2 Chapter 1 (1/2)

Emilio

Bogota, Colombia, December 1998

The f.u.c.ker owed him money.

Emilio Ross paced across the verandah that flanked his brother's house. Beneath him, the city of Bogota sprawled herself out in a dazzling array of lights, a city peppered with skysc.r.a.pers and lush green mountains that rose up in the distance like a protective shroud.

It was beautiful, and he couldn't wait to f.u.c.king leave.

'How much?' Emilio asked, sucking on his cigar and letting the smoke leave his mouth with a humph.

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Julian, his younger brother, uncrossed his legs and set his snifter of brandy down beside him. 'Thirty.'

Emilio's fists tightened around his own brandy balloon, a hairline crack appearing in the delicate gla.s.s. 'Thirty?'

'It was a large s.h.i.+pment, boss.'

Julian always called him boss when they spoke business.

Emilio stuck his cigar between his teeth and attempted to channel a sense of calm. He was the kingpin of the Il Sangue Cartel, the G.o.dd.a.m.n owner of the c.o.ke empire that ran from the depths of Colombia all the way across the gulf, its tendrils reaching into northern California and beyond.

He was Italian mafioso — la famiglia — and when he made up his mind, axes fell, and heads rolled. Whether the thugs and mobsters he hired lived or died meant nothing to a man like Emilio Ross.

But family — ah, yes, family was different. There was an unspoken rule between the cartels of South America.

Hands off the family.After all, Il Sangue was Italian for 'the blood', and blood was thicker than water in the cartel. It meant something. Il Sangue è sacra. Famiglia è sacra. Those were the words he lived by.

If you crossed the cartel, you got a bullet, simple as that. But your family, your wife and your kids would go unharmed. At your funeral, a cartel lackey would deliver your wife a couple of hundred bucks to get by on, maybe more if you'd been a long-time employee, and you'd have taken your last breath knowing that at least your family would be okay after you were dead and buried.

But thirty grand worth of c.o.ke was a big f.u.c.k-up. A royally big f.u.c.k-up. Because the thirty grand it cost to produce, package and s.h.i.+p Colombia's finest white powder would turn into half a million dollars of pure profit by the time it hit the streets of Los Angeles and was divvied up among the small-time dealers and suppliers.