Page 60 of Empire of Carnage
Too bad for him, even with all the giants now gone, I was still bigger.
“I assure you that just because I’m wearing a dress, it doesn’t mean my cock is smaller than yours Fernando. On the contrary, I’m wearing this dress because it is actually so fat it can’t be contained by a pair of pants.” A few men chuckled quietly to themselves.
He scowled, taking a beat to think up something clever to retaliate, but I was faster.
“Your hostility towards me only proves that I’ve already succeeded in what I came here to do. Own this country. You’re angry that a woman has done in two months what you have failed to do in fifteen years.” I stopped and addressed the rest of the room, “What you all failed to do.”
There was an awkward beat of silence but it only tasted like the failure of mediocre men. Regardless of how far their loyalty went, there was no denying every man in this room at one point entertained the idea of having the cártel for themselves. None had been brave enough to try to claim it.
“Now, if you are done trying to prove whether or not your dick can hit a g-spot, let’s move on to what really matters here. Ignacio needs to die. This week preferably.” I gave the deadline wondering which one of my men would prove themselves worthy of being my right hand.
I wasn’t hopeful about any yet.
“You’re barely Mexican. Why should we have to listen to anything you have to say when you’re saying it with a gringa accent?” He said the words with a bitter expression on his face.
I extended my hand out and before I had even blinked there was a pistol in my palm. I didn’t bother to check to see who’d placed it there. Only a few voices gasped out loud as I flipped the safety off, nostrils flared at the man who dared insult me.
“Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy trying to survive after you all tucked your tails between your legs and went into hiding when Rafa died, I could have dedicated more time to perfecting my spanish.”
“So, you’re better than Ignacio because Rafael had a hand in you?” He scoffed.
“No, I’m better because I learned who I can bein spiteof the pitiful men who stood in my way. Get the fuck out of my sight if you want to stay alive.” I pointed to the door and Miguel stood up to forcefully escort him out.
“Rafa would have put a bullet in his head,” Dominico said from the far end of the table.
“You think I made the wrong call letting him walk out of here?” I asked the men I knew I had no choice but to trust as my council.
“I think it was a kind decision,” Luciano answered. “Some men deserve kindness, some do not.”
“And Fernando Garcia?” I asked.
“We shall see what he deserves,” he said, and I nodded back at him, taking his words as a request to leave and see what Fernando was up to unsupervised.
He stood up and followed him out, back into the gala.
“I have a primo who is acquainted with one of Ignacio’s soldiers. I can send him inside with your word, jefa,” Miguel answered, sticking to business and moving past the unnecessary drama that had just taken place.
“It’s a good idea, better we know where he is than to wait for him to come at us. Even if we are prepared.” I nodded my approval. “Get on that. The faster we kill the hijo de la chingada the faster we can focus on the things that matter, the things that make us rich.” They all nodded their heads, agreeing that money was the reason for it all.
“Thank you, Miguel,” I acknowledged him once again. “Everyone go.” I waved the rest of the room off. “We’ll continue this once Ignacio is dead.” The room cleared out faster than I expected. I sat there in silence, staring at the Rufino Tamayo painting Rafael let me pick out when I was thirteen for this very room in this government building. I didn’t realize the momentousness of the occasion then. A child of a crime lord, decorating the walls of a federal building with a painting made by an Indigenous artist. Almost like the statement alone was the art itself. It was too low on the wall, because he thought I should be the one to get to hang it. I was seven years old the first time I spun around in these chairs, and I was fourteen when I first sat through a meeting.
Dominico was the last one out the door, but he turned back to face us before exiting.
“She needs to learn,” the old man said, shaking his head.
“She doesn’t need to learn shit,” Mateo spit out in my defense.
“What do I need to learn?”
“You came here wanting to do something different, but this is a wheel that never stops turning Celia. You wanted to do better than your father, but you can’t. If you show these animals a moment of weakness, they will eat you alive. So you better fucking eat them instead. That’s the secret to all of this.”
“If you knew that, then why did you still come along when I said I’d do it differently?” I asked.
“Because you came in with this brand new attitude, bright eyed and filled with hope. Those intentions mean something, they make you someone worth following. If you leave, someone elsewilltake your place, they circle like vultures just waiting for a crack in the foundations.”
“Don’t I know it.” I looked over to Ronan and exhaled heavily, remembering his losses.
“If you ask me, you’re the right person for it, Celia. And that’s not because of all the work I watched him put into you, but because of something that I think grew inside of you after him,” the old man said.
