Page 88 of No Darker Temptation

Young, ginger-haired, white, and blue-eyed. Can’t be older than Lettie with a tattoo of a star behind his ear. By now, all this killing shouldn’t affect me and it doesn’t. Only, I can’t help but mourn the loss of so much potential. In a different set of circumstances, I could’ve just as easily been the dead kid on the concrete a decade ago. Is it really all just fate? Destiny? Wrong place, right time, or however the saying goes. Or is there truly no rhyme or reason to any of it and we’re all products of the environment we have no control over?

“Have you cleared out the back yet?” I ask.

“Not yet.” Paco replies. “A group of them barricaded themselves inside. We think that’s where Walsh and Collins are.”

“Then let’s go break the doors down.”

We chose broad daylight because while it doesn’t have the protection of night, it does have the element of surprise. Like most buildings in this area, it’s a mix of old and new. Some walls are brick and cement with wooden posts but the ceiling is completely new, made of metal and curved with modern light fixtures hanging from extended support beams.

A large, open space gets broken up into different, smaller rooms as we move from the renovated part of the warehouse to the back. Solid floors turn to cement as we pass through a set of doors that takes us to an outdoor passageway where a glass enclosure connects the front half of the warehouse to the back. Mauricio is there with a few other men trying to break the door down.

Dimitrio reaches into his pocket and produces the grenade. As soon as I see him reach for the pin I snatch his arm back. “Are you insane?”

“It’s faster.”

“And loud,” I chastise. “I’d rather not attract every law enforcement agency within a ten-mile radius.”

An abrupt bang cuts our conversation short. Diego barrels through the double doors, one of which has fallen right off its hinges. At least ten of us file into the room as gunfire erupts, the sound making my ears ring. Dimitrio’s left side is unprotected and when a brunette behind a barrel raises his gun to shoot, I catch him first in the shoulder and then the neck.

My head of security casts an appreciative glance in my direction. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

It’s been a long time since I carried out a hit like this. After Dad died, Abuelo was still in charge and he spearheaded most of our operations. It was a difficult place for him to be in—mourning the loss of a son while also coming to terms with the fact that Gregorio, whom he’d always treated like one of his children, had been the one to pull the trigger. My aunts and uncle stepped in and Tio Horacio had a taste for blood. The war was swift, brutal, and near catastrophic, ending with Gregorio’s death a few months later.

Meanwhile, I was shipped off to school and didn’t come back until my planned wedding with Regina. The Barcelona underground was a war zone for the first year after we broke up, Sandro and I at each other’s necks without reprieve. It finally ended with me announcing plans to legitimize and now here we are.

Same fucking shit, different fucking day.

Firing a gun comes as naturally as breathing. Entire lives come to a cruel, violent end with every stroke of my finger against the trigger. Such an elegant gesture the harbinger of such brutal chaos. I empty one clip after the other, replacing them swiftly, and dodging behind a shelf for cover.

“Take them alive!” someone—Mauricio—shouts.

They must’ve found Walsh and Collins.

Beautiful.

A clean sweep in less than twenty minutes. Must be a new record for us.

The gunfire finally dies down and I step out from behind the shelf, eyes searching the room for my brother. This must be where they cut all their cocaine. It reeks of poisonous chemicals and a thin film of white powder covers most of the surfaces. When we’re done here, I’ll send Don Rubin over to clear out whatever he⁠—

“Alex!”

Diego screams my name but his voice is drowned out by the sound of gun fire, sending a bullet straight through my chest.

VIEJO FUERTE

Dahlia

Igasp and the bottle slips from my grasp, shattering on the tile floor beneath my feet.

“Dee!” Pedro grabs my arm instinctively, yanking me backward as orange colored soda sprays everywhere. “Are you all right?”

I blink a few times, trying to get my bearings about me. “Yeah. I’m fine…shit.”

I grab a stack of napkins from the holder in front of me and bend down to clean up the mess. “What a klutz…I swear, I just felt a shiver run through me. I didn’t even realize⁠—”

“Don’t touch the glass, I got it,” he says gently and scoops up the pieces from the floor. Luckily when it shattered, it broke into four clean shards he’s able to pick up with ease and toss into the recycling. “Do you want me to buy you another one?”