I don't deny it. There's no point. They do pass money through my houses. Not because I need it. Not because I answer to them. But because it's easier to watch a river when it flows through land you control.
My casinos are mirrors. Everything that enters them reflects back eventually: patterns, alliances, betrayals. One hand washes the other. The difference between laundering and leverage is intent. They think they're using my infrastructure. They don't realize I'm mapping theirs. Now Conti stands here, throwing the word laundering at me like an accusation, when it's really a confession of his reach. Which tells me one thing very clearly: He didn't come to Caracas blind. He came because he's been watching the same currents I have. And he thinks we're playing the same game. I hold his gaze, calm, unblinking. Let him wonder how much I've already seen. Let him wonder whether the valve he thinks I opened is the same one I'm about to close.
"Funny thing about leverage. Sometimes you let it flow so you can see where it goes. And sometimes you wait until everyone forgets whose hand is on the valve." I drop my voice. "You want blood, take it somewhere else. If you light this city on fire now, you don't just create chaos, you create collateral damage."
Collateral damage, I scoff. My son isn't collateralanything.
Raffael smiles. Not wide. Not friendly. The kind of smile that means he's just spotted the wire in a bomb.
"Collateral damage," he repeats thoughtfully. "Yeah. That's the part that gets messy."
He gestures toward the city beyond the glass. "But if what you actually need is two extractions—clean, alive—no explosions, no headlines, no congressional phone calls—then blowing up Caracas isn't the move."
That gets my attention. How the fuck does he know this?
"Careful," I warn.
"I am being careful," Raffael replies easily. "That's my point. Silvestre and Aurelio don't just hold cartel leverage. They hold people. People they think make them untouchable."
For one clean, tempting second, I imagine pulling my gun and shooting all three of them. Not in anger. Not wildly. With precision. One shot each. Center mass. End the conversation before it metastasizes into something I don't control. The thought isn't rage, it's reflex. Violence as punctuation. As reset.
But it would be messy. Too many variables. Too many consequences. Too much noise in a city already primed to explode. And more importantly, too many unanswered questions that would die with them. So I don't move. I don't even blink. Instead, I let the weight of what Raffael just said settle.
People.
Not product. Not territory. Not routes.
People.
I already knew that, of course. I wouldn't be here otherwise. But hearing it framed that way—out loud, from another predator—sharpens it. Confirms it. Makes it undeniable. That's the real leverage. Always has been. My jaw tightens as I clock the room again. Conti's expression shifts; it's subtle, but there. A flicker of something like recalibration. His wife's gaze sharpens,confusion giving way to interest. They didn't know. Not fully. They understood the economics, the infrastructure, but not this.
I meet Raffael's gaze. He knows he just escalated this. Knows he crossed from implication into certainty. He's waiting to see if I flinch. I don't. Because careful isn't about avoiding violence. Careful is about deciding when it becomes inevitable. And thanks to him, the list just got very, very short.
"Vegas," Conti states flatly, and I narrow my eyes at him. "Of course."
Emotions flicker over his and his wife's expressions as if they've both just figured out why I'm here.
"You want them alive long enough to give something back," Raffael continues. "We want them dead. Those goals don't have to compete."
Silence stretches. Heavy and loaded. Inside it, my thoughts move fast and cold. I want the Valverdes dead. Father and son. Not someday. Not symbolically. Erased. Aurelio first, screaming if possible. Silvestre slower. Men like them don't get quick endings; they get lessons carved into them so the next generation remembers. I don't share kills. I don't divide vengeance like territory. I don't subcontract blood. What's mine, I take myself, and I don't leave witnesses who think they had a hand in it. That's the rule.
Nobody in this room has earned an exception yet.
Still, this isn't a clean situation, and I know it. As much as every instinct in me snarls at the idea of coordination, these three didn't wander into Caracas by accident. Conti doesn't leave New York unless the math is airtight. DeSantis doesn't follow unless something has already gone wrong. The woman is still a wild card. They're here because something pulled them. Something big enough to justify exposure. Which means whatever Valverde is sitting on—my son included—has consequences that reach beyond this city or mine.
That doesn't make them allies. It makes them a complication. A complication that can be exploited. I don't need their firepower. I don't need their permission. But I'm not blind enough to ignore the possibility that they've already seen pieces of the board I haven't yet turned over. If letting them believe they have a seat at the table buys me information, access, or time, I can allow the misunderstanding. For now. I keep my face neutral. Controlled. Give nothing away. "You're suggesting a joint operation."
They want blood. I want my son. If those paths intersect tonight, that's circumstance, not partnership. And when this is over? They'll learn exactly whose war this was.
"I'm suggesting we remove your problem first," Raffael clarifies. "Clean. Quiet. Then we deal with ours."
"And if I say no?" I ask, testing the edges.
The room tightens. Even the air seems to wait. Raffael doesn't blink. "Then we do it our way. And whatever collateral damage happens after?" He shrugs lightly. "That's on the men who chose to sit on leverage instead of handing it over."
There it is. The threat, dressed up as inevitability. He's telling me that if I don't allow this, he'll burn the board anyway—loud, indiscriminate—and dare me to recover what's left. He's betting I won't risk my son in the fallout.
He's right.
