Alejandro twisted around and shot the man.
The man cried out as he fell to the ground. His gun clattered away.
Alejandro checked back on the two men—who were policía, they had to be policía—and saw that they were both out of commission. The older one had paled considerably in the past minute. It didn’t look like he had much longer to hold on. The younger one hadn’t paled as much, but he was writhing in pain on the ground.
It took more effort than he thought he had, but Alejandro managed to climb to his feet. He kept telling himself that it was almost over. That soon he would avenge his family. That soon he could close his eyes and never open them again.
Alejandro approached the new man on the floor. He didn’t look like a narco. It took Alejandro a moment, but then he realized who this man must be.
“You are Jose Luis, yes?”
The man didn’t answer, staring up at him in terror.
Alejandro said, “Where are they?”
The man gritted his teeth, attempted to spit at him.
Alejandro shot the man in his ankle.
The man howled.
Alejandro said, “Where are they?”
The man kept howling in pain.
Alejandro shot him in his other ankle.
The man sputtered, “Upstairs. They are upstairs.”
Alejandro had figured as much, but he still needed confirmation.
“Where are they upstairs?”
The man didn’t answer, shaking his head, but when Alejandro aimed his gun toward his balls, the man relented with a hoarse shout.
“The master bedroom.”
Alejandro looked back over his shoulder to check on the two cops. Both of them were still alive, but they wouldn’t be a problem.
He turned back to Jose Luis and aimed his gun at the man’s head.
“Were you there when your boss made the plan to come after me and my family?”
Jose Luis shook with pain. His eyes were shut tight again, his jaw clenched, but still he nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Alejandro shot Morales’s right-hand man in the face.
He turned back to the two policía, meaning to put them out of their misery too, when he heard a vehicle approaching outside.
Alejandro couldn’t waste any more time. He needed to end this now.
Gripping the gun in his hand, he started for the stairs.
Fifty-Two
Nova shuts off the SUV, and we step out into a heavy silence.
Bodies lie all over the yard.
Nova and I glance at each other.
He whispers, “Too quiet.”
I nod.
We start toward the front of the house. But then Nova notices divots in the grass leading toward the side yard. He motions me to follow him, and we round the house to find a car resting on the patio. The car is empty, but we spot two men just inside the smashed entrance.
Ramon and Carlos.
I nod to Nova and we enter cautiously, our backs touching as we sweep different areas of the house. I’m facing the front of the house and don’t see anything except the two crime scene investigators who both look like hell. They’ve been shot several times, but they’re still alive.
Nova whispers, “I’ve got a dead body.”
I glance over my shoulder. A man lies on the floor, shot in the face.
Nova keeps cover as I crouch down in front of Ramon.
“What happened?”
Before Ramon can answer, Carlos shouts, his voice tepid and shaky.
“The bastard shot me!”
Ramon doesn’t even bother playing stupid. The pain is too much for him to hide his emotions. His glare burns into me.
I stand back up and turn to Carlos.
“Where did he go?”
The man’s face is white. He grimaces against the pain, and tilts his face toward the ceiling.
I say to Nova, “Keep an eye on them. I’ll be right back.”
Nova has already taken a position with his back to the wall so he can watch both entry points and the two men on the ground. He nods to me, and I hurry past him toward the hallway.
I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear a woman scream.
The woman keeps screaming, pleading for mercy, and I follow her screams all the way up the steps and down the hallway to a bedroom.
The door is already open.
I step inside.
Alejandro stands in the middle of the bedroom, the barrel of his gun pressed against the head of a young boy, and the woman—Morales’s wife—is in the corner on her knees, her hands folded, begging the intruder to let her son go.
Alejandro has taken off his mask. It lies crumpled on the carpet beside him. In a low, guttural voice, he tells the woman to look at his face, to see what her husband has done to him.
“He did the same thing to my family. To my wife and son and daughter. He sent men to rape them and burn them alive.”
So far I’ve been silent. Nobody in the room has heard me. Alejandro has gone past the point of caution. He’s close to death, and all he wants to do is avenge his family before he dies, so he doesn’t care that his back is to the door. I could simply take him out now—place a bullet in the back of his head—but instead I step deeper in the room, far enough for the woman to notice me. And because her attention shifts just briefly, it’s enough for Alejandro to turn toward me.
I’m not really sure what I had expected after Father Crisanto told the story about what happened to Alejandro, but the actual reality of the man’s face makes me pause.
I keep my gun trained on him as I say, “Alejandro, don’t do this.”
There is a tremor of surprise in what’s left of his face at the sound of his name, but it’s there for only an instant.
“Stay back.”
“I spoke to Father Crisanto. He told me what happened to your family.”
“Stay back!”
“Father Crisanto is dead.”
This makes Alejandro pause. But then, just as quickly, he presses the barrel of the gun even harder against the boy’s head. The boy cries out, squirming in Alejandro’s grasp.
He says, “They deserve to die.”
“No, they don’t. Fernando deserves to die, and I’ve
