Harris glanced at his watch. The way he was frowning, I know he wanted to tell me, “About three minutes after the time I told you three minutes ago.” But he wasn’t stupid enough to say that shit to my face, especially considering the mood I was in, so he just said, “Ten forty-nine.”
“I thought you said they were on their way. They should have been here by now.”
“That’s what Orlando told me, LC,” he replied.
We were sitting in my SUV in a warehouse I owned in Long Island City, Queens, waiting for Orlando, Rio, and Junior to return with Miguel. This was part of the reason why Harris had an attitude. He didn’t like the fact that I’d sent my sons to get Miguel in the first place. To be frank, he damn near pleaded with me not to, spewing legal jargon, but I didn’t want to hear that mumbo-jumbo shit. That suave Latin punk Miguel had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. I mean, damn, it wasn’t like I didn’t warn him.
“LC, as your attorney, I must ask you to reconsider this. The boys may have already crossed the line, but there is no reason you should be involved. There is such a thing as plausible deniability. And if we—ah, I mean you—are here when they arrive, we may all be implicated in a crime.”
“Harris, do me a favor. For the next hour or so, can you be my son-in-law and not my goddamn lawyer? If you don’t have the balls for this, you can take your ass home, because you sound like a little punk. You’re either part of this family or you’re not. Which one is it?”
Harris sat back in his seat, a little thrown off by my question. He might have been formulating some lawyer-bullshit response, but before he could speak, one of my men covering the door yelled, “They’re here.”
I heard the sound of a car door being slammed, and then the side door of the warehouse opened. Orlando stormed in, with Rio on his heels.
“Yo, Uncle Lou. Open the garage doors,” Orlando barked.
Lou, my brother, did what he was told, and then a white cargo van entered the warehouse and parked beside my SUV. I rolled down my window so I could watch everything. Junior jumped out of the van, walked to the side, and opened the sliding door.
“Jesus Christ, LC! This is even worse than I thought. This is kidnapping, straight up,” Harris shouted when he saw Miguel lying on the floor of the van, bound, blindfolded, and gagged.
Without even looking in his direction, I raised a hand to get him to shut the hell up. I loved Harris’s legal mind, but sometimes that law rhetoric he spouted just got on my damn nerves. This was one of those times.
Junior and Lou removed Miguel from the van and dragged him to a chair at the center of the warehouse. Miguel kind of slumped over in the chair, and Junior used that as an excuse to strike him in the side of the head with his gun. “Sit the fuck up!” he shouted.
Blood trickled down the side of Miguel’s face as he did what he was told. I didn’t even have to look in Harris’s direction to know that he was ready to lose it. I told him, “Don’t say a damn word, Harris. If you can’t handle this, you know where the door is.”
“You move, I do it again! Comprende?” Junior yelled as he yanked the blindfold off Miguel’s face.
“Fuck you,” Miguel spat, looking directly at me as I sat in the SUV. This motherfucker had some balls; I’d give him that. His eyes almost looked like he was challenging me. “Wait until Alejandro finds out about this. He will kill you all for your insolence.”
Junior raised up to strike him again, but I shouted, “Hold on, Junior.” I got out of the SUV. What Miguel had just said didn’t sit right with me.
I walked close to the chair and stood over him. “Alejandro will kill us for our insolence? Do you even know why you’re here?”
He nodded. That son of a bitch had the nerve to hold his head up like he was proud of what he’d done. I had to admire him in some ways, though, because even in the predicament he found himself, he still tried to maintain his dignity. You don’t find many men who can do that. Most men would have been begging for their lives as they were dragged from the van.
“Tell me, Miguel. Why are you here?” I asked.