Chapter 3

3

Thierry

In a perfectly pressed gray suit, Cuban cigar parked between his lips, Julio paces the room with his hands behind his back. At five-foot-ten, he’s not a particularly intimidating man in appearance, but I once watched him stab a guy in the throat for calling him Jules.

One of his men stands guard at the door, but I ignore him. Instead, sitting behind my desk, I tamp down the urge to knock the skull-fuck stare Flashy Shirt is throwing at me from where he sits, like a kid sent to the principal’s office, daubing his nose with ice.

“So, you say he disrespected you, and your course of action was to bash his face in?”

It’s only out of respect for Julio that I break the staring contest first, to shift my attention back to him. “He harassed one of my dancers.”

“And you bashed his face in. Over some whore dancer?” Lips crimped in repulsion, Julio tips his head in scrutiny.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the shit-eating smirk on Flashy Shirt’s face, and I suddenly regret not killing the bastard earlier.

Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

“She’s the best dancer in this club. Draws more tips and patrons than anyone else. Which means more cash.” My gaze falls to Flashy Shirt again. “Unless she’s tied up with some cheap motherfucker who likes to touch without paying.”

He thrusts his crotch upward. “Chupa mis bolas, puto!” Suck my balls, bitch.

Julio raises a hand to silence the little prick that has my trigger finger twitching. On a huff, Julio pinches his nose, eyes clamped shut. He tugs his gun from a side holster and, with nothing more than a quick glance, blows a shot through Flashy Shirt’s skull, sending bits of brain and bone across the pale gray carpet of my office and up onto the equally pale gray walls.

I don’t so much as flinch at the sight.

Watching a man’s skull explode with a bullet is nothing new to me. In fact, I expected more of a spectacle. Julio isn’t stupid. A man who disrespects and draws that much attention is one who can’t be trusted. And with the kind of money the cartel has been pulling in lately, there’s no room for sloppy sicarios.

Gun still in hand, he waves it toward Flashy Shirt, now slumped over and bleeding out in the chair, and twists back toward the bigger man by the door. “Call someone to get this fucking mess cleaned up.” With a sharp nod, the man pulls his cellphone out, while Julio takes the empty seat beside Flashy Shirt’s body.

“Lo siento, my friend. We may have to replace the carpet.”

Leaning forward, I pour two drinks into a glass and push one toward Julio. “Not a problem.”

In one fast swill, he downs the drink, then holds his glass out for another, to which I oblige.

“It’s a bitch finding good help these days.”

“I imagine it is.”

“Which is why I’m going to have to ask you a favor.”

Putain. I should’ve seen this coming from a mile away, but I was too distracted with the events of the evening, I didn’t even pay attention to the consequences of all this.

“I have a job that I trust only to the elusive Black Wolf.”

The nickname has me inwardly groaning. It isn’t enough that the locals refer to me as a fucking werewolf, of all things, but the cartel has adopted this showy supervillain reputation, thanks to Julio, who made it a point early on in my criminal career to use a childhood scar as a means of branding me a dangerous sicario.

“Since I’m out an employee, I’ll need you to fill in for him.”

The small, paranoid voice inside my head tells me he planned this all along. Maybe set it up, made sure Flashy Shirt unwittingly entered my club with a death wish, just so Julio would have the perfect excuse to put me on a job.

I haven’t worked in contract killing for a couple years now. Retired and moved on to money laundering, as a means of keeping myself valuable enough so the cartel doesn’t find me to be more useful as a corpse. The last job nearly killed me, thanks to some tip-off given to my target. Since then, I’ve been laying low. Biding my time, until I can fully leave this bullshit behind me.

Refusing him, though, would mean the cleaner is left sopping up two blown out skulls.

“Three men,” Julio continues. “At the moment, they’re holed up in a safe house, just outside of Houston. You’re to eliminate two, and bring the third back here.”

“Transport?”

“Yes. Which means you’ll need to purchase a vehicle. All expenses will be paid, of course.”

“And is the third to be kept alive?”

“Yes. This is a more personal matter for my employer. He wants a bit more flair than the usual search and eliminate.”

His employer is some mysterious and obscure capo of the Matamoros cartel, who’s rumored to live in a luxurious guarded mansion somewhere in Mexico and never leaves the compound. I’ve never met him, personally, but on his command, people die in brutal ways.

“You’re telling me I’m not passionate enough anymore?”

Julio chuckles and takes a sip of his liquor. “I would never insult your artistic expression, but this man … he deserves a more divine sort of punishment. Take out the other two, and don’t worry so much about cleaning up, but bring the third back to me.” He runs his finger over the barrel of the gun resting atop his thigh, his eyes lost to whatever thoughts churn behind them. “Do not incline my heart to any evil thing. To practice deeds of wickedness with men who do iniquity; and do not let me eat of their delicacies.” A quote from the Bible, I’m guessing. For as ruthless as they can be, the cartel tends to be excessively religious, as well as superstitious. They’ll rip out a man’s tongue for disrespecting the Lord with the same conviction as if someone stole from them. “My brother was a priest. Did I ever tell you that?”

“No.” I’ve known Julio since I was eighteen years old, and for the most part, he’s been something of a father figure to me after my old man skipped town. A violent, sometimes unpredictable father figure. But I can’t say I know much about him on a personal level.

“He was leaving the church one night after a late mass, when a car drove up and gunned him down on the front lawn. I wasn’t fully indoctrinated into Matamoros yet, but I remember the night those men who gunned him down sat on their knees in front of me. Gags in their mouths. Hands tied behind their backs. I felt my brother’s presence very strongly that night, urging me to show mercy to these men and set them free.”

“And did you?”

Still staring off, he shakes his head. “I’ve killed many people throughout the course of my life, but none so brutally as what those three men suffered at my hands. With the help of a local bruja, I ensured their souls would never be saved.”

Superstitious, as I said. What other modern-day criminal hires a witch to sanctify a kill? “They deserved it, for what they did.”

“Perhaps.” Breaking from his reverie, he lifts his gaze to mine. “I understand this is a big favor I’m asking of you, but you’re the only one I trust to carry it out well. The best. It’s a shame you’re so good with numbers, or I’d employ your services more often.”

It’s only because of my rapport with Julio that I was able to transition to the laundering desk job, at all, otherwise the cartel would’ve had me running hits until I was shot dead, or died of old age. Either way, they don’t give a shit. I’m nothing but another layer to the big boss. One of many skin and flesh tiers designed to protect him.

Julio glances toward the man still bleeding onto my carpet beside him. “He’d have fucked things up, and then we’d have war. So I consider this a great favor to me.”

He says this as if the alternative of declining the job isn’t staring me in the face right now, with vacant eyes that only a few minutes ago were probably imagining a good skull fuck. There is no walking away from this life. Walking away is no different than stabbing the leader in the back, and in that case, you’re not just a dead man. You’re punished in ways that would turn even the most hardened criminal’s stomach. I’m grateful that I was able to transition. Most men in my position don’t get that choice. A reminder to be thankful when he asks for a favor.

“I’m on it.”

“Good man.” He lifts his glass before kicking it back. “As for the carpet, what do you think of a darker shade?”