“Everyone but you,” I interrupted, standing taller, not backing down.
He grinned, peering up and down at me. “And you. What? You think you’re not treated different? Held to higher standards? Given privileges most would die for? Oh, come on, Damien… look in the goddamn mirror. You’re just fucking like me. Always have been and always will be. You should be thanking me, not doubting me. The man who has given you everything!” he seethed, making the women yelp in response. “There isn’t anything running through your little mind that couldn’t be more wrong. You see this man?” He roughly grabbed ahold of the father’s hair, jerking it back so I could see his mangled face. “This man is a fucking traitor!”
“What did he do? Not pay his fucking taxes because he had to feed his family?!” I spewed the truth, the one I’d been hiding from myself my entire life.
Emilio cocked his head to the side, once again eyeing me up and down with a look I’d never seen before. “He was working with the enemy to bring me down. He and a bunch of other traitors were having meetings in this house! Organizing my demise to bring down everything I’ve worked for my whole life! And do you know what we do to traitors?” He paused, shoving the man away, causing his chair to stagger.
An eerie silence filled the room as he walked toward the women, beaming from ear to ear. Enjoying the effect he evoked on the helpless women. Both tried to weakly back away from him, only sinking further into the guards’ dominant hold. Salazar didn’t hesitate, pulling the teenage girl away from his henchmen.
“NO!” the mother shrieked an ear-piercing scream that would forever haunt me.
That night and his words would change who I was, and everything I believed in for the rest of my life.
It all started with…
Four simple words.
“We make them pay.”
The girl immediately started screaming and thrashing around in Emilio’s arms. Her long brown hair stuck to the sides of her swollen cheeks. Endless tears streamed down her pretty, bruised face as she fought the monster who invaded her home in the middle of the night. Salazar didn’t pay her any mind, amused by the turn of events. I didn’t think twice about it, pulling out my gun and aiming it point blank to the middle of her father’s forehead. Never breaking my intense stare with Salazar.
I narrowed my eyes at him, speaking with execution, “I’ll pull the fucking trigger myself as soon as you let the women leave safely.”
Emilio smiled, big and wide. Looking down at the girl who was now glaring at me with a new sense of hope in her dark brown eyes.
“Don’t try to be the fucking hero in this story, Damien. There’s only one thing you need to learn from tonight. The only way to make a man pay for his sins… is always through the ones he loves the most.”
Her mother started breaking down, screaming and trying to claw her way free. Doing everything in her power to save her daughter. While the father came to, begging for their lives from his chair. Pleading with everything inside of him to let his girls go.
I didn’t waver, pointing my gun to the man’s shoulder and pulling the trigger.
“NOOOOOO!” the women screamed in unison, fighting with every last ounce of strength they had to go to him.
“Next bullet is through his heart!” I yelled, needing to get my point across. “Now let them go!”
“Stand the fuck down, soldier!” Salazar ordered, knowing I had no choice but to listen.
For the first time in my life, I fought an internal battle between what was right and wrong. Lowering my gun, trying like hell not to let the chaos cloud my judgement. Salazar was over to me in three strides with the daughter in tow, tearing the gun out of my hands. Dragging her to her feet in front of him, setting the cool metal on the side of her head instead. He placed her securely in between us, a few feet away from me. The girl’s eyes spoke volumes, intensifying with each second that passed like a ticking time bomb.
Fear.
Pain.
Death.
“It’s time you man the fuck up and prove to me who you stand by. Where your duties lie because fatherland or death, we shall win!” With that, he shoved her as hard as he could in my direction, causing her to lose her footing.
She whimpered as I caught her in my arms mid-fall. Supporting her small frame against my chest. Our faces inches apart as she instinctively tried to fight me off. Not that I could blame her, I was just another villain in her eyes.
“Control her! Show her what we do to fucking traitors! Do you understand me?” Emilio roared, making her struggle against me even harder.
I couldn’t do it, I took every blow she delivered. Allowed her to feel any solace I could provide, even if it was only for a few seconds. It was the least I could do. She began to hit me harder and harder when she realized I wasn’t stopping her, I wasn’t fighting back. I was letting her have her moment.
“Now is your time to truly prove your loyalty to me! Show her who she serves!”
When I didn’t do what he wanted, Salazar crudely tore her away from me by her hair with revulsion in his eyes. Her hands instantly went to her head where he had ahold of her, wincing in pain. Clawing at his fingers as he hauled her over toward the guards by the door. Her legs flailed behind her, trying to gain control to stand up steadily, but failing miserably.
Her father started whipping around, desperately trying to escape from the chair—harder, faster, almost knocking it over. The blood gushing from the bullet hole in his shoulder not stopping him. While her mother did the same with the fucking guard.
It was then I locked eyes with my father, his stare begging me to forgive him. To have mercy on him too.
“This is what we do to men who betray us, Julio,” Emilio rasped the father’s name in a menacing tone that made my body shudder. Nodding to one of the guards on watch at the door, handing her off to him instead. As if he didn’t want to get his hands dirty from the filth, like she was just a piece of trash.
“Do your best, puta. No one can fucking hear you out here,” the guard baited, tugging her over to the small beat-up couch in the living area. “I love it when they scream,” he added.
“No!” she shouted, pathetically thrashing around her entire body, kicking, and hollering at the top of her lungs as she repeated, “Please!” over and over again. Hoping at any second she would wake up from this horrid nightmare. God would save her from this Hell. “No! No! No!” she continued to yell out to no avail, making them all laugh and me fucking sick.