Page 12 of Sinful
Phantom's quiet for a moment, staring out at his land like it might have answers. "He was a bastard, but he was a reasonable bastard. Kept his people in line. Made rulings that stuck. When Miguel said a deal was done, it was done. No going back, no renegotiating. You could trust that."
"And now he's gone."
"And now he's gone, and Sebastián Salazar is in charge."
The name tastes like trouble. Like blood and gasoline and everything wrong with this life.
I've heard of El Azote—The Scourge—though I've never met him.
Younger than Miguel, maybe forty.
Came up through the ranks doing the kind of wet work that makes even cartel soldiers nervous.
Torture that lasted days. Entire families disappeared. Messages written in blood and body parts.
Earned his nickname by leaving marks on everyone he touches, literally and figuratively.
They say he once skinned a man alive for skimming product, kept him conscious for three days before finally letting him die.
They say a lot of things about Sebastián Salazar. Most of them are probably true.
"You know him?" I ask.
"Met him once, five years ago. Miguel brought him to a negotiation in El Paso, wanted him to see how realbusiness gets done." Phantom finishes his beer, sets the empty bottle on the porch rail where it joins a collection from earlier. "Sebastián spent the whole meeting staring at Miguel's throat like he was imagining cutting it. Even then, you could tell he was hungry for power. Ambitious in that dangerous way. Not content to wait his turn."
"And now he has it."
"Now he has it, and the first thing he did was declare every deal Miguel made void. No treaties. No territories. No agreements. Said Miguel was weak, that Los Coyotes should be feared, not negotiated with." Phantom's jaw tightens, muscle jumping beneath the scar. "We've lost three shipments in two weeks. They hit our truck outside Abilene, took two million in product. Killed the drivers, left them displayed on the highway like a fucking message."
Two million. Three dead.
That's not business—that's war.
The kind of statement that demands a response or looks like weakness. "What about the other clubs?" I ask. "They hitting everyone or just us?"
"Everyone. Raiders of Valhalla in Florida got it worse a few years back—they took their Road Captain, tortured him for information, nearly killed him. Some personal vendetta thing tied to one of their members. Reapers Rejects in Vegas lost a warehouse full of guns, forty crates that were supposed to go to buyers in Phoenix. Even the small clubs are getting hit—territoryviolations, extortion, the kind of shit Miguel would've shut down immediately."
The scope of it is bigger than I thought.
This isn't just business expansion.
This is Sebastián proving he's not Miguel.
Proving Los Coyotes under his leadership will be more brutal, more aggressive, more willing to burn everything down.
"So Sebastián's consolidating power by proving he's more ruthless than Miguel ever was."
"Exactly." Phantom pulls out another beer from a cooler I didn't notice beside his chair, the ice inside mostly melted now. "And we're all scrambling to respond while he picks us off one by one. Divide and conquer, classic strategy. Hit everyone hard enough they can't coordinate, then crush whoever's left standing."
Boots on wood announce Blaze before he appears.
The VP is built like the bulls he raises—thick shoulders, barrel chest, hands that look like they could bend steel, and probably have.
He's in his forties, with a beard going gray that he keeps trimmed but not too neat, and eyes that miss nothing.
Blaze grew up on this ranch same as Phantom, knows every inch of it.
The difference is Phantom inherited it, while Blaze earned his place through loyalty and blood.
