Page 3 of Empire of Carnage
“I didn’t think we’d get the chance after Carlitos failed so horribly,” the voice whispered.
“I was hoping this pendejo was gonna do it for me, but it looks like I’m gonna have to teach my primo a lesson, Lina.” Guillermo stepped into the light, and behind him stood a woman.
One whose hair lacked shine, and whose aura seemed smudged and polluted by whatever hardships life had placed in her way. Her eyes were a chestnut brown, and her hair matched the color of the freckles on her skin. They didn’t look much alike, but side by side you could see the similarities.
Impossible to deny that they were sisters. She was, in every way, so much like Celia, and yet somehow there wasn’t a single shared trait I could pinpoint.
“Carolina?” Celia seethed, her voice raspy from the journey and the chains clanking loudly.
“Puta madre,” she chuckled, stepping towards her sister. “You look like dog shit Celia. Here I’ve been hating you for half my life when maybe you did me a favor. Has it been a rough fifteen years hermanita?”
“What the fuck?” Celia screamed, throwing her body with no success as her chains barred her from much movement. “What the fuck?” she continued to repeat, thrashing against her restraints while her sister threw her head back and laughed.
Celia’s expression briefly showed a glimpse of something that looked like pain before she masked it over with a steel hard gaze. She cocked her head back and spit a wad of saliva on her little sister’s face. Carolina reached her hand up silently, and with no command needed, Guillermo placed a tissue in her hand.
It begged the question of who was in charge here.
“Is that any way to greet the sister you left for dead?”
“Left for dead? You were all buried by the time I left the hospital. Instead of finding me you’ve been hiding, conspiring against me? I can see Ignacio raised you. Una rata just like him.” Celia yelled, not bothering to reign in her emotions.
“Tío said you’d say all those things. Told me you would try to poison my mind with Papá’s sentimental lies.” Carolina stepped closer to Celia; a sharp surgical tool was in her hand now.
He’d spent the last fifteen years brainwashing her.
Poisoning her against her family.
In a way, that almost meant he’d won.
“If you think I’d waste a second of my time letting you hear words Papá meant solely for my ears, you’re delusional,” Celia taunted her. “You did get one thing correct though, hermanita, Ignacio was right, you should have killed me when you had the chance. Because if I get out of here alive, I’m gonna rip you apart with my bare fucking teeth you ugly puta,” Celia roared, thrashing against her restraints while her sister cackled like a mad woman.
The back of her hand slapped violently against Celia’s cheek, the sound echoing throughout the basement.
I couldn’t believe this was the sister I had heard so much about. The sister whose death broke Celia in half and even left a stain of sorrow on Ronan’s life. This same fucking bitch was somehow behind my cousin’s brutality, the murder of my brothers, and so many of our men.
“You still think you’re better than me? Still think you’re worthy of Papá’s favor even though all it got you were scars? We’ll see who’s ugly, you spoiled bitch,” Carolina shrieked, dragging the knife across the side of Celia’s face, stopping just before reaching the corner of her lip.
Carolina’s eyes widened like she couldn’t believe what she’d just done, but Celia’s expression remained cold and unchanged, like she hadn’t even felt the pain of her skin splitting open from the sharp blade. The blood poured freely down her jaw, staining her chest and dripping down the black leather dress she still wore from the Black Crow Party. She lifted her chin up again, a sinister look filled with nothing but hate burned straight from her eyes into Carolina’s.
Celia smirked.
She actually fucking smirked, pushing more blood out of the side of her face. Carolina retreated back with shock at first, but Celia’s reaction only forced more anger from her. She lifted her hand as if to slice the other side of her face.
“Dame una sonrisa hermana.”
“Stop. Wait,” I shouted as loud as I could, getting their attention. “Don’t hurt her, don’t fucking hurt her… please. You can do whatever you want to me. Just don’t hurt her,” I begged.
“And what kind of satisfaction am I supposed to get from that?” She laughed and just as her arm came down to cut, Guillermo stopped her with his own hand.
“I can use this. I need to teach this pendejo a lesson anyway.” He yanked her back by the forearm and she winced, rubbing the sore spot that he squeezed too tightly. “You want to take all her pain? All her punishment? I’m going to make you regret not killing her so badly that you’ll ask me to do it yourself when the time comes to let her go, primo.”
“You want to teach him a lesson, amor? Consider this the first one,” Carolina declared, her accent heavier than I’d ever heard Celia’s in the entirety of our friendship. “You can have the other half,” she said sinisterly.
She walked over, standing directly in front of me before digging the knife slowly across the side of my face, mirroring Celia’s new cut. I groaned from the pain, biting the inside of the opposite cheek to distract from the sharp pain of her blade.
“Stop it. Fucking stop it,” Celia screamed, shaking in the chains.
But it wasn’t enough, Carolina smiled proudly at herself and looked to Guillermo before sending the knife down the other side of my face, cutting my eyebrow and sending the blade down my cheek. The burn was intense, and the blood spilled out too fast, forcing me to squeeze my eye shut to keep it from dripping into my vision.
