Page 40 of Consigliere’s Revenge

Arman laughs. “My business is always in good hands when you and your men are on board,” he says.

Salvatore clears his throat. “I was just telling Arman about our problem at the docks in Cali. It seems that he’s run into a little competition in that area himself. We’re going to be joining forces to remove some of the waste. We’ll take it over, and Arman will get an exclusive price to move shipments through.”

Arman looks at me. “In exchange, we will ensure the infrastructure remains intact. After the De Rosas lost their last shipment, the cartel would like nothing better than to shut the De Rosas down. I didn’t see it as such a problem,” he says, shrugging. “Until, of course, Salvatore told me that your family no longer wants to drive their business into the ground, that you want to keep it solvent, take it over and smear it in their face.”

“Damn straight,” Salvatore says.

Arman smiles and lifts his glass. “How you say it in your country? Salute?” he asks.

I hold up my water bottle as Salvatore and Dominic hold up their drinks to the man we do business with but have not two respects in the world for. “Salute, Arman. It’s the perfect plan. Everyone gets what they want, and all is well in the world.”

He eyes me watchfully. “Maybe not everything, my friend. The cartel lost a large shipment when you went after the De Rosas.”

Dominic and Salvatore don’t say a word although we discussed it at length last night, all in agreement in case the cartel came knocking on our door. Better for the family if it can’t be said that the boss or underboss says what needs to be said. I shrug. “The cartel had a deal with the De Rosas. The De Rosas lost the shipment. Not our problem.”

Arman puts his glass down with a noticeable thud.

Salvatore’s eyes shift left, but he doesn’t need to tell me to tread lightly with this fuck, because I know exactly the kind of man we’re dealing with. One that I’d prefer not to get into bed with at all, but if keeping the De Rosas’ infrastructure means dealing with him, we’ll make it work.

At least until we don’t…

“You crippled the man’s finances and left him with nothing to pay for the lost merchandise, no?” Arman asks.

My eyes connect with his shrewd gray glare. “Tell me, Arman. When you best your enemies, do you make good their debts? Do you reach out to everyone who will no longer be compensated with promises to make it right?”

Arman picks up his glass and takes another drink. A good sign from a man like him where symbolism is everything. He would never be seen drinking with an enemy. “No.”

I nod, pouring a glass of water from a pitcher on the table into one of the empty glasses, unable to get enough water since moving to the desert. I take a drink and clink his glass. “We’ll find a way forward to smooth things over, my friend. We’re not going to give them more women, but perhaps we can give them a shipment or two of something else once we have the docks operable and the merchandise moving through the lines. A peace offering, of sorts,” I tell him.

Salvatore and Dominic both nod. “I like the idea. Everyone stays in their own territory, we remove De Rosa but keep things moving instead of keeping them shut down,” Sal says.

A man like me is groomed to know a man’s tell, his emotions even before they cross his features, or he wears them on his sleeve. Arman is impatient to get to whatever it is he came for, and the give and take of pleasantries and small steps toward his true intentions is clearly grating on his nerves, although he does a good job of trying to keep his patience in check.

The last time Arman was upset with a man, he ended up with a bullet in the head for his troubles in a room full of players, just like here.

The cartel sending Arman to step in on their behalf is intriguing. They know good and damn well we’re not running girls or letting them run them through our docks. Still, they send this prick to feel us out. We’ll give them what the shipment was worth with inventory that would otherwise be De Rosa’s. Let them shift some of the coke their bringing into the northwest ports and distributing along the western coast.

A relatively easy fix. They get their money back. We lose nothing, including our ground on trafficking women. A deal breaker that everyone dealing with us knows about going in or finds out about at the end of one of our capo’s guns.

Arman puts his glass down again. “We cut to the chase, no?” he asks.

I nod, placing my glass on the table next to his in solidarity, because I can be as symbolic as the next guy. “They lost the women; they want them back, or replacements. Their buyers aren’t looking for money or the white powder you Americans are constantly snorting up your nose. What

do you say in your country, capiche?”

My jaw tightens as he desecrates the word. Salvatore’s eyes shift left and right, and we’re in complete and utter agreement on that, every single fucking time. “No girls. The money they make on the shipment we give them. They can do whatever they want as long as it’s not in our territory.”

“And how are they supposed to get them through customs if you take over the docks and allow everyone’s product but theirs? Seems to me it’s not such a good deal if you are in the shoes of the other,” he says.

“They get the reimbursement through product. It’s the best we can do. The other choice is for them to pursue getting it from the De Rosas in blood, which, by the way, would be our preference,” I tell him.

He grimaces, because it’s clearly not the outcome he wanted. “I don’t know how this ends then, my friend.”

“I’m a little curious to find out why they sent you, Arman,” I say.

He sighs. “I was the lucky one, so to speak,” he says. “We run the guns they need, and we run them through the ports you now have locked down. Everyone wins if you open them back up. No one cares really who owns them—the De Rosas, you, or anyone really.

“What matters is that we can continue our businesses. I see no problem on the future for mine, but that’s not the case with the cartels. They depended on the De Rosas and others to bring the girls in from the north and get them into the ports. How you say a new ballgame now?”

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