Vicious Minds: Part 2 (Children of Vice Book 5) Read online

  “Boss. The Rocha.”

  So much for my damn welcome breakfast, fuck me for fucking trying.

  4

  “Sometimes I am God, if I say a man dies,

  he dies that same day.”

  ~ Pablo Escobar

  ETHAN

  “There were two cars—”

  “Stop talking,” I ordered, not looking at Greyson, who foolishly thought that now, in the middle of the dining room with my daughter present, would be best time to discuss this. Instead, I looked at my daughter, who was in Calliope’s arms, and I could not read her face. Her mother’s face…that was a different story.

  “Are you scared?” I asked, cupping the side of Gigi’s face.

  “No papa,” she beamed cheerfully. “Mommy has fireworks too.”

  “Fireworks, really?” I chuckled and she nodded excitedly as I reached over, taking her from her mother’s arms. I took her out of the dining room to my room, walking us down the hall until we got to the blank space in the wall right beside an old oil painting of ancient Rome.

  She talked the whole time and didn’t even notice as the wall began to open.

  “This one time, Mommy threw fireworks and they went bang bang bang and then there were all these pretty colors, Papa. Priscus and Verus went crazy. They were the ones scared. Not me. Mommy says I never have to be scared ‘cause she’s always there.”

  “I’m here too,” I whispered, frowning as I set her down on the couch, kneeling in front of her. She looked around the room, pouting when she saw no toys or anything that seemed to interest her. It was just any other bedroom to her.

  “Papa. No sleeping.”

  “No sleeping,” I agreed. “This is a game.”

  “Game?”

  I nodded. “Whenever you hear fireworks, but don’t see me or Mommy, you have to come here and wait until we find you.”

  “But I see you, Papa.”

  I smiled hearing the door open behind me again. “I know. Today is just practice. So, you are going to get to stay here with Nana and your cousin, wait for me to come back, and then we get to play whatever you want.”

  Because she was my daughter, she was smart, and from the way she looked at me and crossed her arms, I could tell maybe her mother had done this, too. “How long.”

  “How long?”

  “Do I have to wait here, Papa?”

  Yes, Calliope had definitely done this before, and definitely left her in here longer than she liked.

  I lifted my hands up. “Two movies and one story.”

  “A story?” Her eyes lit up. “Mommy’s story?”

  “Any story you want, my sweet.”

  “I want the Little Mermaid,” Saura said as she jumped on the bed. She, too, was used to coming in here…all Callahan children were. Whether for practice or…the real thing.

  “I know the Little Mermaid,” Gigi said, moving from me over to Saura.

  With her now distracted, I rose to my feet. My grandmother stepped up beside me. “Go, I have them. I’ll teach her about this room…just like I taught you.”

  “Some things never change and somethings will.”

  She turned her back to them to look me in the eye. She was full of the coldness and darkness she only ever bought out in moments like this, when someone tried to swipe at this family. “One of the things that can never change is the respect owed to this family.”

  I said nothing.

  I was walking out towards the exit when Gigi called out to me. “Two movies and story, Papa!”

  I smiled the best I could before walking out, the bulletproof steel door sealing shut behind me before the wall moved back in place.

  Out in the hall, I exhaled, lifting my head to the ceiling, doing my best to try to keep calm. This was not the time to lose my temper. The Rocha? The fucking two-bit, half monkey-brained Rocha, tried to do a drive-by at my house? At my motherfucking house? The White House would make more sense than my damn motherfucking bloody house!

  I knew where the rest of my family would be waiting. I walked down the hall, taking the stairs before turning to go towards CAIN. However, before I made it far, Greyson rushed up the stairs two by two.

  “Boss!”

  “The Rocha did this?” I asked him.

  “They looked like a bunch of new recruits. All the city is talking about how Miguel Muncha took out the city government. Some young bloods want to prove themselves—”

  “Did you capture any of them?”

  “They fired from their cars and drove off. We got eyes on them all over the city. They are from the 15th block of Ballico. We got a name already ‘cause one was hit and dropped off…well, pushed out of the side of their car at the local emergency care. No one has moved yet. What do you want us to do?”

  I stared at the video footage of that piece of shit in a gorilla mask being shoved out of a black Ford and on to the corner before speeding off. The clinic staff rushed to help. They had no idea that with a snap of my fingers I could call an army to wipe them off the earth. But for some reason, right now that didn’t feel satisfying enough.

  No.

  This was…

  “Greyson, tell the rest of the men to be fully armed but on standby at Ballico.” Calliope’s voice traveled down the hall gently. Glancing to my left, she stood at the end of the hall, now changed into black jeans, boots, and a dark black sweater. She held a double barrel AR-15 machine gun in one hand and her machete in the other. Apparently, you couldn’t take the assassin out of her. It was broad daylight and she looked like she was ready to go fight alongside the Terminator. How the fuck did she change so quickly, anyway?

  Greyson looked at me, eyebrow raised. I nodded for him to go. As he walked over to her, he looked her over, perplexed. But then shook off whatever he was thinking, walking back down the stairs.

  “Nice outfit, Lara Croft,” I said.

  “Firstly, I look better,” she replied without smiling. “Secondly, I am not in the mood for jokes. Nor do I want you to be calm right now. And I don’t need you to go to some little room like the rest of your family to talk about counterattacks. All they are going to do is waste time yelling how dare anyone fire at your precious family house.”

  “Well thank you for that list. How about you tell me what you need, then?”

  “Take the gun and get in the fucking car with me,” she said, handing me the machine gun.

  “You of all people want to move without a plan?”

  “I had a plan. It was a very good plan. I woke up early this morning for it. I made donuts for it. It came with pretty speeches and a very cute outfit. Then some little wannabe gangster fucks thought they could shoot up this house to prove themselves. So now I am upset and I will think of a new plan on the way.”

  “Calliope, we have people who could handle this—”

  She stepped closer, staring me down. “You are upset, too. So upset that you do not want anyone else to handle this. That is why you took our daughter to a safe room. You want to feel their blood on your hands for this.”

  She was right.

  This had crossed a line.

  I was pissed.

  “So, are we going, or do you need the rest of your family to annoy you with opinions you don’t need and won’t listen to first?”

  “You’re condescending when you are upset; you’re aware of that, right?” I replied.

  “Yes. I know. Now, let’s go. Every second we waste is a second they have to hide.”

  “There is no place to hide on scorched earth,” I said, walking in front of her and down the hall. This was some shit. This wasn’t a coordinated attack. This wasn’t planned. This was punks trying to use the current chaotic state of the city to prove they were tough, to prove they were big, bad, and fearless. That they could hit this family and walk away unscathed. It was like slapping God to them.

  And now, they would see what happened when God slapped back.

  He left nothing standing.

  CALLIOPE

  “Whe
n I came here, I knew bullets would start flying and blood would start flowing…but I had no idea it would happen before I got to eat, what I suffered to make,” I muttered, looking out the window as he drove, noticing the sixth cop in less than five minutes. Something was off. They couldn’t all be his people, either. He didn’t have all of the Chicago P.D. on the bankroll.

  I would worry about that later. I thought about putting up my sweater sleeves. The bright sunlight glaring down on everything made my chest hot. Black was good for dark nights, not for sunny days, but it was the only thing I had ready and could change into quickly. This whole day was dog shit. I wanted a do-over.

  “Calliope, are you going to sulk about this breakfast all morning?” he muttered as he got on the highway.

  “Do you know how long it takes to make bombolinis for your big ass family?”

  He opened his mouth to answer but I cut him off before he pissed me off more. “3 hours! You need to knead them by hand for a couple of minutes first, then place the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise in a warm place for at least 2 hours until tripled in size…when you fry them, you can only do a few at a time, making sure to not crowd the pan and for 3 minutes on each side. That is just for some damn bombolinis!”

  “No one forced you to do that, you were showing off—”

  “I will cut you, Ethan, I swear to fucking God!” Again, fuck me for trying to be fucking nice to his fucking family. “Next time I’ll just poison them and not worry about it.”

  “Didn’t you do that already?”

  I reached for my machete.

  “Save your energy for the people who actually ruined our morning,” he said coldly.

  I glared but put my hand down, crossing my arms, trying to understand this stupidity. “These people must truly be stupid. They shoot up your house, and they didn’t even use armor-piercing bullets? They barely put a dent in the glass. A low-level cartel.”

  “That’s right, I didn’t tell you,” he muttered, slowing slightly as we went past another cop.

  My eyes narrowed. “Tell me what?”

  “You might have noticed the uptick in police and security in the city, correct?”

  “Yes, I might have. Only a blind moron wouldn’t.”

  “The day your grandfather came, I killed the governor, the mayor, the police commissioner, and the fire chief,” he casually confessed.

  My eyes widened as I replayed that in my mind.

  “What the fuck, Ethan?” I hollered at him, nearly gasping. I looked back over the city. “You can’t take out all the major heads of a state and a city at the same time. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and every other goddamn abbreviation is going to consider it an act of terrorism and swarm the city. We will be under a national emergency order. How did I not notice? Goddamn, I took one day off! Please tell me it was all at different locations—”

  “No, I hung them from their toes, upside down and naked, from the Chicago Skyway Toll Bridge.”

  My mouth dropped open as I stared at my once-thought soulmate. But he couldn’t be my Ethan. My Ethan was smart. And I liked him smart.

  “When did you become an idiot?”

  “They hurt my little brother,” he replied in amusement. “If I took them out one at a time, they would have seen it coming and hid or tried something stupid—”

  “You’ve hurt your little brother! You don’t give a fuck! But let’s ignore that, even if you wanted to make a point, a coordinated hit and kill across the state would have been better than hanging them under a goddamn bridge!” I snapped. “Did you fucking sign your name under them, too? Or did you just say, sincerely, the mafia as you slip into the 1950s, Al Capone.”

  “Al Capone died before the ‘50s.”

  “Not my fucking point, Ethan!”

  “I figured you didn’t know—”

  “Of course, I didn’t know. My daughter was gone. They could have nuked the state, and I still wouldn’t have noticed. If I had noticed, I wouldn’t have spent my morning making jelly donuts!”

  “They looked very well done—”

  “Ethan!”

  “What? Are you going to listen to my reasoning? Or would you like to yell a bit more.”

  “No, I want to yell a bit more,” I yelled again. “It’s my first fucking official day back in Chicago, not even a full day. And so far, I’ve been shot at—”

  “It was more the house than you—”

  “And a city that has always been fucked, has been double fucked by you,” I went on, ignoring him. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, trying to think. “This why you were hesitating…you knew it would be harder to move since you already infected the city with cops.”

  He was silent, allowing me to rant.

  As I did, I slowly put everything together.

  Opening my eyes, I sat up straighter. Why were these people shooting at his house now? They shouldn’t want to get caught by cops either…they were doing it to prove they control the city and they would only think to do it if they felt they had the power.

  “You blamed the killings on the Rocha cartel,” I whispered.

  Again, he didn’t say anything.

  “Not just the Rocha but Miguel Munha,” I chuffed. Ethan never forgave him for that nightclub incident. Grabbing my phone, I finally focused on something other than his damn family. I scrolled through all the news reports of the city. It was just as bad as I thought it was. It was just as bad as it could be. The president had called a state of emergency. There were almost two hundred extra cops in the city alone, plus the National Guard, and he did this all to prove a damn point. I’d thought Ethan would be the least likely to give in to his ego and pride in comparison to other men. However, apparently, when left alone with his brother, he had to flex.

  “You crippled the state’s government because they told your brother you couldn’t kill them, and you’ve pinned it on the Rocha cartel? The Rocha?” I gasped in disbelief. “Really?”

  “From your tone, I’m guessing you do not approve,” he answered.

  “It’s a little late for whether I approve or not. And it’s not about whether or not I approve. I mean, sure it works, but the Rocha? They have five functioning brain cells together as a whole cartel, and Miguel Munha only has two of those cells.” Hence when they attracted morons who thought it was a good idea to attack the Callahan family now of all times.

  “You are being very generous to him,” he said as we reached the 15th block of Ballico.

  “Exactly. They are a bunch of half-wit, drugged up, muscle men with gorilla tattoos on their hands, and somehow, they managed to take out the top politicians in the state? What? If anything, you just gave Miguel Munha more street credibility. People will think if that idiot could take out the governor, he must be someone when he’s no one. He’s going to walk into that prison with people attached to his balls and crowned king.”

  “What make makes you think he’ll make it to prison?” he asked, putting the car in park right beside…a donut shop.

  Not many people saw Ethan’s humor. But I always did and because he did his best to tease me whenever he could. And he had the audacity to look at me blankly as if he did not get why I was glaring at him.

  Ignoring it, I focused.

  “No,” I said, showing him the news report about the current manhunt for a Munha in what the press was calling the Hangman Murders.

  “No?” he repeated.

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I said, no, you cannot kill him. This is too big now. He has to make it to prison, Ethan. You want to pin it on him, fine. But people need a villain.”

  “Am I not the villain?” he asked with a small glint in his eyes. Again… Ethan’s humor.

  I rolled my eyes. “Would you like to go to prison, Mr. Villain?”

  “I want Miguel Munha dead…I want them all dead,” he replied, looking out at the small borough of good ol’ fashioned blue-collared Mexican-Americans.

  “Should have thought that before. Kill
him later when people have somewhat forgotten. But he goes to jail and you will have to settle for tearing this block apart as a warning.”

  He glared at me. “One would think you are his guardian angel with how often you’ve stopped me from killing him.”

  “Why waste a pawn when it still has use?”

  His phone beeped and I was sure he now knew exactly who attacked his house this morning. He started the car, speeding down the street and turning into a car repair shop currently trying to close its doors. Ethan stuck the nose of his car in before they could.

  “Sorry man, we’re closed,” the mechanic called, dressed in dark blue overalls with car grease on his face.

  Ethan drove inside anyway, forcing the man with the ugly goatee and gold tooth to move back.

  “What the fuck, man? You deaf?” the soon-to-be-dead idiot yelled.

  And it was clear we were in the right place from the amount of men with gorilla mouth masks and guns. They pointed them at our car. Quickly, I rolled down the window.

  “We—We’re sorry! We’re sorry,” I giggled nervously before opening the car door.

  “Don’t move! Or we will blow you the fuck away,” one of them yelled at me.

  “Look I didn’t see anything. We’ll go. But please just check to see if something is wrong with the car.”

  Another man stepped forward, looking in, but he couldn’t really see due to the tinted windows. He held the gun tighter.

  “Tell your man to roll all the windows down.”

  “Hunny…he…the windows.” I trembled, looking to him.

  He gave me a look before shifting his green eyes to the man with the gun, now closer to my head.

  “They’re stuck.”

  “She got this one down, fucker. Don’t play with me,” he snapped, moving in closer.

  “That one isn’t stuck,” Ethan replied coldly.

  “Oh, you’ve got jokes—”

  “Wait…he looks familiar.” Another one of them bent over to try and look at Ethan. “Where you from, hombre? You ain’t 15th, so why do I know your face?”