Page 104 of The Perfect Stranger

“Is that so?” Luis mocked. “You said that last time and if I recall it was an epic fuck up.” There was silence before he continued, “Listen here. She’s a fucking FBI cunt still on US soil. She has people looking for her. No funny business. She’s not your little play thing to sink your cock into, so sort her out as soon as the real money ends up in the account. In fact, kill her first, so Hunter can watch his bitch in pain. Then let the dogs have him for dinner.”

“I. Under. Stand.”

“This place reeks of piss,” Luis complained.

The two bickered for a while longer which was more Luis reprimanding his nephew. I glanced outside into the darkness and saw the sentries guarding the perimeter. Small orange glows from cigarettes help me to locate five of them.

Completing the stairs, I trod carefully on the rickety planks avoiding the creaks. Through the doorway I saw them. Both had their back to me, both distracted. Gabriel was sharpening a knife and Luis was retrieving a phone number off his main cell and entering it into a disposable.

Attacking a man from behind was never honorable, but my mere plank of wood would not bode well against a firing weapon. Luis Santos was first. I wanted him weakened, but not dead. That time would come very soon. I advanced swinging, my strides long and fast. When the wood connected with the side of his face, the nails sunk deep. When I pulled the plank away, the nails tore at his skin, ripping the flesh wide open on his cheek. His cry sounded like that of a tortured animal. Luis fell to the left onto the ground, blood spurting through his fingers covering the wound.

Gabriel, caught by surprise, stumbled to his feet in an attempt to create some distance.

“What the fuck have you done?” His eyes were wide with horror taking in the damage to his uncle’s face. As I rounded on the two, I got to see the full extent of the damage. Even I was both suitably impressed at my weapon’s potential and equally as horrified at the wounds it effortlessly created. A messy tear from his nose to his ear exposed the mangled muscle and bone in his right cheek.

Luis was in shock, stumbling and struggling, a massive pool of blood forming at his knees.

“Jesus Christ!” Gabriel was stunned, and it occurred to me then that even though they rarely saw eye to eye, Gabriel was dependent on Luis’s leadership. Without him, he was weak. Vulnerable. Just like now.

“Your turn,” I threatened, taking a step toward him. He flinched before gathering his senses. Gabriel reached for his Glock the same time I pulled Luis’s from his jacket hooked over the chair.

In a standoff, our Glocks pointed at each other, we waited.

“You only had to bring me the girl, brother,” he began. “That’s all you had to do.”

“I wasn’t in the habit of leading innocents to their death, and I wasn’t about to start with Nina.”

“All this over her?” he asked, not quite understanding my choices.

“No,” I said. “It’s far more complex than that. Nina was just collateral, and I wasn’t about to let her suffer for your own fun and games.”

“Wasted energy, brother. Now you will both die.” He shook his head in frustration. “You approached me, remember? That night with Gregorio.”

“I remember.”

“Why? What were your motives? Why the fuck did you spend two years becoming a Saint, just to blow it on some fucking dumb bitch.”

“First of all,” I started. “That dumb bitch you’re referring to, outsmarted the pair of you.”

“I knew you were a fucking snake. I knew all the way back with Ana.” He smiled, sinister and cold. “You remember Ana, don’t you?”

When I didn’t answer, he continued, “Your stupid mistakes got her killed, and now the same will be for Nina.”

“Not if you die first.”

I was first to fire, a bullet entering above his heart. He fell back just as a red stain bloomed on his shirt. It wasn’t until I turned to Luis did I see I had also been shot. He had fired at the same time, nicking my arm, almost in the same location I had shot Nina at the convenience store. Blood trickled down my arm and dotted the floor. Approaching Luis, I picked him up by the scruff of his neck. It was then I saw the opening in the floor some yards back. It was a large black pit. Pushing him toward it, he stumbled, pure hatred radiating off him in waves.

“You fucking coward.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said, picking up Gabriel’s Glock off the ground and hooking it through my waistband. He hadn’t moved, but I would keep a close eye on the fucker. He already had a history of rising from the dead.

“What do you want from us?” he seethed, blood spraying from his mouth. “Tell me what the fuck you want from us?”

“You asked me earlier why. Why did I join Los Santos? What could I have possibly wanted?” I gripped the plank of wood, his eyes following. “Did you ever make it to La Balsa?”

“La Balsa?” he practically spat out.

“Did you ever go there? See the people?”

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