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Twenty-Seven: Best Served Cold . . . with a Beer
Lex
It wasn’t the first time Lex had hung out with themenat the bar of his parents’ restaurant. But it was the first time he felt included as one of them in their gatherings. He wasn’t just a kid or teenager anymore pestering his dad about letting him have another soda or more food. Always more food. This time he was there as one of the men waiting on a few important calls. Even more important, these were calls the women folk weren’t privy to. It was a man thing, and he wasn’t just included in it, he’d been the one to put it all together. The first call came, and they’d all hushed and braced themselves as his Uncle Romero answered it. “Chief, what’s the word?” They all watched as his uncle smiled big. “How many?What?” He laughed looking up and around at everyone. “They shut him completely down. All his clients are screwed.” He nodded as everyone at the bar laughed and cheered. “Fucking fantastic! Good work, man. You never let me down. Yeah, yeah, just keep me updated.” He hung up and lifted his hands up. “Done.” He high-fived Lex’s dad, and then the rest of the men around him as they all turned and high-fived each other, clinked their drinks, and slapped each other’s backs in triumph. “Locked up Rigoberto’sand all his client’s websites. Best part is they made it so it looks like he was snooping in all their shit: bank accounts, emails, anything that might make him look bad and bury him in lawsuits. He won’t even know how bad we hit him fordayssince he won’t be able to get into his own server for a least that long, they fucked his shit up so bad.”
There were laughs and cheers all around. Next came the call to Beast. At first everyone thought it might be awkward to include him in this. But after hearing from Vannah how incensed he too was that his wife had to deal with this twenty-plus-year scandal going viral, Lex was able to get his Uncle Angel, his dad, and the rest of his uncles to understand Beast and his family had also been victims to all the pointless drama everyone had been put through. There’d been zero truth to his Aunt Sarah having ever been unfaithful, and Beast assured them there’d been no truth to the bullshit stories that he’d confirmed she had either. He’d reached out to Uncle Angel, and when Lex informed them all of who’d been behind the whole thing, everyone including his most mild-mannered Uncle Sal, whose daughter’s name had now been drug through the mud as well, were all out for blood.
That’s where Beast’s connections from his shady past came in. Everyone seemed to hold their breaths when the daunting guy’s phone rang, and he answered. Unlike his Uncle Romero whose telling smile said it all when he’d talked to his source, Beast nodded blankly before looking up and giving them the thumbs up.
“Thanks, Killer. I owe you one.”
Lex’s heart sped up at the word killer. When they’d heard what Beast had in mind for his end of the payback to all this, it’d felt extreme. Hitting Rigoberto in the pocket and messing with his livelihood seemed enough for the Morenos. Except this wasBeast. The man had already murdered for his wife once. Vannah had mentioned that his wife had been very upset over this whole thing, even cried about it at one point. So, it was understandable that what Romero’s men had done just wasn’t going to cut it for this guy. But having the guy whacked? Everyone else at the bar seemed to be thinking the same thing because things got really quiet as Beast hung up. Even Byron stared at him uncomfortably.
“He won’t be using those hands or fingers to do any computer shit or even wiping his own ass for a while,” Beast said, picking up his drink and taking what looked like a very satisfied swig. “Won’t even be walking for at least a few months.”
“B-but he’s alive, right?” Uncle Sal asked.
“Yeah.” Beast finally eased up a bit and even laughed, glancing around as if he just realized what everyone was thinking. “Those days are over for me, guys. I don’t do that shit anymore.” He glanced at his friends Nine and Orlando who chuckled now, too. “Tell ’em, man. Even breaking this guy’s fucking hands and legs would’ve been worth the risk of getting pinched if I didn’t have my family to think about now.” He shook his head, waving his hand in front of him. “They made sure he knows why he’ll be a cripple for a while, but they made it so it looks like his drunk ass got into it with the wrong dudes just outside a bar. He also knows he does anything like what he did to deserve this beating again, maybe next time he’ll be in a wheelchair for life. It’s all good.” He lifted his drink and waved it around in the air as everyone seemed to exhale in relief but lifted their drinks as well.
“Because karma takes too long,” Lex said, lifting his beer.
“Fuck, yeah,” Beast said, clinking Lex’s bottle. “This guy came too close to fucking up everyone’s shit.”
Lex thought about that for a second. This fucker had not once, but twice nearly killed his chances of things working out between him and Xochitl, so he nodded in agreement. He clinked his dad's beer next who'd also had his own close call with his mom because of this asshole. He seemed to be thinking the same thing Lex was,Way too close.
