The final man, the one in the middle, I knew was Guillermo Mendosa, who had a grim look on his face and was dressed in a white tropical-style suit. Standing next to him was Luisa, who commanded my attention with her beauty and by the fact that she was the only person in the whole group who was smiling. Her eyes widened when she saw that I wasn't using my cane before she cocked an eyebrow, understanding what I was doing. If I had to fight her brother, then I needed to show as little weakness as possible.
In the relative silence after the two turbofans wound down, Dad raised his hand. "Guillermo Mendosa, I’m Carlo Bertoli, and this is my son, Tomasso. Thank you for such a warm reception."
I had to give it to him. He was smooth and a bit sarcastic. It clearly wasn’t a warm reception. He was acting as if we were being greeted by the Brazilian women's volleyball team instead of stepping out onto a runway faced with at least four men armed with automatic rifles. Even the other man with Guillermo, who I took to be Eduardo Mendosa, had to smirk at Dad's comment.
One of the gunmen, however, wasn't as amused and started to bring his rifle up. I reached for my coat when Guillermo held up his hand. "Vincente, put it away. I didn’t tell you to raise your weapon.” He turned to us. “Welcome to Porto Alegre."
Luisa stepped forward as Dad and I approached but shook her head when our eyes met again. “I’m supposed to translate so there’s no miscommunication," she said, giving me a measured look that said play along a little bit.
Dad nodded, getting her meaning, and smiled broadly. "Of course, Señorita Mendosa. My son has something he’d like to say. Tomasso?"
I stepped forward, squaring myself up and looking Guillermo Mendosa in the eye. "Sir, it was never my intention to offend you or your daughter. I apologize. I’m here so that we can put this to rest and not have to resort to violence. I don’t think either of us wants that.”
He looked at me with a pissed off expression that seemed to run in the Mendosa family and shook his head. "This isn’t a simple matter of a broken piece of furniture or maybe a bit of hellraising. This is my daughter, and an apology isn’t going to make it go away.”
I nodded and turned my attention to the man next to him. “You're Eduardo, then? You're the one who is challenging me to a duel?”
"I am," the taller man said, his voice flat and emotionless. "Inside the hangar, and the rules . . . well, we’ll stop when one of us can’t go any longer. Agreed?"
I nodded. "When?"
"Now," Guillermo Mendosa said, interrupting. He looked at my father, then at me. "Then your welcome to Porto Alegre is officially revoked."
Dad's lip lifted, and he had that look on his face, a look that everyone who knew him was terrified of. I held up my hand, speaking up before things got more out of hand. "Okay. But give me ten minutes to change clothes?"
I looked to Eduardo, who simply nodded. A serious man of few words.
I turned and walked away, Dad following me until we were next to our jet. With it being just the two of us, he was able to let his true feelings show through some, and he was pissed. “I’d love to slit that man's throat and feel his blood run over my fingers," Dad seethed, angry.
"He's pissed, prejudiced, and scared," I said lowly. “He’s probably even more mad with how Luisa looked at us—he knows she'd rather be with us than stay with him. That's got to hurt a man's pride."
He gave me a look and seemed to calm down a little, knowing that I had a point. He walked over to me and patted me on the shoulder, and his next words took me by surprise. “When the time comes, our family is in good hands."
I stood there, shocked for a moment before I resumed pulling my jacket off and handing it to the pilot. "First, I have to survive this. I doubt the ref is going to respect if I tap out."
"Agreed. Fight dirty if you have to," Dad said.
I sat down on the steps of the plane and looked back at the pilot. "This isn't going to take long, so get on the radio with the tower. You're going to want fuel, and quickly. How much do you guys have left?"
"Only a couple of hundred miles, Mr. Bertoli," the crew member said. "A thousand, if we're lucky.”
I nodded and undid the first strap on my brace. "Get what you can. I'd prefer to not have to set down for fuel in South America if we can help it."
The man nodded and headed for the cabin while I finished unstrapping my brace, setting it aside. I'd tested the ankle after talking with Luisa, and while there wasn’t much pain, it was stiff.
"Time to strap up," I muttered to myself, reaching into the bag that had contained my shorts. We managed to scrape together enough tape on the plane from the emergency and medical kits that I could do something with my leg. Slowly, I wound layer after layer of tape around my ankle, starting with, of all things, electrical tape before moving on to duct tape and finally some white bandage tape. "Should have brought my other shoes."
“Maybe remember that the next time you fly down to Brazil to fight someone.” Dad chuckled as he looked me over, his anger appearing to fade. "How's the circulation in your toes?"
"Not great, but it won’t be for long. You can cut the tape off afterward," I replied, wiggling the already numbing digits. "You ready to pull me out if they go a bit overboard on extracting their pound of vengeance?"
"You'll get out of here," Dad said, "no matter what. Now go kick this guy's ass."
I grinned and slid my pants off, thankful I'd decided to wear briefs that day instead of going commando. I pulled the shorts on and tied the drawstring, standing up. I looked over where the Mendosa group except for Eduardo stood watching me. I saw the one named Vincente tapping his rifle, murder in his eyes. I looked at him closely and figured him for another of Luisa's brothers, most likely the middle one. He looked like a punk more than anything else, and I wish I could have been fighting him instead.
Eduardo, in the two minutes or so I had to size him up, was different. He was cold, calculating, and was committed. I knew as a BJJ brown belt he knew how to take damage, and this was not going to be easy. In fact, most likely, I was going to take an ass whipping.
I took my first step toward the hangar, curious if I'd even be able to walk. It wasn't easy, but I was able to make my way slowly to the doors of the hangar, waiting while they were opened. Inside, I saw that a circle of vehicles had been formed, with a tiny space left in the middle for me to squeeze through. Eduardo Mendosa was standing in the middle, stripped to the waist and wearing drawstring pants and a t-shirt. He was in good shape, not carrying too much muscle, and looked rangy and lanky. With my ankle the way it was, I hoped he had a glass jaw or I just got lucky.
I gave Dad a nod and stepped through the hole in the circle, looking around at the rest of the circle. Guillermo Mendosa sat on the hood of an SUV that looked like a Jeep, while Luisa stood next to her father in the gap between the SUV and the car next to it, her arms crossed over her chest and chewing on a finger. She was scared, and I understood. I was too.
I made my way to the center of the circle and extended my hand to Eduardo, who shook. He was devoted to hurting me, but he had honor, I could tell that much. I hobbled back a step and looked around. "Who's the ref?"
"I am," Guillermo said, sliding off the hood of the car. "Any objections?"
I looked back at Dad, who shook his head slowly. I looked at Guillermo and repeated the gesture. "Nope. It's going to be tough to have to declare your son the loser, though," I said in casual, Southern-laced English, which only Luisa and my father understood. I stepped back and held up my hands, switching back to Spanish. "Vamanos."
Eduardo danced around, light on his feet for a man as big as he was. To keep pressure off my ankle, I decided to switch my normal stance, going southpaw. I'd learned that stance a lot during my days in high school wrestling, where my coach taught us to keep our strong hand forward and ready. I also kept my head low between my hunched shoulders, hoping that Eduardo wasn't as good with his kicks as he was with his BJJ.
He struck first, throwing a quick little jab that
I swatted away easily. His plan seemed basic and effective. Using darting, slashing attacks, he moved in and out, throwing slapping, jarring shots that I had to duck and bob, absorbing what I could with my forearms and biceps before he pivoted and went back out before I could return damage. He was trying to get me upset, frustrated, and tired.
Ironically, I was able to get the first good blow in, a tight palm strike shot to his ribs as he threw a long-range slapping shot that I ducked. He grunted and backed away, and I stayed where I was. My ankle was going numb, the constricting tape slowly cutting the blood flow off, so the pain was nearly gone, but that didn't mean I wanted to try to pivot off it or use it for anything more than a balance assist.
"Come on, I know you've got more than that," I taunted, trying my own way to try and get him to make a mistake. "This is getting boring, Chico."
I saw a tightening of Eduardo's mouth, and knew I had at least gotten through. Unfortunately for me, that meant he came in with a good combination, a flicking jab followed by an overhand blow that I stepped into. The hard heel of his hand blasted into my face, the area around my eye going numb and my nose starting to bleed. What was worse though was that he was using the strikes as a setup to another movement, dropping his hips and attempting to throw me over and onto the concrete. I'd faced this throw hundreds of times in my life, and normally, defending it would have been no problem.
I should have been able to block it, but my injured left ankle meant that I was a half-step slow on the squaring of my hips, and instead of a full block, we sort of half-tumbled, half-threw each other to the concrete. I landed with a jarring thud on my back, with him on top of me. Not where I wanted to be.
The first shots he got in were nothing too hard, mostly to my head area, but then he threw a tight elbow to my stomach that hurt. I grabbed for his head, deciding to say fuck chivalry and yanking a handful of his hair to get him down into my embrace, where I hoped that my stronger upper body and muscle could get me some sort of advantage. There, I wrapped my left arm around his head as tightly as I could while I tried to hammer away at his neck and shoulders with my right elbow. I didn't even try to roll him yet. I could tell he was still too stable and on-balance, and I didn't even have a way to plant my left ankle either.
The fight devolved further, the two of us trading short little shots and grinding away at each other, trying to wear the other person down. Eduardo, for his part, kept his face protected, buried in my chest as he continued to throw elbows and strikes to my ribs while I elbowed and ground on his neck and shoulders.
Suddenly, he sat back, planting his foot and jamming his left knee into my tailbone, which jarred my legs and numbed my hips, giving him a bit of a gap. Taking it, he was quick as a snake, jamming my right knee painfully into the concrete. I was at least able to half-stop him, catching his right leg with mine before he was totally on my side, where I would have been in serious trouble.
"You're mine now, Norte," he grunted as he wrapped my head up with his left arm while hammering at my ribs with his right elbow. I groaned in pain as the shots thudded against me, trying to do something to turn the tide on him.
A thought flashed through my mind, and I took it as a desperation movement. It required me to use my left ankle, which I wasn't sure was going to hold, but I knew if I didn't, I'd get worn down and beaten unconscious or worse—he knew exactly what he was doing, and it was working.
I planted my left foot on the floor, then slid it underneath his right ankle, locking it up with my right leg and keeping him in place. He tried to extend his leg, and my ankle groaned deeply, but everything held in place. I pivoted on my hips and reached under his free leg, praying that he hadn't anticipated what I was doing.
The move is called the 'electric chair,' and it works by pitching your opponent over your body, as well as stretching out the groin of your opponent. If the guy isn't flexible, it can hurt like hell.
He was catapulted over me harder than I'd expected, his face smacking hard into the pavement, and I couldn't help but grin as he grunted in surprise and pain.
He was also scrambling, but I was able to get him into a choke hold, cinching in tightly, hoping to use his own shoulder to choke him unconscious. Eduardo struggled, reaching with his free hand and trying to claw at my face, his fingernail catching on my cheek and ripping a furrow underneath my right eye. Still, his strength started to weaken, and soon, he slapped at my back, giving up. I squeezed tighter, not stopping until the slaps stopped and Eduardo sagged, unconscious, to the concrete.
Letting go, I pushed away, exhausted. The fight had gone on for a long time, at least ten minutes, and I'd used more energy than I'd thought possible. Not trusting my ankle, I pushed away, staying on my left knee while I brought my right leg up, staring at him. His father was so shocked that he still hadn't moved. He’d been so confident in his son's victory over me.
"It's over," I gasped, rolling Eduardo onto his back and looking up at his father. "It's over."
Guillermo stepped forward on shaky legs, his eyes wide as he slowly shook his head back and forth.
He reached for his waist, where a pistol sat, but before he could get there, a loud click echoed through the hangar. All eyes turned as Luisa stood, a huge forty-five in her hand, pointed at her father. “It’s over. Don’t dishonor all of us by going back on your word."
His men didn't know what to do with themselves. Pointing guns at me or my father, that they could understand, but at Luisa? They weren't sure what to do. Finally, one of them brought his gun to bear at Luisa, but her pistol never wavered.
"Wait," I said, holding up my hand. Nobody paid attention to me, so I struggled to my feet and hobbled my way over in between Luisa and her father. "Wait!"
Luisa looked at me carefully and lowered her gun. “He was going to shoot you!”
“And what are you going to do, shoot him? You don’t want that blood on your hands.”
This was probably going to make matters worse, but I was desperate, and besides, it’s what I wanted anyway. Stepping forward, I dropped to my knees and took Luisa's hand. "Luisa Mendosa, would you marry me?"
All movement in the garage stopped again, Luisa looking at me, a smile spreading on her face as I forgot about the entire world other than her looking down at me. “You've gotten me into car accidents, gotten my ass kicked, and had guns pointed at me. But at the same time, I can't go on another day without you, and now you're going to give me a baby. I love you and I need you . . . be my wife."
"Well?" a raspy voice from behind me asked in decently clear English.
I glanced back and saw that Eduardo had woken up and was rubbing at his neck even as he got to his feet.
"Yes, of course I will,” Luisa said, looking down and starting to cry. "I'll marry you, Tomasso Bertoli."
I got to my feet and pulled her in for an embrace when Guillermo interrupted us.
“On one condition,” he said, finally finding his voice.
Luisa looked at her father, her eyes hardening. I turned my head as well, curious as to what the man could possibly say. "You have little room to demand anything, Father."
"Then one request—I give you away at a proper wedding."
I looked at Luisa, who looked to me. "What do you say?"
"How fast can we find a church around here?” I asked. "I promised Daniel and Adriana we'd be back for their wedding—I'm already missing the bachelor party."
Chapter 22
Luisa
Stepping off the jet back in Seattle, I felt like I was actually coming home. Carlo, Tomasso and I agreed to keep the marriage and the baby our little secret until we landed.
Margaret, Adriana and Daniel greeted us on the tarmac, Adriana catching me in a hug before I even had a chance to get out a greeting. "It's so good to see you again!" she said, grinning happily. “That means you’re coming to the wedding, right?"
"Something like that," I agreed, smiling. "It's good to see you again. I hope this time, I’m able to actually get to know you
after your honeymoon. And I’m very excited to see your wedding."
"After the honeymoon? What do you mean?" Adriana asked, confused.
I wasn't sure how to answer, so I turned my head back to the jet. “Little help?"
Tomasso popped his head out from the plane, dressed once again in his suit, looking debonair for a man with a bandage on his right cheek, and he made his way painfully down the steps. “With what?” he asked, reaching the ground.
"What's this about after the honeymoon?" Adriana asked, confused. "I mean, I'm glad if Luisa is hanging around for a while, but I thought you were kind of stuck with short-term business trips."
"Oh, well . . .” Tomasso said, before cutting through the knotty issue by simply displaying his left hand which had been wrapped around the head of his cane, where his brand new, plain gold band rested on his third finger. "Sorry, Red. I know you wanted to be first, but things kind of happened."
Adriana gawked as I laid my left hand on top of his, where my matching band rested on my finger. "Would you like to hear the story?"
"You lucky fuck!" Daniel exclaimed, laughing and pounding Tomasso on the back and interrupting us. "How'd you do it?"
"Getting his ass kicked and choking her brother unconscious, mostly," Carlo, who was last off the plane, said. "Come on, let's all get going. Luisa and Tomasso can tell the story on the way to the rehearsal dinner."
We’d gotten lucky with our timing, as Adriana and Daniel's rehearsal dinner only had to be delayed thirty minutes. Since most of those in attendance were Bertoli men anyway, it wasn't like they wouldn't have waited all night if need be.
We piled into the rented limousine, Tomasso and me sitting together in one of the side-facing seats so that he could stretch out his leg. "All right, spill the beans," Daniel said once the car started moving. "Because this is just too crazy not to hear.”
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