Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 229(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 153(@300wpm)
I pulled on a pair of boxer briefs in my size and found a pair of jeans too. That was good enough for now. I wasn’t planning on leaving the room until morning.
Despite that the AC was top-notch, I wouldn’t mind some outdoor air, so I opened the balcony door. It didn’t hurt to catch a word or two of what was transpiring on the patio. Vincente loved to mix business with pleasure.
Joel had left his smokes on the foot of his bed, and that annoyed me too. I was tempted.
Instead, I walked over to the easel pad and began writing things on the paper, starting with the list of names Vincente had given me on a note.
Rafael Delgado, Jorge Gomez, Luiz Gajero, and Dimitri Petrov. They were the four men Vincente knew that Carillo kept close. Vincente’s guess was that Petrov, a Russian freelancer recruited by Carillo, had led the operation that’d set Carillo free. Gajero and Gomez were former lieutenants who had expressed their dismay at being shut out from the heroin and meth trade. Which aligned with Carillo’s own beef with Vincente’s territory. The Blanco Family pushed heroin all over the place, but the drug routes tended to be divided by the drug. Vincente had other crews working with heroin.
Gomez and Gajero were also the two with permanent residences in the US. Finding them—or Delgado and Petrov—would lead us to Carillo.
I created a mind map with the names and linked Crew and Ryan to Delgado. Vincente had confirmed that he was most likely based in Europe, because that was where Vincente believed Carillo was moving. Like, everything. Whatever operations Carillo set up, Europe would be his headquarters.
Joel came out from the bathroom with a towel around his hips, and I averted my gaze.
Fucking hell, he was still too gorgeous for words. Or more gorgeous, I should say. He’d been smoking hot at eighteen, and thirty-three, too, but forty-one knocked the others out of the park.
As I’d gotten older myself, I’d come to realize age was beautiful. We were no longer blank canvases. Our bodies revealed scars, memories, experience, and stories. We had more to grab on to, emotionally, mentally. More to rest our eyes upon.
I suppressed a sigh and returned to the board.
Joel sat down on the foot of my bed, and he eyed the board. “Who’s staying in the US?”
“River and Reese.” I linked their names to Gajero and Gomez. Since they had established crews in San Diego, they were our best bet at finding Blake, Shay, and Marisa. “If we’re to believe Vincente, Carillo will try to make his way to Europe in the next week or so. He will likely surround himself with as many men he trusts as possible, so I’m thinking you, me, Ortega, and Ramirez will focus on Carillo and his entourage.” I added Valencia and Marseille to the list, because that was where the Blancos operated, according to Vincente.
True to his word, Vincente hadn’t had a whole lot of concrete information to take us directly to Carillo, but he’d had enough for us to put together a compilation of likely scenarios. I’d been able to profile Carillo better.
He was greedy and wanted to get his hands dirtier than ever. Coke, H, meth, fentanyl… He wanted it all.
“I’m gonna talk to Darius too,” I said. “If they’re on board with coming with us to Europe, they can be drivers or scouts.” It would be safer.
I was fucking itching to get my phone back. We had so much intel I wanted to share with the guys, and more than that, with Squeezy. She was the genius behind the computer screens who got us coordinates faster than anyone. She turned a clue into a result.
“So who’s going after the Russian?” Joel asked.
“Well, if he’s traveling with Carillo, which Vincente and I believe, it’ll be us,” I answered. “Then Crew and Ryan will try to find Delgado.”
To be a bit more specific, I added the last destinations where our searches would hopefully begin—unless Squeezy came up with better alternatives. Joel and I would go to Valencia, Ramirez and Ortega to Marseille, and Ryan and Crew to Nice, from where they would drive into Monaco.
Monaco, despite its strict regulations and close relationship with France, was where dirty money could hide. The microstate was a paradise for shady people with more money than they could spend.
I glanced over at Joel. “We should…” I trailed off when I saw how fucking defeated he looked. Head bowed, shoulders slumped, hands gripping the edge of the mattress.
I didn’t have to ask what was wrong. I already knew. And I bet he felt even worse because I’d called him useless.
I swallowed hard, regret and remorse flaring up. Screw old issues; I needed him on his A game here, and he sure as fuck wasn’t useless.