Chapter 10 : Dealing with the Devil

Efrain POV

"The f*ck you just said? Say it again?" my dad spat.

Slower, drawing out my words so my idiot dad could understand, I said, "I… gave… the… girl… away."

My dad grabbed his glass of whiskey off of his desk, downed it, and then stood up. He waddled over to me and had to stand on his tiptoes just to meet my eye level. I wasn't intimidated.

"YOU JUST GAVE HER AWAY?" he screamed, spittle splashing my nose and mouth.

"She was an inconvenience, Father," I smirked. That only caused his face to turn a brighter shade of red.

My father backed away from me and brought my eyes directly in front of his. He knew he couldn't fight me. He started pacing in circles.

"Do you know how much we could've sold her for?!" he asked.

"Probably a lot," I said carelessly. It was great seeing my father riled up. He had been such a terrible man to me over the years, never giving me any attention until I grew up and he realized my strength and size could be used as an asset to the pack.

"We could've been the most powerful pack in Miami, you ungrateful bastard!" My father walked towards the bar he had installed in his underground office and opened a new bottle of Maker's Mark. Such a simpleton.

I scoffed. "We? More like you?" My father's only intention was to gain more status for himself. He didn't care about the 'good of the pack.' That's why I spent most of my time f*cking different women because I had no interest in the sh*tshow my father was running here.

I heard him pouring another glass of whiskey. "I built this pack up from nothing with my bare hands!"

"Paws," I clarified. "Wolves have paws, not...."

My father threw the glass in my direction, something he seemed to enjoy doing. He missed by a mile, and I didn't even have to shift to dodge it, he was that far off.

"You ungrateful f*ck. That's why I wanted an heir from Rodri's daughter!" he confessed.

"Ahh, there it is, Father. The truth is revealed." I walked forward, the sound of my black dress shoes echoing off the walls. My father's eyes started to widen. He wasn't so tough without his second glass of whiskey in his bloodstream.

I continued, "And that's exactly why I gave her away. Well, I didn' plan to. Actually, the bunch of idiots you employed couldn't contain her."

My father backed up against the counter as I walked closer. I could see his knuckles turning white as he braced himself against the wood. "What are you t-t-talking about?" he stammered.

I stopped a few inches away from my father. My dress shoe met his pair of creased loafers. "The girl. She escaped."

"Ahh f*ck," my father grumbled before sliding sideways against the countertop and circling the bar to get a new glass. He poured himself some vodka this time. He was a shambolic mess; I was ashamed to call him my father.

"Who caught her?" he questioned, after making an 'ahhh' sound after drowning himself in some Grey Goose. Stll, rather primitive in my opinion.

I waited for him to pour another glass before telling him. I hoped he would choke when I said it was Oscar.

My father brought the cylindrical glass to his chapped lips and began pouring the vodka down his throat. "El Lobo."

Well, he didn't choke. Instead, he spat out the vodka like a sprinkler. Luckily, I wasn't in front of him. I had a date with one of Miami's top bachelorettes, and I just had my suit dry cleaned.

"That f*cking rat of all people!" my father growled at me.

What made this whole thing better was that my father and El Lobo had quite a bad history, which had me entangled in the whole mess. Oscar successfully trafficked a lot of our she-wolves from the pack and then would sell them back to us at an exorbitant cost. My father would always send me to steal them back, and in the process, I had killed many of Oscar's henchmen.

That was the exact reason I gave the girl back to El Lobo. I knew he wouldn't budge easily for my father, meaning, it was nearly impossible for my father to ever get his hands on her again, and I'd be free from her without having to do anything drastic.

"He did me a favor, Father. I had to repay the kind gentleman," I sneered, laughing at my father's pain.

"That beer-bellied f*ck never did a good goddamn thing for us," my father shouted. He began pacing behind the bar with his hands behind his waist.

I put my elbows on the bar counter and explained, "Oh, but that's where you're wrong, Father." I paused, wanting my father to stop walking. It was making me dizzy.

After a few moments of silence, my father froze in place. Perfect. "You see, he got that girl off of my hands so I didn't have to do it myself. Would've been such an inconvenience personally." My father's bottom lip was quivering like he was having a seizure.

He slammed his fists on the counter. "THAT GIRL IS MINE! I DID ALL THE HARD WORK TO FINALLY PRY HER FROM RODRI."

"Would you like me to buy you a consolation trophy?" I asked plainly. He didn't seem to hear me. I heard him sobbing now. He really was experiencing all of life's emotions at one time.

My father wept, hunching over the bar counter. "Her father's hands were tied for the first time in his life. Rodri Zuleta, never ever let his guard down, especially when it came to his daughter. I had been orchestrating this deal behind the scenes for years. I finally pushed him to a place he couldn't walk back from."

At this point I was tuning my father's words out. "That's great. Dad. You know what's the problem with you, though?"

"WHAT?!" my father shouted, sniffling at the same time.

"You can't seem to finish," I cackled. It was a sore subject because his ex-wife had had him castrated.

I saw his jaw drop. He scurried around the corner of the bar, but he was already wasted. "I'll kill ya, you worthless bastard!" He made too sharp of a turn and lost his footing. He wiped out, and his head smacked against the hard concrete.

"At least wait until I'm done f*cking Eleanor Castillas tonight. She's been on my list for awhile," I exclaimed to my father who was wriggling on the floor. His eyelashes were beating so I knew he wasn't dead.

I considered helping him up, but then I remembered how Eleanor was Miami's hottest real estate mogul, and she hated tardiness. I didn't want to be late to pick her up.

Marco POV

"Hello, Agustin?" I answered suspiciously. I hadn't gotten a call from that man in at least a decade. We made an agreement years ago to stay out of each other's territories after having too many deadly run-ins.

On the other end of the line were words that were nearly unrecognizable. He sounded sloshed, just as I remembered.

"Call me back when you're sober, okay?" I declared. I didn't like having my time wasted, especially by him.

"Marcoooooo, myyyyyyy mannnnnn," Agustin slurred. "Howwwww you been?"

"Fine, until you called," I responded. Any time I got a phone call from Agustin, it was never good news. One of my wolves had been killed, or he needed something. I suspected the latter was what he was after today.

"Hahaha, Marco, still bitter as evaaaaaaa," he joked.

I wasn't bitter. I was just strict. And I was fine with it. It allowed me to run a tight operation.

"Get to the f*cking point, Agustin, or I'm hanging up," I demanded.

"Woah woah woahhhhhhhhhh. Hold ooooooon. I got an offer for ya." I heard Agustin coughing on the other line like he just snorted a line of coke. How classy.

"Spit it out." He had ten seconds, or I was hanging up.

"I need you, my ol' buddy ol' pal." He started giggling like some sort of kid on crack. "Can I help you locate me a girl?" The slurring was replaced with misplaced words, but I understood the gist of it.

Like any true businessman, I asked, "How much is my payout?"

He started laughing again. "Goooooood question! Straight to businesssss. Just how I like it!"

This was f*cking painful.

"How about five hundred thousand?" he offered.

He had to be joking. "What, five hundred thousand enchiladas? Who the f*ck are we talking about here?"

Agustin clarified, "Five hundred thousand of those fine collard greens, my friend. Dollars. Buckaroos."

F*cking sh*t, I thought. This girl had to be the direct descendant of the Moon Goddess if Alpha Agustin was willing to pay me half a million for her. That money would be enough to finally pull my pack out of the gutters we'd been in.

"You serious?" Even if he was sober, which was almost never, I still wouldn't have believed his offer.

"Dead serious," he declared. "You ever catch me lyin'?" he followed up.

It was true, Agustin might have been a hot mess, but he always kept his word. He stuck to it for the past ten years. I'd hear him out on this one.

"I need to know more first. This girl going to get sh*t stirred up between other packs?" I was wary of starting World War III in Miami proper.

"Indeeeeeeeed it might. But I-I-I gotta tell ya' Marco, this girl is worth tha t-trouble!" Agustin stuttered.

"This girl better be damn good to be starting a nuclear war over," I huffed.

"Twooo words. Rodrigo Zuleta."

"What the f*ck about him?" I tossed back. "He isn't a b*tch worth five hundred thousand beans!"

Agustin better not have been f*cking around this whole time. "Not him, his daughter!"

You've got to be f*cking kidding me. What was Agustin doing with Rodri's girl? Everyone in Miami knew not to mess with Rodri over his daughter. She was sacred to him.

Rodri was an upstanding Alpha and a fair man. He worked old school, just like how I preferred, not like some of these newer, hot shot Alphas who don't respect boundaries. But, I knew if anyone even mentioned his daughter's name, those people wouldn't be heard from again.

"I'm f*cking out. You really think I'm going after Catalina? Rodri will have my neck sliced," I explained. Was Agustin really that sloshed not to know that?

"No he won't," he laughed on the other end in a gravelly pitch. "Because he gave her to me."

"Bullsh*t."

There was no way Rodri would EVER willfully hand his daughter over to anyone, and especially not someone as slimy as Agustin.

"Don't believe meeee? Fine," Agustin said firmly. "I'll give your money to myself," he finished.

What the f*ck was he even saying?

"Goodbye, Agustin." I hung up on him.

I rubbed my temples trying to get my sanity back. That man was infuriating and now I knew why we stayed apart for so many years.

"Daddy!"

My lovely daughter didn't even knock on my office door. She just ran in.

"Why you look so stressed, Daddy?" she asked. Even though she was only eight, she had a keen eye.

"Because, Daddy just got off a serious phone call," I picked my daughter up and sat her on my lap.

She turned around and looked at me with her eyes watering. "What's the matter, Serena?"

Tears began streaming down her cheeks. Between sniffles she confessed, "Mommy said we have to move to a smaller house because Daddy–F'-word-you-told-me-never-to-say-up. I don't want to move, Daddy. All my friends are here."

My wife had been increasingly irritated with me these days because of our financial situation. The b*tch now was telling my daughter our problems. That's what I got for marrying a billionaire's daughter. Always expecting sh*t and throwing tantrums when she didn't get it.

I didn't care much about my wife, but my daughter was the greatest joy of my life. "Serena, hunny, look at Daddy." I lifted her chin so she could meet my eyes. I wiped away her tears with my finger. Her skin was so innocent, so soft. I hated to see her cry over me.

"Daddy will never let that happen, okay? Now go back and tell Mommy she was mistaken," I rubbed her back lightly.

"Really?" My daughter looked at me with disbelief.

"Really," I nodded in reassurance.

"Okay! Love you, Daddy!" Serena hopped off of my lap and ran quickly out of my office. I heard her saying, "Mommy, guess what Daddy told me!!!!" at the top of her lungs.

I unlocked my phone and looked at the recent calls history. I clicked on the first entry. I pressed, 'call.'

"Hellooooooo, Marco, my mannnnn."

"F*ck off. I'm not doing this for you," I spat caustically at the phone. This was all for giving my daughter a better life and not thinking of her dad as a loser.

"So we have ourselves a deal?" Agustin started coughing again on the other end.

"Yes," I replied coolly.

"Good, now get me the girl," Agustin ordered.

"I'll see what I can do."