Becoming the Czar

by Olivia Gaines

  “I will be humiliated! You will lose your seat at the table!”

  “The idea of spending a lifetime with you troubles me to the point that I will sacrifice my seat at the table to be rid of you,” he said. “I have been very respectful of our betrothal and your virtue is intact. Your father will find you another husband. It just won’t and can’t be me.”

  “You wouldn’t dare! This will shift the power of the cartel. Voting is in less than two weeks, and this may mean your father will no longer be Czar of the Americas. The power dynamic of four Delgados at the helm will be no more,” Irena said.

  He leaned back in the seat. He closed his eyes, imagining a simpler life hanging out at the little home in Costa Rica with the outdoor tub. The home in Aruba he had built was complete, and he could spend winters there. No snake milking, no cocaine sifting, no coffee sampling, or smelling the stink of the droppings of herds of cattle, and more than anything, he didn’t need to be trussed up like a Ken doll to parade in front of dignitaries.

  “You’re just like your fucking father! Always thinking you know best for everybody. Well you don’t! You don’t, you son of a bitch!” Irena screamed.

  He was up and had his hand in her chest. “My mother was a God-fearing woman who loved too hard and like you was unable to make adjustments to the changes in real life. And so we are very clear, I am nothing, nothing like my father. I’m something else,” he said, shoving her a bit and taking a seat.

  Yuñior called Zeta from the plane. He spoke rapidly in Spanish, issuing orders. The call ended, and he made another to his father. Again, he spoke rapidly in a version of Spanish that Irena didn’t know.

  “What language are you speaking?” Millicent asked. “It sounds like Spanish, but it’s not.”

  “The indigenous Indians of Colombia have their own version of the language, which mostly only natives speak,” Yuñior said, looking at Irena. “We use it when we don’t want what we’ve said to be understood by those around us.”

  Irena had begun to cry. “You’re cruel, Yuñior Delgado. You’re a cruel man.”

  “No Irena, cruel would be to get married knowing how I feel about you. I had hoped that over time my heart would change and I would develop a fondness for you, but I can barely stand to be in your company longer than four hours. It’s not fair to you. Again, your father will find you a new match,” he said, turning to the Johnsons. “For all intents and purposes, Millicent the Johnson, you attempted in good faith to hold up your end of the arrangement. I shall inform the Lady of the Lands about what has transpired, and the funds are yours to keep.”

  “Oh, okay,” Millicent said. “I was keeping it anyway, but that’s good to know.”

  “Brody the Johnson, I know you’ve always wanted to travel to Dubai, and my apologies for the inconvenience of this. Zeta, my assistant, has booked you two on another flight, which leaves tonight. All the accommodations have been changed to your names, and I have paid for your stay.”

  “Wow! Really, Ed?’ Brody said.

  “I see no need for us all to suffer,” he spoke softly.

  Irena’s cheeks had bloomed to a hot pink. Her foot patted the floor of the plane repeatedly as she stared at Yuñior, searching for chinks in his armor. There was only one soft spot she knew that would force him to react.

  “I could send a text right now, and she’d be dead before the plane landed,” Irena boasted.

  Millicent sat up, asking Irena to hold on. Next, she asked who she was planning to kill and why was killing necessary. Yuñior held up his hand for Millicent to be calm. She wasn’t feeling calm.

  “Sì, you could, but you would only succeed in proving my point to the cartel about why you are not fit to be the bringer of my line,” he said, “and you would start a war.”

  “How would I start a war. She’s not a member of the cartel?” Irena said.

  He sighed loudly. “You seriously do not possess the ability to use that head of yours for anything other than wearing hairstyles. The obvious is right before your eyes and you still refuse to see.”

  “Point it out to me then, Yuñior Delgado!”

  “The obvious is that she has been to Las Tierras more than once. She was invited by my grandparents to Perona de la Mar. The paramilitary man who stood guard over her while you spoke in my mother’s Garden of Remembrance is friends with her father, Irena. Diadra is protected by my ink,” he said.

  “Wait, your mother is buried there where all the bricks are with the blue flame?”

  Brody leaned back in the seat and pulled his hat over his good eye.

  “Dear Mary, Mother of Jesus, please prevent me from strangling this woman,” Yuñior said, standing up and moving to the back of the plane. He had rented the G6 instead of using his own to give them more room and space to sleep. Right now, he simply wanted to be as far away from Irena as he could get. He paused and looked back at the woman who would have been his wife.

  In his pocket was one final seed.

  All he had to do was pull it out, and drop it at her feet.

  Sighing again, he realized the silly chit would more than likely want to eat the seed, but he was at the final step. There would be no way to impact the effectiveness of the thought, but he’d laid the groundwork and tossed it at her feet.

  “Irena, maybe you missed your calling. You have such a mean streak that you would make a really great Czar,” he said, looking her in the eyes.

  “Aren’t you funny? The cartel doesn’t have women Czars,” she said, scowling at him like a child.

  Chapter Eighteen- Becoming the Czar

  Sucre, Bolivia, the Conclave of Serpents

  The word had yet to be spread that Yuñior Delgado planned to forfeit his seat on the Council. He’d only been inked for two years, and as of his twenty-first birthday, which was in three days, he needed to have the final preparations for his wedding arranged. Today he would make his announcement to the cartel that he was ending the contract and relinquishing his title.

  Eduardo Delgado wasn’t pleased in the least with his son. His brother Carlos, who also arrived for the meeting, sat behind his brother, The Czar on his left. Yuñior, Andres, and Micah sat behind him to the right. The other first-born sons and men of serpentine birth also sat behind their fathers, holding to an old social norm of marriages arranged by centuries of customs. Only one man had refused the marriage contract in the past, and Hugo Delgado’s refusal to marry the daughter of the Bolivian Cochabamba had created a stir years ago.

  This meeting, set in Bolivia, was to make a match for his younger daughter, whom he hoped to pair with Micah when the time came. The girl had just reached thirteen and begun her menses. She was discussed as the men would discuss horses, noting the timing of the match, and on her 18th birthday, she would be betrothed to Micah Delgado.

  “Micah has begun his training and is on his second paramour,” Eduardo said. “Are we ready to move on to new business?”

  “Sí, there are rumors surrounding El Encanto and La Carpa in the Amazon basin,” Rodrigo Escalante the Bolivian Cochabamba stated. “This is in your region, Fer de Lance.”

  “We have noticed the changes, but the productivity has increased, and the loss of life is down and production and shipments of goods are on the rise. The latest numbers indicate this region can be a source of wealth once the area is built up,” Eduardo advised.

  He was about to continue when a knock came at the door, a thunderous knock which put all the men on edge. The door opened, ushering in a gust a wind followed by Tonda Diaz and Tito Montoya. This was a most unusual occurrence: an interruption by a non-inked member. Eduardo’s eyes went to Tonda, who spoke with authority.

  “I’m here to lay claim to my father’s ink and to take my seat at the table,” Tonda announced. He wore one of the new suits Tim had purchased for him and had shaved. Yuñior was impressed with the look.

  “Fer de Lance, what is the meaning of this?” Role Bolsonaro, the Golden Lancehead of Brazil, demanded to know.

 
Tonda spoke loudly as if he were delivering his Easter speech to the congregation. “I am the first born and only recognized child of Hugo Delgado. I lay claim to his ink and his seat at the table!”

  “Is this true?” the men whispered about the table.

  “Can his claim be verified?” another asked.

  Eduardo refused to look at Tonda. “His claim is valid. Tonda was born at Las Tierras, and my brother Hugo was present at his birth. The certification of his birth has been recorded, and I raised him as my own and trained him as my guard. He knows our way,” Eduardo stated.

  “When he made this claim was it substantiated, and has he worked to earn his seat?” Rodrigo Escalante inquired.

  Yuñior rose. “I confirmed the claim. El Encanto and La Carpa were given to Tonda six months ago, and he has turned the areas around. Tonda Diaz, do you have the buy in?”

  “Sí, I do,” Tonda said, as a cart loaded with cash rolled through the door.

  Carlos Delgado, who hated the entire process, had avoided the conclaves as much as possible. Thus far in his life, he’d avoided being married since he’d recently completed law school at Stanford to learn the American way of legalities. Carlos stood. “I second his confirmation amid the buy in,” Carlos said and sat back down.

  Victorio Rentería, the Ventiminutos of México, chuckled. “Fer de Lance, this is your lucky month. You get to make a match for Micah, Tonda, and your brother Carlos all at this meeting, and your son’s wedding is on the horizon. Your hands are full.”

  Eduardo saw no humor in any of it as Enrique Villareal, now seated three seats down from him, had moved up the food chain. Once he made the announcement of Yuñior’s forfeiture, the snake could slither his slimy countenance down to the far end of the table next to the Czars of Paramaribo, Guyana, and Uruguay. Eduardo opened his mouth to speak, but Enrique cut him off.

  “Tito Montoya, why are you here? You came to claim your father’s ink as well?” he asked with a sneer on his face.

  “No, I have no need to sit at the table sipping coffee with you pussies. I came here with her,” Tito said as Irena walked in the room.

  She was dressed in black leather pants with three-inch heels and a low-cut red blouse, and her ponytail swayed in the breeze as she walked by. The murmurs through the room were loud as no woman should be present at the conclave. Enrique was enraged.

  “Irena, what is the meaning of this embarrassment?” he demanded from his first-born daughter.

  “Papa, Tito doesn’t want to claim your ink, but I do,” she announced.

  “Preposterous! Women can’t sit on the board of the cartel, and in order to claim my ink, I would have to be dead,” Enrique announced bounding to his feet, but quickly sitting back down as if he’d become lightheaded.

  “Is this true, Fer de Lance; must he be dead for me to claim his ink?” Irena asked Eduardo.

  “This is true,” Eduardo replied, swallowing hard. The excitement buzzed in the room, knowing something was going to happen, yet no one moved to prevent her next step.

  “Good to know,” Irena said, raising her arm to show a small caliber weapon.

  The men in the room gasped, but no one moved. She aimed the weapon at Enrique’s head and pulled the trigger. A collective wheeze went through the room as her father’s body slumped over the table and a spray of his blood hit Eleon Fernandez across the face. Irena walked over to her father’s collapsed form and pushed his body from the seat. It hit the floor with an oomph. “Tito, would you be so kind and drag that out of here to my mother?”

  Eduardo calmly raised his hand and asked for the weapon, which he took from Irena while Yuñior’s face remained stoic. Eleon removed a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his face. No other man in the room made any comment, well, except one.

  Andres, on the other hand, screamed, “Dayuuum! Did you see that shit? Yeah, she is crazy as hell! She just executed her father! Everybody is sitting here as if that didn’t just happen! Holy shit.”

  Andres leaned over in the seat, whispering to his brother. “You might have missed out on something there, Hermano. I heard crazy sex is the best sex, and you can’t get any crazier than that bitch!”

  “Or she could put a snake in my bed and kill me while I sleep,” Yuñior said.

  Tito removed the bloody body, and Irena pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve to wipe away her father’s blood. “I understand we are on new business. I would like to start by ripping up the marriage contract between me and Yuñior Delgado,” she told the men, pulling the contract from her black Hermes bag. She ripped it in half.

  “Do I have a second on the nullification of the contract?” she asked the room.

  Eleon Fernandez spoke up quickly, “I happily second the nullification.”

  “I record the nullification of the contract,” Micah said, looking dead ahead and not at his brother.

  “So it has been recorded, so it has been done,” Eduardo replied. “There are no known sons of Enrique Villareal that are claimed outside of Tito Montoya, who does not wish to acquire his father’s ink. The seat which you occupy is an interim seat, Señorita Villareal, until elections return in six months. You are aware you can be voted out of the seat and the next in line for succession in Paraguay would obtain the position?”

  “I am aware,” she said solemnly, “but the time has come for the men of your countries to consider the lives you are making for your daughters. We are not cattle to be bred.”

  “Duly noted. Next on the agenda?” Eduardo said as Tonda pulled up a chair and placed it next to Carlos.

  The meeting commenced, but Yuñior Delgado mentally had left the room. He was on his way to New York to pick up his wife. They would leave New York and fly to Las Vegas to obtain an American marriage license, and then jet off to Italy where they would spend a week or two sightseeing and being in love. By then it would be time for the wedding.

  His wedding to Diadra.

  He stood up. “Forgive me, gentleman, but the inmate has been set free. Enjoy the remainder of your day,” he said, giving his father a mock salute and heading out the front door. In the lobby, he ran into Tito, who sat with Enrique’s widow.

  “Señora, my deepest condolences for the loss of your spouse,” he told her. “Tito will see to you and your family’s care in the absence of your husband. Should you require anything, here is my card. Use it with discretion.”

  His eyes went to Tito. He’d at least gotten a decent haircut and shaved for the occasion. It mattered little since the man looked like a bad guy extra in a spaghetti western. All he needed was a gold tooth in the front of his mouth to complete the look of the grungy Mexican sicario.

  “You planned this, you psychopathic slimy little fucker,” Tito said. “All the talk about being the first born, knowing I wouldn’t want it and she would. You’re evil, Yuñior Delgado, and I hope all the sadness in the world attaches itself to your nut sack.”

  “Tito, your obsession with my genitals gives me a cause of concern. I worry about you,” Yuñior said, getting closer to the man, who stepped back. Yuñior held up his left hand and slowly pulled a small box from his jacket pocket. “Just to show you there are no hard feelings.”

  “You’re giving me a gift? I don’t trust you. Why in the hell would I open this box from you?” Tito said.

  “If you’re scared, give it back, and we will depart as we always have. If you’re not the coward I think you are and want to usher our new relationship into Irena’s rule, we may start here,” Yuñior said, showing no emotions on his face. Tito snatched the box from his hand and Yuńior’s face still showed no sentiment.

  “I’m keeping it. Maybe it’s an emerald of something,” Tito said, watching Yuñior walk away.

  He’d barely gotten to the vehicle when he heard Tito scream. Inside the box, along with a perfect, uncut emerald, sat a small, green eyelash viper which bit Tito on the hand. The vial of anti-venom sat cradled in the velvet casing, along with a tiny needle to inject the healing serum.


  Tito screamed after Yuñior, jumping up in down in anger and frustration. “I hate you, Yuñior Delgado! I hate your fucking guts!”

  Yuñior laughed as he sat in the back seat of the vehicle heading to the airport. “I’m the mutherfucking Bocaracá, and don’t you ever forget it!”

  BY HIS CALCULATIONS it would take nearly a day to get from Bolivia to New York. It would be equally as long to get to Las Vegas. Gunther drove him to the airport, and he took a commercial flight into the US. He sent word to Zeta that he would be unavailable for two weeks and to take messages.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Jefe?”

  “Yes, check with Marianna and have my father’s villa in Verona opened and cleaned,” he said. “I shall be there for several days. The remainder of the travel I will play by ear.”

  “Sí Jefe, enjoy the break, and happy birthday,” Zeta said.

  YUÑIOR DIDN’T CALL. He was tired and ready to fall into a bed and sleep for the rest of the week. At a quarter of seven the next day, he arrived at Diadra’s apartment door and rang the bell. She answered, surprised to see him.

  “Ed, I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, looking back into the apartment.

  “I was going to call, but it was a nineteen-hour flight,” he said, waiting for her to invite him in. A cold chill ran down his back at the idea of another man being inside the flat. He would kill the man dead before he gave up Diadra. “Am I not invited in?”

  “Of course,” she said, stepping aside. He walked into a room full of people. “Ed, you remember my friends, Jules, Tony, Margie, and Frank. You guys remember Ed.”

  Jules, the sour faced friend who had coerced Ed into singing at the karaoke bar, had to open her wide mouth and add her two cents.

  “We remember Mr. Soul and Sultry,” Jules stated. “It’s been almost a year for you two. What are your plans for my friend, Ed, the soul singer?”

  He tried not to yawn as he sat down his messenger bag. “Forgive me, but the flight from Bolivia took a lot out of me,” he replied.