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The unexpected voice makes me lunge behind an overflowing dumpster. Heavy footsteps quicken around the corner; they’re accompanied by the familiar rattle of heavy artillery.
“Probably just a cat,” someone says in a deep gruff voice. I peak through an opening in the trash and spot two younger guys strapped from head to toe in firepower. It looks like they’ve been patrolling these streets all night, but they’re not dressed up in military or police gear—that means they’re Dante’s men.
I clench my fists and reach for the pistol tucked under my belt. These two don’t look like the most vigilant of enforcers—I could probably sit still and they’d pass right by me—but I’m not looking to hide anymore. There are questions I need answers to, and there’s no better time than now to go searching for them.
“We should check it out,” one of the muscle-bound goons suggests.
The other waves him off. “No, it’s nothing. Let’s get back to the whore house already. I’ve got blue balls like nobody’s business from those stupid school girls. Who the fuck raised them to be such prudes? I swear, if Yerry wasn’t around, I would have—”
I don’t let him finish his sentence. My bullet rips through his kneecap and I jump out from behind my cover before his buddy can even register what’s happening. It hardly takes me more than a few short seconds to run up on the confused men. The roar from my gun drowns out the screams from my victims. I silence him with another shot, placed right between his eyes. Blood spurts onto the cratered cement and I train my barrel onto the dead man’s partner.
The idiot doesn’t freeze, though. Instead, he reaches for his own gun. If I didn’t need him to answer my questions, he’d be dead already, but I do, so I just jump forward and strike him across the temple with the butt of my gun. A loud crack splits through the night and the big lug topples over.
For a second, I worry I might have hit him too hard, but then his chest starts heaving and a labored breath sputters out of his bloody lips. I grab him by the collar and drag him into the nearest alleyway, hoping that I’ve left him with enough brainpower to give me the answers that I’m after.
“Who do you work for?”
It’s the first thing I ask my bloody hostage as he slips back into consciousness. He doesn’t answer right away, but that’s to be expected. Just a few minutes ago, he was living a carefree life, now, he’s tied to a metal chair in the back of a dark, dirty kitchen with a pounding headache and no idea what’s happening.
His eyebrows furrow in pain and confusion. I repeat my question. “Who do you work for?”
Slowly, realization comes over the young man’s face. Young. He could be the same age as me, but he hasn’t been through half of what I have, seen half of what I’ve seen, done half of what I’ve done. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a child, a bully who carries a big gun around the slums and threatens the weak and the innocent for his own pleasure.
But I’m willing to cut him some slack if it turns out he’s just doing his job.
“Who are you?” the man spits, a look of determination coming over his beaten face.
“Your worst nightmare,” I growl, stepping in closer to my prey.
Fear flickers in the young man’s eyes as he notices the switchblade in my hand, but that fear quickly glazes over. “You’re no Dante Montoya,” he sneers; the act sends a shot of pain across his face. My hostage recoils and I click open my sharp blade.
“So, that’s who you work for?”
The young man shrugs and twists his lips. “Maybe.”
“And you don’t know who I am?”
The goon’s dark eyes wander up from the floor long enough to give me a quick look over. “No.”
That answer makes my heart sing. The more anonymous I am, the better. If Dante’s low-level goons don’t know who I am, then that means I might actually be able to navigate through this city without the constant fear of being spotted. It’s also a surprising revelation. As far as I know, Dante has made it clear that I’m never allowed back in Colombia again. So, why don’t his own men know what I look like?
“How long have you worked for Dante Montoya?”
When my hostage doesn’t answer right away, I plunge the sharp end of my switch blade right through the back of his hand.
He howls in pain and desperately tries to shake loose of his restraints, but it’s no use, he’s trapped. I rip my blade back out and his head sinks down to his chest.
“How long have you worked for Dante Montoya?” I repeat.
“... Almost a year.”
I grunt, cleaning the blood from my blade on the inside of my shirt. I knew this kid had to be a new hire. If he had ever worked for me, I’d at least have recognized him in some way, but both him and his buddy were completely unfamiliar.
What is Dante doing, hiring all these new bodies, if it’s not to keep me out? He must be having trouble, but with who? The only people who live in this area are commoners, working poor who don’t have the time or resources to raise hell. Sure, some drug dealers live here, too, but they all work for someone who would work for Dante.
“And what do you do for Mr. Montoya?” I ask, keeping my voice low and calm. It was just a stroke of luck that the door to this kitchen was fragile enough to bust open with my bare hands. If it wasn’t, I would have had to interrogate my hostage out in the open, and who knows how many more goons like him are out patrolling these streets.
“I enforce curfew,” the young man grumbles.
