Page 44 of Empire of Carnage
Maybe I owed him a better death.
Santos saw the look in my eyes and exhaled in defeat like he knew I was about to cut the fun short.
I pulled my own Glock out and pressed it to his head.
“Wait, hold on. It’s not right.” Santos stepped forward before I went in for the final blow.
“What?
“He hurt her too,” he said before walking to the table and switching the pliers he was going to use to cut his toes off for some smaller ones. “He owes her too.”
I raised my eyebrows at him suspiciously while he squeezed Archer Junior’s jaw until it pried open and he sobbed out from pain, blood dripping out with his drool.
“I just gotta get something real quick.”
Archer shook violently while sobbing unintelligible sounds, screeching an awful noise every time Santos yanked a tooth out from his mouth. After collecting a handful, he stuck the bones in his back pocket.
Bloody saliva dripped onto the floor from his mouth, and he mumbled painfully.
“We had some good times didn’t we, brother?” Santos gave him a crooked grin, tapping his cheek a few times with the palm of his hand before he stepped back to let me put him out of his misery.
“Here’s the bigger secret I want to let you in on before I put you under.” I leaned in real close and whispered in his ear, “If you had just waited, you would have had it all. I would have stepped down and given it all to you without any bloodshed. Now our family is divided and at least half of them will die fighting for what they think is right.” It was a sad realization, but it was just the way things went.
Blood had been spilled and now it would continue to do so until one side stopped fighting back or died.
That’s the way war went.
19
Celia
Iwanted to drive to the airport myself to pick up my guys, but none of my officers would allow it. Here I was, a supposed queen, somehow still fucking being told what to do by men. I hated admitting it but they weren’t wrong. It was a matter of security and I couldn’t make impulsive and risky decisions now that my tío knew I was readying for war.
The man was brash enough to try to execute a half-cocked attack just to have the element of surprise over me.
It wouldn’t matter. What he didn’t realize was that he’d already prepared me for this.
I was always expecting him. I had been for the last twelve years. Always looking over my shoulders, paying attention to my surroundings, and memorizing stranger’s faces. Who had I seen before, and where.
It was easy to fall into paranoid thinking, but at the end of the day my tío never let me down, he always came for me. It was almost comforting every time it happened.
This would be the last time.
So I caved and let Mateo ride with me to the airport, along with the security detail car that followed behind. All capable and trustworthy soldiers hand-picked by Dominico himself and then vetted extensively by Santos before sending them over to Taylor for probing. She’d dug up more information on each of them than I thought was even possible, from ex-girlfriends to which toys they preferred on the playground in primary school.
Overkill, but apparently necessary.
I opened the door of the car but before I could fully step out I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Jefa, please get b—”
“Rodrigo, right?” Mateo cut in, peeling one of my guard’s fingers off my shoulder. “You seem like a nice guy, but if you ever put your hands on her again it’ll be the last time you use them.”
Down boy, but hewascute when he went into rottweiler mode.
“I-I’m just trying to do my job. I was told to keep her s—”
“Rodrigo, I’m an ex-Navy Seal. I think she’s pretty safe with me, don’t you?” He spoke with the smooth, calculated tone he got before he went borderline psychotic.
