“When the hell were you in Mexico?!” Lucas snarled.
Kitty tensed but didn’t acknowledge him, whereas Aidan flicked him another look and continued regardless:
“Clearly, you made an impression.”
She angled her chin, gracing him with an imperious nod. “Clearly.” Before she could continue, her cell rang. Cheeks flushing, she scrabbled through her purse for it. “Sorry, Aidan. I’ll —” Her mouth gaped as she hit connect and put the call on speaker. “Eva?”
“Who’s with you aside from O’Donnelly and Valentini?”
“My brother.”
“Hmm. Lucas? Or the hot one?”
While Lucas huffed, she answered, “Cade isn’t here.”
Aidan barked, “What the hell is this about, Martinez?”
“Couldn’t be seen to be contacting you, O’Donnelly. Had to keep things nice and clean.”
“We’re mobsters. Nice and clean isn’t a part of our remit.”
“True. Precautions had to be taken.”
“Well?”
“Since the Albanians bombed Cancún, we’ve bombarded their enclaves with brute force.”
“I’ve seen the headlines. Tourism’s down across the board.”
“Can’t be helped. The cops aren’t equipped for the Albanians.
“Look, yesterday, we received a call from what we assumed was a middleman. The terms of a ceasefire between us appeared to be the main focal point of the conversation, until the ‘middleman’ offered us the national elections as an enticement…
"The Albanians infiltrated our turf, killed innocents, and this fucker expected us to roll over?” She hooted. “We don’t need any help with the election. Our candidate will win without any outside help now that we removed the opposition.”
Aidan paused. “So that whole mess in Cancún was about killing Cabral Flores?”
“Yep,” she sang cheerily.
“I thought their family hated him because of Martinez’s sister,” Lucas muttered, proving Aidan had him on intelligence gathering or how else would he have known that?
“Unintended perk.”
Aidan rubbed his temple. “Do you know who contacted you?”
“Moron called Clyde Korhonen. Ever heard of him?”
“Vaguely.”
“There’s a Korhonen who plays for the New York Stars,” Kitty shared.
Eva hummed. “I’d never heard of him until we ran a search. He’s Canadian. Ranching billionaire. The father of the hockey player, Kitty.”
“He used their real names? What a dumbass.”
“We have no reason to believe he lied. He was attempting to create an alliance between us. You can’t build that on lies. Or so Martinez tells me, andyes, Aidan, he sanctioned this call.
“When Korhonen realized we were underwhelmed by his offer, he bragged about how his people had influenced the US election and one of theirs was in office. That there were no limits to what he could give us if we agreed to back off on the Albanians.
