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Sophie tried to give Colt an encouraging half-smile. “You’re going for the ‘tough love’ approach?”
Colt swept the wayward tendrils of hair off his forehead. “I don’t know, I need to figure out what we are doing with him. At least if he starts being honest with us, he’s not endangering the club. Rehab again, or some sort of moderation management… I need to read up, speak to a specialist, I can’t just leave him be…”
Sophie wanted to put her arm around him but she was still a little intimidated by him. Instead she pursed her lips in empathy and nodded. “Lyle seems… complex… he’s nice one moment, then drunk the next, he’s spiraling downhill fast…”
Colt snorted and lowered his gaze to the floor. “Tell me about it. His story is going to be… one hell of a journey.”
Sophie nodded.
Colt shook himself. “Anyway, Phantom is away on a run so I thought I’d call you, it would have been good to have him here, but tough shit. So, let’s just go see the limo driver and find out what the fuck’s going on. Pig’s coming, too, if that’s alright with you.”
Sophie nodded, and set her jaw. “Sounds like a good plan.”
* * *
“You wantto hear the tale of the Fantasma de la Muerte?” The limo driver began with a husky voice. His lips were dry, his skin was gray. He looked exhausted and ill, but it seemed to be boosting his ego that he had a bunch of people asking him to tell them a story. He preened and seemed to enjoy keeping them on edge.
“Yeah,” Colt said impatiently.
Sophie sat on one side of the man, in the chair beside his bed. Carmelo had his arms folded and stood with his feet spread wide on the other side. Colt paced at the foot of the bed. His restless energy set Sophie on edge. Even more than she already had been. Her foot bounced on the floor restlessly.
“Tell me.”
“The story starts with a man called Ortiz-”
“Fucking finally! Who the fuck is Ortiz?” Colt muttered under his breath.
“-Ortiz and his wife were stricken with the inability to conceive, they’d been trying for years, hadn’t happened.”
“How the fuck is this relevant?” Colt moaned moodily.
Carmelo shushed him.
The limo driver licked his lips and carried on. “When Ortiz saw a little kid hiding, he thought, I’ll take him.”
“What kid? Why hiding?” Carmelo barked.
“We’ve skipped over who Ortiz actually is.” Colt rolled his eyes.
Sophie shushed them both, they weren’t helping.
“Ortiz… Demonios assassin. Coldest of the cold. Creeps up on you like the frost of a winter’s night. Until you don’t realize it but it’s in your bones. Under your skin. And just like that, you’re dead.”
Sophie felt goosebumps rising on her skin. She felt that coldness. She shivered and threw a quick look over her shoulders to check no one was creeping up behind her.
“Sounds like a cheery guy,” Carmelo muttered sarcastically.
Colt shushed him now.
“He’d be dispatched to kill Demonios enemies, the kind of kills you want in the dead of night, clean, the kind of kills the authorities don’t like to touch with a long pole.”
“Hmm.” Colt knew what he was talking about. “So who’s the kid?”
Sophie had a bad feeling about where this was going.
“Elijah Lopez. Ortiz killed his family. Demonios hit when the kid was about eight years old. They were behind on their protection payments. It got violent. The artless heavies got there first. Mother was raped, father was beaten, tortured. The Demonios hitman, Ortiz, wasn’t called until after. He found little Elijah hiding in the closet.”
Sophie looked down at her feet, sighing. She wanted to cry for him. For Elijah, for the little boy who’d crawled into a cupboard.
