“Where should I say the exchange happens?”
“Tomorrow evening at Grüneburgpark. Just before sunset. It’s a public location, so his men aren’t likely to come with guns ablaze. Hell, it’ll force me to be civil too. Drop some Thieves’ names who’ll supposedly be there.”
We decided to send the fingers to Maks’sboevik—guys who carry out illegal operations, and, in this case, second-in-command—to prove we’re serious, and Joaquin attaches the photo to incentivize Masks to make sure someone shows up. I observe as my brother finishes the email and shoots it off to Maks.
Joaquin spent time hacking prison records yesterday to discover who the Thieves’ main players are. Now he’s looking up the tracking devices our men dropped on these guys’ vehicles. Most of them are at their homes or work.
He’s about to snap his laptop shut because nothing interesting turned up, but Maks’s response pops up as a notification. I skim it before reading it more closely. Joaquin looks over at me, and we shrug at the same time as we frown. I’m the first to speak.
“Nothing about that email leads me to think Maks ordered Gunter’s kidnapping. He’s too ambivalent. We know him better than just about anyone outside his family. The only people who know him as well as we do are the Mancinellis and O’Rourkes. This isn’t him playing it cool. He’s not threatening the Thieves or giving them carte blanche. He’s letting them do their thing.”
“Could he really be giving them enough rope to hang themselves?” Joaquin’s ruminating, but I don’t think he believes that.
“No. He’s told them they can do what they want as long as they don’t fuck up. We know that fuck up means encroaching on the Kutsenkos’ business. He even thanked them for taking out the Heidemann buildings. He really didn’t want us to have them. He’d rather no one did.”
“Do you think he already knows it’s us? Why isn’t he at least pissed about hisavtoritet?”
I consider that. “Maybe he knows it was us. Maybe he doesn’t. I bet he knows his operative did a shit job surveilling me, so he was fine to let him go. Let’s be real. The man was completely expendable to all of us.”
“Was this a loss for us?”
“No. We wanted those holdings, but we didn’t need them. Maks can’t sell them to anyone else, so he’s the one who took the loss. Fuck him.”
“We’re no closer to knowing where Gunter is.”
I don’t need Joaquin’s reminder. “I know. I can’t help but feel like a failure for that.”
“Manito, we still have the other two families to strike. This isn’t on you. You and I have worked as long and as fast as we can. You’re doing your best to look for him and comfort Anneliese and her family.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel that way, even if it isn’t rational.”
“You care about her. You’re also a worrier by nature, even if you’ve learned to control it.”
What if I fail so badly Liesel doesn’t want me anymore? What if…
“Enough with the what ifs…Don’t give me that look. I know you.”
I nod to my older brother. Maybe he’s gained more wisdom than I have in that whole twenty-one months he’s been alive longer than me.
“All right. For now, the bratva’s a dead end. We have to leave it at that and move on.”
We regroup with Alejandro and our other men at the O’Rourkes’ warehouse. The ones who went with us to the Russian’s place stood guard around the neighborhood while we worked the fucker over. Alejandro’s men stood sentry waiting for us here. My cousin is a fucking ghost, so he’s the one who scouted. No one’s better at reconnaissance than him. For being the biggest one in the family, he can be the least noticeable. Fucking inconceivable until you watch him.
“What’d you find?”
Alejandro, Joaquin, and I are on the frequency that’s locked and for our family’s use only. We’re speakingMacaguáninstead of Spanish. I don’t know where this conversation will go, so while Alejandro’s guys know the answer to the question, we may not want them to know whatever comes next.
We’ve divided to conquer. We each have a side of the building, and Josue’s leading men on the fourth side.
“There’re at least fifty kilos in there from their Amazon labs. Pedro tested it. Shit quality like usual. They’re getting ready to load the trucks. Ten guys on lookout, five packing, two drivers, and four in the office shooting the shit.”
We control everything coming in and out of Latin America, especially what’s manufactured in the rainforest. The O’Rourkes, along with the Mancinellis and Kutsenkos, know they only have labs there because we allow it. We’d rather the enemy we know—who won’t fucking blow up endangered flora and fauna—than the ones we don’t.
They also know there’s a set quota on how many labs they can each have—three. When they try for more, we set up controlledburns. Usually, they remember not to bite the hand that feeds them. They also haven’t mastered the quality control we have. The Mancinellis are a distant—like light years away—second to us. I have no problem saying as much.
“Only Luca is close to Pablo’s skills. Even then, he’s like a kid with a toy chemistry set. The O’Rourkes’ knuckles still drag too much for them to have anyone who can handle the formulas. The fucking Kutsenkos—fucking apes too—ought to put their KGB-level spying skills to some real use. Maybe then they’d learn how we replicate our shit rather than learning which ones of us are having flan for lunch.”
We can own our own stereotypes. Though, onlyTíoLuis likes flan. I can’t stand the mushy, slimy texture. If I want a dessert that wiggles, I’ll have Jello.
