25. Parker #2
“I must say, I was surprised to hear from you this morning.” He glanced at the men then back at us.
“Why don’t you boys hang out in the back while we go into my office?
” He motioned for our men to go through the backdoor, where he had a sweet backyard set up.
It was very domestic of him, though we’d never tease him about it.
They agreed and filed out in record time. No one mentioned they wouldn’t be relaxing and shooting the shit back there. They’d travel around to the front and patrol the alley. Some would spread out a little farther.
Doc led the way into his clinic and his office at the back of the hallway. Where the clinic was anything you’d expect of a doctor’s office—white, pristine walls and furniture soaked in strong disinfectant smells—his office was warm oak and plants on every available surface.
Amazing how he kept them all thriving on two small windows of natural light.
“So, now that we’re in a trusted, sound-proof room, care to explain what you boys have been up to?”
Only Doc would have the guts to refer to us as boys. A hint of a smile slipped out as I looked to Andre. I should be the one to lay this out, but Andre was a bitch sometimes about his perceived role in our brotherhood.
He didn’t say anything, so I jumped in.
“Vicente has to go.” I started off strong.
Doc snorted. “This has nothing to do with him stealing Grey’s lover? Don’t get me wrong, I want to see Vicente go up in flames for the hell he’s rained down on my family, but why now? Why are you boys suddenly fired up to take care of it?”
“It’s no secret we’re not on Vicente’s good side anymore,” I continued as Grey pulled out one of his knives and started cleaning under his nails.
It wasn’t an intimidation tactic. He used his glare and fists for that when he bothered to intimidate anyone at all.
Although since we were kids, he preferred not to give warnings and just knock someone out.
No, Grey was just bored. “We’ve been working on this for a long time.
A long fucking time. This is just the opportunity we need to start putting plans in motion. ”
“Care to share these plans?” Doc skewered me with a sharp gaze as he leaned back on his desk. None of us had taken a seat as we crowded the small room.
“Nope,” I said with a pop and a grin. “That would spoil the fun.”
“Of course, we decided everything because of how much fun it would be.” Andre sent me a withering glare. It just ate him up that I found so much enjoyment in the process.
“And why reach out to me, then?”
Andre took this question. “Because you’re no more in Vicente’s pockets than we are. Of all the people we trusted to bring in, and there are less than a few, we knew you wouldn’t flip us.”
Doc glanced down and rubbed the place where his pinky used to be. For a second, I worried that I had played this wrong. Did he harbor ill will toward us for Grey following Vicente’s bidding?
Then he glanced up over the rim of his wire glasses and glared. “I’d do everything I could and then some to make sure Vicente loses everything he holds dear. Which, as we all know, isn’t people. It’s his power over his ill-gotten empire.”
Grey gave him a devil’s grin, and we all shared in the delight of being able to trust someone outside of our circle.
“In answer to your earlier question, Doc. Vicente taking Little Love was just the catalyst. We’ve been waiting for this for years.
” I didn’t mention this was my plan until recently.
He was in the trust circle, but that didn’t mean he needed the intimate details.
As far as any outsider was concerned, we were always on the same page.
“Where am I supposed to take you?” Doc was back to his normal jolly self.
“We need a lift into the upper balcony overlooking the festival,” I said lightly.
Today was the anniversary celebration of Vicente’s decades-long reign.
He’d be presiding over the parade and festivities from his own personal balcony, but several lined the streets for his top men.
While Doc wasn’t exactly welcome in that group of jackals, he was awarded a prime viewing spot as Vicente’s head doctor.
“That’s it?” Doc sounded like he questioned our intelligence.
“The plans are already in motion. We’re just here to ensure everything goes smoothly,” I inserted with confidence.
Doc lost his humor and even his support as he stared each of us down. “Don’t play this for fools. Arrogant men die young.”
“Then Vicente should have died long ago, no?” I asked.
He bah’d and shook his head. “ Most arrogant men. Don’t place yourself in danger because you’re brats who have no understanding of Vicente’s reach.”
“We understand the dangers just fine,” Andre argued. Like clockwork, his hackles rose anytime someone hinted he wasn’t as good or worthy of Vicente. “He has no idea we’re coming today. This will be a quick in and out, just to make sure everything runs the way we need it to.”
Nodding slowly, Doc pushed away from the desk. “Okay, boys. I’ll offer whatever help I can. It won’t be an issue getting you in. Don’t fuck this up.”
* * *
The full, rich notes of street music drifted up to the half-covered balcony.
I leaned over the banister like any regular party goer getting a look at the half-dressed dancers down below.
Doc’s balcony was just out of sight of Vicente’s, yet we had a view of almost all the other headmen in the Institution. Perfect.
Today was about pomp and ceremony, exhibiting big feather fans on the dancers, masks on the attendees, and loud, boisterous music to rival Bourbon street.
With Andre, Grey, and I all sporting fitted, half-face black masks that covered our hair too, I wasn’t too concerned about being recognized.
Most of the balconies were well into the liquor anyway.
Oh, look. There was Gregor, the crusty-ass bastard from my childhood. He yelled at a dancer below to show him her tits as he fell into the banister and sloshed his drink onto the people below.
Everyone here loved Vicente and the Institution, so they cheered with the spray instead of responding with vitriol. Like it was some fucking gift from heaven to be treated like dirt by these assholes.
Andre checked his watch while Grey sprawled out in one of the chairs in the shade. “Shouldn’t something have happened by now?”
I shook my head. You could never plan an exact timeline for this type of thing. The exposing of secrets among Vicente’s most devoted henchmen? That took guts, and the rewards were hefty enough to be worth the risk.
Still.
“Be patient.”
Jorge cleared his throat, and I glanced at him. Three of our men were on the balcony with us, and two were on the roof. Not optimal for security, but it worked in the chaos. If something went awry, we’d go to the roof to make our escape.
“Yes, Jorge?”
“Sir, I don’t see any of our men .” He emphasized men in a way that meant the players, not our guards.
I searched the balconies. Andre and Grey both joined me, pushing Jorge out of the way.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
“These men, they were supposed to be here by now,” Grey said under his breath, gripping the banister's hot metal.
“How likely is it that every one of the men with a part to play is missing?” Andre asked in a hushed whisper as he pulled out his phone.
Some of these men were his. Getting contacts on the inside was tough enough as it was.
To find men willing to play our game for us? Fucking impossible, yet we’d found two.
Added in with my two, we have four men ready to start fights in front of Vicente and lay all the shit bare of Vicente’s five top men—the men who ran his security, travel, and finances.
A crippling blow to allow us time to strike again while he was scrambling.
Horns blared over the speakers like sirens as the music and dancing came to a halt.
“Oh shit, I don’t have a good feeling about this,” I muttered.
“Neither do I.” Andre took a step back. “We should leave.” Yet none of us moved.
Down below, a float rounded the corner straight from the mansion, and on the front were seven spikes. All with heads stabbed on top. Their mouths were gaping, as their sweaty hair stuck to their foreheads. Blood ran down the wood like they’d been recently killed and dismembered.
“Those are our four men,” Andre whispered, shooting me a troubled glare.
I flared my nostrils. Those were our collective four and three of the five men who were to be exposed.
The float had a covered box conveniently uncovered to reveal Vicente sitting on a golden throne with an elaborate, cheesy crown on his head. He held his head high in a regal show for the crowd. His golden brown skin glowed as if he’d rubbed himself down in oil.
A woman kneeling at his feet stood up and handed him a microphone as the float stopped right in the midst of the balconies.
Fucking hell. If we could have seen his balcony, we would have known something was wrong when he wasn’t there.
“My loyal friends, today is a glorious day. Not only is this the anniversary of the Institution, but this is also the day I’ve uncovered a scheme to try and tear me down.” The crowd gasped. “I know, I know.” He moved his hand downward to settle the crowd's growing unrest.
“Fuck,” Grey muttered, glancing at the balconies.
“And by my most entrusted enforcers no less. The heads you see before you are the heads of traitors. They were the footmen who did my enforcers’ dirty work.
Thanks to my many trusted advisors who saw straight through their plot, I remain with you today as the leader of the Castillo Institution!
” He threw a head up and the crowd went absolutely fucking insane.
“That’s not what was supposed to happen,” Jorge whispered beside me. “He’s making it all sound like you four had an assassination attempt out on him.”
I heard the words somehow over the racket of my pulse inside my ears.
All of my hard work was gone in a matter of hours.
This was a plan I was sure would gain us the upper hand.
It was simple. Publicly spill their secrets and deprive Vicente of key players in his circle.
It wouldn’t have won the war, but it would have caused a resounding blow. I had felt it in my bones.
“We’d happily see him dead, and he knows it,” I responded. I wasn’t even sure how I was able to string words together as I stared at the heads of the men who laid it all on the line for a shot to get their own revenge on Vicente.
Christian, the first man on the spike, lost his mother to Vicente’s gallery when he ‘discovered’ her.
The second, Regan, was whipped at the post four months ago for disagreeing with one of Vicente’s favorites.
Then there were Andre’s two men. The first, Jose, was bullied so severely by Vicente’s in-house generals that he almost committed suicide twice before deciding to get revenge.
Lastly, George, a man from the US who was abandoned on the island when he was a teenager.
Vicente could have sent him home. But he put him to work, made him a slave to the Institution, until Vicente thought he was brainwashed enough to climb the ranks.
All that motivation wasted.
“Now,” Vicente said as he stood, sticking one hand in his linen shorts.
“The enforcers are here today. I know that because I caught another rat among us.” He motioned a hand, and a beaten and bloody Doc was carried out between two men.
He was still full of fight as he twisted and kicked at his handlers.
Grey groaned, covering his face.
“I’m going to ride in the parade through every street of the island so we can celebrate together the end of these pitiful, disgusting lives.
For whoever brings me Andre Medina, Lafe Nilsen, Grey Morozov, or Parker Adair will be granted a small fortune and the esteem of my council.
Alive…or dead.” I could just make out the swell of his cheek from his sadistic fucking grin.
The people pushed toward the float as they yelled, screamed, and reached for the chance to touch his feet.
He ignored their growing blood lust. “Let the party continue!”
“We have to get out of here.” Jorge gulped and started calling the other two men.
“He doesn’t know everything, so that’s at least one benefit in our favor,” I said. “Let’s head to the roof. We can call for a chopper and get out of here.”
“He’s got Doc. He knows where we are, even if he didn’t tell the crowd.” Andre glanced at me with such bleak defeat I wanted to shove him over the balcony.
I grabbed his shirt and gave him a shake. “Snap the fuck out of it. You can wallow in your own misery when we’re back at the compound. Not yet.” I shoved him inside, where the men were already waiting for us. “Not yet.”
We took the steps up to the roof two at a time and busted through the door. There waiting was a shiny chopper with the blades already starting to spin.
The man running around checking the outside waved for us to hurry the fuck up.
“Do we trust this escape?” Jorge asked, glancing around. With every second, people were filing out onto the rooftops, pointing and jeering at us. They’d made us. It was a matter of minutes before they shot at us or found a way to hop over.
“We don’t necessarily have a choice.” I drew my gun from under my shirt and ran toward the chopper. They seemed to be here for us, but that was more suspicious than if we had hijacked a ride.
Grey was the first to dive in. Then Andre and I brought up the rear. Our men followed as we pushed up from the floor. In the pilot's seat was Matías, coldly staring back at us like we were wastes of space.
Fucking Matías, of all the people who could have rescued us.
What a joke.