“He has a meeting with the Jalisco cartel. One of our informants in their ranks sent me a text. They’re meeting about a shipment this afternoon.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Where?”
“Deep south, down by the docks, this empty parking lot at the edge of the city. Quiet spot, not a lot around.” He hesitated for a second. “But it’s near the park.”
I took a deep breath to calm myself. I closed my eyes and forced myself to focus on this moment, on this decision. “Gather everyone,” I said. “I want four cars, packed with guns. We’re hitting them hard.”
“If we kill any Jalisco in the crossfire—” he started.
But I interrupted him. “Fuck the Jalisco. Tell our informant our plans, tell them to drop as soon as they see us coming.”
“They won’t like it, Dante. They want this deal.”
“Tell them I’ll pay fifty percent more than Vlas for whatever the fuck they have.”
He let out a breath. “Understood. Should we run this past Don Leone?”
“No,” I said. “Not enough time. Get it set up.”
“I will.” He hung up and I lingered on the porch.
I could go inside. I could go in and talk to Aida, explain to her what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. Maybe she’d understand, maybe she’d even forgive me.
But I can’t let this opportunity pass.
Vlas didn’t know we had a man in the Jalisco cartel. Nobody did, I met him through a personal friend, and was paying him from my own personal pocket. Not even Don Leone knew about him.
This was my shot. This was my opportunity to hit Vlas back hard for the shit he tried on me.
I walked down the steps, toward my car, and refused to look back at the house.* * *The sunshine slanted at sharp angles through the trees and cast light and shadow across the dash of my car. I stared straight ahead at the rundown gravel road, tire tracks bitten deep into the earth, and took deep, calming breaths.
Steven sat in the passenger side, a submachine gun in his lap. He checked the magazine and pulled back the slide before letting out a deep breath.
“Good afternoon for it,” he said.
I snorted. “Perfect day for killing.”
Steven gave me one of his rare smiles. In the back, Biagio and Gino laughed, both of them nervously holding their weapons.
The other car was parked just behind ours, engine rumbling. I checked the rearview and saw Cosimo and Ryan sitting up front. I knew Chad and John were in the back, and all four of them were armed to the fucking teeth. Half my best muscle was there and ready to get revenge for all the shit Vlas had put us through these last couple of weeks.
Ahead, the road turned around a bend and disappeared beyond the forest. I knew it headed up a short hill and ended at the parking lot where Vlas and the Jalisco were having their meeting. I checked my watch and gripped the steering wheel, my stomach doing flips. Just another minute, and it was time. We’d been staked out for a couple of painful hours, in position before the Russians arrived to avoid getting caught, and now it was finally almost time.
“This could be a trap.” Steven said it so calmly that I thought he wasn’t even talking to me.
I grunted in return. “Could be.”
“Might be a bad idea to go through with this.”
“Might be. But we are.”
He nodded. “I know. We have to. Chance to hit Vlas like this doesn’t come around twice.”
“The motherfucker. What I don’t get is why he’d start some new deal with the Jalisco cartel when he’s in the middle of a war with me. Like this wouldn’t split his attention? Those cartel guys are no joke.”
“I know,” Steven said. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but it’s something big. He wouldn’t bring the Jalisco into this if he had other options or just some small-scale shit. This is going to be big, Dante.”
“It was,” I corrected. “Now it’s about to blow up in his fucking face.”
Steven grunted and the guys in the back laughed nervously. I grinned at them and hoped I exuded calm and power. I wanted them to be ready for anything, and I didn’t want them to see their leader’s nerves.
But I had nerves. I wasn’t immune to them, wasn’t immune to second-guessing myself. Steven was right that this could be a trap. It was almost too good to be true, and when it came to killing men in broad daylight, too good to be true could lead to a prison sentence or worse.
No turning back now. The clock ticked over and I nodded to myself. I put the car into drive and began to creep forward, waiting for the second car to follow.
Sure enough, they started rolling behind me.
Steven let out a breath and stared straight ahead. I rolled the car down the gravel path and went around the bend. As soon as I saw the slope upward, the trees thinning out and disappearing at the top, I accelerated. The sunlight flipped along the dash, making wild patterns on the black plastic and leather, before the SUV came to the crest of the hill and leveled out.