17. Seventeen

Isaiah

Miguel makes a phone call to a few people in Texas and I pace around the room waiting for the call to confirm the job sabotaging the delivery truck has been completed. We don"t receive the phone call until after I speak to Carlos and Joey. My heart had never beat so fast as it did when Joey"s voice came on that other line. My heart clenched in my chest when we had to end the call, but knowing he's with Carlos will definitely help me sleep better tonight. He won't let anything happen to Joey. I hate not being the one to be there to hold him and keep him safe, but knowing he has Carlos there offers me a bit of comfort.

"Now we wait," Mateo says after ending the call with his ex-fiancé, Santiago.

Based on the calm tone of my brother"s voice you would"ve never guessed they ever had bad blood between them. I can tell not everything was completely smoothed over between them though when my brother"s lips form into a thin line. "The abandoned truck will be reported to a few news stations tomorrow anonymously from a payphone in Texas. No police stations in the area can be trusted. Many of the men in charge work for Santana and we don"t need him to know anything is wrong yet. The truck is supposed to be at the hotel tomorrow by six p.m. and it won"t be, which will put these men in a bind. They won"t have the product they were promised, and many customers will be unsatisfied, feeling like they wasted their time."

"Good. But that could cause problems for us too. They could be looking for someone to blame, maybe someone new who they"ve seen or heard of before. This stranger shows up out of the blue and that"s when all this shit goes down, who"s to say they won"t look his way?"

"There"s nothing to connect the truck incident to Carlos."

"There wasn"t until now," a voice says from behind us. "There appears to be a problem. One of Carlos" contacts couldn"t keep his mouth shut when being questioned. Men like him would do whatever it takes to save their own ass. What he didn"t realize was that Santana isn"t the only man to fear around here." Gabriel stands in the doorway, gripping his gun with blood covering his hands.

"Who was it?" I ask.

"You don"t have to worry about that. It"s been taken care of. It was some wannabe pimp who had a few brothels in surrounding areas. Apparently, he owed Carlos a favor and helped get him a spot at one of the smaller auctions. The one good thing is that the man didn"t know the fake name Carlos was using."

I tilt my head. "But they know it"s Carlos?"

"They do, but luckily not many men know what my brother looks like. Santana"s man who was shown photos of my brother is also dead. We need Carlos to get the hell out of there before they figure it out. All I did was buy him time."

I clench my fists at my side, knowing what I have to do even if Carlos would argue against it. It may be time I make a trip to Florida. There"s only so much I can do from here. If Carlos doesn"t get out in time, he"ll be surrounded and there"s no way he can take all those men out on his own.

Gabriel clears his throat from behind me. "I can tell there"s a lot going through that mind of yours. I took some time to think things over on the way here and the limited options we have. I only have one question for you."

I stare up at his focused eyes. "What"s that?"

"When should we leave?"

I stand up with my hand gripped around my car keys. "The moment that asshole opened his big ass mouth is when we should have had our asses on a plane. But since we can"t go back in time, I guess within the next thirty minutes will do."

Gabriel pulls his phone from his pocket, smirking. "Then I guess we better make sure we have some back up just to be safe."

"Good." I sneer. "I have no intention of leaving any of these men alive. I think it"s time we show them what happens when you fuck with the wrong family."

"So we"re really doing this?" Mateo asks with furrowed brows. "We"re going to attempt to take down one of the largest sex trafficking rings in two countries?"

I slide my hand over Mateo's shoulder, squeezing it tightly. "No, Mateo. I don"t plan to try to do anything. I only plan on succeeding. They started a war and it"s time we finish it. If they keep choosing to stand in our way then we have no other choice but to kill them all."

"I"m willing to bet many of these men will be on my next list to hunt down and kill anyway. This way I"ll be saving myself the hassle," Gabriel says with a smug look on his face.

My father sits back in his chair with pride filling his eyes. "I can handle everything by myself here. I have a few friends I can reach out to in case it's needed."

Mateo glances between his fiancé and me. "Then I guess we better stop standing around here and go crash their party."

"The ones you aren"t invited to are usually the best ones," Gabriel says with a chuckle.

I don"t know what will happen when we get there or if we will make it out alive, but I have never been a man to lose and don"t plan on being one now. Having my brother and Gabriel on my side makes me more confident that it won't be happening this time either.