8 The Lion’s Den

Palomino was hot enough to cook a person alive. The heat of the sea was running through the city in full swing. The entire city felt like an oven. Casa Ortiz was tranquil like the rest of the city in the last hours of the daylight. The huge white mansion glowed in the golden sunlight. The servants had started to flick on the exterior lights of the mansion. The estate stretched to acres and every bit of it had something to be admired. The huge garden of the mansion had olive trees that bore ripe fruits. The gardener had scheduled the harvest for the next morning. There was a patch of neatly trimmed hedges that looked too perfect to be real. There were extremely expensive vintage cars standing around the estate with a separate designated driver on stand by. Every bit of the estate was well looked after and not one inch of it was devoid of intimidating armed security. Squads of men wearing commando gear, armed to the teeth, patrolled the mansion every five minutes or so. There was an air