Page 12 of In the Dark

My mother shrugged because she probably would have done the same if she could have. “And his son, Sanchez, was the only one with the authority to move capital into said fund.”

“Jasmina’s father?” I asked before I could stop myself. I didn’t really know the story, just that he was killed and Paolo stepped up.

My mother and Jameson looked at me with curiosity. I wasn’t supposed to know her by name, let alone be on a first-name basis with her. Had I run a few searches on her and found out what I could? Sure. She was a wild card and I didn’t like those, so I did my homework.

“Yes.” My mother dragged out the word. “Jasmina Ruiz’s father and mother were killed twenty years ago. Monte and Paolo took her in. Monte looks at her as one of his own. She’s good with laundering like her father was. Not that it matters. To unlock and manage the fund we think may actually be there, one of you would have to marry into the Ruizes, and—”

“No,” Jameson barked right away, cutting her off, standing as if the meeting was over. “Not happening. I love Mia, and Callahan … well, he loves all the women he sleeps with too much.”

“Hear her out, Jameson,” Lucille said. “My God, look at the math. Maybe it won’t be so bad.” Jameson gave her a look of shock, and she scoffed. “Not for you. Mia is here to stay, obviously. But Callahan? What’s so bad about it?”

It was all fun and games when it wasn’t her name on the chopping block. “I’m in my prime, Lucille.” I winked at her. “I don’t need a kid.”

She tsked. “I think you do. You’ve run wild long enough. Plus, if we play our cards right …”

My mother hurried to continue, “A marriage partnership just for a few years would allow us to move men into those territories with no bloodshed. We could restructure the East Coast the way we want it rather than let the drug trafficking continue. And if there’s a trust, upon conception, we’d control the money rather than letting the Ruizes fund a drug trafficking war with it, because you know that’s what they’ll do. By ensuring the heir is a Diamond, we decommission their money, Callahan. We get the East Coast, choke out their cartels, and gain control of Fuerte Firearms.”

She dropped that last tidbit like it was the icing on the cake she needed. “Fuerte Firearms?” It was a corporation we’d wanted a part of for as long as I could remember.

She smiled because she knew she had me. “I talked with Monte Ruiz—”

“You what?” My voice sliced through the room this time.

“I did what I had to as a member of this Diamond Syndicate.” She gave me a look a mother only gives her son. “I won’t sit here useless when I know your father and I built connections that can help. Monte and I have a history, and he was honest with me.”

“None of them are honest,” another syndicate member grumbled. I agreed with him.

“He was honest about the trust. He admitted that he doesn’t know if there is one. He can’t be sure. But I trust my source. Plus, their family is struggling after what happened between Jameson and Paolo.”

There were murmurs and grumbles around the table.

“Monte’s proposition for us is an arranged marriage of sorts for protection.”

“Arranged marriage.” The words almost felt foreign in my mouth.

She rushed on. “Just for two or three years to protect his territories and men while he gives us a foot in the door with Fuerte Firearms, which, you know—”

“We’ve wanted their manufacturing and international connections for long enough,” I said softly, knowing I shouldn’t. That offer was a tempting one. Not because we needed it. But because I wanted it. The ambition in my chest was a living, breathing animal that I could barely tame.

I wanted the sovereignty.

I wanted the world to be an empire controlled by Diamonds—civilized, strategic, and absolute. Not run by impulsive cartels. Not Ruizes. Not the Chinese.

No one but us.

The world was safer that way.

Lucille produced a document. “The Ruizes are scrambling. They can’t provide port access like they promised the Irish, and they know their only legitimate business is Fuerte Firearms Corporation. It’s what keeps them afloat. Monte Ruiz is desperate. He’s agreed to vouch for us at a shareholder meeting. He’s offering us a seat at the table just to stay alive.”

“Or I’ll just run them all the fuck over,” Jameson gritted out, his hand white-knuckling the corner of the table. Tensions would always be high with us and the Ruizes. Paolo had threatened Jameson’s daughter, Franny. And we’d snuffed out everyone who was involved.

My mother’s eyes softened because she loved Franny just as much as we all did. “We are trying not to hold a whole family accountable for one man’s actions, right?”

Jameson pinched the bridge of his nose. “What Mia tells me, at least,” he grumbled like it was the only reason he hadn’t gone on more of a killing spree.

But it was also because we’d done enough damage by taking Paolo’s life. I saw how the governor’s neck tightened, how Lucille looked away.

“Strategy isn’t always a bulldozer, Jameson. We need finesse now, not more blood. Leadership is knowing when to negotiate so you don’t have to annihilate.”