“Nana…let’s have our own welcome-back-to-Chicago dinner soon, I want to know all about wh
at it takes to live to a ripe old age in this family.” I grinned, knowing she’d want to smack me.
“Call me old again you little shit, and you’ll never make it to thirty,” she replied, and I laughed as she went.
“Love you!” I yelled back toward her.
SLAM!
She’d slammed the door so hard it didn’t even close fully, slightly swinging back open, allowing my uncles to walk into the study. Neal grinned. “You called her old, didn’t you?”
“All I said is I wanted her to teach me how to live as long as she has in this family,” I said.
“Must you fight with everyone?” Declan asked, walking over to the bar.
“Yes,” I nodded. “It’s part of my charm.”
He laughed, walking over to me with a new drink. “You know I never thanked you for what you did.”
I took the glass, not sure what he was talking about. It must have been clear on my face because he added, “Helen. Back then…I was stuck. I wasn’t sure what to do. Your parents wanted things to be done quietly, your aunt was on the verge of a breakdown, and I missed my daughter. You took all the blame, and we got what we wanted. I got what I wanted. Don’t worry about Helen, I’ll talk to her later.”
I nodded, not wanting to rehash this. Luckily, my uncle Neal didn’t want to be out of the loop, either. He pointed to the 1937 Map of the United States Showing Routes of Principal Explorers and Early Roads on the side of the wall between the bookshelves.
“Sayalero is now in control of Miami. Rocha has Houston. Villalobos has from New Mexico to southern California,” Uncle Neal said, reading the lines on the map. Every year Ethan sent us information for the new code. Cartels and other mafia families that were trying to rise up against us, to steal our network for trade. The code matched the lines of the old map in our family study.
“They’re trying to cut us off in the south,” Uncle Declan added, staring at the map. “To do that and not fight each other…”
“Means they’re working together,” I finally spoke. “They’ve been ambushing our routes from South America, something they found out through Tobias, and the Italians backing Savino have been helping them. Dona had the ones she found out taken care of. But it still doesn’t change the fact that…”
“We’ve lost at least half the Italians,” Uncle Declan muttered.
“And the ones we have are now terrified because of your actions at the OC,” Uncle Neal responded, glancing over to me.
“I did what I had to do to stop the bleeding,” I replied, looking at the lines throughout the south. “Fear will at least stop anyone else from turning coat until Ethan gets back and figures out how to unite them again. The ones who did betray us and didn’t get caught, it’s only a matter of time until people begin to turn them over.”
“Fucking grunts…after everything we’ve done for them,” Uncle Neal grumbled as he brought his glass up to his lips, stating before he drank, “At least we always have the Irish.”
“That isn’t enough, Uncle,” I snapped, moving to sit on the couch, leaning back into the seat. “There is rebellion rising against us on every front. Don’t praise the Irish, they were just put in their place because of Ethan…they won’t try anything for the time being. But if it looks like we are losing, they’ll abandon us, too. I don’t trust them and neither should you. Things have changed from back in your day.”
“Back in our day, look at him as if we’re from the stone age,” Uncle Neal snickered, moving to sit on the couch across from me. “The drug wars never change, Wyatt. It’s always about who has the power, the money, and the drugs…and just like in our day, we have them. We just need to defend them.”
I grinned at that. “We do. But we need people, Uncle. The more people, the more power. A rich man isn’t powerful if he has no people. He isn’t a king if he controls no one.”
“So what is it you’re thinking?” Uncle Declan questioned, turning away from the map to face us. “We can’t trust the Irish. We can’t trust the Italians. Then what?”
“Family,” I answered back. “We trust family. You know I’m not the thinker. That’s Ethan.”
Taking the remote, I held it up to the map and clicked it once, watching as the glass over the map highlighted our state of Illinois before zooming into Chicago, breaking up the city by zones. “Before leaving, Ethan apparently was thinking about this plan.”
They both looked but didn’t seem to get it.
“He wants to spend almost five billion dollars redoing these neighborhoods?” Uncle Declan asked, glancing at the costs that were calculated in all of the zones. The amount of money he was willing to spend was insane.
“Is he trying to run for governor in a few years?” Uncle Neal snickered, shaking his head. “He really doesn’t need to do all of this.”
“You all really don’t get it.” I chuckled, enjoying the fact that, for once, they were the idiots in the room.
“Do explain, oh wise one, why your bother wants to spend a few billion redoing the ghettos,” Uncle Declan snarked.