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God damn Harriet. Call it what it is, I want to scream. Your cocaine and heroin empire! He’s so used to using his stupid code names, it’s engrained in him.
“You’re surprised by this?” Puff’s guys keep getting massacred by the cartel for muling drugs for us. “So pay them more.”
“They just cost us a significant sum when they let Navarro burn our product. Why would I pay them more when they haven’t done their job? If anything, they should compensate us.”
“Yeah, good luck with that.” There’s no way Puff’s crew can scrape together that kind of cash. We’re talking about millions. Plus, they’ve probably heard what happened to the Mamba who was interrogated by the cartel for intel. His motorcycle club found him with his manhood jammed in his mouth like a festive pig biting an apple. “I guess Puff doesn’t feel that the risk of mutilation and dismemberment is worth being in business with us anymore.” Can’t say I blame him.
“And that is where you come in. I need you to convince him that it is in his best interest to continue with our arrangement,” he says slowly, clearly. “Send a message. Remind him that he has loved ones. Take away their freedom until he comes to his senses.”
He wants me to threaten Puff. Or, more aptly, Puff’s family, who’s on the outside while he sits in these walls along with my father, surrounded by his own ring of protection. Virtually untouchable.
Caleb and I have stepped in from time to time to settle questions about who’s in charge when it comes to gangsters and other lowlifes, but we’ve always drawn the line at innocents. Women and children are off-limits.
But now my father has my balls in an iron vice, primed to squeeze, and we both know it.
“Is that all….” I feign a dull tone, meanwhile my insides are twisting.
“No, but that’s a start.”
It’s never just one thing with him. “And what else are we being tasked to do?”
“There’s a shipment coming from Eduardo next week. Ivan will handle it, but he has your number now instead of Peter’s.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Eduardo has been running the cartel in Sinaloa for years. He’s a mean fucker, but he and Dad have always gotten along well. And Ivan is basically my father and Uncle Peter’s righthand man. He’s the guy dad trusted most after Uncle Peter. He’s been managing all the cocaine supply runs since before Dad went to prison.
It’s a relatively smooth operation. Aside from fielding a phone call from Ivan to confirm it’s done, I don’t have to do anything except remind Ivan who he works for so he doesn’t get any ideas, now that Peter, Vic, and Alexei are gone for good. “Are we done then?”
Dad studies his chewed fingernails. “I heard there were only three Perris found this morning. Why not five?”
I shrug. I can’t explain that without incriminating myself. I won’t try.
“They need to be dealt with.”
Jesus. Now he’s ordering us to kill Vince and Merrick? “Why?”
“Because your brother has created an opportunity for us, one I don’t want to waste. It’ll be cleaner for us to take over the Perri territory if there aren’t two of them alive to challenge us, and we need to do it now, before Navarro makes his move.”
The last thing Merrick and Vince care to do is take on Vlad Easton or Navarro for their stake in the Perri drug business, but my father doesn’t know that, and I’m not supposed to know that. “Navarro’s already making his move for that territory.”
“He’ll back down.”
“Why would he do that? So far he’s been handing us our asses.” Slaughtering our distribution chain and burning our product in a masterful “fuck you.” “Now you want to take on more territory that he wants, with less people in our corner to defend us?” I snort. “You’ve officially lost your damn mind.”
“He will back down, when he learns that the Easton family is not to be trifled with.” A small smirk touches his lips.
My eyes narrow with suspicion. “What have you set in motion?”
“A lesson. You don’t need the details.”
Shit. I know what his lessons look like, firsthand. “So, you’re starting an all-out war with Navarro’s cartel that we’ll have to clean up,” I say flatly. Tossing a lit match onto a pile of tinder.
“No, I’m going to show him that our reach can be just as long and punishing.”
A knock sounds on the door. Donny is eyeing me through the window, a pained expression plastered across his face. If he has the guts to pressure me like this, it means this conversation has to end now before this channel is permanently blocked.
“Those two Perris? They’re a problem. Deal with them.” Dad’s bushy eyebrows arch in meaning.
I can’t begin to wrap my head around these requests—murder, abduction, maybe more murder—and whether I’ll comply. It’s a good thing I have a long drive back to Vegas to consider my options. If I’m foolish enough to believe I have any. But he still hasn’t given me an answer. “Where is she?”
