“So that’s why he’s here,” Joaquin says, taking the seat across from me.
I drop my hands away from my face and consider his words.
“I suppose that has something to do with it. He wants to have dinner with the both of us tonight.”
My eyes slice to him.
In between revealing he was dying and flipping my fucking world upside down, Uncle Vic revealed why Joaquin needed a change of clothes and clean-up crew—something I should’ve asked about myself, but I was too busy trying to bleach his sister from my mind with those two broads to give a flying fuck that my right hand had just offed one of Miami’s prominent drug lords.
“I need you to tell me what happened with Pablo Rodriguez. You don’t just off a fucking guy like that and not tell me about it. All you said was there was a problem and the next thing I knew, you were changing your clothes, but I don’t remember seeing any blood, so what kind of problem was there?”
The shock of Uncle Vic’s imminent passing wears and he clucks his tongue against the roof of his mouth, fixing me with a glare.
“First off, don’t fucking talk to me like I’m beneath you. I don’t give a fuck about bloodlines—we both know I do a fuck of a lot more around here than you do and if it weren’t for me, you’d be fucking dead.”
I’m the first to admit that, this we know—just never to him.
“Should I tell you where you’d be if it weren’t for me?” I counter, cocking my head to the side. It’s a low blow but with my uncle having one foot in the grave, it might be time I step up. Take charge of my own life and stop acting like a scorned bitch. Show the world who the fuck I am and what I’m capable of—I might need some sleep first, but after that, it’s on.
But before I commit to changing the underworld, I’m going to need Joaquin to explain why he wasn’t the least bit concerned by the fact a guy like Rodriguez got past the front door of Temptations. If there is one thing we’ve been groomed not to tolerate, it’s drugs. We don’t deal them, and we don’t do them. It’s not Uncle Vic’s style and that’s fine by me, seeing as how drugs ruined my fucking father.
Grinding his teeth, Joaquin leans his elbows on his knees.
“I didn’t know Pablo was even in the club until Miguel came to me and told me Pilar was unresponsive in one of the VIP booths.”
Fucking Pilar.
That woman is a cancer in her own right.
“I immediately took her off the floor and brought her downstairs, he gave her a shot of Narcan, and I played back the surveillance tapes. Luckily, Rodriguez is a greedy motherfucker and stuck around after he sold to her. I knocked his two guys out and grabbed him when he was taking a piss, his dick was still in his hand when I dragged him to the basement. You want to know his last words too?”
I swipe a hand over my face.
Weakness…it’s real.
Palpable.
Festering inside the man in front of me.
“I’m sorry, should we grieve the motherfucker who was dealing drugs in our club and nearly killed my girlfriend?”
No, we should be worried about why he was there in the first place.
We should be fucking terrified as to how Pablo knew Pilar was the perfect target.
“Wait, maybe I should’ve paused before I pulled the trigger and asked your permission,” he sneers.
That’s not how this thing between us works. I may be higher on the chain of command, but this has always been a partnership. I climb the rungs of the ladder and he holds it steady.
“For fuck’s sake, Joaquin, I’m not fucking busting your balls for taking him out. You should’ve seen Uncle Vic’s face—he lit up like a Christmas tree. He was so proud and thanks to you, I’m nephew of the year and—”
He cuts me off, his eyes narrowing into tiny slits.
“What are you talking about? How did Vic know?”
Leaning back against the leather cushions, I spread my arms along the back of the couch.
Like I said, he’s got his head so far up Pilar’s cunt, he can’t think straight. If that ever happens to me, put me out of my misery. A clean shot to the fucking head. Right between the eyes. Please and thank you.
“Did you ever stop to ask yourself how Pablo was allowed into the club?” I ask.
He considers the question for a moment.
“Omar said he was on the guest list, which is crazy because I checked the list earlier in the afternoon. I didn’t have a chance to dig deeper into it because Victor suddenly appeared, and I had to get back to Pilar.”
I shake my head.
“Victor put Pablo on the list.”
“What? That makes no sense.”
“It was a fucking test, one I apparently passed thanks to you.”
“A test,” he repeats. “Why the fuck would he test us?”
I asked myself the same question, but then it all started to click for me. When a man like Uncle Vic gets diagnosed with a terminal disease, he doesn’t grieve his life or cry woe is me. He swallows his bad karma and makes a plan so that long after he’s left this world, his mark remains. I have no doubt that the man is cleaning house, deciding who gets lowered into a shallow grave and who makes rank. After he caught wind of that shit with Mitch, he probably had me on his hit list—hence this last stint of his. He needed proof I was worthy of a place in his organization.
“Bro,” I call, forcing Joaquin’s eyes back to mine. “I don’t know for sure, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but what if he was testing me because he’s finally decided to make me a made guy.”
It makes sense. After all, whoever Uncle Vic chooses as his successor will need a fucking army of men behind him. The five families are all going to be gunning for a piece of the pie. The streets are going to be a war zone as they all try to claim the Pastore territory and blood will be shed.
“Wait a minute,” Joaquin says. “When you say Victor set us up with Pablo, what does that mean?”
He must’ve not heard the part where I said there’s a possibility of me becoming a made man.
“He put his name on the list to see how I’d handle having a well-known drug dealer on my turf,” I explain, huffing out an exasperated breath. “You know how he feels about drugs.”
I stare at him for a beat, gauging his reaction, waiting for him to fit all the pieces.
“So because Victor wanted to test you, Pablo was allowed in the club with his drugs. Was Pilar part of the plan too or was she just a fucking coincidental casualty?”
For crying out loud, he’s worse off than I thought.
“Uncle Vic has no idea who Pilar is,” I snap. He needs someone to drum the hard truth into his thick skull and luckily for him, I’m feeling generous. “Man, get that shit out of your head. You’re looking for someone to blame when the truth is, Pilar is a junkie. She knows where to get her shit and if it wasn’t Pablo, it would’ve been someone else. You put a drug dealer in a room with people looking for an escape, the dealer is gonna score—all Uncle Vic did was set the stage for what he knew was inevitable.”
He doesn’t respond. I inch forward, keeping my eyes on him as he silently works out the shit in his head. Christ.
“Fuck, you’re in love with her,” I exclaim. His eyes cut to me and an unfamiliar expression slices through his features. Despair. Guilt. Regret.