Letting the gun lead the way, I move out from the living room, stepping over him to make my way down the hallway to the first closed door on the right. A swift kick knocks the door open onto an empty room, and after a quick sweep, I turn my attention back toward the hallway, trigger finger ready to shoot the first thing that moves.
One of the doors ahead flies open, and my muscles twitch to shoot. Before I take the shot, a boy, maybe thirteen years old, is dragged out by a man I recognize as El Viejon, as he uses the kid to shield himself. A coyote, I’m guessing. Unless the old man is into little boys as much as girls.
I slip back inside the empty room I cased a second ago, just missing two bullets fired into the drywall.
“Vamos maricón de mierda!” he shouts in Spanish.
I’ve picked up enough of the language working with Julio to know he just called me a fucking fag.
Cloaked in the shadows of the room, I watch him hold the boy steady, gun aimed in my direction. Another bullet flies, kicking up drywall dust at the doorway. I slide back farther into the dark room, raise my gun, aim for his gun toting hand, and shoot.
A roared curse drowns Adrien’s distant sobbing, and El Viejon’s gun drops to the floor. The boy lets out a scream, his hand flying to his shoulder where the bullet must’ve penetrated him. The kid stumbles forward with one hard shove from behind, and I knock him out of my way, as El Viejon scrambles for the fallen weapon. The moment his hand reaches the gun, I slam my foot over top of it, and blow a hole in the older man’s shoulder.
A third in his leg, and I swipe up his gun.
Huddled against the wall behind me, the boy covers his ears, shaking and screaming, and the annoying sound only innervates my need to silence it.
“Estás muerto!” the old man grits out through clenched teeth, swinging my attention back to him, and when he flails his intact hand at me, I shatter his collarbone with another bullet. At this point, I’m merely toying with him, trying to incite as much misery as I can, before I finish him off.
“Fuck!” The first word he’s said in English. Head tipped back against the wall, he stares at me, studying me. “Black Wolf.” A wet barking cough interrupts him, and blood dribbles from the corner of his mouth. “Show me.” He’s undoubtedly asking for proof, the bite mark that confirms his suspicions of who I am.
Instead, I shoot past his mangled hand resting on his lap, and his groin explodes in a spray of blood. A tortured outcry follows, quickly silenced by the fatal bullet I shoot into his skull.
Finally scrambling to his feet, the boy races toward the front door, screaming again, and I let him go. I can only take so much screaming.
At the sound of a click up ahead, I back into the room from before. A gunshot rings out, and the kid drops just short of his escape.
I fire at the unseen shooter, and when no shots are volleyed back, I slip out of hiding and make my way toward the last room in the corridor.
As I kick the door open, a bullet whizzes past my head, and I blindly return fire. The ping of bullets ricochet off metal somewhere in the room, and I flip on the light to find Castellano crouched in a corner, his gun trained on me. That’s the problem with higher ranked cartel men. So reliant on their layers of protection, they hardly know how to defend themselves. Forced to hide when danger comes kicking through the door.
Across from him, a girl lies tethered to a dingy bed, with each of her limbs tied to the corners of the head- and- footboards.
Bruised. Bleeding. Wearing nothing but a stained pair of underwear and a dirty tank top.
Lips curled in repulsion, I hold my aim steady, certain that I would kill him in the most horrific ways, if not for my promise to bring him back to Julio unharmed.
The girl whimpers behind me, but I don’t dare avert my attention. Uncertainty burning behind all that arrogance in his eyes tells me he’s a man who fears death, in spite of his poor attempt to be brave. I fire a shot that just misses Castellano’s ear. Another just outside his shoulder, and he flinches with the gunfire, the diversion just enough for me to lurch forward and kick the gun from his untrained hand.
“Whoever you are, you’re a dead man. Do you know who I am? Huh? Do you know who the fuck I am!”
Unfettered by his shouts, I jerk the gun toward the girl. “Untie her. Now.”
“Fuck you, gringo.” He spits at my feet.
I fire yet another warning shot between his legs, and he kicks himself back to the wall.
“Fuck!”
And just like that, we’re on to step two.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
He slides up the wall, the rage tearing across his face like wildfire, telling me he’d gut me open like a pig, if the roles were reversed. Or have someone else do it, anyway.
In a matter of a couple of minutes, he’s finished the task of loosening the binds, and the girl scrambles away into the opposite corner of the room.
“Mis hermanos …” he says, lifting his chin, as if he has any right to be so fucking proud. “They’re going to find you, culero. And when they do, they’ll peel off every inch of your skin, before dumping your body in acid.”
Without warning, I knock him out in one hit. His body falls like deadweight onto the squeaky thin mattress behind him.
6
Thierry
The girl sits shivering in the corner, wrapped in one of the blankets I managed to scrounge.
When I approach, she shoots to her feet, and holds out a gun toward Castellano, who lies tied and gagged on the floor. She must’ve picked it up after I kicked it out of his hands earlier.
“Non, chère. I can’t let you do that.” The Valir accent slips in my surprise, as I step toward her, but the dialect is softer, less harsh than when I try to force it away. “Put the gun down.” I reach out a hand, and with shaky arms, she swings the gun toward me, but then takes it back to him. “C’mon, girl. I’m gonna take you somewhere safe. These men won’t touch you again. I promise.”
Her lip quivers. Hands even shakier than before.
Eyes clamped, she whispers, “Padre divino, vengo a ti en oración que pide al perdón de mis pecados.” Divine Father, I come to you in prayer, asking for the forgiveness of my sins. “Lo siento, Mama.” I’m sorry, Mama. Choking up the last word, she trembles.
I lurch toward her.
Before I can stop her, she shoves the gun into her mouth and fires a shot, spattering her brain over the wall behind her.
Fucking hell.
At my back, the echoing sound of Castellano’s hysterical laughter, as if he’s suddenly lost his mind, stokes the urge to silence him with a bullet. My only hope is that whatever Julio has in mind for him, it’s slow and painful.
After rounding up Castellano, along with the extra rope that I use to bind his hands behind his back, leaving a small length for a leash, I guide him out toward the Audi and find Adrien lying in the gravel about a hundred feet from my car. Short, panting breaths, and pale, bluish skin tell me the hit to his flank likely entered the gut. He won’t make it.
He reaches out for me, eyes glassy and pupils dilated, like death has already begun to creep up on him. “Please,” he rasps. “Help me.”
Gun aimed down at him, I shake my head. “Sorry, chat. No one sees my face and lives.”