“I did promise that,” I tell him. “And I’m a man of my word. The next time you piss me off, I’m gonna have to break a leg.”
“What…?”
“Or a hand,” I say with a shrug. “I’ll let you pick. Start thinking now about which way you’re leaning.”
“All right, all right!” Guillermo protests. He’s glaring up at me, mud and shit and blood streaking his face. “I may know something. But I’m just mostly guessing here. Keep that in mind.”
“Noted.” I squat down so that I’m at eye level with the farmer. “Go on.”
“A few months ago, Lobo came around here asking to buy weapons,” he sighs. “He seemed pretty fucking upset because his father has been missing for a while.”
“Lobo?” I repeat. “Am I supposed to know who the fuck that is?”
“Razor’s boy.”
The name sounds familiar, but I can’t figure out why.
“Razor?”
“He is—was—a narcotraficante,” Guillermo replies. A drug dealer. “He controls the trade routes on this side of town.”
That connects the dots for me. The memory resurfaces like an unwelcome ghost from my past.
Razor is the motherfucker who thought he could come for me.
The one who’s bones are still rotting somewhere in the ravine by the cabin.
I see his face in my mind’s eye. That stupid snarling expression that had quickly turned to fear once he’d realized that he was no match for me.
“As far as crime lords go, he wasn’t a very good one,” I say flippantly.
Guillermo’s eyes go wide. “The kid thinks you killed his old man.”
“Then he’d be right.”
“Fuck,” Guillermo mutters. “Fuck.”
“I killed his father and his goons months ago,” I point out. “Why’s the kid all riled up now? Is he as slow as his fucking father or just scared?”
“He’s young,” Guillermo tells me. “Nineteen, I think.”
“Won’t stop me from killing him, too.”
“He bought new guns from me just last week,” Guillermo tells me. “It was like he was preparing for something.”
“How many men does he have?”
“I’m not sure. Ten, maybe fifteen. I recognized only two of them,” he says. “The others were new.”
“Which means he’s hired them,” I conclude. “So he is scared. At least he’s not stupid.”
“Amigo, no offense, but are you?”
I laugh. “No, I’m not stupid. I am Bratva.”
Guillermo’s face goes bone-white with fear.
He knows that word. Enough to be afraid of it. He’s smarter than I gave him credit for, it seems.