We wired the caves and the external parts of the mountain, and during the deepest part of the night, we pulled the trigger and demolished the entire thing. The destruction was so loud I was certain everyone in the city could hear it. The mountain shifted and crumbled underneath, releasing a thick cloud of dust that blocked out the sky completely.
It was the perfect cover.
My men positioned on the north side moved in, and after a short battle of gunfire, everything went silent. Their gunners were taken out, and the excavation site was secured. The unarmed men were spared, their ankles and wrists bound in zip ties.
The dust slowly cleared, carried off in the midnight breeze. Starlight returned. The full moon was visible once again. The spotlights were shifted and pointed to the center where the three men sat on their knees in the dirt.
I examined the tunnel they’d built themselves and was pleased to see it was gone. A small pile of bodies had been made twenty feet away, and after a gallon of gasoline was poured on top, they were set on fire.
Burning flesh at midnight.
The men on their knees weren’t mercenaries. They were commanders, running this whole operation in the stead of their employer. I stood in front of the three of them and watched them avoid my eyes, watched them tremble because it was the end of the road. They took the payday and assumed they would be invincible, but their boss obviously didn’t tell them I was a bigger boss.
I almost felt sorry for them. Almost. “Look at me.”
They all did so immediately, as if obedience would spare their lives.
“I’m sure you know how this is going to end.”
The one on the far left started to breathe hard, the panic overwhelming him.
I could feel the heat of the flames from the bonfire. I nodded toward it. “Each one of you will end up there. Your families may figure out what happened to you if you have good dental records. If you don’t…shit out of luck.”
That sank deep into their flesh because two of them breathed hard. The first one had no reaction, the strongest of the three.
“But I’ll offer you some respite. Identify your employer, and your death will be painless.” I looked to the man on the left, the one who looked like he would cave the quickest. “Who are you working for?”
He trembled under my stare, shaking so much he almost tipped over. “He’ll come after our families—”
I snapped my fingers.
One of my men tied a plastic bag over his head.
He sucked in a deep breath but only got plastic. It bent into his mouth and stuck there. He toppled over, suffocating, the bag crinkling as it was pushed and pulled by his receding breaths. Then it stopped.
I looked at the next guy. “He can’t come after your families if I kill him first. After I leave here tonight, that’s the first thing I’ll do. He’ll die the same way your comrade just did. Spare yourself.”
He considered the offer a long time before he gave a nod. “Grave.”
The shock was like a bullet to the skull. Didn’t see it coming. Didn’t feel it either because it killed me instantly.
My man shot him from behind, and he face-planted.
The other received the bag.
He tried to fight it, but the bag was secured within a second. He flailed on the ground, rolling around like a worm after a heavy rain. He went still a minute later. The bonfire continued to melt flesh off bone, and death was in the air.
Jeremiah stared at me.
I stared back.
It was sunrise when I returned home.
Wasn’t tired or hungry.
Just pissed off.
I took a shower then sat on the couch in my living room, wearing my sweatpants and nothing else. My mind raced, thinking of the next course of action. Foolishly, I’d assumed this was just another player in the game, but none of them would fuck with me the way Grave did. Should have known.
My phone rang.
His number wasn’t saved in my phone, but I recognized it.
I gritted my teeth before I answered, knowing how unpleasant this would be. In silence, I held the phone to my ear.
“Give her back, or I’ll sabotage all your mines.”
“I’ll kill all your men.”
“You think that matters to me? They’re expendable, and they’re paid to be expendable.”
Motherfucker.
“You’ll never find diamonds if you’re too busy dealing with me.”
Grave always stayed in his lane, and I always stayed in mine. It’d been that way for a very long time. Peaceful coexistence, if you could call it that. But now, all of that was over. “She’s really worth a war?”
“You tell me, Cauldron.”
I sat with Jeremiah in my office downstairs. Barely slept a few hours before he came over, but my mind was sharper than a tack, fueled by rage. “We need more men. A lot more. And our security protocols need to be changed. Our perimeter needs to extend to a full mile radius. Our sites need to be monitored from every point around the mountain.”