Page 120 of Mob Knight

“Did you track these payments they allude to? How much has Martha collected?”

“Several thousand over the years. But as many times as they’ve paid her, they’ve threatened her. They have something on her. From what I’ve pieced together by searching newspapers and government documents, theFederaleswent after her family in Mexico. It started with her brother committing some legit crime when he was fourteen. It caught the Rumorosa cartel’s attention, and they recruited him. Martha tried to get him across the border and into America. She had all the paperwork to sponsor him properly since she’s twelve years older than him. She’d already worked for the city for five years.”

“Something went wrong?”

“Yeah. When the kid got to Border Control, he sang like a fecking canary. Told every secret he probably didn’t even tell his priest. By morning, he was gone. Three days later, his body’s hanging from a bridge in Rosarito. His head wound up on a street in Tijuana’s worst neighborhood. Apparently, the info the kid gave caused a major crackdown on mules running drugs from Baja into California. Needless to say, it pissed off the Rumorosa cartel. They went after Martha’s family. When they discovered she has a solid job here and makes a good living since she’s single, they started extorting her. She was sending money to them. One month she didn’t send enough, so they cut off her mother’s left ear and right hand.”

“Fecking hell.”

In New York, we don’t leave people alive to tell the tale. In Latin America, the cartels make examples of people. I doubt the ear and hand are all they did to the woman.

“Yeah, well, it gets worse. Martha went home to see her mother. She tried sneaking into the house, but the cartelwatched it. They snagged her up, and that’s when the terms changed. She had to spy on Jocelyn. I think one of three things is happening. It’s the Rumorosa who’re squeezing Martha and targeting Jocelyn. The Rumorosa are selling this information to someone here in NYC. Or someone here’s forcing the Rumorosa to share the information.”

I look at all the open browser windows with emails I haven’t read yet. If Finn’s already read them all, he’ll let me know if there are any I still need to see. I think about what Joey told me after she met Olivia.

“The Rumorosa are Jesus’s mother’s people. Total Romeo and Juliet. There was supposed to be an alliance between the Culiacán and the Rumorosa, but it went to shite despite his parents being in love. Both of them died. If that was his maternal grandparents’ side of the family, why are they intent upon watching Joey? Why would they plan to kidnap and ransom her?”

“That was never clear in the emails, but I got the impression someone more powerful is pulling their strings. Someone who wants more of Mexico than they have.”

“A rival cartel?”

The Rumorosa are powerful and control the entire length of the Baja peninsula.

Finn shakes his head and shrugs with a sigh. Not at all reassuring.

“I don’t know that, but I’m certain it’s not the Colombians. Pablo andTres J’scome up several times. Whoever this is, warned Martha not to piss them off by being obvious if she fecks with Joey. Until recently, Martha just observed. These people pushed her to act despite their years of threatening to tell Alejandro and letting him deal with her if she fecked up.”

“Was this before or after Joey and I met?”

“Before. About two months, but Martha claimed the time wasn’t right. When Jocelyn started dating you, Martha decided she’d start her campaign against Jocelyn. To make sure she didn’t back down, the Rumorosa killed her younger sister’s dog. It was already fifteen years old, but in good shape. Nowhere near dying.”

I run my hand through my hair. The Ruiz family—Joey’s paternal grandmother’s family—runs the cartel. Before them, Baja and Baja Sud—both parts of the peninsula—were contested territory. The Culiacán—the cartel Joey’s paternal great-grandfather ran before her father—oversaw it for a long time, but they lost interest because they could grow way more products in Chihuahua. When the Ruizes stepped in, the Espinozas didn’t like the competition. It was one of those I don’t want it, but you can’t have it.

“You know who’s felt pushed out of Mexico, don’t you?”

I thought the same thing as Finn.

“Yeah. TheCosa Nostrawas already doing more deals out there, even before they linked up with Jesus. They weren’t feeling the pinch. But we’ve expanded way more than anyone noticed. At least, until now. Someone else definitely found out. Motherfecker.”

I know who it is.

“You’re certain Heather’s out of town?”

“Yes, Cormac. For the tenth time. She and her sister went on a girls’ trip.”

Finn’s ready to punch me, but we can’t go through with this mission if there’s a woman in the house. We won’t risk her life.

We’re sitting in our SUV a block and a half from our target. Sean’s on his computer, hacking what’s supposedly an impenetrable security system. Won’t it surprise my target and his bag of shite cousins—on both sides of his fucking shitbag family—when they discover we aren’t the knuckle draggers we let them always think we are?

“Time to go. We have three minutes before his guards realize the cameras aren’t swiveling and the security feed isn’t updating.”

Sean puts aside his laptop as he speaks, one hand setting it aside while the other pulls down his beanie. Even in the dead of summer, we all wear beanies because our red hair is too fucking recognizable. Three sisters married three brothers and gave birth to six fucking lighthouses. Our hair fucking announces our presence no matter the weather.

I press my earpiece and give the order. Men in vehicles on each street surrounding our target pour forth. We could have gone on foot from my parents’ house, but passing all the other syndicate houses on the way was too great a risk. Very convenient we were only five streets over, though.

The thirty men we have work with precision this motherfucker’s family would envy. They’re not the only ones who can move like a paramilitary unit. Fuck them and their egos. I’m taking them down a peg or two. This fucknut’s about to remember why he has a scar that wraps around his right ribs. He fucked with my brother in college, and he paid for it. Now he’s fucked with my woman, and I’m going to bring him to the edge of death. It’s a shame he’s too high ranking for me to kill.

I signal for teams of six to spread out and cover the property. It takes no time to disarm his security patrol. His property wall is high enough that we leave the bodies as reminders they failed. Our men stand outside to ensure our safety after we breach thehouse. We fan out to check each room. We use only one word in our earpieces.

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