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Guess her plan was working.
I sped down our driveway with Luka silent at my right. The winding pavement was smooth beneath the tires until I reached the edge of the family home and turned onto the dirt pathway to the highway. As a child, I thought of it as a fortress— what some would consider a mansion sat atop the hills several miles away from the city center. We were removed from the action. Just far enough away from the dirt and filth of dealing that the contamination my father spread never tainted his children. The house was my father’s “bird’s eye view” of everything that went on beneath him. And then it was passed on to me, with all the strings of leading a family of nine.
Along the highway, not a soul settled. The rural areas were nearly inhospitable with soil that didn’t produce and none of the communal comforts of the city. Though some had tried to build a homestead, most of those attempts now whistled in the wind and rotted underneath the brutal sun.
As we neared the outskirts of the city, broken-down vehicles littered the shoulder. Some were merely debris from a crash, abandoned for lack of resources. Others were just broken down or forgotten. They formed a sort of escort into the city of Pasamoros, a sleepy town my father had chosen to be our ground zero that now stunk of Zaragoza corruption.
Each street was old and broken down. The homes, which were probably nice when they were constructed in the seventies, were in disrepair. Colorful patches covered the roofs, some tarps and others mismatched shingles bought second-hand. Plants splayed out of control, weeds popping out of every crevice in the empty concrete sidewalks. These were prime neighborhoods for action, the ones where most of thehalcones,like Coco, lived. Even more so a place for some of our most loyal customers, packed in a dozen to a house. They lived on top of each other in sweaty heaps, spending nearly every dime to support their addictions.
Ten years ago, this place flourished, but with the search act at the border– things had gone to shit.
Luka gestured to turn on the next cross street, just past the elementary school. “They left the body as she found it. Said it might be a message.” He shrugged.
“Who said?”
“The other halcones. They had to drag Coco’s girlfriend away to leave everything intact.”
We rolled to a stop outside the corner house as I imagined the scene. I envisioned the woman being knocked to the ground at the sight of him, letting out a roar of pain before throwing herself over his body. My throat clenched at the sheer emotion of it— loving someone enough to be gutted over their death. It was a weakness I was fortunate not to have.
Parked against the street, Luka and I headed up the dirt path to the front door, covering our mouths from the sickly sweet smell of decay already wafting through the air. It wrapped around the house like a warning, the tendrils of death looking to clutch anyone who got too close. It smelled like a body had been decomposing for days. In reality, it was just hot as fuck.
I pushed open the door and stepped inside, the thick scent chokingly strong. An archway led to the living room with a trail of blood that led us straight to the scene. Coco’s limp body was slung over the arm of a leather couch, the pool of blood extending wide around him like caution tape. He was face-down and I bent to get a look at his face.
“Fuck,” I cursed to myself, pulling out leather gloves and shoving my fingers into them. I gripped his hair and lifted to see his face while Luka prodded around behind the couch. The corpse’s eyes were gouged out, bloody tears streamed down his face and were dried and crusty against his neck. His bare chest was covered in slash marks, hundreds I was sure. It looked like minced meat and I let his head drop before circling the body.
“Windows in good shape, furniture looks normal,” Luka murmured. I didn’t miss the restraint in his voice, like it was all he could do not to vomit.
I nodded, the threads before me beginning to snap into place. “Not a robbery, not a break-in.”
Coco’s gun sat on the coffee table next to the little black baggies I had seen countless times. Empty beer cans clanked across the floor as I kept looking for clues, Luka dipping into the adjoining kitchen. The only thing out of the ordinary was the body. On the surface, there was nothing that kept me here, nothing that screamed foul play— but I had done this job too many years for my gut to be wrong.
My eyes flicked back to the body just as Luka stepped toward me, his lips pursing. “It’s too hot for a leather jacket.”
“My thoughts, exactly.”
I gripped the collar on the jacket and yanked it backward until the arms were freed, the slap of flesh against the leather below making my skin crawl. Beneath the cheap material was the bare skin of his back, bloodied and cut up not unlike his chest. My eyes narrowed, capturing some sort of pattern that I couldn’t make out fully. I needed to clear away the debris.
“Get some water and a rag,” I ordered.
Luka hurried back with a cup filled to the brim and I poured the water down his back, using the rag to wipe away the chunks that skewed the picture. Wipe after wipe, the gore cleared until all there was left to see was the threat. Luka sucked in a breath, averting his gaze immediately. Carved into Carlos’ back were the words:Venimos por sangre.We’re coming for blood.
It wasn’t hard to guess whose blood the message referred to. Mine. Luka’s. Anyone remotely connected to the Zaragozas was a target.
Below the words was a charred mess. Burnt flesh curled around a brand burned deep into the skin, a design I had only heard whispered about. A circle wrapped around a large letter D, inside of which were two semi-circles opposite each other. It formed a sideways eye, with the bruised purple skin below poking through like a menacing stare. Massive, taking up the entire lower back, it was the artful signature of the men just crazy enough to spill the blood of a Zaragozahalcon— they were theDesalmados— the soulless.
I snapped a pic of the body and covered his back once more, pulling him off the arm and laying him onto the couch.
“Get a crew,” I said, stepping back and unfolding a blanket to lay over my now-dead employee. The crew would be in an out quick, nothing but professional. But it wasn’t them I was worried about. This was a message, a very intimate one, directed at the family. It was more than just business. And if the word got out that a new rival had popped up and they were carving messages into people for sport, I shook my head. No crew could survive those ripples.
I reached for the gun on the coffee table, stuffing it in the waistband of my pants and gathering up all the black baggies that were left over. Beside them was a box of matches. I lit one and placed it underneath Carlos’ neck and waited until the skin set ablaze, the harsh scent of burnt flesh thick in the air.
We pulled away from the house in silence. The only thing on my mind was how the fuck we were going to set things straight. I shot a text to Matteo as we sped down the highway back into the stillness of the rolling hills.My office, an hour.
Once I had scrubbed the stench of corpse and smoke from my body, I sank into my chair and considered how the hell I was going to protect the family from the Desalmados. It was a mindfuck that they even really existed, they were more like full moon shadows— legends, or ghost stories.
And now they had us in their sights, for whatever reason. What a hell of a time to kidnap the mayor’s daughter. And to become obsessed with her.
Things were unraveling right out from under me. My control was slipping. Would this be my legacy? Handed the keys to the empire only to drain it away in six months? Distracted by pussy and murdered by my enemies? By the looks of the very public, very personal strike, this was exactly what they wanted me to think. Or what they wanted my subordinates to think.
