Page 130 of Heart of a Villain

He bowed his head and rubbed his palms together, his elbows sinking into his knees. As it stood, he would be in Verde Horizonte roughly a half-day before Sayeda. That meant he had to establish his presence that night.

“All right.” He raised his head. “I’m ready.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

Before joining Chamas, he’d only ever been to Verde Horizonte once, when things were good, and his mother had been able to save a few extra nickels to spend on a trip outside of Rio’s borders. What he remembered of the city was how colorful it was. It was classic Brazil, much like the area he grew up in with its unlined roads and fenced-in outdoor basketball courts.

Powerlines spanned the sky from building to building. Cars parked on the street sat in front of residences and businesses, some of them indistinguishable from one another. Older men played Dominoes around a round table, and as he walked past, casually strolling down the cracked sidewalk, they waved.

Adrían waved back.

He supposed, for all intents and purposes, he looked like he belonged. That was the idea—to look like someone who never left Brazil, though just above the tier of regular to stand out. It wasn’t clear whether anyone would recognize him. Despite there being a “Ballad of the Enforcer,” most people, with the exception of the Chamas higher-ups, wouldn’t know what he looked like now. Yet, it was amusing to think about his morbid legacy being turned into a legend to the point that children sang rhymes about his danger like the bogeyman.

Turning the corner dropped him on the patchy sidewalk that bordered the main road. Shops, small restaurants, and laundromats lined each side. As he continued further down, the buildings grew larger. Those small shops became multi-story condominiums, office complexes, and a medical center.

A jeep passed by, and a group of women called out something to him that faded in the wind. A small face curiously studied him from inside a city bus, their equally small hand plastered against the window. A man wearing a yellow polo behind a restaurant counter called out to him, dipping his head slightly to see beneath an awning, and asked him if he wanted to try a pastel.

Never one to pass up a chance to eat a pastel, he went over and accepted the fried patty wrapped in paper. He paid triple what it cost and thanked the man, which took a few minutes after the man learned how much he’d paid. Once he’d made sure that the man had gotten a good look at his face, he continued down the street.

Verde Horizonte wasn’t as large or globally known as Rio. That and its proximity to Rio had made it attractive to Chamas for establishing a home base. But the two cities shared the same kind of vibrancy, the same friendliness woven within the culture. It was one of his favorite things about being back in Brazil; they were a mixed palette of ancestry, and yet, they could find links between each other without having to look too far into the past.

Some people hated that.

He loved every aspect of it.

As he walked, he munched on the pastel until it was nothing but crumbs.

Evening fell.

With the large buildings and medical centers now behind him, he wasn’t sure where he was, but he knew he was close to where he needed to be. Out here, the city didn’t wait until the sun fully set before the illicit set in, and memories he’d pushed aside, though never suppressed, came back to him—women standing around waiting for cars to pull up, the more expensive, the better. The perfume of alcohol and cigarette smoke. The feeling of being part of something not quite hidden or secret, though unspoken. People knew what was happening, even those who didn’t regularly commune with this part of the city’s lifestyle, but they either pretended not to know or looked the other way. Unfortunately, some people simply had to live this way.

While he never found definitive proof, he’d always believed that his mother had used her body in exchange for money, goods, and services to keep a roof over their heads. As a boy, had he learned the truth, he might have been upset, maybe even judged her. As a man, he realized that if she’d gone through that much trouble in order to support him, he might never understand a mother’s love for as long as he lived.

“Hey, sexy,” a woman with dark hair and olive skin called out to him. “You’re just my type. Feel like keeping me warm tonight?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”

When he refused, he noticed her glance at something in the distance behind him.

In Brazil, prostitution wasn’t explicitly illegal; however, it was indirectly regulated by public order and vagrancy ordinances, and prostitutes weren’t allowed to be tied to pimps, which was the case ninety percent of the time, anyhow. Brothels were also illegal, but those continued to flourish in the underground.

As an enforcer, he’d only had to protect working girls a few times, primarily from rival factions in turf war disputes—or whenever a John decided his money should have granted him additional sex acts. Unfortunately for the Johns, if it got to the point where he was called in, they usually never made it back to wherever they’d come from.

“You,” another woman called. “With the hair and the face and the soulful sad eyes.”

If only she knew how much deeper than sadness this went. There was no bigger challenge to his current circumstances than the mere act of waiting. The plane carrying Sayeda, and what he was sure were law enforcement officials on Chamas’ payroll, touched down hours ago. Mike had flown to Brazil with him to keep an eye on the trip from the airport to Sayeda’s next location, and unsurprisingly, that location wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity of a police station. Rather, the car took her directly to the mansion.

This woman also had dark hair, but her complexion was more on the toffee end of the spectrum. Her hair tumbled down her back and over her shoulders in stringy ringlets, but she’d been an immensely beautiful woman once upon a time. Now, she looked weathered, with lines around her mouth from where she’d been pulling on a cigarette stick for years.

He stopped. “Yes?”

“Um…” Her eyes opened wide, and she dropped her cigarette, stomping it out with a toe. “I wasn’t, uh, expecting you to answer.”

“You called. I answered.”

“You’re not exactly the usual type who does.” She folded her arms over her tank top and scanned him from shoes to collar. “Nice clothes. Where do you live? Not around here.”

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