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“Babe, is everything ok?” I ask, touching his hand. He moves some of the hair back from my face and shakes his head. He glances at everyone and then back at me.
“My father escaped custody. Lawrence has been shot. They fear he knows where we are. We have to leave immediately.” Oh God. This is literally my worst nightmare.
“My babies,” is all I can say before I burst into tears.
Well, there goes that dream.
Chapter Twelve
Milo
One Week Later
So, Greenhill, New Jersey isn’t as nice as Cuba by any means. It’s thirty minutes from New York City but it’s polluted, and the ocean is about fifty miles away. It’s hard to get up in the morning and not smell the salty air but I am getting used to it. The kids have nothing but cousins and second cousins to play with. They are having the time of their lives. I should be. It should be easy to get into the groove here, but to be fair all I can think about is my crazy, piece of shit father hunting my wife and kids down. Not that he can hurt them anymore. His brothers, my uncles, found him, almost immediately. He was hiding out in an old safe house in Ohio. He’s chained up in a basement on the property. They do a little wet work there, but they try to bring it here. He’s locked up for the time being. They left it up to me to decide what to do with him. I haven’t been able to bring myself to do anything about it.
Not having seen this part of my family for twenty years, I’ve really missed out on how things get done. Sure, they still commit crimes, but they do so with a level of morality that I’ve never seen. They have rules and they are followed by all of their men. I’ve never seen anything run so smoothly. Ever. The men don’t fight and kill each other. It’s peaceful here. They have put us up in a nice guest house on the property about a mile from the main residence. While it is nice to have our own space, I can tell Chassie isn’t as happy as she’s pretending to be.
Instead of thinking about my father and my lack of access to the ocean, I am throwing myself into learning the ropes of this business. While the fundamentals are not that much different from what my father was doing, the logistics are. No women and no children. Ever. That’s the number one rule and one that I’ve always believed in. Seeing it in action warms my heart and yet despite this rule, there is always some evil man getting what he deserves. It’s the best of both worlds. The best.
They have their hands in everything and it fascinates me, but I can’t stop thinking about how unhappy Chassie really is. She plasters on a smile so fake I am surprised Eva and Pilar don’t realize it. In just a week, they’ve gotten close, but no one will ever be as close to her as I am. Benicio has put me in charge of the collection guys. They collect monies owed and break things as needed in order for the indebted person to cough up the dough. The books were kept in immaculate condition by a man who died of old age. Old age. That shocks me. A man who was loyal and stayed loyal died at the ripe old age of ninety-one. My father would have forced him out thirty years ago. Crazy. The man, Luigi, even left his successor a very detailed note on how he did things, offering a postscript that said, this is just the way I did things. You’ll find your own path.
Taking Luigi’s advice, I began working by using a strong combination of his path and came up with my own. The men respond to me without aggression or jealousy and the work… it just gets done. I feel honored that they’ve taken me in and let me be a part of their organization. Familia, Honor, y Poder is our motto. They’ve taught me to live by it and to die by it. It’s now tattooed on my arm as a daily reminder that family, honor, and power are everything.
After work, I walk the path back to the guest house. Chassie hasn’t put any kind of personal stamp on it yet even though she was assured that she could. The house is dark and quiet. I check on the kids and they are all fast asleep. I find Chassie in bed, watching TV. It’s barely eight.
“Chas, baby talk to me,” I say, causing her to jump.
“How was your day?” she asks, plastering that fake fucking smile on her beautiful face.
“Great. How was yours?”
“Pretty good. I took the kids swimming in the pool at the big house.”
