Page 117 of Mob Bride

“Guess who I’m sitting in front of.” He holds the phone out to Johnny. “Speak.”

“Enrique.”

“Hijo de puta. ¿Qué coño haces con Cormac O'Rourke? Me cago en—” Motherfucker. What the fuck are you doing with Cormac O’Rourke? I’ll fucking?—

“Enrique, you’re on speaker. I’m at the DEA office. Imagine my surprise when Johnny Ramirez just walked in.”

“What’re you doing there? They finally catch you and your miscreant relatives?”

“Someone’s after Shane’s girlfriend.”

“The DEA agent? What the fuck does she see in him, anyway?”

Thejefe de jefesknows who I am? I might be sick.

I know what Shane’s family does. I obviously know what the bratva does since they were my marks. But Enrique Diaz controls any and everything coming in and out of Latin America that the O’Rourkes, Kutsenkos, and Mancinellis don’t. And those three families only have a sliver of the pie compared to Enrique. The mob, bratva, and Mafia have their producers and distributors in Latin America. They sell their shit in America andwherever else in the world they want. But for every one pot farm or coke lab they have, Enrique easily has four.

“She sees a nice Catholic boy who loves his mom.”

“The feds need a better vision plan then.”

The man grew up in Colombia but was educated in America. He has the best of both worlds. He’s better educated than just about anyone in organized crime who isn’t a member of the mob, bratva, or Mafia ruling families. I doubt there’s ever been a time when so many Ivy League and Top Tier educated men have run New York City’s underworld. Enrique’s one of them, but he also knows the fucking Amazon like it’s his backyard.

“Anyway, imagine my surprise to find Ramirez here. He was one of Shane’s girlfriend’s handlers. From the way he walked in here, I’d say he sold her out to someone. And that someone got her boxed in.”

“Are you suggesting thatpedazo de mierdacame running to me, hoping turning on a woman would dredge up some forgiveness from me?” Piece of shit.

Enrique and his five nephews have set up labs all over the place, so deep into the jungle, no one can find them without one of them taking them there. It also means no one leaves without one of those six men helping them. Apparently, Enrique pays them, feeds them, and houses them well. He protects all their families and makes sure their money makes it home to wives, parents, and kids. But they aren’t free to come and go.

They’re not slaves. More like indentured servants. They’re people who wronged Enrique or his family, and Enrique’s sentenced them to hard labor until he—or Alejandro—the nephew who’s his representative down there most of the time—says they can go free. I’ve heard you could fill every seat in Yankee Stadium with the bodies they have buried down there. I doubt that. It would mean they left evidence behind. Enrique Diaz is many things, but sloppy isn’t one of them.

“Maybe he wants you to forgive hispapí, so he handed Shane’s girlfriend over to you.”

“Hardly. He knows he could give me all of Midas’s gold, and it wouldn’t be enough. This is news to me, Cormac.”

“Hmm.”

Doesn’t Cormac believe him? If I weren’t watching Cormac watching Johnny, I might believe Enrique. He sounds convincing. But Cormac obviously knows the man well.

“I don’t give a shit, Cor.”

I don’t get what just happened. What did one syllable mean?

“About those congratulations. Put our table near the chocolate fountain.”

“Come mierda.” Eat shit.

“Is that what you’re putting in the fountain? No thanks. Put the Mancinellis there instead.”

What the fuck are they talking about? Aquince? As far as I know, there aren’t any girls turning fifteen in the Diaz family, so aquinceañeraseems unlikely. The only reason I’ve heard about that gets them all together is wedding receptions.

“Adiós, gilipollas.” Bye, asshole.

“Vaya con dios, cucho.” Go with God, old man.

You’d almost think they were friends with how chummy their voices are. I know Cormac doesn’t meancucholiterally—hunchback. In slang, it means old man. It can be a term of endearment, but I don’t get the sense Cormac sees Enrique as family. I mean, I wouldn’t call thejefe de jefesthat.

I observed Johnny the entire time Cormac was on the phone. The man is a shade of white I’ve only seen on corpses.

---