by Melissa Jane
Instead of answering I held out my hand, and he shook it, albeit slightly confused.
“Take care, buddy. Look after that wife of yours, and don’t always believe what you hear.”
I turned and made to leave before he stopped me.
“You’re not coming back are you?” His confusion faded, realization dawning. “This vendetta isn’t something you should lose your career over.”
“Yet, we allow others to make a career out of killing hundreds of people? I don’t want that on my conscience.”
In a few days there will be a warrant out for my arrest. A week after that there would be a bounty on my head for a price not many could resist. My clean record would be replaced, naming me as an armed and dangerous felon. My position in Special Forces was finished. The agency that once considered me an asset would now see me as a danger to their frontline with the new connections I was going to make.
My name, Antonio Suárez, was as good as dead.
“Mphh yghr mhr…”
My grin met his desperate eyes and muffled pleas when I opened the trunk.
Gregorio’s face was covered in beads of sweat, clothes saturated, tape still covering his mouth. The rancid stench of stale urine wafted in the breeze. He squinted against the bright sun that sat on the perfect angle to greet him.
“It’s your lucky day,” I began. “Only three more hours in here.” He shook his head, hysterically, pleading for me not to trap him again in the trunk acting as a sauna in the heat. His pleas were near mute when I closed the lid and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Staring at the long road ahead, I contemplated my decision. The idea of not coming out of this didn’t scare me in the slightest. The idea of allowing the Santos men to do this again terrified me.
By the time I pulled down the street from my target location I was almost certain Gregorio had told the truth about where to find Gabriel Santos. Black SUV’s lined the side street of the otherwise derelict neighborhood. The sun was well and truly down, and a mix between Spanish and Arabian music drifted from the building. Unlocking the trunk, I witnessed a less than energetic Gregorio. The heat and dehydration had worked its magic putting him in the delirious state I needed. He was pale, eyes rolling back in their sockets.
The plan was shaping up nicely. But it was volatile. The environment I was entering was an unpredictable and explosive one. The next stage would be all smoke and mirrors, a performance that would soon have me working for South America’s leading drug cartel.
I felt their glares before I even crossed the road. I dragged Gregorio along with me until we reached the brothel where two machine guns were poised to shoot. It was the welcoming I expected.
“What the fuck is this?” the bald one asked.
I met his stare head on. “A gift for Gabriel Santos.”
Dubious, they studied Gregorio who was now hooded and drunkenly swaying. To ensure he remained in his stupor, I had blocked his nose and poured a bottle of rum down his throat.
“He’s not seeing anyone,” the other announced. He sported a rat-tail and had a gold canine tooth. “He’s… busy,” he added, a childish smirk lighting both their faces.
“You’re right. I should wait to hand over this sack of shit. I’m sure Santos wouldn’t at all be interested in knowing who his almost killer was.”
Baldy nodded toward Gregorio who was now making a strange gurgling sound. “He tried to kill Santos?”
“Tried. Yes. You two also would have been amongst the tally. You were headed back to La Balsa in two days were you not?”
“Yes,” rat-tail replied, confused.
“And they’re your SUV’s?”
“Yes.”
“I suggest you do a bomb sweep before you start the next leg of the journey. He…” I pointed to Gregorio, “…has men all over the place performing his dirty work.” They visibly stiffened, my suggestion of a potential threat having the desired effect. “So if you don’t mind?”
Co-operating, they stepped to the side, their deathly stares on the man they’d like to personally cut.
The door opened, and I was greeted by a heavily made up, yet strikingly beautiful hostess. Her seductive smile momentarily faltered when she caught sight of my hooded prisoner. Nervously, she licked her lips, no doubt fearing how the rest of her shift was going to play out.
“Beaunos noches, señor.”
“Senorita, donde eta Gabriel Santos?”
“Gabriel Santos?” Her face drained of color.
“Si, take me to him.”
“No, señor. He’s busy.”
The door behind me opened, and baldy stepped in, cramping the already tight space. “Take him, Fabia.”
She looked torn, like it was a choice between life and death. Clearly, Gabriel ruled with an iron fist even in a brothel.
“And…” baldy continued, “…make sure our guest is comfortable.”
Swallowing hard, and close to tears, she turned on her heel and climbed the stairs. When she heard the door close, she turned to me, throwing cautious glances at the still garbling Gregorio.
“Please, señor…” she begged clasping my free hand, “…if I interrupt, it will not end well for me.”
“I assure you, you will be fine.”
Her eyes welled, lips pursed. She was genuinely scared.
“Can it not wait?”
“Trust me. With what he’s about to learn, he will thank you for letting me in. Please, lead the way.”
“He’s in the bath lounge. Many of my friends are in there. Please don’t hurt them.”
“I have no intention of doing anything to your friends.”
Her smile was small, untrusting. “Follow.”
Beside me, Gregorio muttered a string of incoherencies. A string of saliva dangled beneath the hood’s hem. He was a mess and in the perfect condition.
Looks were certainly deceiving, and what I had considered a derelict building on the outside was the complete opposite on the inside. This was a place touched by the golden fingers of a drug lord. It oozed luxurious debauchery.
We cut through a room of flickering candles and sweet perfume where women were dressed in rhinestone covered bras and Arabian style sarongs around their hips. Taking the next flight of stairs, I came to the only door on the second level.
It was bright red.
My mark.
I entered like it was my own house, but was brought to a stop.
“Fuck me!” I muttered, my senses reaching an overload.
I was hit with a wall of steam. The bathhouse quarters had a mix of chemical chlorine, perfumed aromatics, and sex, and the smell clung to the mist particles.
To the right of the room, two women bathed in the heated spa. The rest of the room was adorned with rich, colorful fabrics and an overload of cushions. It looked more like a Turkish harem than what I had pictured.
Directly in front, three women lay on low bedding giving a performance suitable for a porno. They licked, sucked, flicked, bit, writhed, screamed and moaned. To the left watching their every movement was Gabriel. He was on his back getting his dick sucked by two women taking turns. A woman, naked except for a gold chain around her waist entered from a room beyond the mist, carrying in a single glass on a tray.
She faltered, doing a double take when she saw two soldiers, one shackled and hooded standing by the door. Gesturing with my Glock, she took the hint and quick-stepped back the way she came. Gabriel noticed her sudden retreat and pushed the sucker fishes away before his eyes fell on an even bigger problem. Me.
“Who the fuck are you?” he spat, pulling on his robe.
“You Santos?”
His head lowered for battle. “Who. The. Fuck. Is. Asking?”
“Someone who just saved your life.”
“You have five fucking seconds to give me a reason not to end your piss-poor excuse of a life,” said the man in a robe with his now flaccid and rather unimpressive cock on display.
Pulling the hood roughly off my pris
oner, I waited until recognition dawned. As expected, he didn’t seem pleased. A flash of urgency and fear crossed his face when his rebel army colonel raised his head. Gregorio was in no state to argue or protest. A combination of chronic dehydration, blood loss, and alcohol had him awake but far from present.
“The fuck is going on,” Santos raged.
“So you recognize Colonel Gregorio?”
With narrowed eyes, he answered. “So what if I do?”
“I found him in a bar two hours north of La Balsa. Actually, it was more like he found me. Showed me this.” I pulled a photo from my pocket I’d brought from the States.
Gabriel squinted at the image of himself. “The fuck…”
“Your friend spent the next two hours talking about how he knew of a cash crop of coke, but needed to take out the drug lords first. Two men by the names of Gabriel and Luis Santos.”
With an icy glare, Gabriel turned his attention to Gregorio who wore an unknowing smile. Saliva slipped from the corner of his mouth.
“You. Fucking. Piece. Of. Traitorous. Shit!” He was in a rage, and I couldn’t have been happier. Spittle flew from his mouth into the face of a Gregorio. “What the fuck is wrong with him?” he asked of his former colleague’s docile state.
“Your Colonel is an addict. Practically begged for his last hit.”
“What else did the puto say?”
“He promised a cut if I took you and your uncle out of the equation.” Gabriel’s level of mistrust caused his gun to naturally gravitate toward me. “Fact is, I’m not one to strike up business relations with pond feeders. So here you go…” I pushed Gregorio to the side. He stumbled before making a show of carefully righting himself, his dopey smile only making him look the greedy fool. “I brought you the traitor.”
“And just what do you want in return? Nobody wants anything for free.”
“Quite right. I want a job.”
He scoffed. “A job?”
“That’s right.”
“Doing?”
“Personal security.”
This time, he laughed. “Job’s taken.”
“You mean those two downstairs, who just let me walk straight up without having ever seen me before?”
His face turned into a snarl, my words having the desired effect.
“Why the fuck would you want to work for me?”
To kill you and your uncle.
“I’m former Special Forces. Protection is what I do best.”
“Kill ‘em.”
Two loaded words. Two words loaded with dare, challenge, and opportunity.
I would call out his bluff and take great pleasure in doing so.
Gregorio was slowly piecing things together. The alcohol made him childlike, but he was starting to gather his senses in time to register my Glock pointing at him.
He giggled nervously, hands becoming agitated. The haze in his eyes was now replaced with fear.
“No, no, no,” he stammered, still unsure of the predicament.
The women who were still cowering since the altercation began, whimpered, clutching each other in preparation for the bloodshed.
Before Gregorio could open his mouth to spill the truth, I fired. A neat hole pierced the middle of his forehead. His eyes rolled, his body propelled backward until he folded like a limp doll into the spa bath. Water splashed over like a fountain and the two hookers bathing yelped in fright, scrambling to the edges of the tub. In unison, they pulled themselves out, their naked bodies pink from the heat.
A billowing cloud of blood swirled through the hot soapy water. I met Gabriel’s quizzical and humored stare. This wasn’t what he had in mind for his evening, and he certainly didn’t expect me to follow through on the kill.
“Ex-Special Forces, eh?”
I gave a short nod.
“You’re a long way from home.”
Again, I nodded.
“A traitor to Uncle Sam.”
“You can look at it that way.”
A smile reached his eyes. “Well, welcome the fuck to Colombia.”
It was that moment it happened, and it was easier than I thought.
Antonio Suárez existed no more.
I now belonged to the Los Santos cartel.
A smiling Gabriel was a dangerous Gabriel.
He was an evil son-of-a-bitch and his glee usually transpired to an unsuspecting someone about to lose their life. After a week of being in his company, I noticed this unsettling trend.
This time around, his smile was of delight. Delight at the sound of a needle coloring my skin.
It felt like a blade slicing slow, deliberate. It was a pain I was used to. Pain I actually enjoyed.
The image of the Mother Mary was now emblazoned on my shoulder branding me a Santos.
I was one of them.
After the night at the brothel, I had joined Gabriel at his mansion in the rolling hills north of Bogota and accompanied him to his various engagements as his personal bodyguard.
He asked no questions, though I suspected he conducted his own background check only to come to the same conclusion as the United States. I now had a court order on my name. With my dishonorable discharge paperwork in the process of being signed, sealed and delivered. The repercussions of my decision to hunt Luis Santos had helped legitimize my position. I was now tangled in the spider’s web.
As the tattooist wiped the blood off Mother Mary’s face, applied salve, and covered the branding, Gabriel ended his phone call and clapped his hands in excitement.
“Good news, brother. You’ve got your first assignment.”
Less than twelve hours later we were in the middle of a hot and humid Bogota day. I followed Gabriel into an upper market club. As expected the inside was dark, only stage lights shining off the naked bodies of the strippers working for a dollar. Men in business suits slowly sipped their spirits, gold wedding bands glinting whenever they raised the glass to their mouth. This wasn’t a club where dollar bills were stuffed down panties with a free grope for their efforts. This was where criminals came to do business, the bonus of Colombia’s most beautiful women adding the right amount of sweetness when sealing the deal. I was given three words of advice from a man not wise enough to heed them himself, ‘trust no one.’
Gabriel shook hands with the men who knew him and ignored the curious stares of those wanting to know him. After each handshake, he wiped his palm on his pants like he couldn’t stand the thought of sweat and bacteria.
“Hola, señor Santos,” an eager man with a rounded face and little pig eyes greeted my new employer. His gaze gave me the once over, spying my utility belt and pinning me as the help. I listened as Gabriel and the club manager conversed, exchanged pleasantries before sitting at a circular couch surrounding a private pole.
“I have not seen Luis for some time,” the manager began, gesturing for the waitress to set the drinks down.
Gabriel stiffened. It wasn’t a topic he took pleasure in discussing. “My uncle is off the grid, and has been for quite some time.”
“Well, we miss his patronage here and Ana has been asking of him.”
Who was Ana and how often did Luis visit here?
“I’m sure Ana has kept herself busy.”
The manager laughed with an edge of uncertainty. He was kissing Gabriel’s ass and played it cool.
“Indeed,” he recovered, his lips sticking to his teeth. “She is quite popular.”
“Indeed.” Gabriel was bored with the conversation. “I have an associate joining us. Ensure you bring him to the viewing room once he arrives.”
“Certainly, Mr. Santos.”
That was his cue to leave, and he fumbled to his feet before taking out his aggression on a passing waitress who was simply doing her job.
“Come, Antonio.” Gabriel stood and led the way from the main floor to a narrow hall before turning to me. “He’s a fucking moron, but he runs a tight establishment without me watching his every move. And the girls? The girls here are…�
�� he held his fingers to his lips and kissed, “…primo.”
I nodded, my only interest in the club being that Luis Santos could visit whenever he returns.
“Who’s the associate?” I asked.
He waved dismissively. “I use that term loosely. He won’t be anything by the time the sun goes down. Time for a pleasure before business,” he quipped preceding opening the door for me. I stepped inside the dark room, my eyes adjusting quickly. There was a glass box at the far of the room with a single viewing couch placed directly in front. “Ana is one of my uncle’s top pics. Not my sort, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate her… talents.”
I smiled, and it was genuine. I didn’t care for the show. What I did care for was siphoning information from those who knew Luis Santos.
“Have fun. We’ve got an hour, amigo. Oh and ask for a lap dance,” a wicked gleam lit his eyes, “I hear she’s great at those.” Gabriel winked before closing the door on an opportunity he literally put right in front of me.
The music had started—soft, seductive, tonnes of anticipation, expectation. Lights within the glass box began to glow, skin caressed by its warmth. It started at her red stilettoed feet, traveling a path up her long sculptured legs and over her round, pert ass. She had curves in all the right places and they were worth celebrating. The woman wore a lacy thong under a short negligee that sat high on each cheek. The light exposed her tiny waist and perfectly shaped natural c-cups. Her long dark hair flowed in waves, gliding around her small shoulders as she moved to the music.
She found this easy, dancing for an unknown behind a pane of glass. She moved with such grace, it was obvious why a man of Luis Santos’s status enjoyed this particular beauty.
My finger hit the speaker on the arm rest. “Stop what you’re doing.”
My voice pulled her free, back to reality. She wasn’t startled, most likely used to men delivering special requests. However, my request would be vastly different to the ones she was used to. Ana paused, waiting for further instruction, pretty eyes searching the darkness ahead of her. Santos’s choice was a beauty. A perfectly sculptured face with large beguiling eyes.