Chapter 84 Celia
CELIA
Ibrushed my hand over the black Armani two-piece suit I paired with red bottomed overpriced heels. I couldn’t deny how much better expensive clothes felt than my normal jeans and T-shirt attire. “Finally… you show your face,” Ignacio groaned from his restraints.
He didn’t look nearly as bad as he seemed to be last night, which made me wonder if I should have just killed him instead.
“It was a big night. Had to move into a new house and everything. Who knew the villa could burn down twice?” I mused casually.
“You won’t get anything out of me,” he spat out.
“Who says I want anything from you? Maybe I’m just going to make you my plaything until your body gives out from the pain. You’re a bit expired viejo, I don’t think you can take much these days.” I walked by the metal table, running my fingers over all the surgical steel tools and torture devices.
“You should have come to me Celia, we could have done this together.”
“Together? You mean after you killed my mamá, I should have come to you for help?” I laughed. “That’s rich.”
“I didn’t kill Jamila.” He pulled against his restraints angrily.
“That’s not even a worthwhile lie. Jamila hated me. If you expected her death to devastate me, you were hurting the wrong sister.”
“I didn’t kill Jamila!” he screamed again. “Your hermana lost her shit and went out there after I left her with Guillermo. I would have never hurt Jamila on purpose,” he gritted out.
I lifted an eyebrow.
Curious.
Maybe I did want something from him.
“Tío. Do you have more secrets for me now?” I tilted my head, pulling up a chair and sitting down casually as I waited.
There was no gossip better than family dirt, it was a Latin American right of passage, after all. If you came from Indigenous ancestors, we were well accustomed to passing stories down as history.
There was always time for gossip.
“I should have been the one to marry her. She was mine. We had been together for years when Augustin Ortíz killed his own son and then forced her to marry my brother in an attempt to keep his hand in the business.”
“And my mamá just went eagerly? The obedient little pawn she was?” I asked, unsure if I should even bother believing the words coming from his mouth.
“Your mother was as ruthless as you are. You think you’re a killer because you’re a Flores?
Nah Celia, that’s the Ortíz blood running through your veins.
She orchestrated the whole thing, killed your abuelo execution style in front of your papá’s men and told them they followed Rafa now.
Made a big show of that ledger full of bought secrets too before she made it disappear from the face of the planet. ”
“Seems like she wasn’t right for a cobarde hijo de la chingada like you then. You make it sound like she was perfect for my papá.”
“She was. Then he put her fire out, kept her in the background, away from any decisions until she settled for the realization that she’d lost the very thing she’d dirtied her hands for. I would have stoked her flames. We would have controlled this country together.” His upper lip twitched angrily.
“But instead, you let my psychotic revenge fueled sister kill her instead. For what? To send a message to me?”
“I told you; I didn’t have a hand in it.
Your sister is a loose fucking cannon. She makes bad calls up and down, she aligns herself with our enemies because she thinks she’ll gain the upper hand.
She’s robbed me blind and used that money to pay my men to do Bratva bitch work. ” He spat onto the floor.
“So she is getting in with Sokolov?” I asked and his eyes hardened, as if he remembered this wasn’t family social time and needed to stick to his promise not tell me anything.
I sighed, grabbing pliers and a rubber block about an inch in size off the table Mateo had left prepped for me. I stepped one foot directly in front of the other until I found myself across from him.
“Abre la boca or I’ll pry it open with a hot knife,” I promised. He didn’t dare to disobey, opening without hesitation just wide enough so that I could stick the rubber block inside his mouth.
I pinched the plyers shut around his back molar, putting one high heeled Louboutin on the wall for leverage.
It wasn’t as easy to pry a man’s tooth out without the adrenaline of survival running through your veins.
But he didn’t deserve easy, and I relished every pained grunt out of his chest until the tooth finally came loose.
His screams echoed through the dungeon walls.
“I asked if she was getting in with Sokolov.” I pulled the rubber block out of his mouth.
“Getting in? She’s nice and cozy in their family tree now. She’s made arrangements to marry his eldest son.” He spat out a wad of blood onto the ground.
“Since when?” I asked, trying to figure out how long my sister may have been responsible for my misfortunes.
“A year now?”
“But she was with Guillermo álvarez,” I said, knowing that what I’d seen between them in that basement was much more than something casual.
“Clever zorra that one. Smart enough to understand just exactly how to use her pussy to get far in this world. She kept Guillermo in line for me, made sure he didn’t get too big for his own britches. I guess your papá didn’t teach you every lesson you needed.”
“Except now it looks like she’s the big fish in your pond and she’s about to swallow you up tío.” I clucked my tongue, “all this blood and war just to hand México over to the Russians?”
He growled with disapproval but we both knew I was right.
Carolina was a garbage truck full of hot trash waiting to unload.
But she was my fucking sister.
Even if she was a pendeja.
“We can stop her together,” he labored out.
“I can stop her myself,” I told him, shoving the block back inside his mouth, pulling another molar out with a bit more ease this time.
I didn’t give him time to mourn his tooth before jamming the pliers back and finding the next addition to my collection.
One by one I pulled out his remaining teeth, all aside from the few bits and pieces that were barely hanging on in the front from my previous assault.
I was sweating, my hands aching and sore by the time I finished.
His head hung from his neck, blood dripping from his open mouth as he moaned and shivered from the pain.
“I gave your papá the gift of an easy death.” he mumbled with difficulty.
“I am not my papá. I am the woman both of you helped to create, and you will feel the full force of my wrath. I will give you the death you deserve. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Where are you going?” he shouted at me as I turned to leave.
“To beat some sense into my sister.”
He laughed like it was an outrageous thought.
“That’s not how this ends, sobrina. It ends in blood. It always does.”
“I’m better than you. I decide how this ends,” I said, turning on my heels.
“You can’t leave me here like this Celia,” he moaned, and I laughed darkly.
“Tío, that’s exactly what I’ll be doing. And I’ll keep you alive, and I’ll come down here and inflict pain on you whenever you cross my mind, until the day I die. Unless you bore me, then maybe I could be persuaded to forget to feed you and put an end to your misery.”
He groaned, yanking at his chains and making a loud racket.
I ignored him, placing the pliers back on the table and leaving the torture chamber, striding past each cell until I entered the control center of the dungeons. I gave a smirk and a nod to Taylor Constance and she returned me a beaming smile.
“How are you settling in?” I asked her.
“Well, you pay better than Ronan and considering, regardless of location, I end up between four walls with a computer for a window, I’m finding myself right at home.” She laughed.
“Something about having you watching over us makes me feel warm and safe inside,” I told her.
“Well, good thing I’m always watching then,” she said, raising her eyebrows up suggestively, making me laugh.
“Let me know if you need anything, seriously. I’m grateful you’re here. I’m grateful for all that you’ve done,” I told her, implying that I had been made aware that if it weren’t for her, Ronan would be dead right now.
“Even death can’t separate me from those fuckers, Celia. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.” She smiled, assuring me I had no debt to her because her loyalty was to my men.
Which was more than fine with me because their loyalty belonged to me.
“I consider it a privilege, so let me know if I can help you make yourself comfortable here.”
“Just point me to a sexy woman who likes cars and I think I’ll be just fine around these parts.”
“I’ll keep my eyes out,” I told her, taking that as my cue to stop bothering her and let her continue her work.
She was already tracking down Sokolov for me, but now she was trying to find Carolina too.
She really was the best at what she did, and I was thankful every day to have her on my side.
My heels clicked over the smooth concrete floor, and I sent a text to Mateo to let him know I’d be heading home from the dungeons.
“You’re lighting a candle before we leave?” he asked as I held the match over the wick on the seven-day candle encased in glass.
“Yes, mi vida,” I told him, pouring a fresh shot for La Madrina and dropping an unlit cigarette on her altar.
“What if it burns the house down?” The look on Mateo’s face was so innocent and cute it made me smile.
“I promise you it won’t.” I grabbed my packed bag off the bed, but he ripped it from my hand to carry it himself.
“It could happen,” he mumbled.
“She wouldn’t do that to me.” I assured him, knowing Santa Muerte took care of her children.
“Zerkos said the jet is loaded.” His tone switched into business mode like it did anytime we talked about cártel related things.
It worked. All of us, doing this together.
It somehow made sense, we were moving like a well-oiled machine, and I depended on my guys with my life.
On top of that, I’d found myself a solid council who I trusted to call out my bullshit, respectfully of course.
I was only so tolerable. I was counting all my blessings and I knew they would only keep coming if I let Death loose so she could play.
When you were exposed to darkness so young, it just became something you had to embrace inside yourself. I knew now the only way to not hate myself was to love even the worst parts of myself.
After all, they were the parts that had kept me alive all this time.