Page 110 of Mob Star

I remember to tack that last word on there. I lean back enough to see her face before I continue.

“Most things are under our control, but not always. If I call you and tell you to give me space, it’s not because I don’t want to see you. I’ll always want to come home and go straight into your arms. It means something went wrong. I need to get cleaned up or calm down. Sometimes both. I promise as soon as I’m ready, I will come to you. I swear.”

“I believe you. I’ll remember all of this. I promise. I know you’ll be careful, so it should go without saying. But I can’t help it. Please be careful. I love you.”

“I will, and I love you too. I’m coming home to you, Thea. Always.”

I shouldn’t say that. I shouldn’t make that kind of promise because I can’t guarantee tomorrow, let alone always. But it’s what I want. Our kiss is over far too soon, but I have to go. We exchange another I love you, then I’m gone.

That motherfucker.

“Who is that?”

I swung by and picked up Brandon on the way to Dillan’s. It came as a surprise to everyone that things got moved up by several days and is no longer happening in Brighton Beach, but I believed Brandon when he called me. I wanted to tell Thea her dad would be with us, and I’d watch out for him. But I can’t promise anyone coming home alive any better than I can promise I am. I didn’t want her to panic, either. I remember when I was really young— like four and my brothers were still toddlers —how my mom would try to entertain us when my dad went out at night. I didn’t understand why my mom would look at the door and windows so often until I was much older. Those nights are some of my earliest memories. My mom was waiting for my dad to get home. She was checking the windows to make sure no one who wasn’t a guard was near her children. I don’t want that fear for Thea.

“That’s Gareth O’Brien. He’s the new leader down in Trenton.” I point to a guy to the far right. I don’t see any of his men around.

No mob boss likes the official term skipper. I don’t know who thought nautical terms would be impressive titles for various members of the mob. And the fact that we don’t have the same hierarchy as the Mafia or the bratva leaves us as the butt of plenty of jokes. The cartels aren’t as rigidly structured as the Mafia or bratva, but they have more than we do. Hence the name mob.

“Did you expect him to be here?”

“No. Not at all. This isn’t the bratva or the Cosa Nostra.”

So that leaves one more motherfucking option. Fucking caremonda. Face of a penis. Fucking carechimba. Face of a vagina— cunt. That one fits.

“Is that Pablo?” Sean wants to know as he comes to lie on his stomach next to me.

Brandon’s on the ground, too. He made it down without a single groan or gasp considering his bruises. It’s a testimony to his past and running with a gang. He’s more like us than I guessed.

“Yeah. What the hell is he doing here? How is he involved?”

I’m thinking out loud as all seven of us— my family plus Brandon —lie on the ground facing a warehouse. None of us has an answer to that since no one expected him to be involved. Pablo Diaz is equivalent to me, Luca in the Cosa Nostra, and Aleksei in the bratva. Second-in-command. He’s Enrique’s heir. The next in line to be jefe of the Colombian Cartel. He’s been a motherfucking pain in my goddamn arse since we were kids. Whiny little bitch. He wouldn’t shut up about his loose tooth when we were seven, so I knocked it out for him.

We have dark camo paint on our faces and ears with black beanies on our heads. Our green eyes are recognizable enough. We don’t need our shock of red hair giving us all away. The camo paint makes our eyes stand out more, but from a distance, people often can’t make out the difference between our eye color and the ice-blue the Kutsenkos and their Andreyev cousins have. They just see sets of two glowing, floating circles coming toward them. With camo paint on, the darker eyes the other two Kutsenko cousins have, along with most of the Mancinellis and Diazes, appear like soulless empty pockets. Fitting. Empty eyes, empty heads.

Unless we’re not wearing our NVGs when we move in, Corey will know our green eyes in an instant, which means I have to be doubly sure my future father-in-law stays behind me.

Dillan’s on the other side of Sean, but we all have ears like dogs, so I hear him when he whispers to me. “I thought you believed Joaquin wouldn’t be interested enough to hack anything.”

I look at my cousin. “I still don’t think he is. I think this was Alejandro and one of his minions.”

I glance at Brandon because I’m certain he’s confused as fuck by all the names. I would be because there isn’t a small family among us. Three of the Four Families are Roman Catholic, and the other is Eastern Orthodox. We joke that’s why our families are so big. No one wants to admit the truth: three of the families knew they would need more soldiers.

“Alejandro and Pablo are cousins. Their uncle, Enrique, is their jefe. Enrique has a younger brother who’s Pablo’s dad. Enrique also has two younger sisters. One spawned Alejandro, and the other spawned Javier, Jorge, and Joaquin.”

I won’t get into how Pablo had a younger brother, Juan, who fucked up so badly the Kutsenkos made sure he could never go near Maks’s wife again. That’s an entire story of its own.

Brandon’s still confused, and I don’t blame him. I’m going to have to share a little more of the Diazes’ inner workings. Motherfuckers.

“Pablo’s Enrique’s heir, same as I am Dillan’s for now. He’s a jack of all trades, master of none. Alejandro heads their security. He’s the top enforcer and plans a lot of their missions. This is a business transaction, so not his usual role. Joaquin is a hacker, so he’s their intel gatherer. Jorge is a CPA like me. He does the active accounting and investments, but he’s also a forensic accountant like me. Javier is an attorney like Enrique.”

I can tell Brandon wants to know what roles we each have as he looks around. He’s going to be my father-in-law, which is all the more reason I want to tell him as little as I can about our family jobs. Less he can testify about if the feds pressure him and less he’ll confess if any syndicate captures him.

“I’ll give you a copy of the family trees I’m going to make for Thea. I knew something was in the works when Thea got those pages at work. Someone was trying to scare her away from me. I wondered if Joaquin was the one responsible for hacking the hospital system and heading whatever operation they were sucking Thea into. I still don’t think he did it. He’s too lazy for that when I know he has other stuff already keeping him busy.”

“Then who did?”

I told Brandon about the pages Thea got and the brick through her window when Corey first arrived. It didn’t thrill him to find out about either. Before I can answer, my phone buzzes in my back pocket. I turned it on dark mode and dimmed it all the way while we were getting ready. We all do it.

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