Which is why, despite Luisa’s protesting, I got out of the car, grabbing a knife and a gas mask from the sleeve behind the seat. It’s probably supposed to hold magazines or some shit, but I have different requirements when I’m being driven around.
There was one asshole, who tried to escape the tear gas, writhing on the ground. I needed him alive. That’s how this whole thing works.
I slipped on the mask and stalked toward him as he crawled away. One of my heavy men were going to shoot him, but I told him to wait.
I picked the guy up by both his ears as he howled at me, tears streaming down his face from the gas.
Sliced the tip of his nose clean off.
I had a joke about cutting off your nose to spite your face, but he wouldn’t have heard me through the gas mask anyway.
Then, while he was covering his face, screaming, covered in a river of blood, I had my men pick him up and drag him to the back of the SUV. They covered his mouth with duct tape, taped his legs and arms too, and threw him back there. Luisa looked horrified that he was going to be in our vehicle, but she got used to it fairly quickly, as she always does. That’s why she’s my wife. Her revulsion for my job only lasts a few seconds before she realizes how alike we really are.
We continued on our way up the mountains.
Until the man in the back seat made some gurgling noises and stopped thrashing around.
I looked in the back to see he was dead.
I suppose cutting off his nose and covering his mouth made him drown in his own blood. My mistake. But what are you going to do?
He’ll still make for some good retaliation videos, hence why we’re not dumping him out here in the middle of nowhere. No, you should always carry around the body of your enemy if you can. You never know when you might need one.
“Are we there yet?” Luisa asks quietly.
“Soon,” I tell her, glancing down at my phone and watching our location on the GPS. I’ve actually never been here before, everything’s been handled by Evaristo. I glance up at him. “You sure it’s secure?”
He nods. “You’ll be as protected as you are at home.”
“True, but I don’t usually have people trying to kill me if I go for a drive. You said that no one would pay us any attention. But those were the Zetas. I know they were.”
“Lazcano is dead,” Evaristo says, speaking of the Zeta cartel’s ex-leader. “The group is directionless. Those men back there were stragglers. We have nothing to worry about.”
Evaristo used to be a federale, back in the day, before I turned him like a fucking vampire. Now he works for me, is loyal to me, and still keeps tabs on the old channels of the intelligence community.
I trust him with my life. I even lost him for some time, when he went off undercover as a priest, hiding from the government and the DEA. But he’s back. They always come back.
I glance behind me at the dead body. “Pity I didn’t get a chance to get him to talk.”
Luisa snorts and I eye her. “Oh come now, Javi,” she says to me. “You know he’d die before he said a word.”
I shrug and turn back in my seat. “Maybe. Maybe not. Isn’t finding out the fun part?”
She gives me a pointed look. “Anyway, can we stop talking about this?” she goes on. “We’re supposed to be in the Christmas spirit.”
I exchange a dry look with Evaristo. He presses his lips together, trying not to smile. He knows what an uphill battle we have with the Christmas fucking spirit.
It’s about another hour through some rough and bumpy terrain, the SUV’s at a crawl, until we finally arrive at the compound. It’s hidden extremely well. The road ends and, unless you know where to drive, you wouldn’t think you could keep going. It disappears under pines, and then there are twists and turns, a couple of gates, and then the electrified fence, like you’re driving into Jurassic Park or something.
But instead of dinosaurs, it’s a massive house that wouldn’t look out of place in the American Rockies, surrounded by tall trees.
“This is the cabin?” Luisa says, sounding awed.
“This is it,” Evaristo says.
We get out of the cars and, damn, he did a good job picking this one. Three stories, huge cathedral windows, knotted pine, it looks more like a lodge than anything else.
Also, “Fuck, it’s cold,” I cry out, the breeze sharp and biting. “Jesus.”
“Oh, you’re just not used to it, Javier,” Diego says, grinning at me.
“None of us are,” I remind him. “Stop pretending your dick is bigger.”
That shut him up.
We head into the house, the heavy men doing a sweep first before bringing in the luggage. I’m immediately fishing out a parka from my suitcase. It was five thousand US dollars, stuffed with Canadian geese (the feathers, I assume), and I bought it specifically for this trip. Though it’s slim-cut, it’s hard to look menacing in a parka. But it’s either that or I freeze.
“Where’s the tree?” Luisa says.
I turn to see her standing in the middle of the grand hall, facing the cathedral window.
“The tree?”
She gives me a look like I’m the crazy one. “Yes. The Christmas tree. You promised me we’d have a Christmas tree. With presents under it. And decorations.”
Fuck. Did I?
I blink, trying to think back to when we agreed to this whole Christmas trip and, honestly, I don’t think I remember promising anything? I mean I should know, I don’t break my promises.
“Are you sure?” I ask her. I don’t want to push back at her, but she’s got an edge to her voice and her eyes are a little cagey. The only thing protecting me from her is the fact that she has Vicente bundled in her arms.
She gives
