I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.
My father walked over to the weakened man with a sadistic smile, removed the cigar from his mouth, and pressed the lit end into the man’s exposed shoulder. His tortured cries forced my eyes downward, the stench of burnt skin filling the room.
Alejandro’s voice echoed against the bare walls. “Pon atención, Valentin!” Pay attention, Valentin.
My head snapped up in time to see the smile curl my father’s mouth, his dark mustache curled heavy at the ends from weeks of moving locations. Usually a very meticulous man about his appearance, his dishevelment gave him a sinister look I had no desire to push into a corner. We locked eyes, and he nodded to the victim, showing off by sliding into broken English.
“This man. He’s committed a crime. Take him out.”
Knowing this was a test, I stared at my father. If I failed, I could be in the chair next. Blood ran deep in cartel lines, but loyalty ran deeper. Steeling my breath, I raised the gun and aimed it at the man’s heart. A clean shot seemed the most humane. I was a killer, but I wasn’t an animal.
The dark side of me wanted him to curse me or spit at me. I wanted anything to provoke me into a rage. Instead, his eyes bore into me with a finality of acceptance. No fight remained inside of him.
At some point, I must have lowered the gun because my father’s voice boomed from across the room. “Valentin!” Our eyes met, and as always, his coal black stare burrowed its way into my head. “This man, he raped his sister.”
Bright white light burst across my vision. I no longer saw a defenseless man resigned to his own death. Rage welled beneath a bubbling surface of hate. I didn’t hesitate.
I blinked and pulled the trigger. One clean shot between the eyes. The back of the man’s head blew across the room, and my father laughed maniacally.
“Valentin,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “It is done now. A new life for you, yes?”
It was a new life. One that would turn me from a boy with a shred of decency into a man with nothing but twisted black regret.
The man I killed was an only child. He had no sister.
I ran my fingers across the smooth metal. I supposed somewhere deep inside a sliver of a soul remained, but beatings and threats ripped most of it away years ago. Now, most all I felt was a sense of relief when I killed.
Relief that it was them and not me.
Kill or be killed.
Shoot or die.
At the end of the day, I’d trained myself to wipe their last gasp of breath from my memory and forget their empty eyes over a glass of tequila and a willing woman.
Live by the sword and die by the sword.
Eventually it’d come for me. Because of my solitude, there’d be no innocent family members to suffer my same fate. At least I’d learned that valuable lesson from Alejandro.
Shoving the gun in the back of my pants, I pulled my suit jacket from the back of my chair. My head swam with ways to navigate shit, now that the Muñoz cartel made the first move against a civilian employee of mine. That kind of thing didn’t happen on American soil. That was a practice from home that’d specifically been left there.
As I adjusted my collar, my office door burst open, causing me to rip the gun from my back and aim it at the dark head that emerged.
“Shit! Jefe, it’s me!” Emilio stood crouched in the doorway with his hands held high and his chin ducked, as if that would stave off a bullet to his brain.
“Jesus, Emilio, knock! How many times do I have to tell you people to fucking knock?” I shoved the gun back in my waistband. “I could’ve blown your head off.”
Emilio stood frozen in the doorway, with matted hair and bloodstains splattering his shirt and pants. The sight alone would’ve sent most people screaming for their phones to dial the police, but the scene was nothing new in our world.
Nothing new except for the ravaged look of regret on his face.
That look concerned me. Not because I particularly cared, but because regret had no place in our lives. It had to be checked at the door, along with a conscience if a man was to survive.
“Emilio?” I asked with an annoyed tone. I’d had a long day and was in no mood for this.
Emilio ran a shaking hand over his oily, slicked back hair, repeating the move as he mumbled. “I don’t know what happened. We never get it wrong. Never wrong. And so, what if we do? It happens. It’s the way of home, right? You play, your family could pay.”
“Emilio?”
“But they pay with torture. That’s the way you taught us, jefe. There are no mistakes. Never admit mistakes. But I didn’t look in the side lot. I never thought…”
“Emilio!” I yelled, fed up with his incoherent ramblings.
He looked up, his eyes rimmed red. “We got the wrong guy.”
“I thought you said it was done?” Alarm crawled up my spine as I ran over every order I’d given in the past few days.
“Lachey. The debt he owed us.” He stopped and shook his head as if remembering something unpleasant. “We got him and took him to Caliente after hours. I did just as you ordered, but…” He trailed off, tugging at his collar. “I just found out my crew were taken out. The men who dropped off Lachey at Caliente weren’t our men, and they didn’t get the man who owed us. They got his son.”
I walked past him, pulled him inside, and slammed the door. Circling him, I crowded right beside him and growled in his ear. “What the fuck? What son?”
Emilio visibly swallowed. “Lachey had a son who worked at his store. The old man has been MIA for weeks. My men wouldn’t have gotten it wrong. This had to be Muñoz work. I swear, jefe, I only took his fingers and roughed him up. That’s when I went outside to call you.”
Emilio’s normal commanding presence shriveled as he shook his head violently. A sense of dread filled me that I couldn’t explain. I motioned for him to continue.
“I saw her car after we hung up. The cantina was empty. She told me she’d gone home. I don’t know what happened.”
My fists curled inward at my side. “Who?”
He closed his eyes as if blocking out the sight of me would block out the punishment he knew would come. “My bartender, sir. She was there. I went back to take Lachey home.” He paused, his face growing pale. “But men came in after me and put a bullet in the back of his head.”
Recognition fueled me. “Was there a message?”
He nodded fiercely. “Carved into his chest. El Muerte.”
I vibrated with anger and pushed past him. Scaring my secretary was one thing. Brewing a war by interfering in my business was on a whole other level of uncharted territory. I wouldn’t sit by and wait for another message from the Muñoz Cartel. I’d almost stepped over the threshold when Emilio’s bloodstained hand stopped me.
“Let go,” I demanded.
“Jefe, my bartender is an innocent. When I went back out, her car was gone. If they have her, you know what will happen.”
I knew all too well what happened to innocents who’d seen too much.
“Name?” I had no time for conversation.
“Eden,” he sighed. “Eden O’Dell.”
Whether driven by lust, fear, or revenge, my body stiffened and my blood boiled as I made the connection. I had no idea why, but I just knew.