Page 52 of Heart of a Villain

As long as he’d known Lorenzo, he never knew Lorenzo had a brother. Possibly, Rafael had been in jail or some kind of mental institution. If he’d had a brother like the little bitch who’d had the audacity to strike Sayeda, he would have been embarrassed to claim him all the same.

“That’s who we want more information on,” Gage said. “What do you know about this Lorenzo fuck?”

“Lorenzo is the Chamas tenente,” he explained, and with the way the cabin shifted, he knew if he asked what Lorenzo did, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. “The Chamas lieutenant. Basically, he’s one step down from Cipriano. The hierarchy is,” he raised a hand and lowered it with each title, “chefe, rainha, tenente, capitão, enforcador, conselheiro, contador, fornecedor, soldado, and pederua. The boss, the queen, the lieutenant, the captain, the enforcer, the advisor, the accountant, the supplier, the soldier, and the street dealer. If the hierarchy is pretty much the same since I left, the captain position has been empty for some time.”

Their last captain was buried in a Mexican desert—at least, that was where he’d left him.

Julien’s head bobbed as if soaking up all the information. “I didn’t want to ask Sayeda to bug the place and risk getting her caught,” he said. “So, everything I learned about Chamas came from her phone. I never told her that I could listen through her phone, even when it was off, and from what I could pick up, it seems like Cipriano ‘gifted’ her to Lorenzo. What exactly does that mean?”

Adrían’s head twitched.

He’d seen many women and men “gifted” to Chamas members and had almost been one himself when he was eighteen. Quickly, he’d learned that in order to survive and retain any sense of independence, he’d had to climb the ranks. Causing any kind of commotion or challenging the status quo would have left him dismembered in zippered suitcases floating along the Amazon river basin, or worse. So, during the “gifting” ceremonies, he’d turned a blind eye.

“Gifting is involuntary servitude,” he explained. “Most of the people I’ve seen ‘gifted’ were usually payment for something their families couldn’t provide. The “gifts” were used for a variety of things—unpaid labor, prostitution, sexual experimentation, things even darker.”

For the more belligerent cases, the “gifts” were drugged and essentially sentenced to providing a source of twisted, never-ending pleasure for their owners.

It wasn’t submissive and dom.

It was escravo and Mestre.

Slave and Master.

Once he’d officially signed on with Omega, he’d vowed never to set foot back inside any Chamas-related building or compound. Yet, if they’d done to Sayeda what he’d seen them do too many times, he’d walk up to the front door and reprise his role as Brazil’s executioner.

“How much of a ‘gift’ do you think Sayeda was for that shitstain?” Joel asked. “Eesh hasn’t talked to me about it, but I can tell she’s worried about Sayeda far past the Rafael issue.”

Adrían stretched and clenched his fingers, over and over, his dark green flight suit suddenly too warm. The space grew increasingly cramped, and it felt like a barbell was being swung against his ribcage, the bones resonating like a gong.

Please tell me they didn’t hurt my girl.

Especially not like that.

“Change the subject,” he said.

Joel didn’t hesitate. “Tell us more about Gamma. You guys said Gamma might be different.”

“I’ve got this one, mate,” Trevor offered. “So Gamma, they’re particular. They always travel in pairs, for one, and from what I’ve gleaned, the pairings are intentional. One usually balances out the other. The four that we know of are Memphis and Dallas, and Abraham Novikov and Paoli Gonzales. Memphis and Dallas are some sort of psycho-twin-pairing who were located in Egypt, but that’s the extent of my knowledge about them. Novi’s kind of a maniac; his thing is bladed weaponry. He licks blood off knives and shit, always wears white, always in a suit. Talks in this eerie as fuck, high-pitched tone. Comes across as if he has the emotional development of a toddler. Paoli’s on the quieter side, but the thing to keep in mind is that Novi never fucks with Paoli.”

“Blade,” Giorgio said.

Adrían grimaced.

There was no getting used to that voice.

Gage took over, slowly morphing into the man who led a team feared by the covert organization that had created them.

“Based on what we found in some of the classified docs, it looks like Novi was brought on primarily to neutralize Giorgio in the event Pozza went off half-cocked and couldn’t be reined in.”

Giorgio snorted.

Thanasis glanced at him.

“Soon, I’ll be sending you guys on an official field test,” Gage continued. “The team I plan to activate is Pozza, Mo, Thanasis, Trevor, Lee, Julien, and Adrían. Wren will be back in the States by then. I’m also considering adding Sayeda.”

Adrían immediately waved away the suggestion. “We don’t know what Sayeda’s dealing with or what she’s been through. Wouldn’t she be safer away from all this shit?”

“Be safer, possibly, but not feel safer. Adrían, Giorgio is the most lethal of us all, but when it comes to protecting the ones closest to our hearts, that changes. Time might have passed, but Sayeda still means something to you. After Joel, even Ayesha is probably safest with you because of what she meant to you. I mean, you took a bullet to save Joel so that Ayesha wouldn’t get her heart broken. Lattimore, you ever take a bullet for Eesh?”

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