Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
I floored it over to Pop’s. When I walked in, the family was around the table and they all looked up at me, shocked. I know it’s because my face was fucked up from Tia and in addition to that I was disheveled and dirty. I ran my fingers through my hair, “Pop, Dare, need a minute.”
My sisters, their husbands, and Lisa went back to eating, but there was awkwardness in the air.
“Uncle Tommy!” One of the girls bellowed from the table. I gave my little niece a forced smile and headed out of the room.
As much as Tessa and Luciana have big personalities, they know when to keep their mouths shut. My attitude must’ve shown this wasn’t the time to start on me with questions.
We stepped into Pop’s office. “Your brother told me she beat you up. I didn’t realize just how much.”
I shook my head and shot my brother a dirty look. “Earl took Tia in a black 74 to 76 Grand Prix. I got a picture of the plate with my phone. I shot him in the shoulder. He shot Marco. Dead. We need to move. Now.”
Smirks evaporated. As I was swiping the screen to get to the photo I’d snapped, my phone started ringing. It was a blocked number.
I answered, “Ferrano.”
“Your girl is on a plane. South. Three hours we’ll call with demands.”
Mexican accent.
“You fucking touch her you’d might as well kill her because I won’t want her. You hear me?”
Dial tone. They couldn’t know she meant anything to me because they’d definitely rape her.
“Mexico,” I said to them and now we could at least narrow it down. Dare brought the girls’ husbands in. Both guys, Jimmy who was Tessa’s husband and Eddy, Luciana’s husband, worked for us. Jimmy was on our security team. Eddy ran a restaurant for us but he was solid and could double as security, if needed. He filled them in.
Three hours later I was out of my mind, sick about it, but I knew who had her and I knew what they wanted. Juan Carlos Castillo. They wanted us to relinquish an ongoing arrangement where we were being paid a kickback for every drug deal through a certain drug shipping lane in a small Mexican town near Morelia. We didn’t dabble much with drugs and I didn’t even know about this deal, but Pop said it was recent and that we were barely involved but were getting a decent kickback for almost no involvement. We had other non-drug business down there, so he said we had people and we had a safe house to work from in order to deal with this. I was a little put off by this news but didn’t have time to process that. I just needed to get her the fuck out of there.
The only thing that made sense was that she would be held in one of two places there. The cartel’s leader’s compound was huge and pretty near impenetrable. He also had a vacation house in a mini compound near Chacala. Luckily, we had men who spied for us in both compounds so we’d soon know where she was. If she was in one of those two locations, we would know about it soon enough, through our contacts.
By the time night fell, I was on a plane heading toward Morelia.
We left the plane; we weren’t at a typical airport. It was a warehouse with a landing strip, surrounded by prison-like fences, barbed wire around the top.
Before we got off the plane, I was told that if I misbehaved, I would be shot in the head. It was made crystal clear that I was expendable. They also said they could easily get to one of Tommy’s sisters. He had a pregnant sister who would be an easy mark. I believed them and I cooperated.
We travelled in an old Jeep down a long dirt road and it opened up into a palatial property. Gardens, tennis courts, pool, pond, huge home, several smaller homes. I was in some sort of compound that had its own landing strip. Nothing further had been said to me other than the threat. Earl and his two cohorts were quiet through the flight.
I felt like I had gone from the frying pan into the fire.
When they walked me into the biggest of the houses, we were greeted by an older housekeeper, and we were led to a big flower-filled solarium where an older Mexican man was tending flowers. He was short, stocky, and grey-haired, with a weather-worn face. He was at least sixty, if not seventy. He looked at me and then motioned to a small bistro table that had been set with a tea set and a plate with little triangular crustless sandwiches.
“Please sit,” he said with a strong Mexican accent.
I sat. The men at my back were gone.