Heartless Lover by Faith Summers

23

Eric

Darkness is always filled with devils.

Devils like me and mine who hunt, and devils like these five men from the cartel kneeling before me with their hands placed behind their heads.

We fucking got them. These are the main guys we need to speak to. The rest were killed when the blood bath began.

They’re lined up in front of their truck which was filled with fifty young girls who were naked and bound with chains. All were being prepped to be shipped to fuck knows where and sold to fuck knows who. Behind them is the cargo ship the girls were going to be smuggled onto. The captain of the ship is dead as are the other men who tried to take us down when we first arrived.

After we dealt with the girls and arranged for someone to get them back to their homes, I lined up the remaining motherfuckers to question them.

Next to me is Alejandro and a mixture of my men, including Borya and Oleg, and some others from the Brotherhood.

Alejandro looks at the man we identified as the leader of tonight’s criminal activities. His name is Bernardo Diaz and he’s currently on the world’s most wanted list. The motherfucker has a knife scar running right across his face and he looks like he’s ready for battle even though Alejandro has a gun pointed at his head.

“Time to talk, Bernardo,” Alejandro taunts. “Where is Micah Santa Maria?”

There’s no answer from Bernardo and he doesn’t look like he plans to say shit.

Alejandro glances at me when he sees that and when I glare at Bernardo, he starts cursing me in Spanish. He calls me the dirty bastard Russian boy who killed his cousin. Earlier he’d heard me speaking in Russian to Borya. Then he curses us all to hell in the name of Jesucristo and Santa Maria—not Micah. He’s referring to the blessed Virgin Mary.

He made two mistakes there when he opened his mouth. The first was of course he didn’t know I’m fluent both in Spanish and Portuguese, so I understood him perfectly. His next mistake was saying all the wrong things.

I stop him from continuing his mistakes as he rants on when I pull my gun and shoot the two men next to him. They were his sidekicks, but he’s the guy we need to speak to. His face hardens with fear and rage as he looks at the demise of the man next to him whose name is Hector Diaz, another cousin of Bernardo’s.

When we first opened up the truck, Hector was raping one of the girls while the other dead guy next to him—whose name I don’t need to remember—held her down. They’re both dead now and the sight shuts up our new friend.

I get up in his face and strike him with the back of my gun so hard he falls over. Then I tell him in Spanish I’ll cut his face off and feed it to him if he doesn’t tell us what we need to know.

By the time I finish talking, he looks as scared of me as he should be.

Alejandro laughs and I allow him to take the reins again.

“Right, let’s do this again, Bernardo. Where is Micah Santa Maria?” Alejandro demands.

“I don’t know. And if I did know, I no tell you. He will kill my family if I do.”

Alejandro bends down and taps Bernardo’s head with the edge of his gun. He then moves to the two men remaining at the end and stands in front of them. They were in the front of the truck getting ready to deposit the girls on to the ship.

“Are you going to tell me anything?” Alejandro asks the first man.

“They don’t know anything. They are drivers,” Bernardo shouts.

“You all know who I am, si?” Alejandro asks them all and they nod. “Then you know why I never deal in the flesh trade. That was how I lost my sister and every time I get a chance to avenge her, I do. Like now.”

As soon as the words leave his lips he fires two bullets into the heads of the drivers. It’s just Bernardo left now and he looks like he’s ready to shit himself.

“Ready to talk?” I ask.

“Fuck you, dog.”

“Looks like you’d rather we torture you by blowing off one limb at a time.”

“Fuck off.”

“Wrong answer,” I shout and shoot him in his knees.

Blood sprays everywhere and Bernardo screams, reaching for his knees in a frantic panic only to soak his hands in blood so thick it looks like tar in the mingle of the dock lights and the moonlight.

In my experience men like him try to hold their silence because they know their loved ones are dead if they talk. But, the right amount of pain can compel a man to sell his own mother.

“Now that you see we’re serious,” I add. “I think it’s time to start talking. Unless you want another limb blown off.”

I cock the hammer on my Glock again and he holds up his bloodied hands.

“Please, no. No more. I wasn’t lying when I said I don’t know where Micah is. I don’t. We were just doing a job.”

“What is the job?”

“He’s collecting girls for his virgin market in Italy at the end of the month. That’s where we were heading tonight,” he stutters. “He needs three hundred girls because this market is more important than the others. He gets seven million upfront and another two million when the girls are sold.”

“Why is this one more important than the others?” Alejandro cuts in.

“It’s Camorra business. The leader of the Grand Syndicate is dying and Micah wants the position. To do that he has to outdo Tobias Rivera and get all the members to vote for him, including the high leader. That means everything he brings to the table has to outdo Tobias, right down to the last cent.”

Alejandro looks at me and he seethes. I know exactly who Tobias Rivera is and he’s no mere man. His name is usually synonymous with the word Camorra. The infamous syndicate Bernardo is talking about is led by Tobias’ father, Dante Rivera. It’s similar to ours, but the main differences are that theirs works on a larger scale with governments and the world’s elite. We work for ourselves, but those people practically own the world.

It all fucking makes sense now and explains why Micah is collecting. It’s to expand his worth on such a large scale his win will be irrefutable. It’s like trying to win an election. When they choose a leader in the Camorra Syndicate it’s a man who doesn’t just win the votes of every member, what defines him is his money and assets.

“When is this happening?” Alejandro demands.

“First weekend of August in Sicily,” Bernardo stutters.

Damn it.That’s still several weeks away. The first weekend of fucking August is days after Micah and Robert are supposed to exchange contracts with Barabbas for the device and it looks like the fucking virgin market is at the same time.

“Will you see him before then?” I cut in. There’s no way Micah is just going to leave everything to these guys to set up.

“Yes, but I never know when I’ll see him until the day before he arrives. Jake contacts me with a time and a place.”

Jake.As in fucking Robert.

“What does Jake do for Micah, Bernardo?” I ask.

“Everything. But he’s just a middle man. He has a connection in Brazil that no one knows about,” Bernardo answers then looks at Alejandro. “It was that connection that helped assist in the assignation of your brother.”

Alejandro gets up in his face. “Sounds like you were there amigo. Were you?”

When Bernardo goes quiet, Alejandro kicks him in his stomach and shoots him in his arm.

“Fucking answer me,” Alejandro shouts.

“I was there, but Jake hacked the security and opened the doors for the men to go in. That person, however, was watching the place and knew things. He still knows things.”

“You talk like you know who it is.”

“I don’t. I’ve heard phone calls and seen meetings, but I never see his face. All I know is he’s the main guy pulling the strings. El Diablo. That’s what we call him. Micah and Robert are the puppets he made promises to. Just like me. It’s him who wants your empire Alejandro, so even if you kill Micah, it won’t end with him. Micah was just the strongest man the devil knew who could take on the Ramírez cartel and eradicate you. You and your brother.”

That means there’s a bigger problem at hand. And someone else to worry about.

Alejandro looks stunned and completely stumped as expected.

“What’s happening next in L.A.?” I say.

“More girls. We organize the ship when we get the required amount he needs. Now he needs another hundred and it needs to happen before the end of the month.”

“How do you get in touch with them?”

“Email. I—"

Before Bernardo can get out the next word a bullet whizzes right by us and lodges in his head.

We all jump into action when we see that.

Bullets fly from right and left coming from the rooftops of the warehouses surrounding us. I take cover with Alexandro next to me and we fire back as soon as we get a clear shot of the men I can now see are masked.

“Let’s take out these fuckers,” Alejandro shouts running forward with a savage growl.

I’m right behind him with my guns whipped out and ready to kill. And kill we do.

While I stick with Alejandro, Borya leads the other men down the alley way to the left of us.

A guy runs across the roof of this warehouse with a machine gun who retreats when he sees us coming, but I don’t know where the fucker heads to.

Alejandro and I run down the dark alley that would take us to the stairs leading up to the roofs, but something falls in front of me as I’m running.

In the sliver of the moonlight I just make out what it is in time and stop so abruptly Alejandro crashes into me.

It’s a fucking grenade and the pin is lose, ready to blow.

I round back, grabbing him and we manage a few strides forward before the thing explodes and sends us both flying through the air.

When I land I come down hard and debris and parts of the warehouses that were blown up fall around me like rain.

I don’t even know where Alejandro is.

I must lie there for a few minutes before my mind settles and I think I might have blacked out.

I suddenly think of my father being blown up in that bomb and what his last thoughts must have been. And his last regrets.

I’m hurt, I feel a soaked path of blood on my side, but I’m not dead.

Footsteps echo near me and I hope like fuck it’s not the enemy because I don’t know where my gun is.

I thank God and all his angels when I see Alejandro and Borya hovering over my face and they weren’t actually approaching me, they were already here. everything was just distorted around me.

Fuck.

Someone was watching us, and they got away.