Page 19 of Carnal Wagers

“Come on, Killy.”

I glared at my brother. He was a liability on the best of days, quick to draw a gun or knife and start carving someone up, or as passive as a teddy bear, all depending on his mood. Either way, he did both with a smile on his face, cracking jokes.

The only reason I’d taken his sunshine-crazed temperament along on this drop was that Brody had come down with the flu, and I never came without a second, plus two of our guys inside and another three out, minimum. That was the way we’d done these drops since a year after the Urabá cartel consolidated Da’s fifteen-million-dollar gambling debt and demanded repayment every trimester at fifteen percent annual interest. When Da didn’t make their second deadline, they kidnapped one of our men and skinned him alive. After that, we signed the agreement with the French De Villiers, and with most of the repayment amount off our backs, we never missed another payment. However, Da, being Da, thought himself too clever for his own good. He tried shorting them once, about a year later, before his shakes got so bad he couldn’t handle the drops anymore. The cartel cornered him, chopped off two of his fingers, and later burned his brownstone down, along with half the block. Ever since, we’ve kept up the pretense of a show of force.

“Alright.” Liam lifted his hands in surrender. “O Captain, my captain. Your lead, it is.”

I sighed and joined Paulie the Skipper and Joel, better known as Smiles, outside as Liam jerked the bag of cash over his shoulder.

Midday like this, the large streets in this part of town teemed with traffic and pedestrians, and we blended right into the perpetual activity. All the background noise served as our cover. Car alarms going off. Honking, brake squeals, police sirens, the drone of engines along the nearby interstate, and the distant whir of planes shrieking overhead.

I spun my closed knife around my thumb and led us toward the front door beneath a dilapidated awning that hadn’t been updated in over two decades. It was as frayed as my patience, its color as bleached as my outlook on life, and as stagnant in the breeze as my expectations.

A strangled grunt clogged my throat. Fuck, I didn’t want to deal with this today. Every step cost me, each one sapping more energy than my body wanted to give. It was like lugging waterlogged limbs forward. I pressed my tongue to the back of my teeth and took a deep breath. I needed to find a new thrill, and fast, before the emptiness swallowed me whole.

The moment we stepped inside the building, an arrogant skinny gnat swung his gun at us. His jeans hung below his rear, boxers on full display. His shoulders bunched up his oversized sweater with all his neck bling, perfectly placed to strangle him with. Add in the tattooed shaved head, and it was like he researched “typical gangster look” online and played dress-up.

“Finally, pendejo.” Our contact dragged the words through his nose and let them whistle on the way out. It was so. Painfully. Irritating.

His backup kept quiet, melting into the shadows so that only an outline of his shape told me where he was. It didn’t look like there was a third this time around.

“You know, the Sosas don’t like being stood up. And your white asses almost stood us up.”

Our footsteps echoed every tap of our heels throughout the empty space. A thin layer of dust surged to greet us with each step, twisting the rays of sunlight through the high windows into a ghoulish display of powdered shadows.

“Man, they’re gonna string you up for this. Yeah, they are.” He brandished his revolver, swinging it around like he was about to spritz us with water.

Christ Almighty, these eejits the cartel sent up just got younger and dumber with each passing year. What was he? Eighteen? Twenty at most.

“Ain’t nobody that messes with the Urabá cartel. Certainly not you bitches.”

Original. A real Shakespeare.

With a bob of my head, Liam tossed the bag full of cash a few feet ahead of us. It landed with a smack among a haze of dust.

“You ready to shut your gob and get to business?”

“What’d ya say to me?”

He strutted forward, body springing up and down on each step, crisscrossing his feet, his pant hems trailing behind his heels.

I rolled my eyes up to the suspended ceiling tiles and shook my head.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, gringo. You got some real lack of respect there.” He twisted his revolver on its side, the barrel still pointed in my direction, and I just wanted to sigh. It was an absurd thing to do with any semiautomatic weapon, and just plain stupid with a revolver.

“Money’s all there.”

“Better be.” The kid kneeled and unzipped the bag. He whistled, hands digging into the bundles of hundred-dollar bills, before righting himself. He cleared his throat and sniffed, dragging a finger under his nose. “Some of it’s missing.”

“Come again.”

“You hard of hearing too? I said, some of it is missing.”

“What an utter gobshite,” Liam muttered under his breath, and I pursed my lips.

“You sure this is how you want to play it?” I asked the shadow. My guess was that whoever was back there was in charge of the mess in front of me.

“Don’t talk to him. Worry about me. I can be your worst nightmare.” The kid thought it was a good idea to get right in my face, spittle and all, gun barrel inches from my nose.