Page 5

“Curfew?” That’s not what I was expecting to hear. Sure, the streets are quiet, but in areas like these, people tend not to stray too far from their homes at night. “How long has there been a curfew?”
“I don’t know... a year, maybe...”
“Why is there a curfew?”
“The boss wants to keep things quiet...”
“What things?”
“I don’t know, man,” my hostage sighs, exasperated. His voice fractures from pain, but I’m not letting him off the hook just yet.
“Why did Dante Montoya give you such high-powered weapons, if you were just going to patrol the slums and enforce curfew?”
The goon coughs up blood and I place the barrel of my gun against his forehead; his heavy eyes lift back up to me.
“The people have been getting restless lately,” he mumbles.
“Why?”
The hostage hesitates to answer. I urge him on by clicking off the safety on my gun.
“Mr. Montoya hasn’t exactly endeared himself to the public.”
“What has he done?”
“Horrible things...”
Suddenly, a cacophony of yells erupts from somewhere outside. It sounds like my hostage’s friends have come across the body I left lying in the streets. I have so many more questions to ask, but I can’t risk being found out.
I pull my gun away from the hostage’s forehead and stuff it back under my belt, then I step around behind him, pull out my switchblade, and slice him right across the throat.
His dying gurgles echo through the dark empty kitchen as I exit through the front. He’s not the last man I’m going to have to kill to get what I want, and his death hardly weights on my conscience at all. What does loom large, however, is the revelation that Dante is still just as cruel and as savage as ever. Even with all the responsibility he’s taken on, he hasn’t changed. In one sense, that’s good for me. It provides an opening. People aren’t happy with the current management of this country’s seedy underbelly; that’s something that I can take advantage of.
But it’s also something that nearly brings me to my knees as I step out into the stale night of the hillside slum.
Dante is still just as cruel as ever...
I don’t even want to
think about what that means for Catalina.
3
Catalina
It seems a bit excessive.
Three giant armed guards surround me in a triangle formation as I’m led from my room, out to the cobblestone encased backyard of the colonial-style mansion I’ve been confined to.
They each carry guns that are nearly as big as I am and march with the determination of well-trained foot soldiers.
It’s kind of flattering, in an awful way. All of this attention for little old me. I guess Dante knows that the only thing keeping me from ripping his throat out with my finely sharpened fingernails is the fact that I’d be shredded to swiss cheese immediately after. What he doesn’t know is that if I didn’t have a child that I was hiding from him, then I’d take that risk any day. I’m keeping myself alive and meek for Oscar’s sake, and no one else.
“Fucking finally,” Dante hisses as I’m pushed towards him by an AK-47 wielding tough guy. “You really are the slowest bitch alive...”
I bite my tongue. There’s no point in talking back; I’ve learned that Dante doesn’t have any misgivings about hurting women. The last time I said something that offended him, I couldn’t walk for the next week, and that meant missing out on a visit to my precious Ozzy. That is more devastating than any physical pain; so, I keep my mouth shut.
“Sit,” Dante jerks a thin finger to the chair on the other side of the small white patio table.