Raul
The sunset is beautiful today. The sky is colored pink and orange, reflected in the restless waters of the Pacific Ocean that are eagerly waiting to swallow the sun. I lean on the balcony rails, studying the scenery with a frown. No matter how beautiful it is, my heart is heavy, and my thoughts keep drifting elsewhere.
Specifically, to the enemy of mine that’s been evading my grasp for years. God, I can’t believe I was stupid enough to-
The sound of steps interrupts my thoughts, then the soft sound of the balcony door opening, followed by a cough. “Senor?”
I linger with my gaze on the wisps of clouds stretching above the horizon before turning to Ruben to acknowledge his presence. He is one of my closest friends-as much as a subordinate can be a friend. He’s been
working for me for over twenty years now, proving himself to be loyal and skilled time and time again, and even after the De Lugo cartel became powerful enough to challenge the Mexican Mafia circles, I kept Ruben by my side.
“We’ve found the traitors,” he says, dark eyes under dark eyebrows set on me with a grim look. “Should we proceed to destroy them?”
Oh. So they’ve found them, huh? The thought sends a wave of satisfied warmth through my muscles, and I can’t help but smirk a little, the weight on my heart lifting up. Finally, god, finally, I’ll be able to lay my hands on this bastard.
“No.” I straighten up and turn to Ruben, dusting off my arms. “Tell them to wait for me. I want to kill Gerardo myself.”
“Yes, Senor Raul.”
While Ruben walks away, taking out his phone to inform others
about my decision, I follow him out of my mansion and to the car waiting for us at the base of the stairs. It’s hot and humid outside even in the middle of October, and in the last hours of the day, Tijuana still bathes in the
warmth of the setting sun-which I escape as soon as I get into the car.
“Follow Ruben’s directions,” I tell Luca, the driver, when Ruben joins us a minute later.
With that, the gates of my property open to the road weaving along the cliff to the gray and smoky mass of Tijuana. Absentmindedly listening to Ruben’s directions, I watch the slums down below that slowly grow into a more civilized downtown in the distance. This city has been my home for over forty years now. Why do I feel like there’s something missing, then?
I exhale and look up at the sky, mindlessly rubbing my beard and narrowing my eyes as if trying to read the answer in the scattered clouds. Instead, my thoughts drift to the past-which, perhaps, holds every answer.
I remember how, in a similar fashion, we were driving to Tijuana’s downtown to raid another one of the Escarras’ hiding places-nests, as we call them, because the Escarras are no better than mice. Pests living in filth and corruption and spreading it wherever they go. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t given my status and power for nothing. I had to survive in the slums and shoot traitors in their backs-but I’ve never fallen to the rotten tactics that Gerardo uses every day.
After I took over most of Tijuana’s territories, I didn’t get rid of the Escarras right away. In fact, I kept tolerating them for years-their father Nicolas had always been willing to trade or strike a deal-until these arrogant rats crossed my path and decided to use their tricks on me fifteen years ago. They wanted to force the De Lugo cartel to leave Tijuana.
Instead, I chased every last one of them away and out of my city.
I didn’t hold back at the time. I used every single man I had at my disposal to hunt the Escarras down. Rivers of their blood were flowing down the dirty streets of Tijuana, but it wasn’t enough. I knew some of them had escaped, including Nicolas and Gerardo, so I swore to myself to do everything in my power to find and kill them.
It took us years to track every last one of the Escarras all over Mexico, but finally, last year, I thought I had found peace. I was so damn sure that we had found and gotten rid of them all that I didn’t even think about looking north and across the border. Who could’ve thought Gerardo would be brave enough to meddle in the world of the American Mafia?
Who could’ve thought he would be dumb enough to return?
But that’s exactly what happened this spring. At first, rumors spread that someone had seen Gerardo and his men crossing the border in a truck in the middle of the night. By the time the rumors reached me, the Escarras were already in Tijuana-or at least, that’s what we suspect. The bastards have never shown up in my line of sight.
As it turned out, Gerardo still had people ready to help him: old and weak rivals of the De Lugos, or criminals with an overblown ego who thought that by helping the Escarras they would be able to defeat me. What a joke. We hunted them one by one, leaving a trail of blood behind, but Gerardo always seemed to be one step ahead.
It’s something I can’t take away from him. This rat has always been good at sneaking from under my nose and hiding under the ground-until today.
The thought sends a wave of thrill through my chest, and I can’t help but smile to myself, leaning back in my seat. Did you think you could escape the sword of justice, Gerardo? Well, you can’t escape the gun of Raul Jose De Lugo. I am going to drag you on your knees over the city you once called your home.
“We’re here, senor,” Ruben says some twenty minutes later and looks at me over his shoulder. “The house is secured.”
I look outside and quirk an eyebrow. Do you call it a house? It’s more of a shack than a decent place to live, although I shouldn’t expect anything more in this part of the city. Two of our men are guarding the entrance while at least four more are keeping an eye on the street. There are already quite a few curious heads popping out of the huts and from behind the corners, and even though they know better than to interrupt us, I don’t want any of them to catch us off guard.
“Who lives here?” I ask, getting out of the car and looking around. A wave of mutters spreads through the spectators. If they weren’t sure who the guards were before, now they know that it’s the De Lugos’ business.
“Sergio Villas,” Ruben reports, following me to the rickety door of the shack. “A local bus driver and Nicolas’s friend from high school.”
“Helping your old friend’s son.” I linger at the doorstep and look at Ruben with a shark grin. “Honorable, don’t you think?”
The inside of the shack is just as miserable as the outside; old clothes are scattered on the floor, flies are buzzing over the dishes in the sink, and the place stinks of spoiled food and decay. It’s fun to imagine Gerardo, with all his arrogance and self-importance, spending days in this place. I wonder if he made the owners sick with his comments.
But where is he now?
I walk through the rooms, following the sound of crying and drops of blood on the floor, until I enter what is supposed to be a bedroom. The guard, Quin, looks at me from his position by the door and nods, stepping away to give me an open view of an old couple cowered on the floor. They must be Nicolas’s age, so it’s what? Late sixties? I click my tongue and shake my head. It’s a surprise they’ve survived here for so long.
“S-Senor De Lugo,” the man-Sergio, I assume-stutters at me, holding on to his wife’s shoulder. “We didn’t mean to go against you, we just…”
He doesn’t finish, clearly not knowing how to explain his own mistake, and I quirk an eyebrow. “You let the man I’ve been chasing for years stay in this parody of a house-and don’t tell me you didn’t know who he was hiding from.”
“B-but-”
Quin fires at the wall above Sergio’s head, forcing him to shut up, and both of the Villas flinch. I watch them for a few seconds with disgust and resentment swirling in my chest before looking around. The room is as dim and dirty as the rest of the shack, but it’s clear that there’s no one hiding around.
“Where’s Gerardo?” I turn to Sergio with a cold look. “And you better know the answer.”
Sergio visibly gulps, avoiding my gaze, but the panic is clear in the way his gaze darts all over the floor as he pushes himself into the wall. “I- I don’t know.”
I clench my jaw and silently raise my gun at him.
“I swear, I don’t know!” Sergio raises his voice into a high-pitched scream of fear and frantically shakes his head. Pathetic. “He left two days ago, and-he didn’t tell me where he was going, I swear.”
A column of cold fire raises in the middle of my chest, burning me from the inside, spreading fury through my veins. My heart picks up its
pace, dots of pure rage blot my vision for a moment, and I tighten my hold on the gun. That fucker.
“So you’re telling me that Gerardo escaped,” I growl, putting my finger on the trigger. “Because you helped him.”
“I didn’t!”
“You let him stay here.”
“I-I didn’t want to, he threatened to kill us, he-” Sergio’s voice
starts shaking like the whole of him, and I grimace. It scratches my ears. He shuts up as if on cue.
None of his blabbering matters anymore. The only important question is…
“Where is he now?”
Sergio glances at me for a moment and shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
What a shame.
There’s no value in him anymore, so I aim at his forehead and pull the trigger.
My bullet finds its target, and Sergio’s wife scoots away from his body with a shriek, blood splattered over her cheeks and curly hair. She tries to cover her face with trembling hands, and her earrings are clinking from the shudders racking her frame. I give her a moment to catch her breath, and when she finally looks at me, her eyes are full of terror. She knows she is my prey now.
“You,” I say, holding her gaze, and the woman flinches as if my voice is worse than a bullet. “Do you know where Gerardo is?”
“He-h-he-” It takes her a moment to find her voice through the shivers and stuttering, but eventually she manages to take a breath and say, “He went back.”
I purse my lips-it’s not a good answer-and she tenses up. “Where?”
“To Chicago.”
Chicago? I raise my eyebrows and look at Ruben. Do we know the Escarras have a place in Chicago?
“I’ll check it,” Ruben says with tension in his voice, lowering his head with a nod. He knows how to behave when I’m actually angry.
“Then go and do it,” I say coldly, unable to hold back the frustration clawing my throat. I turn to the woman. “When did he leave?”
She swallows, struggling to gather her thoughts. “T-two days ago.” “Are there more of the Escarras there?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was he doing in Tijuana?” “I-I don’t know.”
I click my tongue. She’s not as helpful as I expected. I guess she’s
given me all the information she has-which is still not enough to buy her freedom. She didn’t inform us about Gerardo’s arrival after all. She’s just as much of a traitor as her husband is, so without a second thought, I raise my gun and shoot her before she even opens her mouth to scream or beg for mercy.
As you’ve already figured, I’m not one to forgive easily.
I walk out of the shack, linger for a moment to glance up and down the street, and get into the car without a second look behind. The Villas family and its remnants don’t interest me anymore-my mind is already set on tracking Gerardo. I’m gonna find that fucker wherever he is, and I’m gonna choke him with my own hands.
God, I can’t believe he escaped me again!
I clench my hands into fists, staring out of the window with unseeing eyes. So the Escarras decided to find shelter in Chicago, huh? It’s one hell of a place, let me tell you. I’ve heard about the madness that rules over it, about the endless clashes between Mafia families and blood and drugs that flow in the veins of the city.
I’d never willingly step on that cold and distant piece of land, but if Gerardo has managed to survive there, I’m gonna find him. And I’m gonna kill him no matter what.
We drive through the gates of my property a while later with the lights of the mansion already lit up under the purple sky. As soon as I get out of the car, I see Carmen hurrying down the stairs. She’s some kind of a secretary for me, dealing with all the calls and paperwork of the modern world. Even though Ruben told me he’d check if Gerardo is in Chicago, I’m pretty sure Carmen will be the one doing the research.
“Has Ruben called you?” I ask before she can say anything and walk past her to the door.
“Yes, but-”
“I want you to find everything you can about Chicago’s criminal world. Who is the biggest player there, what is their weakness, how I can
use them to find Gerardo.” I stop in the living room to take a glass of water with lemon from the servant before turning around. “I want to be ready for anything when I get there.”
“Yes, Senor Raul.” Carmen nods, impatiently biting her lips, and as I take a break to get a sip of water, she uses it to say in a hurry, “But I just received a call from there. From Chicago.”
What? I blink and put the glass away, swallowing a big gulp of water before asking her with a hoarse voice, “Who was it?”
“The Messina clan.” Carmen glances around, fiddling with the phone in her hands. “They are the biggest Mafia family in the Midwest.”
Interesting. I narrow my eyes in thought. “What did they want?” “They said they know where Gerardo is,” she says, lowering her
voice, and looks up at me with a nervous look. “And they offer you to join forces to destroy the Escarras.”