Page 60 of Marrying the Mobster
“Hmm,” she murmurs sleepily into my chest. She mumbles something else, but I can’t make it out. My poor wife is exhausted and now that she knows I’m okay, fatigue is finally setting in.
Reaching for her blanket, I grunt at the pain it sends through me, but manage to cover us both with it.
“Sleep,gatita.I’m here … and I love you, too.”
27
Elena
Diego wastes no time getting back on his feet, no matter what I say to convince him to rest. A trip to his doctor’s clinic and a series of X-rays reveal there was no internal bleeding from the impact of the bullets into his vest. His shoulder sutures are holding up well, and there are no signs of infection. Dr. Molena left a bottle of pain pills that my idiot husband refuses to take. Once he’s strong enough to stand, he insists we go back to Indian Creek and stay there until the situation with the Armenians has been neutralized. I’ve been ordered to work from home for the time being, and I don’t rebel. Truthfully, every time Diego grimaces in pain or grunts at the stiff movement of his shoulder, I start to worry.
There’s no denying I’m a lost cause. This man has captured me, taken me from the life I used to know, and turned it all upside down. The thing about being flipped in what seems like the wrong direction is, eventually it starts to feel right. It becomes the truth, while the past becomes a lie. I don’t want to go back. The night Diego was shot I decided to stop deluding myself and accept that we belong to each other now.
He laid in my arms and told me he loved me. Maybe he thinks I didn’t hear him, since I was exhausted and half asleep when he murmured those shocking words. I can’t explain how it happened, or reason it out when it makes no sense. That doesn’t stop me from knowing its real.
I don’t have to tell Diego that I’ve given up all ideas of leaving him. He shows me he already knows that by easing up on his vigilance. I’ve left our penthouse several times for takeout and fresh gauze for his shoulder, and he never seems worried that I wouldn’t come back. Part of me—the last rational shred of my mind—insists he’s grown cocky. He thinks he’s pushed me so firmly under his thumb that he knows I wouldn’t dare cross him.
My heart tells me a different story. With the revelations of Diego’s past and the frightening reality of nearly losing him, came something I never thought we’d share.
Trust.
And because I trust him, my concern shifts away from his injuries and lands on worry over this mess with the Armenians. I don’t know all the ins and outs of this feud, but I learned from Diego that the other cartel started the war by murdering half a dozen soldiers in order to steal some cargo. Ever since then, the two factions have been at each other’s throats, with casualties on both sides. Diego seemed to think joining with the Yezhovs would make the Pérez cartel too intimidating to fuck with, but the attack at the docks has proven otherwise.
Within hours of returning to Indian Creek, Diego calls Jovan, Jaime, and a handful of other lieutenants into one of the living rooms. Instead of gently prodding me from the room like he usually does when talking business, Diego pulls me down onto his lap. He slouches on the sofa, one hand cupping my ass as he addresses his men.
“What we’re about to discuss doesn’t leave this room,” he says, the look in his eyes contradicting his casual tone.
He’s furious about what happened the other night, and became more enraged when learning that eight of his soldiers were killed in the gunfight.
“As I’ve started recovering, some of the details I forgot are coming back to me,” he continues, idly running his hand up and down my back. “I got clocked on the head pretty hard, but I remember hearing a phrase in Armenian. Jaime can you translate?”
Jaime frowns and picks up his phone, tapping at the screen. “I can try, boss. Ask me to translate Russian or Gaelic and it’s no sweat. I’m still learning the Armenian.”
I perk up at that, surprised to hear this. All this time, Jaime was presented to me as the cartel’s resident computer nerd and nothing more. He’s big and his body is jacked, but I’ve never seen him with a gun, and I know he doesn’t go out on jobs with the other men.
“How many languages do you speak?” I ask, too curious to keep quiet.
“Six,” Jaime says without looking up from his phone. “Armenian will be the seventh once I master it. But the others are English, Spanish, Gaelic, Russian, Arabic, and German.”
“You’re like a Swiss army knife,” I joke. “Just when I think you can’t get more surprising, something new comes out.”
Jaime offers me a quick glance and a smile, then looks to Diego. “I have some common phrases I keep around for quick translations. What do you remember?”
Diego rattles off a sentence in the foreign language, pausing and stuttering over some of the syllables. Jaime has him repeat it a few times, his eyes darting and his lips moving silently as he scrolls through his list of phrases.
“Arman,” Jovan says, picking up on the first word. “That’s a name … where do I know that name?”
“Arman Sargzyan,” Diego replies. “Head of the Karmir Brotherhood … a subset of the Armenian Power cartel.”
“Fucking shit,” Jovan groans, running a hand through his hair. “I thought thatpendejowas still in Greece.”
“So did I,” Diego says. “But I know I heard the name. Maybe he ran to the States to escape extradition? He’s wanted in his home country.”
“Arman Sargzyan sends his regards,” Jaime says suddenly, interrupting Jovan and Diego’s back and forth. “I’m pretty sure that’s the translation. It was a warning. They knew you were wearing a vest. The idea wasn’t to kill you … it was to let you know Arman’s in town and he’s brought the Brotherhood with him.”
“Goddamn it,” Jovan mutters, getting to his feet and pacing back and forth. “We’re so fucking fucked!”
“Calm down,” Diego says, still not reacting to what he’s hearing. His calmness is unsettling. “We are far from fucked. We have the Yezhovs. Just because I married Elena doesn’t mean the deal is off. Some of Oleg’s men were killed that night too, not just ours. A powerful, mutual enemy is just the thing to make our alliance official.”
