“You know, I am five foot nine, which is fairly average for a man,” I told her, keeping my movements quiet. I may have added an inch. “How tall are you?”
She swallowed hard, seeming nervous for the first time. I’ve been told my smile can be unnerving if I use it long enough.
“Five foot eleven,” she said.
I licked my lips, feeling my blood run hot and wild. “So I only need to take off about three inches or so.”
Her eyes widened in a mix of confusion and then horror as I brought the machete out from underneath my desk. I’d been trained for this, to maximize force in a small space. It’s all in the legs, in the way you spring. In one smooth motion I swung the machete better than any golf club, swiping across her legs mid-calf.
She screamed as she became an amputee in an instant, blood spilling to the ground as she fell to one side and her severed legs fell to the other. I guess I took off more than three inches, but it was better to overachieve than under.
“There,” I said as I peered down at her face, an arc of blood spurting from her legs in time with her fading heartbeat. “Now you are shorter than me. Think you can come now?”
Judia screamed again, but her voice was fading, choked in her throat as shock overtook her. I sighed and stared at the sheepskin rug. First dirty with Este’s feet, now this.
“You keep a machete under your desk?” Este asked, looking over my shoulder at it, the long bloody blade still in my hands.
I gave him a look. “Why wouldn’t I keep a machete under my desk?” I handed it to him. “Here, put it back and get Juanito to clean this up.” I gestured to the soon to be corpse and the bloody mess of an office. “I’m going to bed.”
Este tried to take it from my hands but I found my grip tightening. “On second thought, I’ll take it with me.” I didn’t want Este to think he could go on about “respect” again, even though I knew he was thinking it with Juanito having to clean up my mess half the time. Everyone had to pay their dues, though.
I took the machete upstairs, my bodyguard Diego following me down the hall as he always did. I barely noticed him until I was about to go into my bedroom.
“Mrs. Bernal is sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms,” he said in his low, baritone voice. He didn’t speak much, one of the reasons I liked him. “The one at the end of the hall.”
“Oh?” The one that used to be her prison cell. “Did she say why?”
“No sir,” Diego said. “She just came up to me to let me know.”
As if it would go unnoticed. “All right,” I said, straightening up a bit, as if this arrangement was the new normal. “Can you make sure we have someone stationed outside her door as well? Artur?”
“Of course,” he said before he strode off to gather Artur from one of the barracks on the property, probably interrupting his sleep. Artur was as equally as trustworthy as Diego but usually worked in the early morning hours. Still, I wouldn’t compromise her safety. The chances of someone getting into the house to get at her, or me, were practically nil, but sometimes you couldn’t trust the people in your house either. I knew better than to underestimate those closest to me. I knew better but I never let on.
I closed the door behind me and got ready for bed. For all the troubles, this was the first time I’d gone to sleep without her. Perhaps she should have done this a long time ago. Perhaps she was tired of having to go to bed and fall asleep first, such a vulnerable stage of life, all alone.
And now, now I was alone. With those thoughts again. Knowing the dreams were waiting. The ones filled with guilt and grief and regret. The ones that made me a little more scared of myself, a little crazier, day by day.
As I fell asleep, I could still smell the blood I had spilled. It worked as well as a sleeping pill.
CHAPTER FOUR
Esteban
Fucking animal, Esteban Mendoza thought to himself as he surveyed Javier’s office. Blood was absolutely everywhere, even on the walls, which meant Juanito would be spending all hours of the night wiping that shit down, not to mention disposing of the body. He had to do the exact same thing the other day, after Javier got carried away with a piece of barbed wire. The pigs he kept out back were getting fatter by the minute.
It wasn’t that Este really felt bad for Juanito, it was more that it would steal his time away from him. After all, Este was having him do all sorts of things that in some ways were far worse. Juanito wasn’t even gay. Not that Este was either, he just liked to get off and it usually didn’t matter who was sucking his dick. It was more about the power. The control. And that need to humiliate someone the way he used to be humiliated himself, back when he was a little punk hanging on the corners of the colonias of Juarez. When he told Juanito to get on his knees and put his cock in his mouth, he felt like a king. The king he always should have been. The patron he’d dreamed about.
He’d bided his time long enough. Put up with Javier long enough. He had to act now, before Javier really went to the dark side. It wasn’t that Javier would slip up. Este had told Luisa that her husband was getting sloppy, but that wasn’t really the case. Ever since Alana’s death, he’d become sharper, like a new knife. He’d become more focused on building his empire and taking the jagged pieces of what was once one federation of narcos and putting them back together again, with him at the helm.
Javier was lost, yes. Grieving, no doubt. But he wasn’t letting go of the business. And if anything, he was becoming more dangerous. Unpredictable. Inhumane. Este had never, ever feared Javier before. He had no reason to. He knew Javier had always looked at him like a lackey, a joke, and that was something he purposely cultivated. Because who would ever suspect Este of really using his brain? He was smart enough for the techie stuff, but no one would expect him to be devious. Or calculating. In fact, Este grew tired of the surfer look a year ago but kept it up because appearances were everything in this place. He fucking hated wearing flip-flops.