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Rafael tipped his head toward me. “It’s true. Lou has completely separated herself from anything to do with Mireya.”
With a sneer, Anton spat on the ground. “And we’re supposed to believe that just because you said so? We’ve seen what backstabbing bitches you Cordovas can be.”
A darker murmur rippled through the crowd behind him. He was getting his men riled up with thoughts of the supposedly unwarranted killings Mom had carried out.
But I didn’t see any point in trying to convince them they were wrong about her. She’d done plenty of other awful things even if she’d been justified in taking out Rafael’s brother. If these guys hadn’t believed Rafael himself when he’d tried to tell them, they sure as hell weren’t going to take my word for it.
We had to come at this from a different angle.
I clicked my tongue against the back of my teeth in a chiding sound. “Really? You do remember that I was onlyeight years oldwhen your people were murdered, right? Are you seriously so pathetic that you’d hold a literal kid responsible for what her parents did?”
Anton’s eyebrows shot up, but even as his eyes flashed, he couldn’t restrain a grimace. The aggressive posturing of the crowd simmered down. Even these pendejos knew I had a point.
“You’re not a kid anymore,” one of the older guys snarled from where he stood by Anton’s side.
Anton nodded with a jerk of his head. “Damn straight. And Mireya Cordova is even more of a tyrant and a terror than she was back then. You can’t brush off your whole family history when shit is going down right now.”
“I know she’s gone off the rails,” I said tightly. “She’s been gunning formetoo, as I’m sure you’ve noticed if you’ve been paying any attention at all.”
Another gangster let out a scoffing sound. “You’re still a Cordova. You’ve still got those ties.”
Anton scowled at me. “You can’t throw away all the responsibility for the family business when those riches will be going to you the second she kicks the bucket.”
An edge I couldn’t restrain crept into my voice. “I’d rather they didn’t. I never wanted anything to do with the family business, and I’d be perfectly happy to see the whole fucking empire fall.”
The man in front of me shook his head. His thugs rumbled discontentedly, skepticism stark on all their hardened faces.
We weren’t getting anywhere just talking. I’d known making peace with just words was a longshot, but I’d wanted to give it a try anyway. Because the next step I was taking could come back to bite me if it didn’t play out in my favor.
I glanced at Rafael. His jaw tightened, but he inclined his head slightly. We’d discussed what I’d do if I couldn’t convince the guys to back down by verbally cutting ties with Mom.
So, I’d just have to offer concrete evidence of how little I gave a shit what happened to her.
I dug my hand into my purse, holding up the other hand when the men stiffened. “No weapons. I’ve got something that’ll actually help you.”
I pulled out a wad of folded papers. Opening up one, I held it out so Anton and his men could see the lines sketched across it.
“I can give you the layout of the Cordova mansion. Every room, every hallway, every entrance, with notes about how they’re typically guarded. I’ve got two more floor plans here, of a couple of my family’s main business locations in the city.”
Anton licked his lips. He gazed avidly at the amateurish blueprint and then back at me. “Why the fuck are you showing me that?”
“I’m making a gift out of it.” I refolded the paper and shoved the bunch of them toward him. “You can do what you want with them. Consider it a gesture of trust. Now it’s up to you whether you trust Rafael and me to stop my mother our own way and save you the trouble, or if you want to go at her head on if it’s that important to you. You’ve got the option. It all comes down to how much you want to put your heads on the line.”
“There’s got to be a catch,” someone muttered.
I shook my head. “No catch. I wanted you to see that I’m willing to let my mom get even more pissed off at me, if that’s what it takes to prove which side I’m on and getyouoff our backs. We aren’t part of your fight with the Cordovas. We’re fighting our own battle. If you want, you can sit back and let us do all the work, but I’m not asking you to wait if you’d rather stick your own necks out.”
The gangsters jostled against each other restlessly, their expressions flickering between eager and uncertain.
Anton rubbed his mouth and frowned down at the papers he’d taken before lifting his eyes to meet mine. “How exactly areyouplanning to finish her?”
Rafael grunted. “You can’t expect us to give away information like that. You worry about what you’re going to do, and we’ll worry about our own tactics.”
It would have been stupid to give them that kind of information anyway, when for all I knew they could turn around and sell it to my mom regardless of their past anger. But there was also the fact that I didn’t have the faintest clue how the hell we were going to end her reign of terror just yet, which Rafael knew as well as I did.
A different voice rose up from the crowd. “How much time is it going to take you to deal with her, huh? How much longer are we putting up with this bitch lording it over us?”
With great effort, I avoided gritting my teeth. “We’re doing as much as we can as quickly as we can. If I could get this all over with tomorrow, I’d go for it. But upending an entire empire takes time.”
