Jag
“Son of a bitch! I want you to find that motherfucker, Cuchillo. Right. Fucking. Now. That piece of shit dared to take Miri out of my own arms. I want the piece of shit delivered to me alive so I personally have the pleasure of slowly chopping off every single fucking one of his body parts until he begs for death.”
El Cuchillo would soon wish he never fucked with what was mine. Especially when I began to cut off pieces of him, one at a time. His screams will be music to my ears.
“Boss, I know it’s the easy conclusion to make, but we don’t know for sure it was El Cuchillo’s men who took her.” Milo received a withering glare for his comment, and promptly shut his mouth.
Every one of my high-ranking men was seated at a long table in one of my warehouses. I, on the other hand, was too wound up. So I paced the floor at the front of the room, bristling with rage alternating with complete and utter terror. Afraid of what they could be doing to Miri right this very minute.
With the exception of Milo, my men stared at me, wide-eyed, palpable tension rolling off them to create a thick cloud of stress that hung over the table. With very few exceptions, I take great pains to stay in control in front of my men, save Milo. Since Milo was my second in command, he usually bore the brunt of my fits of anger simply because he spent more time with me than anyone else in the organization.
Now, everyone would witness me losing my shit and I could give a fuck less.
“It was Cuchillo. I know it and I know him. No one else has a reason to kidnap her, let alone directly attack me and steal her from my arms.” I stopped pacing and slammed my fists on the table. The bang echoed off the exposed metal beams that spanned the twenty-foot high ceiling.
A new voice broke in before Milo could respond to my outburst. “If it was Cuchillo, why would he leave you alive, Boss? It could be Brick, a pissed-off supplier, any of our wholesalers, or a shit ton of other people we do business with. There are a lot of guys out there who would love to see you gone.”
I flicked my attention to George, one of my other top men. His tone was even, but the man’s face was a deep shade of red and his mouth was pulled into a deep frown. George emanated rage, as if he were eagerly waiting for a chance to take his own pound of flesh. After El Cuchillo assassinated his best friend, Jimmy, George was itching for a chance at revenge. Yet somehow, the man was able to keep a level head and run through every possible suspect despite the fact he would love nothing more than to fire a bullet between Cuchillo’s eyes.
“You’re right.” I exhaled and dropped my head between my shoulders where I was bent over the table, braced on my hands. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” I roared, shoving back from the table.
The table shifted from the force and my men leapt from their seats as coffee and other beverages tipped over. I turned away and took a moment to gather myself while they dealt with cleaning up the mess. If I didn’t calm the fuck down, I was no use to Miri. If Cuchillo wa
s the one who had her, it was exactly what the devious bastard would want. Cuchillo would want me to be enraged, out of control, emotional. He knew it took a clear head, a black heart, and a nonexistent conscious to win a war of this magnitude.
Emotions made everything messy, which was precisely what he was counting on when he took Miri.
Once the men were back in their seats, I snatched the pain and suffering of Jag, the man, and stuffed it in a dark corner of my mind, letting Boss, the heartless, don’t-fuck-with-me drug lord, step up and seize the mic.
“Okay. Whoever took Miri left me alive. That means one of two things. Whatever spineless fucker did it either wants to use Miri as leverage to get something, money, territory, drugs, whatever. I’m sure they were well aware that if they killed me on the spot, one of you would simply take my place, leaving them holding their dicks with a war to still be fought. Personally, I think the cowardly motherfucker who took her is Cuchillo, but George is right. We will not overlook any possibility.”
“It makes sense someone is using her for leverage,” Alfredo, one of my area dealers, chimed in. The rest of the group nodded in agreement.
“You said there were two reasons you could have been left alive—if not leverage, then what?” Milo asked. I glanced at my second in command and saw in his dark eyes the cunning soldier he had proved to be. My lieutenant already figured out the answer. Milo might be a brutal, violent, sadistic bastard, but he was also clever, conniving, and able to think like the enemy, which is what made him indispensible when forming counterattacks.
I turned back to the table of men, all eyes on me. “Whoever it is wants to hurt me personally.” I swallowed and steadied my breathing so my men wouldn’t sense my vulnerability when it came to Miri. “They obviously heard what happened with my predecessor. They know why I killed him and took over this operation and are trying to recreate the past to cut me at the knees.”
The men nodded and began murmuring to each other. It wasn’t a secret I went after the previous boss, a slimy prick named Ricardo “The Wolf” Ochoa, because he held my sister as his personal sex slave.
At the time she disappeared, the rumor was that Rose approached one of Ochoa’s dealers to buy heroin. The savvy dealer knew Ochoa sold women for sex and figured his boss would appreciate my sister’s beautiful face and body, so he brought Rose right into the Wolf’s den with the promise of more drugs at their destination. Ochoa liked what he saw and kept her for himself, using her addiction to his advantage by feeding her drugs to keep her complacent.
Honestly, to this day, I didn’t know the exact story as to how my sister ended up at Ochoa’s compound. Maybe the rumor was true. Or maybe Ochoa happened to see her walking down the street and kidnapped her, or maybe Rose went to his home willingly, then wasn’t allowed to leave. It didn’t matter. I would never know the truth.
Either way, the result was the same. My sister died in Ochoa’s home, and by the time I got to her she looked nothing like the beautiful woman I once knew. A mere shadow of Rose.
Now my past was replaying all over again, like some sick déjà vu time loop. Someone I cared for was being held, unspeakable things being done to her, while I stood around with my thumb up my ass.
This was exactly why I never allowed myself to feel anything for anyone. It was my mistake, my failure, to fall in love with Miri, but I’d be damned if she was going to be the one to pay for it.
“So what are we going to do, Boss?” one of my dealers asked.
I smoothed a hand down the filthy, torn suit I had been wearing when I was jumped. There was no time to change after I regained consciousness on the gravel lot behind the auto shop. My left temple felt as if it had been split open with an axe. Whoever hit me didn’t hold back, and if I had to guess, they used the butt of a pistol to knock me out. The nasty lump left behind was a testament to how much force was behind the blow.
I ignored the pain in my head and the hole in my heart. “We’re going to get her back. Then we’re going to kill every single person involved. No mercy is to be shown to the fucking bastards who took what’s mine.”
My men spoke to each other, both in agreement and in dissent. Not that I blamed the ones who weren’t all that excited to fight. War was always the last resort. I was left with no choice. Cuchillo forced my hand.
“I want every single man under my employ back here at seven tonight. Tell them to bring their weapons and be prepared to do some investigating. Now go take care of things. I’ll have a plan by then.”