Arellio fell back onto an empty chair like the wind had been knocked out of him. “But who else could it have been? Who would do that to him, Papi?” Arellio asked. He could not fathom who would commit such a heinous act on his brother, who everyone knew was harmless, soft even.
“It was somebody who knew him, Papi. Whoever it was, they followed him,” Arellio started, his voice cracking. He could not believe his poor, unsuspecting younger brother had gotten caught out there like that. The story would be all over the news. Their family would be humiliated.
DeSosa was rocking now; it was a habit he’d picked up since he’d been confined to a wheelchair. He heard his son rambling on about the possible suspects, but DeSosa wasn’t really listening. There was one possible suspect that neither of them had discussed.
“It is her,” DeSosa admitted in an almost inaudible whisper. “She came back for us, once and for all. She was here. . . . I can feel it,” he wailed, inhaling a shaky breath.
One of his men had reported that the nanny had been spotted snooping around in his office. DeSosa had waved it off. He had met the nanny and believed her to be a harmless presence in his home. But now he saw the nanny in a new light—as a skillful, crafty and dangerous individual. She had infiltrated his home under false pretenses. She’d been right under his nose the entire time, laughing at them and plotting their downfall.
“Who, Papi? What are you talking about? You’re talking crazy.... You think a woman killed Guillermo?” Arellio asked in rapid succession. In his mind there was no way a woman could have inflicted that degree of damage on his brother. “Papi . . . answer me. What are you talking about?” he pressed.
DeSosa couldn’t even look at his son. His father never hung his head for anything; he had too much pride for that. Arellio could feel his blood pressure rising with every minute that passed. He wanted to shake the answers out of his father, but he knew his emotional and physical state was already on very shaky ground.
“Papi, what did you do? What do you know?” Arellio raised his voice and placed both of his hands flat on the front of DeSosa’s desk.
DeSosa could hear his son’s labored breaths exit his flaring nostrils. He had no choice but to come clean and tell Arellio everything.
“Everybody out!” DeSosa came to life with renewed vigor. All of his men looked at him strangely. He hadn’t been left without bodyguards in years, even when he visited with his own children. “I said get the fuck out! Everybody out!” he barked again, a feral look in his eyes. “I need to speak with my son,” DeSosa whispered. His voice went high, then lowered like a wave at high tide.
His bodyguards and other workers filed out of the room.
“Sit down, Arellio,” DeSosa said gravely, nodding toward the chair.
Arellio’s chest felt heavy with dread as he sat on the chair.
“I have to tell you everything. It may mean the difference between your life and your death. I’ve already lost one son because of my sins. I don’t want to lose you as well,” DeSosa revealed. That was the closest DeSosa had ever come to saying “I love you” to his son.
DeSosa closed his eyes and started at the beginning. Confession was good for the soul, or so they said. He needed to prepare his son for what was surely to come. He needed to give him as much information about the lady assassin as he had. The more he knew, the better chance he had of coming out alive in the end.
New York, 2006
Grayson Stokes dropped the envelope on DeSosa’s lap. He was flustered that his word wasn’t enough.
“I guess I have to make you a believer, huh, DeSosa?” Stokes chuckled while he waited for DeSosa to spill out the contents.
DeSosa jutted his jaw. He didn’t care for Stokes. In fact, he hated the ground Stokes walked on. But DeSosa realized that Stokes and the CIA owned him now. It was either get down or lay down, when it came to the government spooks. DeSosa shook out the contents of the package. It only took him a few seconds to realize what he was looking at. His eyebrows shot up involuntarily at the sight. It was too late to try to put on a poker face; Stokes had already taken notice of his reaction.
“Now do you believe it?” Stokes asked, watching DeSosa’s breathing pick up speed. “I don’t have to lie to you . . . ever,” Stokes said triumphantly, smirking.
DeSosa shuffled the pictures; he studied each one separately, hoping his eyes were deceiving him. His hopes were dashed. DeSosa’s eyes bugged out when he examined a close-up photo of Easy, standing with his hands shoved into his pockets and talking to two detectives. The next shot was of Easy looking around suspiciously, like he was afraid he was being watched. All of these poses were the signs of a police informant. The sight sent a wave of stabbing cramps through DeSosa’s lower abdomen.
Maricon, cabron! DeSosa screamed in his head. He positioned his lips into a straight line and rolled his eyes. He looked up at Stokes. “I would have never believed it. He was always loyal . . . so driven,” DeSosa said disappointedly, trying very hard to keep a straight face. He didn’t want Stokes to see how betrayed he felt.
“Well, DeSosa, the old saying goes, ‘There’s no honor among thieves.’ I guess there’s no honor among drug kingpins either,” Stokes posited, chortling.
“So what now?” DeSosa asked, although he already knew the answer. He wanted to find Easy Hardaway and personally cut his balls off. He hated being deceived, especially by one of his own men. To think that Easy was trying to set him up made DeSosa’s fucking blood boil.
“I want you to have your men get his son . . . the son with all of the problems. Who is going to notice if one schizo kid acts a bit crazier?” Stokes asked matter-of-factly. He spoke as if he were asking DeSosa to pick up a loaf of bread from the store. The man was ruthless and cold-blooded, always looking to get a man in his Achilles’ heel.
“A couple of days of this stuff, and we’ll have Hardaway’s kid working for us,” Stokes stated confidently. He pushed a small metal case toward DeSosa nonchalantly, like he was offering him a drink.
DeSosa looked down at the silver case and then back up at Stokes. This bastard is crazy! His face must’ve betrayed his thoughts because Stokes started laughing.
“Open it,” Stokes urged him, smiling like a Cheshire cat. DeSosa did as he was asked. Inside were five small unlabeled bottles of liquid that resembled immunization shots. There were also five injection syringes in sealed packages. DeSosa raised one eyebrow. This was all too much.
“This is what you’ll give the boy, once you pick him up. It’s what we like to call our truth serum, mind control. Trust me, he will work like a robot for us,” Stokes explained.
DeSosa’s face was drawn into a scowl as he glared at the sick piece of shit standing before him.
“Ah, Rolando, you’re too nice. It won’t kill him. Just makes him do what we say. And Easy and his wife . . . well, with the boy’s behavior they won’t know the difference. You know the boy already has a lot of mental issues,” Stokes continued, laying out his depraved plan.
DeSosa was astonished that Stokes had already had this plan all mapped out. It sent a shudder down DeSosa’s spine. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that he was dealing with el diablo himself.
Stokes read doubt and hesitation in DeSosa’s face, so he toughened up his stance.
“Do as you are told, Rolando, and we’ll always be on the same page,” Stokes threatened vaguely. With a grave snap of his fingers, he and his men were gone.
DeSosa lost sleep over the task at hand. However, when he looked at the faces of his own sons and thought about his line of work, he decided that he had no choice. It was do or die.
DeSosa wasted no time carrying out the dastardly deed of his puppet master. His men coaxed Eric Junior off the streets as he left his session with his psychiatrist. It was much like the way DeSosa had coaxed Easy into his trap in the beginning—using his reputation and his men to ask for an exclusive meeting. Eric Junior had been excited that his father’s boss, the only man ranked hi
gher than Easy, had asked to see him.
Eric Junior had been stable on his medication for a few months when DeSosa asked to see him. Things had even been going well at home. His father had started grooming him for the business, showing him things about the streets and dropping little jewels of street knowledge on the boy. Though he still had the occasional outburst, they were on a much smaller scale than before he was diagnosed with psychosis.
When he was brought to DeSosa the first time, Eric Junior was smiling, all goofy and childlike. DeSosa took one look at the overzealous kid and didn’t have the heart to fuck with his head—not yet, anyway. So he had the boy come back a few times, and told Eric Junior to keep it between them. He made it crystal clear that if Eric Junior told Easy about their meetings, it would jeopardize Eric Junior’s chance at moving up without his father.
Eric Junior bought the story and kept the information from his father, but there was no way he could keep it from his brother. He wanted to make sure his brother knew he was no peon, and so he boasted to him one day about his meetings with DeSosa. His brother didn’t pay him any mind, thinking that his medications were causing him to hallucinate.
DeSosa thought he could work on the boy’s head, brainwash him without giving him any CIA poison, but the process was taking too long for Stokes. When Stokes found out that he wasn’t giving the boy the serum, he threatened DeSosa’s family with bodily harm. That quickly put DeSosa back on track with the plan, with little room for deviation.
Eric Junior showed up for a meeting with DeSosa, hoping to talk to the kingpin about giving him his own slice of the business. He needed to get out from under his father’s thumb and make a name for himself. As soon as he got to the front door, he was ambushed, knocked out, blindfolded and driven to a remote location.
When Eric Junior regained consciousness, he found himself on a gurney, tied down with restraints. He fought futilely against the ties. His face was etched with terror as he looked around at all of the frightening faces. He fought long and hard, but his body betrayed him and finally gave out.
The first injection of the drug had burned going in.
“Aggh! What the fuck!” he’d screamed. Eric Junior’s body had bucked and seizured.
DeSosa thought the boy looked like a lab rat on the experiment table. The boy’s eyes had bugged out of his head; his jaws started flexing involuntarily and veins all over his body were cording against his skin. Eric Junior’s eyes were glazed over; his mouth hung slack and saliva dripped down his chin. The boy looked like he was going to convulse until he was dead.
DeSosa’s men had been scared to death at his reaction to the drug. After all, it wasn’t intended to kill him. They were all a bit relieved when the boy’s body went limp.
Then the brainwashing session began. He was told his father was the enemy. He needed to kill Easy because his father was going to try to kill him, or, worse, would try to send him to live in a mental institution. He was told that the only person he could trust was Rolando DeSosa.
The boy was dropped off a block away from his home. It had taken him hours to find his way home on that first day. He’d felt so disoriented and couldn’t remember where he was going and why he was on the street.
DeSosa repeated the process five more times, as instructed by Stokes. The boy’s mind deteriorated faster than Stokes had expected. Stokes was a happy camper. He’d even paid DeSosa a rare compliment.
“Maybe I should hire you as a CIA mind control expert,” Stokes had joked.
DeSosa hadn’t cracked a smile.
After what he’d done to Easy’s son, DeSosa avoided Easy Hardaway like the plague. DeSosa also didn’t trust that Easy wasn’t trying to set him up; he was a police informant, after all.
Each time Easy asked for a meeting with DeSosa, the older man refused. Whenever Easy called, DeSosa was real short with him. Easy had always received his kilos directly from DeSosa, but suddenly there was a middleman.
DeSosa’s sketchy behavior did nothing for Easy’s already growing suspicions about DeSosa. With Rock buzzing in his ear, Easy started to see things differently. He’d been stressed beyond the norm. His home life had grown chaotic.
Eric Junior had begun acting erratically again. Easy had been trying to reel Eric Junior in, but the boy had other ideas. He wanted his own business, to do things his own way. This posed a major problem for Easy. Had he been one of Easy’s other workers, he might’ve found himself going ghost a long time ago, but this was his son.
Then there was Easy’s worker Junior, who had been giving Easy a lot of push-back and resistance lately. Junior was still mad that Easy had commissioned Rock to make Junior’s best friend disappear. The man had been a liability from day one, but it was hard to convince Junior to see it from his perspective.
The reality of Easy’s world had caught up with him—the distrust, the danger, the family matters—and he simply wanted out. He’d stacked some paper and was ready to quit the game. There were just too many dangers, too many signs to ignore. He needed to cut his losses and move on. He realized it wasn’t going to be that simple, and so he’d requested a meeting with DeSosa to tell him face-to-face that he was leaving the game once and for all.
DeSosa again refused to meet with Easy. That was all the confirmation Easy needed. Rock was right; Easy needed to get out of the game.
“Rolando . . . it’s Easy. Nah, I asked for a meeting and you refused. I’m letting you know I’m out. I’m done,” Easy had announced, his voice wavering, just like his emotions.
Rock had sat stock-still as Easy made his announcement. He realized that the decision would come with consequences. When Easy hung up the line, Rock could see the trepidation on his face. Rock was struck with a bout of chest pains. What had he done?
“Yo, Rock, something about this just doesn’t feel right, man. DeSosa was way too calm,” Easy said, falling back on his chair.
Rock was quiet as he contemplated this.
Just then, Easy’s phone rang again. He looked at the number displayed on the small screen and sighed. He pointed at the phone, signaling to Rock that the call wasn’t good.
Easy inhaled, then exhaled loudly before picking up the line.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“There is nothing you can do or say to change my mind. I’m gettin’ outta the game. I’m an old man now. I’ve grown out of all of this shit,” Easy lied. The truth was, he didn’t trust DeSosa one bit—not after all that had transpired with his wife and his son.
“C’mon, DeSosa . . . ain’t no reason to raise your voice. I should be the one pissed with you. I hear you been talkin’ to my son. He is not going to go against me,” Easy assured the man.
DeSosa stumbled over his words. He couldn’t believe Easy knew that he’d been speaking to Eric Junior.
“You can make all of the threats you want. I’m out of the game,” Easy said with finality before he disconnected the line.
That call had sealed his fate in more ways than one. Easy knew there would be consequences for his action; he just hoped he’d be able to live through them.
Arellio DeSosa was hanging on his father’s every word. He knew his father was ruthless, but using a man’s son to do his dirty work seemed beneath the DeSosa name.
“So you killed him?” Arellio asked. He knew the story of Easy Hardaway’s death and the massacre of his entire family. He never knew his father was involved in it.
DeSosa nodded. “I sent them back with the boy. Easy suffered at the hands of his own son,” DeSosa whispered.
Arellio still looked at him, confused. His father had gone over the entire long story, but still there was no mention of a girl. DeSosa could read the questions in his son’s eyes.
“There was one girl left alive. When Stokes gave us the green light, he told us the whole family was home. He lied. He knew the girl would run to Barton. He knew Barton would train her. He had altered Barton’s mind, like a robot. Stokes allowed Barton to train the girl to be an assassin so he could get
rid of me when the time came. So he could bury his secrets—the government’s secrets—with me and my entire family,” DeSosa revealed.
“So he was the one who led her right to us,” Arellio replied, like the pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together.
His father nodded his agreement. “She was here,” DeSosa announced.
Arellio’s eyebrows shot up. “The fucking nanny!” Arellio belted out, scrambling up from his chair and snatching the door open with a fury.
“Cyndi! Cyndi!” he screamed, his panicked voice echoing throughout the house.
* * *
The sun was shining down on the quiet neighborhood. The sounds of kids going off to school and fathers, with legitimate jobs, kissing their wives before heading off to work had already ceased. This was the time of day no one would be expecting anything. It was also the time of day that the DeSosas were beginning to stir, crawling awake after their previous night of criminal activities.
Candice knew all of their schedules by heart. She knew what time the eldest son went to confer with the father; what time Cyndi went to the nail salon; even what time DeSosa was given a sponge bath. But today would be different; today they would be grieving together and coming up with a strategy to avenge Guillermo’s death.
How dare someone fuck with a DeSosa, right? Candice scoffed at their bullshit family pride. How dare someone fuck with the Hardaways is more like it.
She watched and waited for the right time to strike.
Crouching down, with her back rounded, she rested her elbows on her knees; her feet were planted flat so she could steady herself. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, she thought with a smirk. Her legs were spread, and her feet were lined up with each hip, just like Uncle Rock had taught her. A sound base that can absorb gunshot recoil.
She placed her dominant eye into the space on the round scope connected to the AR-15 and closed the other eye. Things came into focus real fast. Her ears filled with the rushing sound of her own labored breaths. Huge eagle-sized butterflies banged around inside her stomach now. She felt a sickening rush of anxious energy that made her feel powerful.
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