Page 8 of Empire of Carnage
“Primo you’re not getting it.She’sthe reason you’re here, sewn up with half-ass stitching.” He plucked at a gash on his arm, forcing a pained moan from Santos. “Looks like this one needs to be closed up again,” he said before slicing a knife over the old cut, tearing even deeper into his flesh this time.
Santos hissed, his eyes filled with a hatred I’d never seen before, all of it directed at Guillermo.
He grabbed a short blade, less than half an inch long and placed the handle between his fingers. Closing his fist so that nothing but the sharp edge of the knife stuck out from his knuckles he slammed it into Santos’ stomach, once, twice–
“Please! Guillermo stop,” I shrieked, seeing the blood pour down his waist.
He stopped striking, dropping his head back in a psychotic laugh and twirling the blade through his fingers.
“Little cártel princesses, begging me to make their lives better,” he sighed. “There’s really nothing that makes me quite so hard.” He cut again, opening another old wound in his primo’s arm.
My voice was scratchy and worn out from screaming, pleading with this monster to stop hurting Santos. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d even felt the urge to pee, my tears were taking everything from me.
“Please… Please,” I chanted between sobs as he cut into Santos repeatedly, with such brutality, I thought for certain he had every intention of ending him this time. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I’ll do anything, please. Whatever you want. Please Guillermo, stop hurting him.”
“Anything, now?” He turned to face me with a calculating look on his face while he seemed to weigh out his possibilities.
“Just stop hurting him, please,” I begged again.
“You do realize thathe’stakingyourpunishment right now? How you gonna do me better than that?”
“Celia,stop,” Santos growled, making Guillermo laugh.
“Celia, stop,” he mocked. “You’re right, maybe he’s had enough of this for now. I can torture him in other ways. I’m ready for that anything now, morenita,” he said before pulling at the chains that kept my arms hooked to the pole above my head.
I dropped to my knees on the cold concrete floor, my wrists were still cuffed together, and my body ached from hanging.
“Here’s the rules zorra. You use your teeth; I’ll fuck him up. You try anything funny; I’ll fuck both of you up. You do a good job, make me come, make me feel like a special boy, and I’ll let Santito here have a whole day without pain. How’s that sound?” He brought his fingers under my jaw to lift my gaze up to him.
“Celia don’t you fucking do it. Celia!”
Santos snarled and growled like a caged animal, his chains rattling while he screamed with ferocity for me to stop.
There wasn’t a choice here.
Anyone who could even think there was, would be a fucking idiot.
I nodded my head, doing my best to avoid Santos’ stare and his defeated pleas.
5
Guillermo
How many men could say they had not one, but both Flores sisters sucking at their cock? Rafael must have been rolling in his fucking grave the minute her cute little face nodded up at me, eyes filled with tears. She was still the prettier of the two, even if Lina had fucked her face up. It was scabbing up nicely, and at least she didn’t cut all the way to her mouth or through her cheek like she had with Santos. That would have made what was about to happen a little less pleasant to tolerate.
I had spent years trying to get Los Muertos on Rafael Flores’ radar. I was young, but I was smart and full of plans. I knew the west better than anyone and I knew what it would take to thrive out here. Flores shut me down time after time, warning me to keep the cártel out of our little street gang’s mouth.
His final message came in the form of a tape. I’d sent one of my boys over to him, to see if Flores could use him for a job. Instead, he sicked his little bitch of a daughter on him and dumped his body on his mamá’s lawn with the video proof. The little bitch killed him before he’d even had the chance to attack.
Guess I had the last laugh now. Los Muertos and the cártel were one in the same.
Ignacio Flores wasn’t a quarter of the man Rafael’s ghost was. Which made him easy to manipulate and even easier to fool. Los Muertos was rebranding itself as the Flores cártel right under his nose and he didn’t even know it.
Once we figured out a way to get Lina’s money that her old man had hidden away, we'd be able to buy more men, more guns, and more drugs. Then once we had control of it all, we could kill Ignacio and any of his men who refused to follow us.
And then I could finally get rid of Carolina. She was fun at first. Ignacio dropped her at my door when she was fifteen, said she wasn’t a kid anymore and that he didn’t have time to keep raising his brother’s orphan. She was a doe-eyed little thing, and I corrupted her to my needs.
But goddamn was she clingy, and sometimes I think she forgot which one of us was actually in charge. I kept her satisfied with money, sex, and the idea of power. Everything a little princess bitch could want to stay happy, but enough was enough. Thirteen years with the same woman by my side was more than I’d granted my own mamá.
