Sympathy looked strange on Diego’s rough face. “I’m sorry. He announced to the world that it was he who stole the boat, who kidnapped your sister and then blew it to hell with her on it on the way to Cabo San Lucas. He even went on to say that he’d hired an American sicario to do the job, and when he couldn’t, he killed him too.”
An American assassin. Somewhere in the back of my fading mind I knew he was talking about Derek Conway, a man who used to work for me and then disappeared. Fragments of the last conversation I had with Alana came floating back, like a puzzle rebuilding itself in my head, piece by piece.
The only thing I could say was, “Why?” But even then I knew it was a stupid question. The only answer was because.
Because she was my sister.
One of the last of my family left.
Because he knew personally how much family meant to me, even if my own family didn’t know it themselves.
He killed her to send me into a tailspin.
My beautiful, darling young sister.
Then he moved onto Luisa. Seduced her when she was lost and vulnerable and I was taking out my rage on the rest of the world, purposefully pushing her away, wanting her out of my life, wanting to drown in grief and violence and madness.
He took advantage of every part of me.
Now I was in jail, and he wasn’t going to stop until my cartel was in his hands, until he’d wrung every lost drop of blood from my body.
It takes a monster to know a monster.
He was the worst of us all.
And I was going rip him from limb to limb, tear him from ass to mouth, skin him alive and piss on his broken bones until I lost all traces of whatever humanity I had left.
I was living, breathing wrath and I was never going to stop.
I don’t really remember what happened next. Everything went black, but it could have been my rage or it could have been the prison’s power system failing.
The door to my cell opened and Diego and I walked out, into a land of screams and anguish. I would fit in here just fine.
Hiberto, Emilio and the tall, rangy warden were there, armed to the teeth with guns, knives and batons. If they were nervous or excited, I couldn’t tell.
One of them handed me a machete and “thank you” was the last thing I’d said until the slaughter was over.
I don’t know how many people I’d killed. It didn’t matter. At some point Diego had to stop me from chopping up an inmate into even smaller bits. I had let the hate and anger fuel me until I was some sort of machine.
Naturally, my first stop was the ugly guard who had first teased me when I walked in. I did as I told myself I would. Only, before I slowly ground the machete across his throat and took off his head, I hacked off his hands and feet, then shoved his foot in his mouth. I thought it would be ironic. Maybe it was barbaric.
After that I just went crazy, adding to the mayhem, while the two guards, warden and Diego stood by my side for protection, even taking part. I wasn’t going to walk around here without them. They kept the fuckers out for blood at bay while I was able to let my lucid fire unleash.
By the end of it, the whole prison block, filled with the worst of the worst, was filled with dead bodies, and there was more blood underfoot than floor. There were only about twelve of them that remained. They looked like the walking dead, chains and steel bars and knives in their hands.
But they knew who I was and they fought well and they were willing to walk free, out of this place with me, while I exacted my revenge. Esteban might have been building an army of depravity, but now I had mine and then some. I had everything except my boot on his throat and I was going to get that next.
I marched out of the prison with blood on my hands, under a dark and empty sky. I was a free man. While the prisoners were taken into waiting SUVs, Diego walked me out to Evaristo, who was standing in an ill-fitting suit that could have only been a product of a government agency.
“Congratulations,” he said to me, holding out his hand. He didn’t seem the slightest bit disturbed that when I half-heartedly shook his hand, it left his palm sticky with blood. “You made it out alive.”
“That was always the plan,” I said wryly while I eyed Diego for support, just in case. Diego only nodded, giving me his okay once again that Evaristo was to be trusted. I couldn’t be sure about that, even though, so far, he let me walk out of prison, the very prison that his company had put me into. Not to mention that he just let a slew of other inmates go. And the other half were brutally murdered.
“And I know I’m a new addition to your plan,” he said with a quick smile. Though the torture happened weeks earlier, his face was still puffy in places. It made him look older, more respectable. “But I can help you.”