Rocking the baby as she rummaged through a diaper bag I hadn’t seen Don holding when he brought the carrier in, Cathy pulled a cooler bag out. When she maneuvered the milk so thatthe baby could drink it, I figured she had the baby duty shit on lock.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, so I retrieved it just before telling Cathy I’d be back and stepping out.
Leader was being led to the elevators while Don was further down the hall on a call. Bringing my focus back to my phone, I swiped the screen to access my text messages.
Tulscan
Address you sent checks out. Stella lives there. We sliding on this scandalous bitch or nah?
KnowingStella was in Jagoda Bay had been fucking with my head for the last week. Just like God had come through on her beating cancer, he’d proven she was on his favorites list once again. Glow and Glee had saved her scamming ass, but her luck would soon run out.
Chapter 11
Don Demise
“So, what the fuck is this shit with Ines? We in bed with the Mexican cartel now? I thought we was straight with the Navarros?” Rut asked as he stroked his chin.
Standing at the head of the round table, all of the seats were vacant except for two. One occupied by my left hand, Rut, and the other by my right hand, Matteo. We were at the Dungeon, and although outside the double doors to enter and exit the room was buzzing with motherfuckers making illegal deals and losing all their money, it was quiet enough in here to hear an ant struggling to make its away through the window seal cracks. The Dungeon was one of my smartest investments. It stayed packed with the highest of the high to the lowest of the low. I didn’t discriminate when it came to making my pockets fatter. As long as motherfuckers came in and acted like they had some fucking sense, they stayed alive enough to be in debt to my ass.
I looked at Rut in his four-piece suit, dressed like we were headed to a funeral. I would’ve cracked a joke on him, but I had a five-piece suit on, like I was about to marry Dasani’s ass again, but this time in a full-blown wedding. Matteo was suited up as well, but I could tell he was ready to take his suit off. The niggawas mean as shit, and I was already annoyed with the situation we had going on, so I planned to finish this conversation quickly so we could all retreat to our business. There were a billion other things I could be doing besides this bullshit here.
I nodded to Rut. “Yeah, we got the Navarro Cartel, and Goal my nigga and all, but Ines is in Mexico, whereas Navarro is Colombian.”
Removing the remote that was in the inner pocket of my jacket, I rolled my neck to relieve the brewing tension. I was too damn young for the bullshit that came with being the head of this organization, and lately, it seemed like shit had been spiraling. I knew it had to be due to that dead-ass nigga whose nutsack I’d spawned from. That soft, incompetent bitch boy was cursing me from the grave. But he’d have to conjure up every spirit burning around him to stop this motion.I would handle this shit as I’d handled everything else: fall in line or die. It was simpler than a lot of motherfuckers made it.
“Ledesma is a failing cartel. He’s in our debt—a debt that I can’t ever see him getting out of,” Matteo added, and the glimmer in his eyes told me he was ready to play exterminator.
He hated that our daddy’s had put that jacket on his back, but the nigga was a better shooter than me, although I’d never admit it to him. Matteo was a closet killer who only liked to come out and play when he felt like it, which had been too fucking often since his daddy fucked up and he found out Pearla was his sister. I had to shut the shit down before he brought unnecessary heat to my organization. Family or not, everybody had a role to play.
“Exactly… If the nigga can’t pay, then he gone have to fork some shit over.” I shrugged.
Turning back to the overhead projector, I pressed the remote, and the nigga Shio had the standoff with at the club appeared.
“Felipe Rodríguez. Firstborn son of four to Vicente Rodríguez.”
I clicked the remote again, and an older, heavier Felipe appeared. They both had the same tanned skin and would have been twins if it weren’t for the tattoos on Felipe’s neck. I didn’t know what it was about older Mexican men and weight—those motherfuckers ate too many taquitos, churros, tacos, and shit. He was getting too much money to be so fucking big. The nigga’s neck was so thick that I wasn’t sure how his ass was able to breathe.
“They have been wreaking havoc for years. But this lil’ muthfucka,”—Pointing my laser beam to the mugshot of Felipe, I circled it—“Is a menace. According to what I was able to dig up, he was able to take over Mexico, not by drugs, but by fear. What the fuck they do in their country, I could give a fuck about, but they’re littering here… Jagoda Bay to be exact.”
I pressed the remote again, and over two hundred missing person cases appeared on the screen. The cases involved women and children, but mostly women. The mayor deserved a serious ass-whooping for keeping this quiet. Considering Jagoda Bay's population, the triple-digit number of cases wasn’t many, but those were innocent women and children who had just vanished with little investigation happening to find them.
“I guess their own women weren’t good enough for him or weren’t selling high enough, so he had his people come snatch and grab on our turf. I can give a fuck ’bout what he does in other cities, but this one is off-limits.”
Matteo scoffed. “And the mayor been keeping the news outlets off this shit? Greedy-ass, bitch-ass, muthafucka. Want me to go?—”
“Damn, Teo,” Rut laughed. “Princesspa ain’t draining yo’ nuts or sum? You uptight as fuck.”
Matteo sneered at him before sitting back in the oversized chair.
Instead of sitting, I paced in front of the images of the Rodríguezes. “You know that nigga don’t want his precious city to be painted in a bad light, Teo. But that’s also a win for us because when we take these muthafuckas down, we ain’t gotta be worried about the wrong muthafucka sniffing this way afterward.”
I wasn’t worried one way or another, but we’d been doing a good job of keeping shit diplomatic since coming to Jagoda Bay. Rio had been right when he said connections could be made without violence, so I typically only resorted to killing niggas if there was no other resolution. When it came to the police in Jagoda Bay, I’d done my due diligence over the years. I didn’t like the laws sticking their nose my way, and we’d shared our wealth with the city well enough to have them mind their fucking business. However, I had the money and influence with the force and those associated to end any investigation into anything or anyone Rinaldi-affiliated. Whoever was bold enough to build an investigation on me would go down before I did. That, or end up in a premature grave.
Still, I’d spent more than enough years of my fucking life behind bars and didn't fuck with the police at all besides anonymous payroll personnel and disguised donations. I didn’t even like talking to them pigs, but it was necessary to keep my business running smoothly.I had them in my back pocket, but the money I poured out for information and for them to look the other way was given right back to me. So many of them motherfuckers were frequent flyers here at the Dungeon, especially the chief. He, too, needed to lose some fucking weight because I needed him to live a long and healthy life. He was my type of crooked, and I wasn’t in the mood to be trying to convert a new chief to the winning team if he died. I’d fuck around andkeep killing the newly appointed chiefs while trying to get them motherfuckers to get with the program. I’d have Rio and the other Don’s on my ass then, and I ain’t feel like dealing with that shit either.
“So, what now? When the killing ’posed to start?” Matteo huffed.
“Slow down, Jason Voorhees. Ever since y’all’s showdown in Mexico City, they’ve gone underground. I can’t locate them, and Ines haven’t even heard from his bitch-ass son either, so y’all killed him, ortheykilled him. Either way, chances are the nigga dead.”
