Enslaved (Colombian Cartel #6) - Suzanne Steele Page 0,34

and no one could wield one like Antonio Wayne.

“I’ve been thinking about the death of that fixer your woman hired, Mano. I think it’s somebody on the inside. The news hasn’t gotten out yet, but there was another fixer who was killed. This time a whole family was taken out; kids included. This isn’t somebody with a vendetta, this is somebody who is hunting fixers and taking them out. I don’t know why but I’m thinking this guy is a serial killer, and there are going to be more deaths. We need to get ahead of this before it spirals out of control. If the authorities get involved, it’ll bring down heat on the cartel, and we don’t need that. The sonofabitch is making it look like we’re involved. Whoever he is…he’s not stupid.”

“I’ve heard stories about Sicarios becoming serials. The hired kill wasn’t enough anymore, so they escalated,” Mano said. The men all shook their heads in agreement, having heard similar stories.

Antonio filled up the shot glasses, and the men drank them. Whoever was killing fixers had done something he hadn’t anticipated—he’d made some very dangerous enemies.

Antonio fixed his eyes on Tadias, “We never asked you if you knew who killed your parents. We didn’t want to stir-up the pain of the past. It’s time to deal with that pain—confront some issues. I want you to do something for me.”

Tadias laughed, “You’re not going to try and hypnotize me, are you?”

Antonio’s expression was serious. His brother didn’t just use him for torture; he used him for interrogations too. Both brothers had an eidetic memory, better known as a photographic memory.

When Tadias saw the serious expressions on Mano’s and Antonio’s faces, he decided it couldn’t hurt to try whatever it was Antonio had up his sleeve. He damn sure didn’t want to be the fault of Page’s death, if he could help, he would. He’d seen enough death and destruction for a lifetime. Mano was his friend, and it was his duty to have his back.

“Okay,” Tadias agreed, “I’m game if it will help Mano’s woman.”

Antonio settled into his chair, took another shot, and began.

“I want you to start out with how the day began. Forget about the intruders. We’ll work our way up to that.”

“I was excited when I woke up. My father had told me we were going to have visitors—people who were going to pay us for a story about our lives. He’d promised to buy me a horse with some of the money. I’d been asking him for years, and now I was finally going to get it. I’d even named it, Apollo. We didn’t have a lot of money, so this was a huge deal. This was a big day for a boy who didn’t have many exciting things happening in his life.”

Tadias was too ‘in his head’ to see the looks of recognition to his childhood on the other men’s faces. Both men were all too familiar with childhood in Colombia. It was something that stayed with you, regardless of age.

“The men seemed friendly when they came. Everything was going well, and then it just turned on a dime. There was no escalation. It was a swift and calculated attack we never saw coming.”

“El Loco! What are you doing!?” My father’s voice rang out in terror. I ran out the door that was still open when I saw the man in charge holding a gun on my father.” Tadias chuckled, “I almost tripped over a chicken that had gotten through the door we left open. I ran and hid in a field and watched in horror as they shot my parents, burned down the house, and then burned up the crops. Everything we’d worked for was gone. I’ll never forget that day, even though this is the first time I’ve remembered the leader’s name: El Loco.”

Antonio Wayne smacked the table and handed Tadias another shot, “I told you that shit worked.”

“Do you think El Loco is the one killing fixers?”

“He was only in his twenties back then, so he’s not too old to still be in the game. I think it’s a starting point.”

Chapter Nineteen

El Loco rested his head against the headrest of his private plane. He’d done well in his career as an assassin—better known in the Latin world as a Sicario. He’d been trained from a child to be a killer, and he enjoyed his work. His father before him had been a hired assassin, so it was all part of the