Chapter 21 - Santos
SANTOS
The flight was a direct one, but it was always tedious traveling from coast to coast. Cove City was basically another planet compared to the Ocean Valley culture I had known my entire life. As I stepped off that airplane and felt the sun on my skin, I was reminded I was home.
I made my way out of the gate and Guillermo was waiting for me with a grin plastered to his face, three tatted dudes flanked him as I approached.
The smile was as fake as he was. We both knew he was just waiting for me to fuck up in some way so he could either put a bullet in my chest, or a leash around my neck.
“Primo!” he opened his arms wide and took me into a half hug from the side, never actually stopping as we walked towards the exit.
“You’re bald now?” Guillermo was a good seven years older than me, but he wasn’t old enough to be losing hair yet.
He was a few inches shorter than me but built bigger, stockier. It had probably been six months since I’d last seen him. He called me down to torture some rival street gang soldiers they needed to get some information from.
“The ladies love it, man,” he said, running his hand over the shiny globe, then pulling out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offering me one. I gladly accepted it after that flight. He lit his, then mine, taking a deep drag before looking back at me to ask, “Should we eat? Let’s eat.”
His Lamborghini Urus was obnoxiously parked on the sidewalk, miles away from any airport parking.
He didn’t bat an eye to the airport security scowling at him, but he did throw him a small wad of cash before getting into the car.
The drive to the restaurant didn’t take nearly as long as I expected for a Saturday in Ocean Valley, but Guillermo also drove like an absolutely fucking maniac, and that helped too.
“I’ve got a few jobs for you this time,” he said as the waitress placed the breadsticks in front of us.
I reached for one, it was still warm, and the buttery flavor rolled over my tongue as I took a bite of the delicious garlicky bread.
I arched my eyebrow as I waited for him to give me all of the information I would need to get this weekend over with as fast as possible.
This was the first time that being back in Ocean Valley didn’t feel like being home, and a part of me had to wonder if it had to do with the morena that was waiting for me in Cove city.
“Take care of this first one for me, do it clean and fast. Get a drink, get your cock sucked, relax a little, and then go eat at my mamá’s house…
if you can do the job fast enough, dinner might even still be warm by the time you get there.
” He slid a facedown polaroid towards me and sneered at the plate of pasta the waitress put down in front of him.
“I’ll have one or two more for you tomorrow before you go back to Cove City,” he said, stabbing at his food without looking up.
“If I’m finishing up early, I probably won’t stay an extra night then,” I warned him, and his eyes shifted down from his plate of pasta to me. “I have a situation I’m in the middle of dealing with,” I explained to him, hoping it wouldn’t become an issue.
“I always crave the idea of pasta, but then when I get the real thing upfront and personal, it just doesn’t hit the same. You know what I mean ’Cuz?” he said, ignoring me and taking a bite out of his Italian food almost begrudgingly.
But I didn’t understand, because if I had my pasta, I would devour it entirely. I would eat it like a starving animal who had nothing else on this earth to consume. The pasta was a terrible fucking metaphor of course, for the one thing I couldn’t have.
No woman had ever made me feel something.
No woman could make me laugh or share ideas and thoughts with me.
There had never been anyone I could let my walls down and open up to, no one I could just be myself with.
Except for her. But she was never mine, and she never would be, and just the idea of speaking these heavy feelings out loud could risk burning down everything my brothers and I had worked to build.
It only took an hour to find the asshole Guillermo wanted dead.
Just a ten-minute call back to the Black Crow’s tech team and they had the guy’s entire family tree and his last three known addresses for me.
It took exactly fourteen minutes to kill him, so to say I was making good time would be an understatement.
Triple points for not even having to use a weapon.
The guy was passed out drunk in a recliner watching daytime reruns and I snapped his neck clean before he could wake up. I don’t know why Guillermo wanted him dead, and honestly, I didn’t want to know.
I wrote my own stories in my head about the people he sent me after, it was the only way I could sleep at night.
When I slept. This guy particularly was a child molester, scum of the earth.
That’s what I’d tell myself so I could get through it.
That, and maybe if I did it, my little brothers and sisters wouldn’t have to.
Maybe someday the Black Crows would have enough manpower and firepower behind us that Guillermo would just agree to let me go without bloodshed. That dream was a far cry from reality and I couldn’t live on the hope of that alone.
I didn’t know what the worst was anymore…
the killing, or the melting-their-bodies-in-their-own-bathtubs-with-acid part.
Either way I was starting to get pretty desensitized to it all.
I didn’t even remember finishing but before I knew it, I was outside and climbing into a town car with a partition.
Guillermo sat across from me, legs spread wide against the seat.
He signaled the driver to roll up the partition with a motion of his hand and it was done in a matter of seconds. I crossed my right ankle over my left knee.
“You get faster every time, primo!” he said laughing.
“I know you think badly of me for keeping you around ‘Cuz, but you’re wasting your talents out there! You’re a cold-blooded killer.
Look how you shine when someone puts a target in front of you.
” His words forced me to shift uncomfortably with the weight of my sins pressing up against me.
I looked out of the window instead of responding so he continued.
“You belong here with me, with your family. You’ll see that soon and I’ll be here to welcome you back with open arms.” he winked at me. “You’re a soldier, not a leader.” He said condescendingly and I just smiled at him and nodded. It was pointless to argue unless I was ready to start a war.
“What’s for dinner?” I changed the subject.
“Ahh, you know my mamá; everything.” We both laughed and just like that we were telling old stories and joking about the family like we were kids again.
I could handle being Guillermo’s cousin, I loved my family. What I couldn’t handle was being his soldier, his weapon, the family business.
After I showered and spent an hour convincing my cousin that I didn’t need him to send up one of his many willing whores to come fuck me, we headed out of his Hollywood home.
I didn’t want some bitch who was being paid to give me attention, I wanted the dark haired girl who looked at me like I was a big gulp of air under the sea. I didn’t want fake, cold, uncaring eyes. I preferred my hand to the charade any whore could fake.
Fuck!
I needed to get home, now.
It was driving me insane that I couldn’t pull my phone out to text her or call her and hear that my brothers were treating her okay. I grabbed my phone and debated checking the feeds. Who the fuck knew where she would be right now?
Would she still be in Ronan’s room?
Would she be in Kane’s?
Was she in the kennels again?
There was a part of me that wanted to believe she’d be in my room, waiting for me when I came home. I practically laughed out loud at my own insane thoughts. Why the hell would she be in my room?
There was a better chance she’d be locked in that box again when I got back.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket and we pulled into my aunt Rosalinda’s house. She refused to let Guillermo buy her a nicer, bigger house no matter how rich he got. She didn’t want blood, or drug money and there was no way he would ever convince her otherwise.
Walking in and I was greeted by a rush of the next generation of ninos running by, screaming at each other and I smiled remembering the days when that was me. How something could feel so close yet so far away.
Time ruined us.
And soon Guillermo would destroy them.
“Ay Santito! You are all man now, mijo.” my aunt declared, which was insane because she had seen me in the last six months, and I was a thirty-three-year-old who hadn’t grown in years.
I didn’t argue though, I just let her fawn over me and returned her affectionate manhandling with pleasant smiles.
I was relieved to hear that my dad had been running a fever and my mom stayed home to take care of him, but I had a pretty good hunch it was just an excuse to avoid coming face to face with me again.
It had been at least fifteen years since I’d last spoken to my mom.
And to be completely honest that was more than okay with me.
They’d written me off just as long ago for not falling in under Guillermo and giving them the cushy life they thought I owed them.
They considered my tía stupid for denying Guillermo's money, and they thought the same of me for refusing the 'work'.
Dinner was tolerable, to say the least, and Guillermo tried his best to force his mom to let me stay at his house, but she was having none of it as we had all expected.
I was grateful because I was too tired to listen to Guillermo and his backhanded compliments while he tried to convince me to abandon my brothers.
Tía Rosa made up the guest room for me and I thanked her for her hospitality. I made my way to the bed kicking off my shoes and pants, ready to crash for the night. When I dropped my head to the pillow, I realized my phone was still in my pants, but I was too tired to care.
Murder was a tiring business.
Playing nice with family was twice as exhausting.
Just one more day and I would be back home, where I needed to be.
Morning came and I met up with Guillermo for breakfast and my next two hits.
They were both easy.
Easy to kill and easy to dispose of.
I didn’t mind whacking either of them, they both reeked of the scum of the earth. You know when you get that feeling in your gut that the throat you slit was for the good of the world?
No?
Well I do.
The first guy was jerking off to some sick shit when I snuck into his house.
I didn’t even give him the courtesy of letting him finish before I slit his throat.
Didn’t bother melting him either. When the cops would find him, bloody with his dick out and child porn on his computer, they would toss that case out as fast as they could.
The second guy had a giant bag of Gamma Hydroxybutyrate just laying out in the open on his kitchen counter. I didn’t personally know a lot of good guys who kept a personal stash of GHB who weren’t rapists, so I was happy to off him just the same.
By the time lunch came around I was already mentally ready to go home. I had already booked my flight for the next one taking off in two hours, but Guillermo still wanted to go over some things and food didn’t sound too bad either.
He slid an upside-down polaroid at me across the restaurant table and I arched an eyebrow at him. I was good, but I wasn’t -two hours till my flight- good.I was tired and I was ready to relax.
“Listen ’Cuz I hate to turn you down, but I’m beat and there isn’t enough time for me to get another one in before I leave.”
He chuckled at me before he said, “I don’t think you’ll find this one here anyways. It’s actually a gift for your friend. Tell Ronan Zerkos it took some time, and with the right motivation I was able to get a general location, but that’s it.” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about at all.
I reached for the photo, but he slammed his hand on top of mine, stopping me from turning it over.
“I’ll want something for this, tell him he owes me. And I will collect.” I narrowed my eyes at him, knowing exactly what he meant when he said he would collect.
Me.
I was the payment.
I fought my upper lip from curling up in anger, not wanting to let him see how he could get to me.
He didn’t fool me either. He said it was a gift to Ronan, but he wouldn’t be the one asking me to pull the trigger if it didn’t benefit him in some way or another either.
This was Guillermo’s target too.
I wasn’t a fool.
I contained my anger, but was barely able to disguise my shock, the color draining out of my face as I flipped the photo over.