Brazil: Criminal Empire - Chapter 117: Cunha’s Fighting Spirit Reignited (Patreon)

Rock and Cassiano separated Eliseu from the young man and interrogated them individually.

By comparing their confessions, they uncovered two more operatives who, like Eliseu, had been planted inside the Stone River favela.

Interestingly, none of the previous leaders, including Ricardo, had known these three men existed.

If the young man had not come to gather information and hurried straight to Eliseu in an attempt to get answers quickly...

If Rock had not arranged for every entrance to the favela to be watched...

If Rock had actually intended to take control of the Stone River favela right away...

Then these three men might have caused him considerable trouble later.

Rock immediately contacted Rivaldo and the others over the radio.

Information on the other two men was quickly passed along.

Some of the young men who had joined Rock knew them and even knew where they lived.

This was exactly the kind of opportunity they needed to prove their loyalty to their new boss.

Soon, motorcycles roared through the favela as several members of the special operations squads split up and headed toward different locations to capture the hidden operatives.

Half an hour later, two middle-aged men were kneeling blindfolded inside Prado’s former stronghold.

They were the other two moles Cunha had planted in the Stone River favela.

Both men knew when to cooperate.

Before Rock even had anyone start interrogating them, they told him everything they knew.

Cunha had bought their loyalty several years earlier and ordered them to monitor Ricardo and everything happening inside the Stone River favela.

But the attack had come so suddenly that all they had managed to report was how long the gunfire had lasted.

Rock’s group was small, and the two men had never found a chance to figure out where they came from, what they wanted, whether they intended to occupy the favela permanently, or whether they had some other goal.

They certainly had not expected Rock to uncover them after only a single day.

In a gang war, unless something unexpected happened, men like them usually met a brutal end.

Now both were completely desperate and answered almost every question without hesitation.

Meanwhile, in another room, Eliseu and the young messenger stared at each other in fear.

Each had assumed Rock might have killed the other.

Instead, both were still alive.

The problem was that they had now effectively betrayed Cunha.

If Cunha found out, none of them or their family members would survive.

Rock looked at the four phones laid out in front of him.

They belonged to the three moles and the young man who had come to gather information.

All four had been used specifically to communicate with Cunha.

Rock tapped his fingers lightly across the phones.

A rough idea had begun taking shape in his mind.

He had no idea whether it would work, but even if it failed, he would lose nothing.

After thinking for a while, his hand stopped over one of the phones.

It belonged to one of the two moles they had captured later.

Rock picked it up and called the number saved for Cunha.

“Leandro, I hope you have something new for me.”

A deep male voice came through the phone.

“The Stone River favela is in my hands. Don’t you want it back?”

Rock spoke softly.

His voice was calm, but to Cunha on the other end, the words might as well have been thunder.

“Who are you? What do you want? I swear I’ll take the Stone River favela back.”

Cunha was already in his fifties, but he still carried himself like a lion that refused to tolerate disrespect.

The enemy had not only taken the Stone River favela, but had even uncovered the hidden operatives he had planted there.

That meant they had established control far faster than he had expected.

The moment he spoke those words, Cunha had already decided that he would retake the Stone River favela no matter the cost.

Crazy Train itself had been built through force.

In its early days, Cunha had personally led large groups of men through several favelas, crushing resistance and taking the territories that now belonged to the organization.

If Stone River fell and Crazy Train did nothing in response, the gangs in eastern Rio de Janeiro would assume Crazy Train had grown weak.

Then everyone would want to come take a bite out of it.

That was why Cunha believed they had to respond with overwhelming brutality.

Only then would no one mistake restraint for weakness.

“Mr. Cunha, if you want a war, we’ll fight you.”

Rock paused.

“But before that happens, let me ask you one last thing. Are you really not interested in buying the Stone River favela back?”

That final sentence extinguished Cunha’s anger almost instantly.

At his age, Cunha no longer enjoyed constant bloodshed as much as he once had.

That was also one of the reasons Ricardo had become so arrogant within Crazy Train.

When the man at the top begins settling down, the people beneath him naturally start getting restless.

As Crazy Train’s second-in-command, Ricardo had come to believe Cunha was old and no longer fit to lead the organization through the struggles of eastern Rio de Janeiro.

So Ricardo had drawn several other favela leaders to his side and had come close to stripping Cunha of real authority.

For a time, Cunha had become disillusioned.

He had even considered handing Crazy Train over to Ricardo entirely, taking the fortune he had accumulated over the years, and leaving the country to enjoy the rest of his life.

But Ricardo had not lived long enough to enjoy his success.

Soon afterward, he was killed, leaving the Stone River favela behind for three of his subordinates to fight over.

None of the three would submit to the others.

In the end, they had no choice but to ask Cunha to settle the matter.

Seeing how badly things had gotten, Cunha came up with a solution.

Whoever avenged Ricardo would be given control of the Stone River favela.

That would give the gang members below him an answer.

At the same time, it would allow a new leader to emerge there, one who would only be able to hold the position with Cunha’s support.

Ricardo’s death had unexpectedly allowed Cunha to reclaim control of Crazy Train.

As the organization’s longtime supreme leader, Cunha still had plenty of hidden cards left to play.

Before, he had known that using them would not significantly change the situation, so he had simply stopped trying.

But Ricardo’s death reignited something in him.

No matter how old a man became, he was rarely willing to admit that his time had passed.

So Cunha had kept Prado under his control inside the Stone River favela while carefully maintaining the balance between Correa and Jairo.

His plan had been to let Correa and Jairo fight until both sides were exhausted, then push Prado, his own man, into control of the favela.

Now a single attack had destroyed that entire plan.

And Rock’s final question over the phone made Cunha’s breathing grow heavier.