“You all have five seconds each to answer the question I'm about to put forth, boys... And mind you, no lies, because if any of you dare to tell me any... I will make a delightsome example out of that fellow..”Don Fabrizio had gone into the general building and lined up all the men under his roof before him. He was now pacing slowly and methodically before them, his two hands held behind him, and a pistol being brandished in one of them. This was a classic Mafiosi pose, and it was one that was flexed only when there was serious trouble. Lucca stood behind him, a sneer on his face.“Which one of you has been fucking the stripper I stashed upstairs?” Don Fabrizio eventually asked after allowing the tension to build in the minds of his men for a few minutes, because the more afraid they got, the faster the truth would come out.All the men immediately began to look at each other with looks of surprise and innocence on their faces and Don Fabrizio observed them keenly.“I asked a questio
“Well, I've never really thought about it before... I've just been working and moving forward. Always thinking about the mission at hand and then the one after that and then the one after that... I've never thought about retirement.”Snyder was finding himself explaining to Bonita the reason why he had never thought about life outside of the FBI.“But.. that's not life, you know? Life is about more than just chasing and catching sickos like Aleksandr... There are family, love, and hobbies... There's a whole lot,” Bonita said. She had now finished bandaging him, and she was sitting opposite him on the bed.“Well, I... I do have a family... A wife... Well, I had a wife. We're separated now. But I have a teenage daughter, Amy,” Snyder said. As he talked about Amy, he smiled a little. Of all the shitty things he'd done in his life, both on and off the job, having Amy was the one thing he had never, ever regretted. She was his only achievement.“A child in her teens? That's great... What
“Happy eighteenth birthday to you, Amy..”Aunt Sarah said with a tinge of regret in her voice as she stood uncertainly by the door that led into the teenager's bedroom with a freshly baked, sweet-smelling cake in her hands.Amy, who was in a hoodie and baggy pants and had previously been on her bed, lying on her back and staring endlessly at the ceiling, raised her head a little to see her aunt in her baker's jacket and Barrett. It cracked her up a little, and she thought to make a small joke.“Thanks, Aunt Sarah... However, is the occasion worth the attire?”Sarah laughed harder than expected, not because the joke was ripping her ribs apart but because the whole situation was a very awkward, sad one and she was intensely nervous, so hearing Amy making light of a situation that was not hilarious at all was somewhat relieving for her as she hadn't known what to expect when she decided to make her way to Amy's room.“Come on in,” Amy beckoned to her, waving her in with a gesture of her
It had been a hectic day, to say the least, for Doctor Deona Fernando. Just that day, she'd had to deal with:A couple who’d come with seven children to get a DNA test; the man was raging, and upon inquiry, she discovered that he'd caught his wife of 11 years in bed with another man. And so, he'd come with all his children to decipher whether or not they were really his or if they were someone else's. The results were to be out in 5 days, but she was sure that if indeed the children turned out not to be the man's, there'd undoubtedly be hell at the hospital.A young lady who'd come with her sister and came to run a test due to how unwell she'd been feeling only to discover that she had been infected with staphylococcus.A woman who came and was pleading for the baby in her womb to be aborted, as she was a week away from her wedding and had just discovered that she was pregnant due to careless sex on the night of her bachelorette party. She was told that abortions weren't permitted by
Gio and Sensi had hung around the city all day, unable to go home but unable to go anywhere too exposed. They'd considered going to see Daniella but had opted against it, seeing as they could be endangering her if indeed Don Fabrizio was after them.And so, when the clock hit 9:30, they'd gotten up from their seats in the bar they were in, got in Gio's car, and began to drive down to Tequila.The ride down there was quiet until they arrived at the bar and saw that The Don was also just arriving at that time. Gio parked, but neither he nor Sensi got out. They chose to sit back in the car and observe the landscape. They observed that he hadn't brought Mercedes with him, as the letter had requested, so he probably had some other proposal and wasn't willing to do things on Aleksandr's terms. Understandable. But still, there were many more reasons to be cautious.“Well, if he's here for the meeting, then he can't possibly want to come at us, at least not here, right?” Gio asked, without lo
“I brought you here intending to make you my wife, wedding you as legally as you wanted, and treat you as the queen that my wife was. All you had to do was say 'yes’ to me... A simple three-letter word that would have given you all you could ask for; money, cars, clothes, vacations to any country of your choice, all you would have had to do was just name it. But you didn't say 'yes’. And even when you didn't, I still made sure that you were treated well, that you were kept in a beautiful room such as this, the one my dear and late wife used to occupy when she was here. I made sure that you never suffered any kind of harm and that you were always fed and properly clothed. And even when you decided to take your own life, I sent for my own doctor to come down and check on you and do all she could for you to be fine... And what did you do, after all these?”Don Fabrizio was in Mercedes’ room the following morning, engaging her compulsorily in a lengthy and initially one-sided conversation
“Are you okay, sir?” The voice that called out to Gio as he lay, sprawled on the floor, was not the one he had been expecting. It was a feminine voice; he'd thought it had been Sensi who'd saved him as he always did, but this was a woman's voice, and worse, it was a woman's voice that he didn't even recognize. Grabbing his bleeding right leg, he rolled around on the floor to get a good view of his savior, who was approaching from behind him.“Are you okay, sir?” The woman called again.Turning full circle to see her, Gio took in a sharp breath when he realized that he'd been saved by a police officer. Fuck. The last person he wanted to be with when he had only one good leg and an injury that needed treatment was a police officer; if he was investigated and found to be who he was, A Mafiosi, that could spell more trouble for him than safety. “I'm... I'm okay... Thank you, officer..” He said, however, trying to appear as calm as possible.The woman, a tall blonde, who was holding her
“What do you mean 'check on my brother’?”“Well, let's just say that you're not the only one these Serbian fuckers have tried to kill today..”Sensi's eyes bulged as he realized that Gio, at that time, could be in danger of being killed or worse, be dead already.He got his phone out and began typing furiously, trying to send a text to Gio.The two men were now in the car Lorenzo had come with, a Chevrolet since Sensi's Ford had been axed.“Why not call him? I think you should want to hear his voice as opposed to a text which anyone can reply to, mind you,” Lorenzo said.Without looking up from his phone, Sensi replied, “What if he's trying to hide, right now, and then I call him and give away his location to his pursuers? Besides, we have an agreement to always text if there's trouble.”“Well, with your indifferent demeanor, one would think you didn't care much for him,” Lorenzo remarked.“Still without looking up, Sensi said, “I'm not a man to show too much emotion. I rather keep my
“Have you ever, at any time at all, and I mean any quantity at all, been involved in the sale of drugs to clients at the club?” “No, I haven't.” “Have you ever seen drug sales going down at the club?” “No, I have not..” “Have you ever been asked to transport drugs from any location to the other by the club management?” “No, I have not..” “Have you ever hidden any drugs in your underwear or-” “What kind of stupid question is that?” Mercedes had been taken from the airport, along with Ruby and Gabi, down to a local police station where she was being questioned by Freddy, the lackadaisical, lazy, and disinterested agent. She was distressed, and it seemed her baby could also feel her tension because he hadn't stopped crying since. She was trying to pat his back and calm him down while answering the questions she'd been asked when she'd gotten sick of it. “Listen, ma'am, I'm just doing my job.. I have to ask questions, even the uncomfortable ones, because you are a major
***LOS ANGELES, USA***“1..2..3.. Now!”The Los Angeles FBI, led by Mia and Riot, had surrounded Tequila for three long hours, watching the going-ins and coming-outs, working with the intel they had gotten from Frank, the insider snitch, and confirming the things he said. Today was supposed to be the meeting of the top distributors in the cartel, which Frank had said would be where they'd discuss the way forward for their organization.This, Frank had said, was the best time to bust them, because there was going to be too much evidence to nab them with illegal gun possession, cocaine possession, prison escapees, etc. Now, at exactly 8 am, Riot had sounded a call on her walkie-talkie to signal that they were to move in at that exact time, and all the agents had come out from their various places of hiding and disguise all over the surroundings of the strip club, with their guns drawn, and we're charging towards all the entrances to the club.Leading them were Riot and Mia, the ones wh
“Gabi, can you stop acting like a girl and be a man, for God's sake?”“Hey, I'm doing this for you, quit acting like you won't wince if I went any harder,” came the response.Ruby was sitting before Gabi as he tried to clean up her face which had been messed up by her fight with Les Latinas De La Muerte at the hospital, and her face was so fucked up that it scared Gabi to Ben touch it, even with the tissue, for fear that he would hurt her or further damage her. This fear had made him keep dabbing softly and inefficiently at her face instead of wiping the blood away, and Ruby had tolerated him enough.Mercedes, sitting in the same room as them, breastfeeding Junior, looked on and smiled at them, shaking her head.She'd gotten her joy back due to two major things; one, the birth of Junior, her long-awaited bundle of joy, and two, the promise her aunt, Aylla Pedro, had made to her when he said she would try to help Gio gain his freedom again.And so, feeling good again, she was able to c
***LOS ANGELES, USA***“Sign here, Frank..”Riot and Mia had pulled the necessary strings to get the documents that would exempt Frank Gallas from any investigations into Tequila when the people involved in the drug cartel were being arrested and rounded up.They had brought him to their office and he was now seated in an interrogation room which had a long table and a few chairs.They wanted to wrap up this case as soon as possible, nipping it in the bud before it would drag into weeks, months, and possibly, years... They had been briefed on how it had started as child's play under the original handlers, and how it had spiraled and developed into a dangerous, 'playing with fire’ situation because the previous handlers had failed to grab the situation by the scruff of the neck. It had resulted in deaths and many other eventualities which could have been avoided. And so, Mia and Riot were keen on avoiding the mistakes of their predecessors.“Well, hold on, I need to peruse the document
Upstairs at the hospital, there was chaos and fear; no one could leave, either with the elevators or the staircase, because the gunfire they'd been hearing had been going on downstairs and by the gate, in the same area where they were supposed to escape from. The gunfire had gone on for about thirty minutes and even when it ceased, they didn't dare to even attempt to step out.The only thing they could do was panic.The nurses and doctors who would normally be the ones telling patients to 'calm down’ were now the ones who were near tears. Everyone was now following their religious inclinations; the Pentecostals were praying to God/Jesus, the Catholics were praying to Mary, the Muslims were beseeching Allah, and the traditionalists were shedding tears of hopelessness to their gods.Gabi was probably the most panicky of the entire bunch, and not just because he had learned that Mercedes had given birth, but because he wasn't built for such high-pressure situations. He was sweaty and unc
***LOS ANGELES, USA***Mia Compton and Riot Langston were seated in Riot's Ford truck with the fellow who had accosted them at the coffee shop and listening to what he had to say.Mia was in the backseat, while Riot, who sat in the driver's seat, kept her full stare on the man in the front passenger seat as he spoke:“My name is Frank Gallas... I worked at Tequila for many years as one of their major distributors-”“Tequila doesn't deal in wholesaling drinks, so what the fuck are you talking about, 'major distributor’?” Mia impatiently cut in, not trusting this fellow one bit.As she said this, Riot touched her hand gently, as though to say 'Calm Down’. This singular action sent shivers down Mia's spine and made her obediently seal her lips. Riot had gained such a heavy influence over her in such a short period that even she couldn't explain or justify it.“When I say I was a distributor, ma'am,” Frank continued with a half smile on his face, “I didn't mean of drinks... I mean of drug
“Where is she, you traitorous bastard?”The stony silence from Gio further incensed Don Fabrizio and caused him to nod his head towards the man with the whip, and this enforcer duly thrashed down on Gio's back with the nail-embedded whip.“Arrghhhhhh!!!”The screams from Gio's lips filled the room as he felt his flesh being ripped into by the nails and thumbtacks that had been strategically fitted into the whip to make each stroke ten times as painful as it would have been with an ordinary whip.He was chained, his two hands high above his head, and his legs just above the ground, making it very difficult for him to breathe and increase the pain because his frame was overstretched.He had been whipped well over a hundred times, and his bloodied back was a testament to this.This torture had gone on for the past three hours, and it had continued because Gio had refused to disclose Mercedes’ location.“Why do you punish yourself so much, boy? This is a woman that means nothing to you! S
After Gio had willingly sacrificed his freedom for those of Mercedes, Gabi, and Ruby, to say that Mercedes was grieving for him was a massive understatement.She hadn't stopped crying for the past three days; not even for a minute. She'd wept to a point where there were no more tears to cry, and all she was doing was whimpering; she'd cried her eyes out, nearly literally. She'd rejected food, no matter how light or heavy, and she had sat in a corner of Ruby's house, unmoved. Whatever food was brought to her would remain untouched until Ruby or Gabi would have to come and take it away before insects surrounded it.Her hair was a shabby mess, her clothes were drenched with sweat, her face was swollen by the excessive tears, and she had lost a little weight. She hadn't spoken a word to either Gabi or Ruby since then.This had taken a massive toll on Gabi and Ruby, as they couldn't sleep for long or even enjoy any peace while having to hear Mercedes crying all day and all night.Currentl
The following morning, Omari, Snyder, Paz, and Selena were at the scene on the road where the clash had happened, and they couldn't believe their eyes.“So.. Hold on, let me get this straight... On one side, one side of the car, there's a lot of blood, broken glass, spent bullets, blah blah... And then, on the other side... There's not even a shard of glass... How the fuck es something like that even happen?”Paz was confused and trying to get answers from her compatriots, even though none of them had any for her.“It makes little sense, and there are no CCTV cameras around like at the restaurant... And even if there were, looking at the lighting system and pattern of this area, it would surely have been too dark to make out any faces or sense of the images we would have seen,” Selena added.“So.. What have we been able to get from the car?” Omari asked, determined to get something, at least, from, the entire outing.“Well... There's a wallet in the car... Probably belongs to whoever