“Mexican coke didn’t get my mother gunned down by her own family,” Lynch seethes.
Shit just got real.
Luis nods, mulling over the information before speaking. “Alejandro Días was a brutal man, but it’s my understanding that you run your club with as tight a fist as he led our regime for decades. I can assure you, however, that my corporation, although just as thorough on accountability, would’ve handled things differently.”
“How so?” Lynch grunts.
Cringing at his insistence, I’m disappointed in his question. We don’t normally have to make an example of women, but it’s not something we haven’t involved ourselves in in recent years. Concern for Molly’s safety is one of the main reasons I’ve never even let myself imagine holding her in my arms.
“I would’ve put the bullet in your father’s head rather than ordering the assassination of my daughter. Bastard or full-blooded child, family is allowed a little more leeway. Do you disagree?” A wicked grin lights Luis’s face in a sinister twist of his lips. “On the other hand, I don’t have a nagging fucking wife to concern herself with where my cock travels and the consequences of that.”
“Frances was a means to an end,” Lynch confirms what we’ve speculated over for the last couple of months when Frances was choked to death, and the cartel didn’t come knocking on our clubhouse door.
“I grieve for my wife.” Not an ounce of remorse crosses Luis’s face. “Yet, I find joy in the kingdom I’ve inherited.”
“That makes one of us,” Lynch mutters.
“You knew what you were getting into when you strung your father up. Now is your chance to make his empire-your empire-strive in a shitty economy. There will always be money in cocaine. You should use ours instead of the Mexicans’,” he pushes.
“What’s the offer?” Lynch asks.
Luis snaps his fingers, and one of his soldiers produces a stack of papers seemingly from thin air. “I can guarantee the finest cocaine at twenty percent below cost for the next five years.”
Looking over Lynch’s shoulder, I eye the paperwork.
“The cartel is using fucking contracts now?” TJ snorts from the opposite end of the table.
“We’re businessmen,” Luis assures him. “And before you ask, after five years we can come back to the table and renegotiate.”
“Why the fuck do you want us involved? You have the power to move more coke than we can even hope for,” Lynch says as his eyes stay on the cartel boss rather than drifting to the paperwork in front of him.
“Several reasons. I hate the cold weather, so making trips up north doesn’t interest me. Also, I know Ravens Ruin is a thriving enterprise up there. You guys are astute businessmen, and I don’t have to worry about getting fucked over. I know for a fact you don’t tolerate people fucking with your business.” He winks at my prez before continuing. “You keeping your guys in line keeps the coke flowing like water, and everyone is happy.”
“And your oversight?” Lynch still isn’t convinced.
This isn’t at all what we thought we were walking into when we left Sutton.
“None,” Luis says simply as he leans back in his leather chair. “We’ll meet your guys halfway a couple of times a month, on neutral ground of course. You pay for the product, and that’s that. All that we’re asking for is untraceable money and exclusivity.”
“And in the event your lines dry up?”
Luis chuckles as if Lynch asked about hell freezing over. “That’s highly unlikely, but there are concessions for that in clause twelve of the contract.”
Only then does Lynch lower his eyes to the paperwork in front of him. Several tense minutes pass as he reads over the contract.
“Housing for your men on occasion?” Lynch snaps his eyes back up at the cartel boss.
“All I ask is appropriate accommodations as I’ve provided for you in my own home.” Luis shakes his head as if even asking is ridiculous to him. “I have a couple guys that have never seen snow. The winter weather in Massachusetts appeals to a few of them for some unknown reason.”
“I ask for seventy-two hours notice, and they don’t hurt my women when they visit,” Lynch barters, continuing only after Luis raises his brow in confusion. “I heard the screams from several rooms last night. Those ladies didn’t seem to be enjoying the attention they were getting.”
“Fair enough,” Jiménez concedes. The big motherfucker who looks like Satan incarnate grunts his disapproval, but otherwise remains silent. “Anything else?”
Lynch lowers his head as he finishes reading the contract.
“Seems fair,” he says when he lifts his eyes.
“You’re sure you can move that much product?”
“My business model is none of your concern,” Lynch says as he holds his hand out for the pen the gorilla man just handed Luis.
He signs our lives away to the cartel before passing it back to Luis for his signature. A second copy is produced and they each sign again.