ll stay in Miami on principle.”
“Then what do we do?” She looked around the diner, because people were starting to stare. If his barking phone call in Spanish didn’t put a red flag over their heads, Katie’s crying certainly did. She lowered her voice and whispered, “How do we help him?”
Chuito grabbed both their phones and then slid out of the booth.
He sat next to Katie, who moved over to give him room. Then he put his arm around her, completely careless of everyone looking at them. He kept his voice down as he said, “Hey, come on. He’s gonna be okay, chica.”
She wiped at her eyes again as she blinked at Chuito. “How can you be sure?”
“Because I am.” He rubbed her arm like a brother would and looked her dead in the eye. “I promise.”
“Promises are important,” Katie reminded him. “Marcos told me they’re everything to an OG. Don’t make it, unless—”
“I promise, he’ll be old and lame when he dies,” Chuito assured her as a strange calm came over him. “He’s
not
going in the ground a baller. You’ll have time to make things right.”
“How do you know?”
Because Chuito just did.
No one messed with their family and came out unscathed.
Angel had forced Marcos to make the first move, and it wasn’t a half-bad one, but that meant Chuito had to get back in the game and finish it, even if that meant losing Alaine in the process. He couldn’t even mourn it too much. There was a reason he hadn’t touched her. He’d known he’d have to go back eventually, and now was as good a time as any.
Maybe he could give Marcos a happy ending instead.
Chuito might have underestimated Angel, but Angel had also sorely underestimated the level of fury that could be unleashed when Marcos and Chuito worked together to end something.
“This motherfucker who’s messing with Marcos, he’s threatened the wrong family.” He laughed bitterly when he thought about how true it was. “He’s got no chance. Zero.”
“I love him too.” She picked up her phone and looked at it again. “But I never told him in person. I should have. Maybe he would’ve stayed.”
“You know, Katie, I was wrong about one thing.” He took the phone and pointed to the Spanish section of Marcos’s text to her. “What does that say?”
“It says—” She choked as she looked at it, but she wiped her eyes rather than crumble and whispered, “I-it says, um, ‘You’re beautiful.’”
“He can’t live in this town. I wasn’t lying about that. He would be miserable here.” Chuito smiled in spite of everything. “But you
are
smart. You could learn Spanish if you wanted to. It’s not impossible.”
* * * *
Chuito dropped Katie off and promised to return her car to her repaired before the next morning. On his way back from her house, he made a call he was hoping he would never have to make.
The next day, Katie had a new ignition, and Chuito had a meeting scheduled with Nova Moretti for that same evening.
Never let it be said the mafia wasn’t efficient.
Or maybe it was just the Morettis who got shit done.
The apartment above the garage of Romeo and Jules Wellings’s house was about as pimped out as a bachelor pad could be. Everything was state of the art, from the kitchen to the surround-sound television. Chuito was always struck by how neat it was. Chuito wasn’t a slob, but his best friend was neat to the point of a disorder.
Someone could eat off the floor at Tino’s place.
Yet, it was comfortable and inviting. Chuito hung out there a lot. It was almost a second home, which was why it was so hard to fight the string of nervousness tugging at the pit of his stomach as he walked up the stairs. Chuito and Tino lived in the same world, trapped between two homes and two ideals. They understood each other, but Chuito had never known quite what to make of his brother.
Nova wasn’t trapped between anything. He was 100 percent gangster, and when Nova Moretti was ballin’, the rest of them felt like posers for trying it.
He’d seen the Rolls Royce Wraith parked in the driveway.
There was only one guy who would drive a car like that.
He knocked on the screen to the back door instead of just walking in like he would under different circumstances. Tino opened it after a moment, and rather than greet him like he usually did, Tino grabbed his hand and pulled him close, wrapping his other arm around him. He kissed Chuito’s cheek and whispered, “It’ll work out. I promise.”
This was all a little too
Goodfellas
for Chuito, but he played along rather than stiffen. He was hyperaware of Nova standing behind his brother. It was always easy to see the resemblance in them, the same broad, muscular builds, the same short, dark hair and dark eyes, but there was something harder in Nova’s face. Tino was definitely the prettier of the two brothers, because there was simply no give in Nova. This was a man who rarely, if ever, let down his guard, and at twenty-six, it showed.
When Chuito pulled away from Tino, he shook Nova’s hand. “Thanks for coming so fast. I didn’t know you had to drive. I appreciate it.”
“I needed to see everyone anyway. I like things that kill two birds with one stone.” Nova shrugged and gestured to the table. “
Toma asiento. Ponté cómodo
.”
Chuito sat and tried to make himself comfortable like Nova suggested, but he couldn’t tell if Nova spoke Spanish to put him at ease or leave him more on edge.
“You hungry?” Tino asked as he walked to the fridge. “We haven’t had dinner yet, but I can find something.”
“No.” Chuito shook his head. “I’m good.”
Nova sat across from Chuito, studying him thoughtfully. “So spill it, Garcia. What’s the favor? I’m dying to hear this.”
Chuito frowned. “I didn’t say it was a favor.”
“I said it was a favor.” Tino put a water bottle in front of his brother with more force than necessary. “We owe him.”
Nova gave his brother a hard look before he turned back to Chuito and said in Spanish, “I don’t like owing favors. I would have made different arrangements for the other thing if I thought it was going to come back and bite me in the ass a year later.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I told you that at the time. I wanted to help with that,” Chuito assured him in Spanish. “This is not a favor; it’s a business arrangement.”
Nova picked up his water bottle and unscrewed the cap slowly, methodically, and then said in English, “A business arrangement means I gotta benefit off the end results.”
“You will.”
Tino sat down next to Chuito, as if there had been an invisible line drawn across the table, and he was making it very clear whose side he was on. He handed Chuito a bottle of water and then glared at his brother.
Being in the middle of a family squabble wasn’t Chuito’s ideal, especially when the family was the Morettis, but he’d learned a long time ago not to show weakness. This was his last option save going back to Miami and tearing into them with his bare hands and likely ending up in prison for the effort. He
was
nervous, but he made damned sure Nova didn’t know it.
“There’s someone in Miami I need to put the squeeze on,” Chuito went on, using their terminology on purpose. “But I can’t be the one to do it.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s not just part of Los Corredores, he’s running it.”
Nova took a long drink of water as he considered that. When he was done, he set the bottle down. “You’ll understand when I tell you that doesn’t give me very much confidence about going into business with you. My people don’t respect guys who fuck over their organization. We usually bury pricks like that.”
“He wants to take out my cousin.” Chuito held up his hands. “You fuck with my family, it’s war. He made the first move, not me. Angel knows where I stand on that.”
“How do you know he wants to take out your cousin?”
“Marcos wants out and wasn’t exactly subtle about making his case. He’ll make an example of him.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t, but I believe it’s a strong possibility. Angel and I have a history. I let him run Los Corredores. It could have been mine. I moved here instead, but I still have a certain level of authority. I have good contacts on the inside that tell me he wants to smoke Marcos. Even if it pisses me off. He doesn’t want any split allegiances, and Marcos’s stand is starting to cause a rift. Most of the OGs are inclined to side with him out of loyalty to me.”
“You’re a threat?”
“Yes.”
“And your cousin is a liability?”
Chuito shook his head. “He went to prison rather than sell out Los Corredores. He wouldn’t go to the heat. It’s not in him, but he does want out. He’s willing to turn his back on them. Angel doesn’t like to be ignored. It’s an insult.”
“And why should your cousin get out when the rest of us haven’t?” Nova laughed bitterly. “What makes him so fucking special?”
“What makes Tino special? I know you want him here, and I know there’s a good reason for that.” Chuito held up a hand to Tino next to him. “He’s your brother. You want him out. Marcos is like my brother. We were raised together. We grew up under the same roof and went through the same shit. If he wants to live his life without Los Corredores holding him down, I want to give him that.”
“And you’re gonna sell your soul to me to get that?”
“Yes,” Chuito agreed without hesitation. “I will.”
“And what do you have to offer me for putting the squeeze on your Los Corredores brother Angel?”
“Angel’s got an interesting car-theft ring running in Miami. He’s learned how to wash the titles rather than just chop the cars for parts. He ships them overseas with clean titles, and I’m sure it’s been very profitable for him. If someone could get their hands into the docks where the cars go out from, they would have the leverage to make his life very easy…or very difficult.”
“The workers look the other way, he ships more cars. Makes more money.” Nova sat back in his chair as he considered that. “But he must have someone looking the other way already. We control some of the unions there, but not all of them. We’re not the only family in Miami. How do you know he’s not in bed with another organization? I’m not going to war to get your cousin out.”
“He’s not that connected. He slips a few workers some green, they look the other way. That’s the extent of his arrangement.”
“So it’s a start-up.” Nova spun his cap on the table, looking at it as he thought. “We go in, control the docks. He owes us a cut for ensuring his business prospers. How much money does he make now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not very inspiring.” Nova shook his head. “Reorganizing unions takes cash and energy, Garcia. Not to mention the effort it’ll take to have your friend Angel see things my way. What makes you think it’ll be worth my while for the cut of a few hot cars a month?”