Chapter 4
Matt
The body of Javier’s little pet moves around the city for a bit before finally coming to a stop for a while at a warehouse downtown. I quickly check the utility usage in recent days, comparing it to before Aron was taken, and find a spike of activity in the center of the building.
Bingo.
“You think he’s there, boss?”
“I’d bet money, Jules,” I say as I gear up. Guns, knives, anything I can carry.
Jules and Rico exchange a worried glance. They look like they're silently debating which one of them will give me some bad news. Given that we're mobilizing half the Syndicate right now, it's a pretty shitty time to deliver bad news.
Rico nods at Jules and points to a different pile: the surveillance photos.
“Don Matteo, don’t you think we should wait for nightfall? Emily goes in first thing in the morning every day and doesn’t come out until late. With the baby. I mean … shouldn’t we wait until she leaves? Don Tito always spared the women and children.”
Fuck. They’re right. “Fine. Nightfall it is. But everyone had better be ready and on point. I don’t want a single fuckup tonight. You hear me?”
“Yes, Don!” they say in unison, saluting with fists over their hearts.
Once we get to the warehouse, the wait for Emily to leave is agonizing. Every fiber of my being screams at me to run inside and rescue Aron.
I have my men spread out and hide around the outside of the warehouse, ducking behind stacks of crates and barrels to avoid being seen by the guards that roam the warehouse lot. I don’t give a shit what’s inside the crates; now is not the time to worry about stealing Javier’s resources.
Now is the time to get my lover back.
Positioning myself across from the main door with Jules and Rico next to me, I ready my weapons and steel myself for what’s to come.
From our research, we’ve determined that the warehouse itself, though vast, holds a limited number of guards at any given time.
Until they brought the body with the tracking tag inside, I wasn’t even certain this was the right place.
Sure, Emily arrives like clockwork every morning and leaves around the same time every night, but I had to be certain that Aron was in there.
The correlation of the power expenditure with Emily’s appearances and the fact that the body we returned to Javier ended up here added up to one thing: Aron.
I knew Javier wouldn’t be able to resist showing Aron the body. He’d want to play up my violence, show his son that I’m a monster.
Aron knows better. More importantly, Aron would understand the message.
Finally, half an hour after darkness falls, Emily appears with their daughter in tow. I crouch lower, though I doubt she can see me in the dimly lit warehouse lot. She waits patiently while a guard opens the door of the waiting limo, then places the baby in a car seat.
Why does it take so long to strap the kid into that damn thing?
Just when I think it’s almost time for us to act, a guard comes running out of the building.
He bends at the waist, panting and holding his side as he relays an inaudible message to Emily.
She stands with her arms crossed over her chest as she listens with what appears to be detached boredom.
Then, her eyes light up, and she nods enthusiastically.
The guard runs back in, and Emily turns to the baby.
My hiding spot is too far away in the lot to hear anything that’s been said, so when the warehouse door opens again to reveal Aron walking out on his own power, I’m not prepared for the sight.
Aron. Just seeing him makes my heart soar, despite the bandages on his hands, wrists, and face. Javier hurt him, or some of his men did. I make a note to punish them once he’s back safe at home with me, once he’s—
Wait.
He’s smiling at Emily.
Walking straight towards her.
Hugging her.
Kissing her.
What the fuck is going on? She deceived him, made him think she was dead, made him think their daughter was dead … Why is he kissing her?
Jules leans close. “Boss, what should we do?”
I don’t know. God help us, but I don’t know.
While I sit there, dumbfounded, unable to speak, Aron and Emily get in the limo together, and the vehicle drives off.
He left.
He chose Emily.
“Boss?”
I blink a few times as the guard goes back inside. Slowly, my shock turns to rage. My purpose for being here just drove off, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make a difference in this war Javier started.
“Kill everyone in the warehouse. I want everyone dead, and I want their heads lined up at the front gate when we leave for Javier to find in the morning. Then, when we’ve run out of victims, I want this building and all the supplies here burned to the ground.”
We came for a rescue operation, but since that plan was a disastrous failure, I’ll settle for slaughter and scorched earth.
My men and I dart from crate to crate, closing in on the warehouse.
At the door, I give Rico the signal to enter first. A few gunshots ring out, and my associates swarm in.
Much as I want to join them, I have to remember that I’m more valuable now than I used to be, less expendable.
We don’t have my dad to fall back on anymore.
Then the gunfire stops, and shocked murmuring comes from inside.
Rico steps out, white as a ghost, and motions for me to come in. “You’ve gotta see this, Don Matteo. This is definitely where they were keeping him.”
Inside the massive warehouse sits a small shipping crate with a single door. Since Rico brought me in here, I presume that all threats have been eliminated, so I holster my weapons as I follow him into the crate.
The scene inside is surreal. It’s like someone put a fifties kitchen inside the crate, though the manacled chair is out of place in the pristine environment.
Well, pristine aside from the bits of crusted blood on the shackles.
I can’t believe Javier kept his own son here. Imprisoned him, beat him, possibly tortured and brainwashed him.
Is that what happened? Did Aron finally crack under pressure?
An underling runs in carrying a gas can. While he douses the fucked-up prison, Jules pulls me to the side.
“Don Matteo, we can’t torch the supplies.”
“What? Why the fuck not?”
He points to a nearby stack of pallets, and I move in for a closer look.
It’s baby formula.
“And the crates we were hiding behind?”
“Diapers,” he answers. “Baby clothes. Toys. It’s all stuff for the kid.”
For some reason, this only serves to increase my ire.
One baby doesn’t need this much stuff. They’re depriving other, less fortunate children by hoarding this crap.
If there was one thing my father taught me, it was to respect those who worked hard for their earnings and take pity on those who had no earnings to speak of.
A quick look around the lot reveals a handful of delivery trucks parked out back.
I instruct half of my men to load the baby supplies onto the trucks and drive them to the closest women’s shelter, while the other half pour gasoline over the inside of the warehouse and any outlying sheds or buildings.
I know how much money Javier stole from the Syndicate, and I know how much of that the twins have recouped so far. He can still afford to take care of Aron’s baby without needing this surplus.
We rush to clean up any spent bullet casings and clean up any of our blood that may have gotten spread in the fighting.
A few flicks of a lighter later, and the entire place is engulfed in flames.
Javier’s twisted kitchen burns the fastest, a sign of the shoddy craftsmanship put into its design.
On our way out, we line up the dead guards’ heads as promised, and just before we drive off, I scribble a message on a discarded packing slip with a guardsman’s blood, affixing it to his forehead with his own knife.
“God calls us to trust, not stockpile.”