Envy (Criminal Sins 1)

“No, I swear it!” André pleads. “They’re scared... I mean, can you blame them?”

I take note of the situation I have the accountant in—pinned against a steel counter with flames lashing dangerously close. I guess it’s understandable, to be scared of such things.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” I sneer.

“Because I was scared.”

I don’t like that answer. “Coward. You weren’t so scared when you took my money.”

“Money is my job, Angel... this is not.” André gestures meekly to the violent state of our meeting. I toss the useless piece of junk aside and he stumbles on his stumpy legs until he finally manages to catch himself against a knob.

“So, are they going to reject my offer for the building, then?”

André lifts himself up, fixing the few remaining strands of thin light brown hair that tumble down his blank forehead. “You have an image problem, Angel,” he wheezes. “And if you ever truly want to go legitimate, you’re going to have to stop acting so... well, like this. At least, in public.”

He’s not wrong, my advisors have all been spewing similar sentiments, but I’ve tried the quiet route before, and it’s so frustrating that I always come back madder than ever. There isn’t anyone I trust more than myself to do the jobs that need to get done—it doesn’t hurt that I also happen to love the outlet of all this savage violence; it’ll be a cold day in hell when I willfully give it up.

“And what do you recommend?” I sneer, already knowing the answer.

“Lay low for a while. Let your hired muscle do all the dirty work. Get a girl, settle down, pay for some puff pieces. Hell, maybe one day you could even run for office. Right now, you’re too wild. Just because you’re the leader of a cartel, doesn’t mean you have to act like one. The most successful criminals are the ones the public can’t distinguish from your average businessman or politician.”

André seems to realize the mistake of what he just uttered nearly as quickly as I do. My clenched fist is back around his stretched collar before he can even blink.

“Did you just call me a criminal!?” I whisper furiously, right up close to his ugly mug.

“Angel... I’m... I’m sorry... I didn’t mean anything by it. It was an honest mistake.”

What I do for a living is no secret, but saying it out loud is blasphemous. I’m hardly worried about the Colombian authorities, but the American feds have been known to bug events like these, and any word that could be used against me in court is a word that I’m willing to kill for. “There’s nothing honest about you,” I snort, pushing André as far away from me as I can. I’m suddenly done with this scene. I’ve gotten the information I came here for, and it’s not what I wanted to hear. Now, I just need to let off some steam, but turning this fat accountant into a punching bag isn’t going to get me anywhere. I still need him. He’s not out of the woo

ds yet.

“I’m sorry,” André ogles his fat feet. “But Angel, you should listen—”

I raise a single finger in the air and the accountant immediately shuts up. “I’m done with you,” I tell him, turning around before stopping in my tracks and taking one last look back at the mess of a man behind me. “Oh, and if you ever call me Angel again, I’ll make sure it’s the last thing you ever do.”

André gulps. “Yes, sir, Mr. Montoya...”

And with that, I’m gone. The crowd in the grand ballroom parts for me as I storm back outside to my motorcycle. The security guards and the bellboys make way and before any one really knows what hit them, I’m back on the open road, looking for a fight.

“That’s not what I was told,” my top advisor, Juan Arias stares coldly out of my office window. A hot breeze drifts in and lifts the gauzy white drapes up around him, shrouding his figure for a split-second. I lean back in my leather chair and stare at the gothic mural painted on the ceiling.

“So, you’re saying André lied to me.”

Juan shrugs and steps away from the window. “I’m not saying that. I’m saying I was told something different. The Diaz developers might have really told André that they were bowing out of our deal because they are scared, but I’m telling you that’s not what they told me.”

“... What am I going to do about that lying pig?” I hiss to myself, cracking my knuckles and daydreaming about how they’ll feel covered in his thick blood.

“Angel, you’re missing the forest for the trees,” Juan insists, sitting on the edge of my desk and rapping his jewel encased knuckles against the cherrywood. “André hardly matters in all of this. He’s just a small fry, a middleman with no say in anything.”

Juan is reasonable as always, but my gut’s telling me that something is off, and I can’t seem to get that gala out of my mind for some reason—I can only assume it’s because of André. He’s a bigger fish in all of this than Juan is willing to consider. “But if the Diaz group is truly afraid of us, then they would probably be too scared to tell us, right?”

Juan shakes his head. “They wouldn’t have agreed to our offer in the first place if they were really that scared. Sure, there’s been an uptick of necessary violence ever since we shook their hands and signed their documents, but those bastards knew what they were getting into when we came to them.”

“Maybe they didn’t,” I remark, my mind still attached to that stupid gala. What the hell am I missing?

“Angel, everyone knows what we do. It’s the worst kept secret in the country.” Juan lifts himself off my desk and runs a heavy hand through his slicked-back hair. “... But that doesn’t mean we have to live up to all that fire and brimstone. Even if the Diaz developers truly aren’t scared of you, of us... it’s not a bad idea to nip your public image problem in the bud before it gets too hard to handle—your display at the gala didn’t exactly do us any favors.”

I twist in my black leather chair, turning away from Juan. “Speaking of the gala, I want a list with the name of every person that was in attendance, understand? Something about that night isn’t sitting right with me.”