Page 53 of Raphael (Belles & Mobsters 5)

My chest grew full each time I thought about Sailor and Gabriel. It took no time for me to fall under their spell. The kid wore his heart on his sleeve. In our world, it wasn’t a good quality, but I didn’t fucking care. I’d help Sailor preserve that innocence for as long as I could. There was plenty of time to be a bastard.

Just like Sailor, I felt the need to check on Gabriel tonight. My innocent and kind-hearted half-brother, unlike the one I grew up with. Vincent was a sadistic and cruel bastard. Gabriel wasn’t jaded by this world around us. And me, I wasn’t exactly innocent but I’d like to think I wasn’t as sadistic as Vincent who liked to torture the helpless and innocent.

After all, I had Diablo tattooed on my hand. I was six when I made my first kill. I caught one of my father’s men raping our maid and I lost my shit. I snatched a butcher knife from the nearby table and stabbed him in the neck. After that, it was a blur. When I finally got off of him, my skin was soaked with his blood and he had sixty-six wounds. A six-year-old boy and sixty-six wounds. People saw six-six-six and I was pronounced diablo.

From the moment Vincent was pronounced dead, I became the visible son. The only living son. And I fucking hated it. Until that moment, I had my own agenda and businesses I’d kicked off. I knew my responsibilities to the family, but being the second son left me the freedom to do what I wanted outside the family business. I disagreed with Vincent’s and our father’s methods. Human trafficking. Forced prostitution. Selling of women.

I fucking hated it all.

But changes were impossible because for as long as my father lived, he ruled the Santos Cartel. Imagine the surprise when Sasha Nikolaev, that fucking idiotic and impulsive bastard, executed my father. The world suddenly turned their attention to me. A new head to the Santos Cartel. A colder one. A focused one. A more lethal one. But not more cruel.

The day I buried my father at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, rows and rows of upstanding citizens came to see him off. Not because he was a good man, but because he was part of the Florida underground and ruled the crime of the entire state. They wanted to ensure they still had a spot at my table, their hands already eager for more bribes.

The procession of stretch limos, paparazzi, and reporters lingered all around, catching glimpses of visiting criminals.

If only all these upstanding citizens knew how much drama happened in their own worlds.

Just look at D.C. and the McHale family. That city might as well be called Sin City instead of Vegas. It hid filth and secrets under the illusion of justice and long lines of prominent political figures.

My eyes roamed over the screen. Pages and pages of information, and it finally made sense how Anya and my father came to be.

The old McHale owed Benito King a favor and had signed The Belles and Mobster’s agreement with Cassio’s father. Nico’s wife shot Benito, but unfortunately decades of shit takes a long time to clean up. Anya was one of those victims of Benito’s infamous Belles and Mobster’s agreement. My father bought the contract from Benito when my old man decided he’d fuck everything under the sun so he could produce another son. My father called up to collect the debt and the old McHale offered up Anya like a sacrificial lamb. Although, McHale technically had violated that contract - because he didn’t give him his biological daughter.

And then there was the information on Anya’s paternity.Interesting.It explained Sailor’s statement the night we met. Her father hated all things Hispanic. I’d bet my fortune this was the reason why.

I wondered if Sailor knew, and how much exactly. She hated me enough. Maybe she thought I was just like my father. It was hard to tell when she kept herself so fucking closed off.

Sailor’s parents were no better than my father, except that Sailor didn’t have the Nikolaevs with sights set on her family. I suspected the Nikolaev brothers never realized they actually did me a favor, even if I had to seek revenge for it. Suddenly, as the head of the cartel, I was able to implement changes and new rules. I put an end to the human trafficking and all our business with the Tijuana Cartel who were the primary suppliers of human flesh.

That went over well. Or not. And our feud began.

How fucking ironic that that same enemy now had their sights on my half-brother and his mother. Except, they didn’t know of Gabriel’s connection to me.

But Sailor's parents did.

I read through Nico’s email again. It was the last contract that had me fucking reeling with anger. It burned so strong, I had to choke it down. It burned in my throat, in my chest, and marred my vision with red.

Just like the day I killed my first man.

My eyes skimmed up through the pages and my jaw tightened as the need to hunt down Sailor’s parents and shoot them in the goddamn head crawled through my veins.

I couldn’t fucking believe it. I’d expected anything from uptight, backstabbing prominent figures but never something like this. I glanced at the date of the contract. It was signed a week ago. Her father sold Sailor to Santiago Tijuana. The old fucker was Santiago’s connection in D.C. and it was only thanks to Sailor’s old man that the Tijuana Cartel poached the area and posted bail.

It was time to tear into the Sailor's family.

Nobody gets away with hurting my little brother. Or my woman.

ChapterTwenty-Five

SAILOR

Itossed and turned for the rest of the night. Worry swarmed my mind.

To marry or not to marry. To trust or not to trust.

Gabriel needed protection. From my parents. From the Tijuana Cartel. Probably many others if his connection to the Santos family came out. All of it kept me tossing and turning for most of the night. The first flickers of dawn came over the horizon and I gave up on sleep.

Pulling out my cell phone, I turned it on and checked my messages. I had tons of missed messages and calls from Aurora and Willow.

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