Chapter 19 Felix
Felix
“Or I can start sending her back to you piece by piece,” Omar Castillo said with a casual shrug. His dark eyes bored into Matteo, like he was imagining what it would be like to yank out his spine. “As a thank you for handling the police, of course,” he added, casting his gaze toward me.
Something about the way he said the words, or maybe just the look on his face, told me that he didn't mean a word of what he said. My hands curled into fists, but I kept my face as close to neutral as I possibly could.
“If you touch her, pendejo, I will gut you and show you your rotten insides,” Matteo snarled. He, apparently, couldn’t see through Omar’s ruse.
I flicked my eyes to Luis, who seemed to be in total agreement with his son. Fucking useless, both of them, I thought. “Luis, this is neutral territory. We agreed to no violence: Matteo should leave.” .”
The man dragged his eyes away from Omar Castillo to look at me. I raised my eyebrow, and he let out a huff. “Matteo, go.”
The younger man wheeled around, eyes wide. “Apá—”
“?Dale!”
Matteo stormed out of the room, and I bit back a sigh. Luis was making headway with the young man, to be sure, but he was hot headed and too quick to give in to his anger. “You really need to do something about him, Luis.”
Omar snorted. “I agree.” We looked at the man they called La Bestia: he wore a smirk that sent venom through my veins. What right did he have to smile like that? “I’m just saying,” he said, raising his hands. “With his mouth, it’s a wonder no one has put a bullet in him yet.”
La Bestia was more intuitive than I was led to believe. Luis seemed to think that he was a brute without an ounce of self-control, but the man in front of us was cool and collected. He was absorbing everything…probably to take back to his damned brother.
“He's learning,” Luis said, impatient and irritated. His refusal to see what I was seeing made him weak. “It takes time.”
I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “You're too soft on him.”
“He needs some time out of Apá’s shadow,” Omar said.
“Stay out of this,” Luis snarled at him. Mierda. This was turning into a mess. I nudged Luis as subtly as possible, trying to get him back on track. Luis took a deep breath and then said, “We can't give you our territory in the club district, and I think you know that.”
The arrogant smirk on Omar’s face didn’t fade for a second. If anything, he looked pleased with Luis’s answer. “Then you know what will happen to Lyse.”
“What else do you want?”
His smirk grew into a sneer. “I want revenge for what you did. I would love nothing more than to spray your brains all over the wall, and then do the same to your son…but I’ll settle for ruining your businesses one by one.”
Luis turned white with rage. “Your father—”
“Is dead.” Omar scoffed. “Tell me something, Luis. What sort of a man would so blindly follow the dictates of his rival? What price would possibly be high enough to sacrifice your dignity?” He looked down his nose at Luis, and instead of acting the leader that he certainly pretended to be, the man seemed to cower in his seat.
Cabrón, I thought. Luis was becoming an insufferable liability. “Have you touched Lyse?” I asked flatly.
Omar’s gaze snapped to me. “She’s alive and well,” he said. “For now.”
He wanted his words to sound like a threat, but I knew what he meant. Omar had fucked Lyse, which meant she was absolutely useless to me. If she allowed herself to be defiled by this asshole, she wasn’t worth touching.
Luis, however, was turning a sickly green. “I won’t discuss territory trades with you. Not when Angel is awake.”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t think we need to be discussing territory at all, Luis.” He was just as surprised as Omar. “Lyse isn’t polling as well as I’d like her to be,” I said.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
I looked at Omar. “I’m running for office, Senor Castillo,” I explained.
“Single men of my age do not fare well in the polls. If I want to continue to move up in my political career, I need a wife who will look good on my arm and who the people connect with. Happy wife, happy life, after all…but I miscalculated our ages. A man of my age with a woman of her age didn’t poll favorably; I fell by ten points after the announcement of our engagement. ”
I had let the notion of having a pretty little virgin all to myself overshadow my common sense. It was an oversight that I couldn’t afford.
“You had to have known that she didn’t ‘poll’ well for a while. Why bother with everything that you did to clear my name if you didn’t care about getting her back?”
I watched Omar’s face, looking for anything that might key me into what he was thinking. And there it was. That slight clenching of his jaw. He was getting worried. Good, I thought. Let him.
“Of course he cares,” Luis interrupted. “He’s known her for years.”
Omar stared at me for a long moment and then shook his head. “Rojas, if you think he’s that altruistic, you’re an even bigger fool than my father thought.”
I should have fucked Lyse when I had the chance, I lamented and put a hand on Luis’s chair. “I think we’re finished here, don’t you agree, Luis?”
The older man swallowed hard. “Of course,” he said. “Tell my daughter—” He stopped and glanced at me. I saw his jaw clench, and I raised my eyebrow at him, challenging him. Say one word, Luis, I thought. See what happens. “Go while you have the chance, Castillo. There won’t be another one.”
“?Sabes qué? Eres una mierda,” Omar spat. We watched him saunter out of the room, and for a moment, I wished I had allowed Luis to bring his gun to the office. He could have buried a bullet in the behemoth's back and ended all this here and now.
“You know what to do, Luis,” I said, eyes still on the spot where Omar had stood. “I want your mess cleaned up.”
Luis lip curled, but he dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Sí.”
“And you’ll send Matteo to me for training from now on. I want him to head my security team.”
The other man visibly flinched before straightening his spine. I was sure he was going to argue and was pleasantly surprised when he agreed and said, “Sí, jefe.”