He cuts his eyes toward the girlie next to me and I turn to glance at her too. Her lip has stopped bleeding, but the side of her face is starting to swell from the tumble she took.
When he leaves, I’ll ask them both if they wanna fuck, I decide with a shrug as I wait for the interrogation to continue.
“Y ella?” he asks Sofi.
“Nada.”
He nods as he looks at me again, his eyes lingering before he puts a hand on Sofi’s shoulder and guides her toward the door.
I’m curious now.
They’re huddled up, having a hushed and heated conversation. I can’t hear a goddamn thing but they’re both animated right now, which means this may potentially end up sucking.
Though whether it’ll suck for me or the rudely mishandled dolly next to me has yet to be revealed.
“I promise,” Sofi says in a soft tone as her father leans down and kisses her on the cheek. One more glance in my direction and the dolly’s, and he walks out of the door while his daughter closes it tightly behind him.
I watch her hand carefully as it lingers on the doorknob for just a moment, before she turns the small turnkey beneath it.
Click.
“Papa is being generous today,” Sofi says, as she scrapes a third chair over and sets it down in front of us.
“Oh?” I ask conversationally.
I don’t know what that means, and I don’t really care, but I guess it’s the neighborly thing to do to feign interest.
She drapes her arms over the back of the chair as she sits down, then turns her eyes toward the busted dolly.
“Think you can take him?” she inquires with a chuckle.
I raise an eyebrow and shift in my chair until I’m looking at the girl. She’s eyeing me dangerously, and when our eyes lock, she grunts then nods.
“Listen,” I begin as I turn my attention back to Sofi, “I’m not into beating up little girls. That’s not my thing, however—”
“Shut up, pendejo,” she snaps at me and I let out a sigh.
With a nod, I glance over and realize that El What’s-his-nuts left one of his bodyguards in the room with us. Maybe this isn’t something I’m supposed to win, or maybe it is.
Either way, I’m not gonna beat on this tiny girl next to me, and nothing I get threatened with is going to change my mind.
Years of watching my father get drunk and beat on my mother who was half his size, puts a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to shit like this.
“Tell you what,” Sofi says as she gets to her feet, “I’ll give you a fair chance.” I roll my eyes and get ready to argue when I realize it’s not me she’s talking to; it’s the dolly. “Take this and see what you can do. Papa is looking for someone new to join his … company,” she says, picking her words carefully as she holds up the butcher knife. “and he thinks that one of you would be good for this.”
“Yeah, you know, this really isn’t my scene,” I start, getting to my feet. “So, if you want to call this now, you can let her have it.”
Sofi glances over at the bodyguard who reaches behind himself briefly. When his hand reappears again, he’s holding a 9mm gun and staring at me meaningfully.
Okay, fine.
“Cut us loose,” I say to Sofi with a coy smile. I’ll let her think I’m gonna play her game even though that’s not how this is going to end.
She sucks her teeth and walks over to the dolly first, undoing her restraints and commanding her to stay put. Then she comes over to me, making a show of running the blade down my back, before roughly cutting through the binds.
“Well?” Sofi barks at us when she walks around me and goes back to sit in her chair.
“I thought you were going to let me have that?” the dolly asks her quietly.
Sofi looks at me and I nod, “It’s cool with me.”
I rub my wrists and watch her as she tosses the trembling girl the blade and wait patiently. When she turns to face me, I can see the fear in her eyes behind the stern façade she’s trying to maintain.
I turn my face slightly enough to not be noticed by Sofi and wink at the girl.
“I’m ready.”
She raises the blade over her head and charges at me like a disorganized child, making it easy for me sidestep her. When she hits the floor, a loud crack echoes throughout the room, and I walk over to her snatching the blade from her hand.
Bending her backward, I hold her by a fistful of her hair and look over at Sofi, “Well, Empress? Live or die?”
She shakes her head in disgust at the dolly and snarls, “Kill the worthless bitch.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I say cheerfully.
In the time I’ve spent taking in the room, I’ve quickly mapped out distances in my head. It’s just something I’ve always been good at, so I know that I’ll make a clean shot before either of them have a chance to react.
“Hey,” I call out to the bodyguard, who looks at me expectantly. His arms are folded and he’s tapping the gun against his forearm. He’s watching me carefully, but not as closely as he should be. “Smile,” I tell him with a grin.
All it takes is the flick of my wrist.
The knife goes hurtling across the room and lands directly in his chest. He doesn’t die right away but that wasn’t my plan, anyway.
I pull the dolly’s head up toward me and issue her some friendly advice, “Go home.”
I let go of her hair and walk over to the worthless bitch, as Sofi so lovingly called him and smirk.
“It’s okay, we all have bad days. Luckily for you, this is your last one.”
He raises the hand with the gun, but he’s so busy sputtering that I’m easily able to kick the fucking thing out of his hand.
I crouch down over him and put both hands on the dull end of the blade, then push down as hard as I can, burying it further into his worthless bitch chest.
I don’t want him to die yet, though.
Not until I’ve shown Sofi what the fuck she’s got on her hands now.
I stand back up and wipe the sweat off my forehead with the back of my hand before I reach down and grab his legs. I pull him just far enough away from the wall that I’m able to comfortably stand behind him.
Without so much as looking at the badass and the dolly, I wave bye-bye to the bulldog and raise my foot before I bring it down onto his face.
His nose breaks instantly and I’m sure I just saw some teeth break through his upper lip. I raise my foot and repeat the motion over and over again until there’s pretty much nothing but a hole where a face used to be, then reach down and rip off the bottom half of his shirt.
Sitting down, I shove him away as I take off one of my sneakers and begin to wipe the blood off.
“Oops; tooth,” I say with a laugh, holding it up for them to see after I’ve extracted it from the bottom of my footwear.
“He’s still alive.”
“Huh?” I ask flicking the tooth toward my audience and going back to cleaning up my sneakers as best as I can. Once one looks as good as it will until I can get home and give them a proper scrubbing, I put it on and take off the other.
“He’s … his … hand.”
I glance over briefly and notice that his hand is indeed twitching, but it doesn’t mean he’s still alive. And if he is, it must suck big time to be a bulldog right now.
“Just a sec,” I say distractedly as I peer at the side of the sneaker. “Fuck it, I’ll finish this at home.”
Tossing the rag to the side, I get back up and place a foot against his shoulder, and yank as hard as I can on the butcher knife until I’m able to pull it free form where I embedded it.
“Any chance I can get some water after this?” I grumble as I squat down and tilt what’s left of his chin up.
Finding a sweet spot through the carnage, I lay the blade against his throat, stand back up and stomp down on it until it goes clean through and his head rolls to the side.
“I mean if it’s not too much trouble,” I say getting
back up and running my hands back through my hair. “There’s no air conditioning in this shack and I’ve been close to getting heat stroke all day.”
The dolly looks like she’s going to be sick.
“Hey, it’s okay. I wasn’t going to hurt you,” I tell her with a friendly smile.
The badass looks like she’s going to angry cry.
“Two in one day must suck, huh?” But, so you know, I don’t hit girls and he was the only other dick in the room,” I say to her with a shrug.
Me?
Reaching down, I chop at the wrist that caused them so much goddamn alarm and cut off the post-mortem twitching hand and wave at them with it.
I’m just hoping for that fucking bottle of water soon.
Chapter Four
Instead of being let go, I find myself sitting on the back patio of the fancy man’s house, with his fancy daughter sitting across from me, and the little dolly next to her.
He’s supposed to be joining us soon and while I’m certain he probably won’t be feeling too jolly about what I did, I’m not particularly in the mental space to give a shit.
The only upside to this potential death sentence I’ve handed myself, is the nice cold bottle of water I’ve been sipping on since we emerged from that out of place hobble on the property.
I finish off the water and squeeze the bottle in my hands, chuckling at how Sofi reacts to the annoying sound it makes.
“Sorry,” I say cheerfully, as I place it on the immaculate patio floor near my feet.
Almost immediately, an older, frazzled looking woman comes by and picks it up before disappearing into the house. I figure she’s the help, not only because of her rushing to pick up the debris, but by the little apron tied around the front of her clothes.
It makes sense, though.
If you’re gonna have a fancy, big ole house, you may as well have someone else clean up your shit.
“So, what’s going on?” I ask, crossing one leg over the other and looking at Sofi and the dolly. “Because if nothing is happening, then I should probably go find out where my car’s been towed.”
As if on cue, both of the patio doors open. I turn to glance over my shoulder. The fancy man is in a white fancy suit this time, using a knife to cut away pieces from a mamey sapote, and eating it like it’s the best goddamn thing in the world. I never could get into those; I tried them once and found them to be bitter.
The other thing I realize is how sharp that knife has to be since he’s cutting into the fruit easily, and then places the blade to his lips.
Clearing his throat as he chews, he walks over to where Sofi and the dolly are sitting and plunks his ass down in the largest chair on the patio.
I begin to drum my fingers along my leg as I tilt my head to look at him. He hasn’t said a goddamn thing to any of us yet. He’s just sitting there eating his bitter fruit and damn near staring through me instead of at me.
“I can’t do this in Spanish if that’s what you’re waiting for,” I tell him with a light-hearted laugh. “I know enough to get by, but that’s pretty much where it ends.”
His eyes move slowly toward his daughter who’s staring at me through narrowed eyes again.
A good man would shut the fuck up and just wait to speak until spoken to, but as someone who never knew the concept of the word good, I decide to kick the hornet’s nest.
“Hey, so when are you coming to Culiacán again?” I ask her with a grin. When she stiffens slightly, I think maybe smashing the fucking thing will get a better reaction. “Inez is doing good, thanks for asking. I haven’t seen Daniela in a while though. Then again, after the way you—”
“Shut up, cabrón!” she barks, tightening her fists.
I clasp my hands behind my neck and glance at his royal fanciness and arch an eyebrow.
“Any idea what she could possibly want me to shut up about? ‘Cause, man, I could tell you a story you probably wouldn’t believe,” I finish with the shake of my head.
I can’t help but revel in the memory of three beautiful women, tangled in each other, moaning, sweating, the smell of pussy, and how soft her ass was when I snorted the line off it.
He glances at his daughter for a moment before he leans over and whispers something into her ear. She nods, unclenches her fists, and sits back in her chair like a petulant child trying not to have a tantrum.
“Sofi tells me that you killed Javier,” he begins conversationally as he sets what’s left of the fruit down on the table, then licks either side of his blade. The maid lady shows up out of nowhere to retrieve the fruit carcass and when she holds out the tray she’s holding for the knife, he shakes his head without so much as a glance in her direction.
“Sure, if that’s what his name was,” I agree with a shrug. I’m not much for names; the ones I do get, I can barely ever remember, and the ones I want, I never seem to be able to get.
“Why?” he asks as he sucks his teeth and sets the knife down on the table next to him. I look at it briefly enough that maybe he doesn’t notice, but I have to be sure that she can’t get to it if he wants her to.
If she’s as deadly with a knife as she is with her snatch, this could prove to be more trouble than it’s worth.
“Because I don’t beat up on girls,” I answer evenly. “I never have and I’m not going to start just because you say so, Your Royal Highness.”
He chuckles as he glances toward the dolly. She looks like she’s been beaten to Hell and back, but I’m not going to let him believe for one second that was my handiwork.
“Yesterday wasn’t a good day for me. Perhaps we can start again today,” he says, letting out a heavy sigh.
Yesterday?
I sit up instantly and give him an incredulous look. What the hell does he mean “yesterday” when all of this happened today?
A smirk creases the corner of his lips, “I told my Sofi to let you sleep while she handled Raiza. And it seems like only one of the things I asked for was done.”
Another heavy sigh, the shift of disappointment from his daughter, and the dolly finally has a name.
“As long as you know it wasn’t me that did that,” I say cautiously, nodding at Raiza then settling back in my chair.
Really? A whole fucking day went by and I didn’t even notice?
“So,” he begins as he sits up and clasps his hands in front of him. “you say you’ve met Sofi before. Tell me where.”
“Around,” I reply without missing a beat. If her father doesn’t know she likes snatch, then I guess it’s not my place to tell him.
At least not right now. I find that having ammunition of any kind can be useful when the opportune moment presents itself.
And no matter how desperately I want to load the gun and pull the trigger, it wouldn’t serve any purpose as of yet.
“Around where?” he asks, his even tone echoing mine from earlier.
I sigh loudly and let my arms drop to my leg, “I ran into her in a bar in Culiacán. The ladies I mentioned were having an argument of some kind, and she squashed it. Bought everyone a round of drinks and we decided to knock back shots to see who would pass out first. Granted, I lost that one since I couldn’t hold onto my … bearings long enough, but I was promised a rematch and yeah. That’s about it.”
“When was this?”
“A year ago? Maybe less, maybe more? Clearly the concept of time seems to elude me whenever she’s around,” I reply with a chuckle.
“And you’ve held on to a bar bet for a year?” he quips. I cross my arms over my chest when I can see the look of disdain in his eyes. Maybe it wasn’t the best lie to tell but it’s all I could think of on the fly, and it’s not like it’s a complete lie.
I did come first, and she probably walked out with dry panties.
A score as yet unsettled, I think as I glance at her fondly.
“What can I say? When I’m promised something, I want it. Especially when pride is on the line, which is something I’m sure you can appreciate.
”
He leans back in his chair for a moment, picks up the knife and begins to tap it along the glass tabletop.
I can see the wheels in his noggin’ turning but it’s anyone’s guess as to where they’ll stop and when.
“About that drink,” I say to Sofi meaningfully. She scoffs and turns her face away, but I can see that she’s thinking about it more than she’d probably care to admit. I did promise her that I wouldn’t fuck her that time, but if she takes me up on this, all bets are off.
Maybe diving into her pussy for the night will help me shake her off once and for all.
“So, you’re not DEA,” her father pipes up after a few moments of silence.
“I could have told you that had you just asked,” I reply with a shrug. He chuckles as he tosses the knife back onto the table, the metal making a clattering sound as it collides with the glass.
“I told you that I wasn’t having a good day yesterday. You wouldn’t either if you had to bury one of your children.”
Which is why I don’t have any, I think dryly.
“I’m sorry I got into the line,” I say thoughtfully. “And I’m sorry if I caused you more grief than you were already dealing with. I’ve been having a tough few months and I haven’t been thinking clearly.”
He nods as he runs a hand over his face, then gets to his feet. He walks over to where I’m sitting and extends a hand, which I take, and once I’m on my feet as well I shake it.
I figure if he’s going to approach me like a man and accept my apologies, then the least I can do is reflect the sentiment.
“Your training begins tomorrow. Welcome to the team,” he says quietly as he lets go of my hand and slaps my arm.
Before I have a chance to ask him what the fuck he’s talking about, he walks away, disappearing through the double glass doors, with Sofi and Raiza trailing behind him.
Brunch was what we had on the patio though I only had a bottle of water and the girls ate nothing. Lunch was served to me in some room I didn’t even know, and I ate alone.
Dinner is different.
El Gringo (The Sicarios of Navolato Book 3) Page 3