Page 5 of Lord of Punishment
“Protect the product,” I hissed before lunging forward, noticing flames had already erupted, the old crates left from a decade before perfect kindling material. My mind was rattled enough I was concentrating on why my orders to remove the flammable material hadn’t been followed. I noticed something appearing out of the shadows, forcing me to drop and roll, firing off several shots.
“Uh!” The ragged grunt came a split second before the enemy soldier dropped in front of me.
More shots were fired, several other targets hit. With the increasing smoke, it was impossible to tell the good guys from the bad. As if there was a difference.
Who the fuck were these assholes? When I found out, they’d regret the day they entered my city let alone dared to interfere with my business. I raced toward the side of the building, holding one arm over my mouth and nose as I swung my Glock from one side to the other. It was almost impossible to see anything given the haze. I blinked furiously just as Andres stumbled from the smoke. He’d been shot, his crisp white shirt soaked in blood.
I raced forward, grabbing him around the waist, dragging him behind another series of crates. The fire continued to roll, flames targeting several pieces of aging equipment. Another explosion sounded from behind me, the noise muffled yet I had no doubt it had come from somewhere inside the secured space.
The motherfuckers had known what had been delivered, using the grenade as a smokescreen. “Stay down,” I hissed to Andres, crouching low and heading back toward the room. A hard punch to my jaw caught me off guard but I snagged the assailant’s arm, yanking him down to the floor. With one hand wrapped around his throat, I held him in place and fired off two shots into his brain. He wouldn’t be bothering me any longer.
A bellow sounded off from my right and I jerked my head toward it in time to thwart another attacker.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
The fucker dropped with a hard thud. I managed to find the entrance to the secure space, catching another assailant attacking Martin. Using my weapon, I smacked the enemy soldier in the back of the head, unable to risk the shot. The gaping hole in the back of the building told me everything I needed to know.
Product had been stolen.
After several additional shots had been fired, the sudden stillness reminded me of a few minutes before.
As if it was the calm before the storm.
CHAPTER 3
Sabatino
Let the anger roll.
I stood with my hand on the mantel, staring down at the blackness where a fire would normally be, flames licking over the fake logs, natural gas providing the warmth. I took another gulp of bourbon, still unable to shed the rage that had taken over the moment the adrenaline rush had passed. How had I not seen an attack as imminent?
My father was on the phone, pacing the floor behind me as he always did when irritated. He was barking orders to his men, trying to round up any leftover perpetrators as well as whatever information was being conveyed in the streets, vultures eager to feed off news our empire had been infiltrated. The bastards. There were those in the city who remained loyal to the family by choice, but most only did so from fear we’d crush their livelihoods.
And we would.
I sensed my brother’s presence and sighed. Miguel remained quiet in respect to my toxic headspace. We knew each other’s moods, could almost read our respective minds even though we were three years apart. He was my best friend as well as my most trusted confidant.
“How much is missing?” he asked. There was no judgment in his voice, no hint of aggravation. We all felt the loss even if the dollar amount was minuscule in comparison to our wealth. That wasn’t the point. In the dangerous world of our playground, theft and destruction of this volume diminished our savage reputation, creating a weakness that would be highlighted and exploited.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. It meant swift and brutal retaliation. “Two million in product torched, another one point five or so stolen. More would have been taken had I not entered the room. When I find the person responsible, I’m going to tear him apart but only after I cut out his eyes with a sharp knife.”
“Fuck,” he said, turning when he heard our father ending the call.
Eduardo DiMaggio was neither a patient nor forgiving man, his methods of punishment considered heinous. Now in his sixties, that hadn’t softened him or his methods to any degree.
“Who the fuck is responsible for this?” he demanded.
I lifted my head, turning to face him, shoving my drinkless hand into my pocket. “They call themselves the New Generation Cartel.”
Miguel snorted. “What a crock of shit.”
“Catchy, eh?” I asked. Even with a ridiculous name, they were considered one of the most brutal and powerful cartels on the continent. While their roots were in Mexico, starting in reprehensible prisons, they’d made headway into the United States, mostly in California and a few other southwestern states. But I’d heard rumblings of their desire to roll into the East Coast given our vast port systems allowed easy ship access for their supply of heroin and cocaine.
I’d heard years before that the patriarch calling himself El líder supremo, the supreme leader, had been slaughtered, his son taking over the helm. Unfortunately, I hadn’t paid close enough attention to the operation, not only because of the explosive growth we’d been experiencing but because of the darkness I couldn’t rid myself of. I closed my eyes briefly, remembering the fucking child’s toy as if it mattered. Fuck me.
“We need to wipe them out,” Pops said as if that would be easy.
“The hit was nothing more than a warning,” I told them. That didn’t mean I didn’t have plans on crushing the bastards responsible. It simply meant they hadn’t infiltrated the city with an army. That I would have been aware of. They’d crawled in like the vermin they were, laying low until an opportunity had arisen. Or had been presented to them. My thoughts drifted to Chase. No, I didn’t buy the treacherous man would go this far. He knew what would happen to his family if he’d been that stupid.