I'd take care of that, after I took care of the first of the Cortes brothers.
Hugo dropped to his knees in front of me, hanging his head as he waited for his punishment. "I should put a bullet in your head for what you let happen," I snarled, standing from the chair I'd occupied while they brought Isa home. "But Isa has already grown to trust you. I can't just replace you with another friend." I strode around him, moving to his brothers, who bowed their heads respectfully and waited for my verdict. "Very clever of you to introduce Isa to your brothers, offering them the same protection. She would question them disappearing so suddenly. I can't have that. Can I?" I asked, turning a glare back to Hugo. I'd underestimated the boy's cunning, and he raised his head to meet my eyes and showed me just what I knew I'd see.
The move had been very deliberate. He would either be an excellent ally, or eventually there would come a day when he tried to reach too high, and I put him down like a dog in the dirt.
"She doesn't need to see them with no shirt, however," I said, stripping off my suit jacket. The fireplace in the corner burned with the branding iron as I rolled my sleeves up. Both Gabriel and Joaquin swallowed, but stripped the shirts off over their heads. They'd bear the mark of their failure for the rest of their lives. Such was the way of the Ibarras. Grabbing the brand from the fireplace, I held it up and inspected the straight tally mark that would mark their chests.
Moving to Joaquin first, I held his eyes as I pressed the white hot metal to his flesh next to the sole mark that already occupied his chest. Skin sizzled, popping beneath it as he gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes closed. I knew better than most the feeling of your flesh melting.
My father had been fond of reminding me of my failures.
When I drew back and placed the brand in the fire once more, Gabriel gagged around the smell of burned flesh that filled the room. Hugo watched with horror-filled eyes as I took the brand to his other brother.
One failure. One mark.
Hugo was fortunate to get away without one, simply because I couldn't have her see it and match it to mine later on.
"I'll owe you your mark in sixteen months," I said to Hugo as I pressed the brand to Gabriel's skin. Hugo swallowed but nodded, accepting the fate for what it was.
Inevitable.
The anticipation of the event would be even worse than if I'd just gotten it over with. Hanging over his head for over a year. His brothers had a more merciful punishment. "If you fail me again, I will kill your entire family and wipe your legacy from the Earth," I told Joaquin, stepping back and unrolling my sleeves. As I slipped my jacket back over my shoulders and buttoned it up, the three men observed me. "I do not care that your mother is alive and breathing. I will slaughter all of them. There isn't a line I won't cross for Isa. Remember that, and you'll earn your places back with me when you return. Understood?"
They nodded solemnly, and with that part of my day out of the way, I slipped out the front door without another word.
When I slipped inside two weeks later, every light was on in Wayne’s home, as if he truly thought it could keep the devil away. He sat on the couch, a knife in his hand, while his parents slept soundly upstairs. The drugs on the coffee table showed just how far his fear had driven him in the weeks I’d left him to look over his shoulder in fear.
Watching and waiting for the phantom that would come and put him out of his misery.
He was barely aware, high off the dirty heroine he'd injected into his own body in his desperation to escape into a high. I leaned over him, slapping his cheek until his eyes rolled open. Terror filled them, even through the haze that must have been so similar to what Isa had felt, that night he’d tried to touch what was mine.
"Where are your witnesses now?" I asked, watching as he prepared to yell for his parents. But I'd already ensured they'd sleep through the night, courtesy of roofies from the same dealer that had supplied the ones used on Isa. "They won't help you."
"What the fuck," he asked, his words trailing off. "I'll call the police."
"Go ahead," I said. "You'll be dead before they can get here, and I don't have to do a thing to make that happen. You killed yourself, you see?" I asked, tapping the empty syringe on the coffee table. "An overdose. Heroin laced with fentanyl. I'm told it's quite common when you buy the cheap shit."
"What?" he whispered, eyeing his trusty stash like it had betrayed him. Perching on the edge of the coffee table, I watched as he fumbled around to find his phone. But I'd watched and waited just long enough for the drugs to have already taken effect, making his movements uncoordinated and sloppy.
When I’d found his phone on the floor, I kicked it under the edge of the couch so he would never find it in time. I watched his movements fade altogether, his eyes drifting closed. "You never should have touched Isa," I said finally as I waited for his heart to stop altogether. When his chest no longer rose and fell, I took his wrist in my hand and checked for a pulse I already knew wouldn't be there.
My only regret was that I couldn't make him bleed. That he hadn't screamed in agony as he died.
But Isa could never know my role in his death, and an overdose was so easily explained in
