Present Day
Javier Almanza
“Deliver her,” I ordered Aurelio as I sat back in my chair thinking about the fact that Mari Belle Dominguez would find out who took her in a few hours. The fear, the power, the control, I would enjoy it all as I took my time fucking with her head the way she fucked with my heart. The anger and betrayal all sat just under the surface. “And get me Paco in this room in twenty minutes.” On a nod, Aurelio left the room immediately to find the information I sought. He was my right hand, my enforcer, and the only person I had even a small amount of trust in.
Chicago became my primary home about five years ago. The hustle and bustle actually calmed my soul from the chaos of my upbringing. It was easier to blend in here rather than staying in the Midwest where my mother wanted to be. She lived in a suburb not far from me, but given the latest information I had dropped in my lap about our life, Estella Almanza would be relocating to my house whether she liked it or not.
“How does Trapper Gates have a reach further than mine? How does Mitchell “Trapper” Gates beat you?” I muttered to Milano, my behind the scenes guy. He sat tied to a chair in my office a whimpering mess.
“Jefe, no tenía ningún rastro de papel.” He whined about there being no paper trail pushing me to the edge of my control. I didn’t accept excuses. Accountability was a huge thing in my business. He had none. It would end today.
Moving to stand behind him, I pulled out my knife. With the cold, metal blade against the tender flesh of his throat, I pressed in. The resistance of his skin to my knife made the weight move in my hand just slightly. I relished it. Power. The very power of life and death sat in my hands.
“Por favor,” he said between gritted teeth. His skin was covered in a slight sheen of sweat. “Please,” he begged.
“How does a biker know more than you? How does he know where Mari Belle is when I’ve had you on my salary for how long? How does he know Paco has been in contact with her when you did not? How? How? How?”
“Jefe,” he started to speak as I quickly moved the blade from his throat and slammed it into his leg, narrowly missing an artery. He cried out while I laughed. This was only the beginning of his pain.
“Fuckin’ doesn’t matter how. I was played for a fool.” I grabbed the other knife from my desk and stabbed it into his other thigh while the tears ran in steady streams down his face. “You, you fuckin’ piece of shit, you didn’t do your job and I got schooled by a fuckin’ biker.”
“Jefe, you can kill the biker, teach him the lesson about who he stands against. I can do better.” His words were clipped as I watched the fear crawl through him. He knew this was his end. I relished each tear that fell down his face. This was his role in my organization—keep me in the know at all times about all individuals in my organization. He was also tasked with finding out where Maricio Dominguez was hiding his sister, which obviously slipped through the cracks. He failed. Failure didn’t exist in my world.
“That biker didn’t stand against me you fool. You didn’t do your job. You pay. The biker gave me what I sought.”
I was visiting a location, mi primo, my American cousin Antonio Almanza had secured for us a few months ago when everything came crashing down around me.
The place was a cover. It was an art store or some shit. I didn’t bother with the menial details. We had been filtering drugs through an artist under our protection for years. Turned out she was married to a biker—Rowdy from the Devil’s Due MC. A man who before he rode with the Devil’s was a master fabricator. We even offered him a full-time job customizing cars to better transport our product. He declined. In a mess, he went to prison for killing his brother-in-law. He didn’t do the crime, but he did do the time.
While we had been informed Michele and Rowdy were no longer together, the biker didn’t receive the message well. In the end, it left my cousin, Antonio, dead on the floor. Michele, our artist, was long gone on the back of her husband’s bike and me pissed the fuck off. While anyone else would have died the instant they crossed me, Mitchell “Trapper” Gates shared some information with me that left the Devil’s Due untouchable to me. They lived, I lived, and after they returned to wherever the fuck they came from, I received all the information on Maricio and Mari Belle Dominguez that I had been unable to procure through my own affiliations.
“Dumb fuck, I made a deal with the Devil’s. They lived, Antonio died, and you will too. I am no longer in need of your services, Milano.”
The man’s eyes grew wide before I took my hands and wrapped them around his throat. Slowly, with his eyes locked to mine, I cut off his air supply. I wanted him to watch me, to see me, and know it was by my hand he would perish. Minute by minute, I held him tighter and tighter. My thumbs turned white as I continued the pressure until the life was gone from his stare.
Ripping the knives from his legs, I tossed them onto my desk, splattering his blood everywhere.
The dark bamboo floors would be cleaned, the furniture replaced, and everything from top to bottom disposed of later. I needed the body, the evidence, to remain here for just a bit longer. I wanted Paco to have a visual of what he would endure soon enough. It was easy to kill a man with a bullet or a knife, but by my hands, my fingertips I held the power of life and death. Everyone beneath me would be wise to remember it.
Right on time, Aurelio opened my office door with Paco right behind him.
Only when Paco was inside the room did Aurelio step aside. Swiftly he moved out of the room while Paco looked from Milano’s body to me.
“Jefe,” he greeted.
“We go way back, Paco,” I reminded him while he seemed completely unaware as to why he had been called in.
“Si,” he replied moving to the body to untie the hands like I was expecting him to clean it up.
“You were once a father figure to me, Paco. You were once my Jefe,” I reminded him of the history we shared.
“Si.” He continued about his task.
“Stop!” I ordered and he stood straight up like a soldier. “Paco, how long?”
He raised both hands in surrender. “I don’t know what you mean, Javi.”
I stepped in front of him. He didn’t step back. Paco was a prideful man. “You were like mi padre.”
“Si,” he nodded at me.
“Confiar en ti, that was my mistake,” I told him. “I should trust no one least of all you.”
He blinked realizing he was not called here for clean-up.
“You touched what was mine, and you of all people knew she was mine,” I explained as I removed my side piece. The gun felt heavy in my hands knowing the history I had with Paco. Normally, I wouldn’t shoot a man. I would draw out his pain, his agony, and let him feel his loss moment by moment. Paco and I had a past. One I respected until I found out the truth. Too many years he was by my side and me by his. Therefore, I would make this quick.
“Javi,” he said my name in a pained groan. “Talk to me.”
“The time for talking was years ago. You knew all this time. You knew exactly what I wanted. You played both sides of this war, Paco and you lose.”
I took a step back as I lifted the weapon.
I fired.
One shot.
His eyes were still locked on mine as his brain matter and blood splattered my face and shirt.
As Paco’s body fell to the floor, so did everything I ever held onto that was good from my past.
It was all a twisted mess. Every lesson from my lifetime ran through my mind as I slid the gun back into my holster.
Lesson one: never trust anyone—even familia. For we were all men of the world, tempted by the flesh, and power hungry mother fuckers.
Aurelio having stood watch outside of my door, entered again knowing the job was done. “She’s been delivered, Jefe. Mari Belle waits at your home.”
A sinister smirk built across my face. Mari Belle Dominguez would be learning a lesson today. A lesson I should have given her twenty years ago.
Never cross me. Forgiveness wasn’t in my DNA. My heart didn’t exist, and my soul was blacker than the Devil’s own. While she was comfortable thinking she had everything; me, I had not one fucking thing to lose and it was time she learned just how much she fucked up by leaving with him.
I wouldn’t be the fool ever again. I had waited years for this. Now was my chance to end the Dominguez family forever. I would make it slow, painful, and by my hands.