Chapter Eleven
WILSON
“You can’t be serious,” I respond to Hope’s ridiculous request to join my meeting with Manny Ramirez. “You won’t be far anyway. Parked here overlooking the scene. But I can’t take you down there with me.”
Downhill from where I parked my Bentley, three black SUVs are driving through a thicket of river brambles to get to the agreed-upon destination. The Tennessee River rushes along at our side, casting the whole meeting in an eerie glow.
On our drive here, I explained the whole truth about what I’m doing in Decatur.
Before my arrival, I ran a successful weapons smuggling ring.
I bought guns from crooked military officers, who were meant to dispose of the weapons – still in decent working condition, but no longer fit for service – and shipped them across the world to whoever wanted them.
In the case of my one bad job, I hadn’t gotten M16 assault rifles as usual.
My client, Manny Ramirez, wanted AK-47s instead; at the request of a close advisor.
I worked out the advisor must’ve been Alex, who had the faulty guns waiting.
He said it himself, the test samples worked just fine, it was only the delivered products that were bad.
How stupid I’d been to trust anyone in this dangerous game.
While I explained everything, Hope never once flinched. She didn’t ask questions about my past, either, although I suspect the more time we spend together, questions will start piling up. I feel no shame telling her the truth, and I will never hide anything from her, again.
“You could use some backup down there,” Hope says. Neither of us looks at the other. We watch three carloads of armed men drive toward us.
“This isn’t happy fun-time hour. These are bad people who might still turn sour, even with a confession from Alex,” I say.
Right on cue, Alex thumps in the trunk of my Bentley. His muffled voice screams from inside. Someone let me out of here. And so on.
“I’d rather die by your side than go on without you,” Hope says, cupping my hand in hers. It fills my heart with tremendous warmth and brings a smile to my face.
Who knew she’d be the one to change me? A small-town girl with a heart and mind as cunning as my own.
“Then, let’s get this over with,” I say, walking back to the car and collecting Alex Bates.
I keep the gun pressed against his chest while we collect him from the trunk. His hands are still bound behind his back, and once he’s on his feet, we have him walk downhill.
“What’s this about?” he asks.
I don’t answer. Nor do I speak to him. Instead I kick the back of his knee, dropping him to the ground while the SUVs circle us. He chose the wrong side and doesn’t deserve the honor.
Manny Ramirez’s men get out of the vehicles first; twelve in total, from what I can tell, and each one wearing a more menacing look than the last. They come to me quickly, waving rifles in the air. They take my gun, and check both Hope and me for any other weapons.
“Wilson, what hell have you done?” Alex asks from the ground.
I ignore him.
When the coast is clear, the Big Dog gets out of his car. Though Big Dog is a far-fetched title I’m sure he gave himself.
Manny Ramirez is just shy of five-foot-eight. He’s wearing a navy-blue suit, carried well on a thin frame, with a wild bush of curly hair on top of his head. His well-manicured beard has a single stripe of light gray running just off the center of his chin.
He looks no different to a typical dad, and it still baffles me how someone like Manny Ramirez became such a powerful warlord in Cuba.
“Get him on his feet,” Manny says.
Two of his many thugs approach Alex. They grab him by the coat and hoist him high into the air, dropping him back on his feet.
“Mr. Ramirez,” Alex says. Fear bleeds through every word. Unimaginable terror as the realization of what’s about to happen dawns on him. “Whatever they’re about to tell you is bullshit.”
“Silence.” Manny waves a hand, and Alex listens. “You’re a hard man to find, Wilson Delaney. And trust me, I’ve been doing a lot of searching.”
“When you work in this business as long as I have, you pick up a thing or two,” I say. “The will to survive is strong.”
“Yet, you handed yourself to me on a silver platter? And you’ve brought another?” Manny tilts his head to Hope, but it quickly turns back to me.
“That’s because I come offering a gift.”
“Is that right?”
Manny’s men start circling us. Their guns are trained squarely on Hope, Alex, and me.
“An end to the bullshit, yes. Better still, the man who made it all happen,” I say.
“Alex?” Manny faces my ex-partner.
“Alex.”
“How do I know this isn’t just another survival tactic? Men do crazy things when they’re in life-or-death positions,” he says.
“Because I wouldn’t have brought the love of my life with me, if I wasn’t serious about it.
” Hope’s hand clutches mine. I want nothing more than to face her now and see the emotions streaming across her face, but I won’t break eye contact with Manny right now.
Not while he holds my life in his hands.
“Interesting argument, indeed,” he says. “Then please, explain what’s going on here.”
I do. I tell Manny about what happened, and the warehouse, and what Alex’s motivation was for bringing him here. How I was meant to be used as seed capital for his own future business, and finally, how he betrayed the warlord by handing him a batch of broken guns.
“Wait, no, that’s not what this is,” Alex spits. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Mr. Ramirez. I brought you here to—”
“Silence,” Manny says for a second time. He tucks his hand into his coat pocket, and draws a Glock out of it. He points it at Alex’s head and squeezes the trigger.
Alex drops to the ground. Hope jumps at my side, but she doesn’t make a sound.
Manny hands the gun to one of his men. The same two who lifted Alex off the ground approach his body and drag it off towards one of their vans.
“You know, Wilson, I was deeply hurt by your actions. Both emotionally, and very much physically,” he chuckles. The sweetest goddammed chuckle I’ve ever heard. I still don’t feel out of the woods, but this is progress.
“To have you betray me after working together for so long was a great travesty. It came to mind, a handful of times, that things weren’t what they seemed, but I had to act, you understand?”
“I do, Mr. Ramirez,” I say.
“If I’d shown any weakness at the hands of a weapon dealer, I’d never be taken seriously back home. I’d be a laughing stock,” he says. A rush of nerves claws at my chest. I still don’t know how this is actually going.
Noticing my shifting mental status, Hope squeezes my hand. It brings mild relief.
“It’s good to know that you’re still on my side, Wilson. That is to say… you are still on my side?” Manny takes a step back to lean his ass against the car he came in.
“Of course,” I say.
“I’ve got a few more loose ends to deal with…” Mostly the crew who followed Alex into this bullshit scheme of his. “But I’ll be operational again within a month.”
“Wonderful news.” Manny tucks his hand back into his pocket and, for some reason, I suspect he’s going to draw another pistol and shoot us.
He doesn’t. He brings a fat cigar out from his jacket pocket, shoves the end into his mouth, and lights up.
“Because I’m going to need guns. A whole lot of them.
My time in America has been fine, but I have to go home. I miss my people.”
“It’ll be my first priority when I’m operational again,” I say. “Might I recommend we stick to the classics? I’ve got a penchant for the M16.”
A wheezy chuckle escapes him.
“You know best, Dog of War.” He presses himself off the car and opens the door.
We share nothing more, and then Manny Ramirez and his men get into their cars and drive off.
For the first time in weeks, I can finally breathe.
“That went well,” Hope says when the coast is clear and the cars disappear back the way they came.
Well? We just dodged a bullet. Literally. The fact that we’re still alive is a miracle. Men like Manny Ramirez have a way of flying off the handle, even if you’re the good guy in the situation.
I don’t scare her with that news.
I turn towards her and wrap my arms around her waist. With a hard tug, I bring her in for a deep kiss. Her hands thread through my hair, tugging at the strands.
It’s me and her against the world, and I’ve never been happier.