Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 244(@200wpm)___ 195(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 244(@200wpm)___ 195(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Nick nods. “His name’s Jamie. He likes monster trucks. It’ll give them less ammunition if you know a couple of things.”
I smile up at my uncle. “Something tells me you’ve already told me this.”
He grins. “On the ride over, yeah, maybe. But I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
He’s already looking around as though scanning the area.
“Do you need to go and pay homage?”
“Yeah, and drop off our gift.” He pats his jacket pocket. “Will you be okay on your own?”
I nod so fast that my head almost flies off my neck.
Pay homage means Nick has to go and find Gabriel Escarra, the leader of the Cartel, the man who had my father killed. When I was a teenager, Gabriel would make me stand there as Nick knelt and kissed his ring in the early days.
But perhaps the game grew boring. Now I’m able to circulate the party, pretending I’m busy – perhaps I’m on my way to my friends – without ever stopping.
I pick up a glass of champagne on my way. I’m twenty, but the Cartel isn’t exactly big on drinking age laws.
Anyway, I don’t drink it. I simply hold it, so I don’t look suspicious.
Even if I enjoyed alcohol, I wouldn’t drink here.
It’s not just the Cartel I have to worry about tonight, but the Bratva too. According to Nick, the Bratva is better, but they’re still criminals.
“I wish I’d been on their side when the war started, that’s the truth. I don’t care about my last name. But it was too late for that.”
“They would’ve killed you,” I said when he told me this. I was fifteen, I think.
“Yes. Gabriel cannot let go. Other leaders wouldn’t bother with vendettas like this, the tattooing. They’d kill us or they’d forget about us. Or they’d force us to work for them. But the Bratva didn’t let Gabriel do any of that, when they made their truce, so Gabriel did the only pathetic thing he could.”
Nick himself was a criminal.
The Cartel is worse than the Bratva though. The Cartel is vicious.
I don’t care if my dad and uncle were in it. I don’t care if it means they might’ve been vicious once.
I have to keep my wits sharp, my reason intact. I can’t let this room full of criminals see me vulnerable.
I look out for the others who are tattooed, but I don’t spot any. I know Jorge is working as a messenger for the Cartel and that Isabel has started her own clothing business, and that so far the Cartel has left her alone.
But they’ll find a way to ruin it. They always do.
My thoughts drift off. Sometimes they fly away to recipes, cooking techniques, and all the joys of putting serious effort into a well-cooked dish.
But now they return to the tattooing, a dark room with a tattoo gun, the needle pricking my skin, Uncle Nick standing in the corner with his hat in his hands, wringing it every time I winced.
I stop suddenly, almost crashing into someone.
Looking up, my mouth falls open, the shock pumping through me.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
It’s Damien Dovlatov, the tallest man in the room, six and a half feet with wide shoulders and silver hair casually brushed to the side. His clean-shaven face shows off his squared, powerful jaw, and his eyes, a summer-sky-blue, seem to stare straight into my soul.
I push that silly thought away. I’ve seen the leader of the Bratva from afar at a couple of parties.
And yes, fine, sometimes I let my thoughts go to insane places.
Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to smooth my hands up his arms, squeezing down onto his solid muscles, as I stand on my tiptoes and bring my lips to his….
But then I remember that he was the one who agreed to the deal. It was in the truce he signed. He had to agree to it. It was all Gabriel could negotiate for, which is amazing in itself.
Damien could’ve said, Kill them. I don’t care. As long as it ends this war.
But he took a stand.
Yes, he signed off on it, the worst experience of my life, but I remember his figure at the funeral. Which he didn’t have to come to.
He looked tragic, clouded in rage and sadness. Or maybe that was just my childish mind, grasping for some sense in this all.
But still.
He’s Bratva. Dad was Cartel.
And he came anyway.
I expect his lip to curl into disgust. The last party I saw him at was another Cartel-Bratva engagement I was forced to attend. He didn’t notice me then, but I kept waiting for him to. But then I realized he’d probably scowl. I’m a member of the Cartel, marked for life. I’m basically a prisoner to his sworn enemy. Yet he might not see it like that.