I gritted my teeth, tired of her fucking voice and her fucking smell. She’d stepped paces away, and I could still smell her scent. “Shut the fuck up, Solana!”
Sweat formed at Ines’ hairline, but he kept his composure with my gun ready to blow his head off. Swallowing, he held his hand up to silence his daughter as if I already hadn’t.
“Lesson eight, when two men are talking, don’t insert yourself. Stand… the… fuck… down,” I addressed Solana but kept my eyes fixed on her father and Don.
Lifting his chin with my gun, he held his hands up as I spoke. “You wanted us to take each other out? You trying to get out of your debt with the Rodríguez Cartel?”
“No… No!”
I hooked my hand around the trigger.
“Shio!” Don spoke quickly, tone even but urgent.
“Nigga, what?” I snapped at him, my eyes not leaving Ines.
“There’s sum’n else…”
There was always something else with Don. It wouldn’t be the fucking Rinaldi Mob if there wasn’t something else.
“The Rodríguezes, as you know, are into trafficking. What those niggas do to make their money isn’t my concern, but it is when it’s onmyturf. Law enforcement came knocking, asking me if I knew anything.”
That was news to me. I tuned in, but I kept my gun on the flesh of Ine’s esophagus.
“The laws coming to me is some shit ion fuck with. As you know, we can’t afford that. I did eight years… I ain’t doing another muthafuckin’ day. So I did some digging, and the shit them cops was talking... It leads back puntas?—”
“Perras, Don.” I corrected him. He was trying to call the Rodríguezes bitches in Spanish but was saying it all wrong.
“You know what the hell I’m sayin’, nigga. Anyways, thembitcheshard to catch. They hadn’t come to Jagoda Bay themselves until…”
Solana and I popped out.
Don let the realization hit me before continuing. “I have a duty to keep the Jagodians safe, and now, you do too. If anybody terrorizing my people, it’s going to be me, and I ain’t even on that type of time. So, the war was bound to happen anyway. This ain’t a war over pussy, it’s bigger than that, Cuppacio.
“Jagoda Bay wasn’t random either. They been trafficking in Atlanta, New York, Cali,andChicago. But it looks like the big Cuppacios were eliminated only for a knockoff El Paso brand to take over… I got the address.”
Ignoring the questions swirling around in my brain, I moistened my lips. Sniffles could be heard from Solana, but Ikept my eyes on her father. “Keep your fuckin’ daughter away from me, Ines!”
“If you leave her here, Shio, they will get her. I will die to protect my daughter, but then I’ll just be dead, and she will be taken. My debt will never be paid. You undermined him in the States; my son told me about it. I had no idea he was taking something from you, and my son couldn’t have known because he would have told me ahead of time. He just told me hours ago. I called Don Demise the moment I found out.”
“What part of ‘I don’t give a fuck about your daughter’ don’t you understand?”
“Okay, she stays. She stays, they take her, and they kill her. You were able to flip my army, so that tells you that I don’t have the manpower to keep her safe. Demise, is that what you want? Not to get paid? For my entire family to die and the Rodríguezes’ take over my operation and business?”
“Papa!” Solana shrilled at his words.
“No! You need to hear this. My biggest regret is having you tied up in this life. It’s why every time Maura got pregnant with a girl, we ended the pregnancy. I didn’t want another daughter and having to play politics. When they take you, Solana, Felipe won’t marry you. That’s off the table now. They will sell you, make money from you, and then they will kill you. That’s a fact.Lo siento nena.(I’m sorry, baby girl.)”
Shifting my eyes from Ines to Solana, I gave her a once-over before zoning back in on Ines. Solana wasn’t crying, but the look on her face was of a woman who had accepted defeat.
“We keep Solana,” Don disclosed, interrupting Ines’ pleas of forgiveness.
When Ines’ eyes fell as if he was questioning why I still held the gun to him, I raised the gun and hit his ass across the head. Maura shrieked like she wasn’t bleeding to death as I grabbed him by his shirt and held him back upright.
I kissed my teeth. “Well, you take her to thebig house. I’m done with her. Y’all think I’m gone keep entertaining a cokehead?”
“She was stressed here. It was harmless. I had a handle on it!” Ines yelled out.
“She’s a fuckin’ cokehead! A young, fuckin’ cokehead that loves to party and sleep all fuckin’ day! How the fuck you got a handle on some shit, and she was with me still doing the shit?”
