Nothing at all meant those who were around us had to go.
Luke, the same motherfucker who held a gun in Krishna’s face all those years ago, was the culprit behind Mitch getting killed. Apparently when Junior came down for his visit he and Luke talked somehow. Junior promised to make Luke his right hand once he took over Florida. All he had to do was give him an opportunity to touch Mitch.
I had access to cameras everywhere. Atlas had long ago set up my feeds to traffic cameras, to any camera period. It wasn’t hard to break into a security grid and have a full view of a restaurant’s feed. Only thing about having this much access is that it becomes overwhelming and you don’t know where to look when it’s time to go searching.
Luke employed two other guys to help him with his plan. Only thing he left out was that the change of protocol was to kill Mitch. He just told the other men that we were trying different tactics. So, the day Mitch died, Luke made it seem like I had ordered the change. For example, my guy who usually keeps tabs on all my enemies and their daily whereabouts, he got a message with a specific code saying I didn’t want to receive no alerts between a certain time period.
I never authorized this, but Luke gave him the code that I’d use if something like that happened. When Junior made his move to head back to Florida and I received no notifications about it, Luke was behind it.
While Clover and Mitch were having lunch at their favorite Italian restaurant, Junior somehow slipped inside and went into the men’s bathroom and waited. Right when Mitch and Clover were about to leave, he went to the bathroom. He walked right into the bullets. Normally a guard goes inside to check the bathrooms to make sure no one threatening is in there. Luke so called handled that duty. Every guard, even my tech guy, met their fate by swimming in my piranha pond.
Krishna called. Clover called. My brothers called. They all thought I missed the funeral; I was there in the shadows. It wasn’t safe to be around my family right now, especially Krishna and my family. It’s like I snapped and became this different person.
Going up to New York and killing the entire Martinez family, every generation down to the most recent, I avenged Mitch’s death with honor and pride.
Frank, Noelani’s old boss, reached out to me before I had time to reach out to him. He came through with all their address, schedules, and anything incriminating. Miguel Martinez made sure I got word that he never ordered the hit on Mitch. I cared nothing about his word. Technically all of this started because he went back on his word. Once I cleared the Martinez family mansion, I had a special delivery sent to him through his lawyer – teeth, fingers, eyeballs, and noses from all his immediate family members. His children and wife, I spared no remorse.
Junior’s remains were next.
“You stupid mono.” Junior hocked up a wad of spit and missed me by a few inches. “I did what my father couldn’t do. I showed you monkeys that you don’t tell us no or refuse to work with us.” Blood dripped from his nose and lip, none of that stopped him from running his mouth.
About twelve feet away laid Junior’s wife Heather. She had the prettiest hazel eyes with hints of gold. Beautiful woman. Smart too. At the age of thirty-two she made a name for her as one of the first Afro-Latino women to be on Wall Street. Both of her parents died five years ago. Truly a sad romantic love story. They died within five months of each other. Tragic but romantic to those who believed that it was hard to live without your soulmate.
I wonder if that’s how I’d be with Krishna once we got older?
“I hope my men rape your black whores and sell your children.” Now, he couldn’t have meant that. That’s really mean if so.
Junior kept screaming with tears and snot as I sharpened my knives. Pacino sat on his kitchen counter eating a plate full of the food Heather had finished cooking right before we came in. I believe she made curry chicken, white rice, and a Caesar salad.
“It’s that black monkey’s fault. It’s all his fault. All he had to do was stand on his word. That’s what a man does. I knew that bitch Clover gave birth to a child and that bastard is Cassian. I pulled the records.” Hearing my brother’s name pissed me off.
I hated fake criminals like Junior. They did minimal research thinking they knew everything but failed to confirm their evidence. Yes, Cassian and Krishna were born the same year and only a month apart to the exact date, July 25th and August 25th. Poor Junior. He fucked up. But I’m glad he got the identities mixed up.
He already was about to feel my wrath from Mitch and Cassian alone, but going after my heart, my woman…That wouldn’t be good for anyone.
“My wife,” he cried trying to wiggle from the chair I had him tied in. The same pain I watched Clover and Krishna succumb to when they watched Mitch take his last breath, I brought Junior the same pain by letting him have VIP seats to his wife taking her last breath. “Why did you kill her?”
Same reason he killed Mitch and thought he was about to kill the rest of my family.
A ringing phone made me pause. “It’s your phone. Krishna is calling.” Pacino let me know.
“Block her number.” I hated to do her like that, but she was driving me crazy. She messed up my head something terrible whenever she called right in the middle of me handling business. I knew it was wrong of me to ignore her that way, but I had to stay focused. Answering for her would shift my whole mental and I didn’t have room for error.
Junior’s torture was simple but gruesome. Slowly as a baker frosts a cake, I used the same technique and skinned him alive. Each layer of skin I removed I followed up by dropping droplets of acid. He screamed. He wriggled in the chair. Almost fell out the chair but I kindly caught him. Didn’t want him to hit his head. That would be tragic. Luckily, he lived out in the middle of nowhere and his closest neighbor was at least a mile away.
By hour three Junior had sadly died.
Frank’s cleanup crew came in twenty minutes later and fixed the place so good that you didn’t even know Heather had cooked a meal. Our clothes were burned, and we were brought a clean pair. I finished what I needed to do I dismantled the Martinez Cartel.
“Besides Krishna who kept calling my phone?” I asked Pacino once we got in our rental.
“Um,” he scratched his head. “I need to get you back to Florida.”
I sighed heavily thinking that he let Krishna talk him into giving our location. “My mind isn’t right to go back yet. Give me a few more days.” I’ve done some cruel, evil shit. Slaughtering the Martinez family barely touched the iceberg, but still. I needed to purge all of the evil filth attached to me before I brought those demons to my family.
“It’s not Krishna.” He handed me my phone. “It’s JD. Amp called and said that he finally had a location on him. When he went to pick him up,” he blew out a breath. “I think he killed somebody.”
Three days.
It took Amp three days to find JD, and when he did, he was a bloody mess. Clothes bloody. Car bloody. I came back yesterday and when he saw me, he dropped to his knees and wailed. Not cry or sob, but wail from the top tip of his toenails to the crown on his head. For the first time ever, I didn’t know what to do. I asked Amp what happened, and he said JD wouldn’t tell him.
This morning I sat on the balcony of my condo wondering if my actions had somehow caught up to me in the form of JD. Karma sometimes skipped the person intended and went to the next person closest. Besides my brothers, JD was that person and it pained me to sit in the corner of his room and listen to him cry while he barricaded himself in the bathroom.