Rectified (Salazar Brothers Book 1) Read online

  A vibration, rattling against the guayacan wood of my dresser disrupted my concentration and zen. I had three more guns and two rifles to clean, and I abhorred interruptions.

  Snatching up the phone, I answered, "This better be good."

  "Bueno, Senor Diego. Muy Bueno." Palpo, our downtown snitch, confirmed.

  "Que?"

  "Malvo Dominguez is on his death bed at Hospital Punta de Mali," Palpo said in hushed tones.

  "Palpo," I said with a swift warning, which he interpreted correctly.

  "Senor Diego, me know." I could practically see the older man with stringy hair nodding his head. "Me know."

  "Positive, Palpo. Be fucking positive!" I barked.

  "Swear. Des left him there, and he's in Valvorino reeking all sorts of havoc," Palpo answered.

  There would be no remorse coming from me about Malvo Dominguez as he ruled with an iron fist on the small streets of Mali. Our business competed against his degenerate sons, and he hated Mama for our loyalty, training, and professionalism. Mama reared us to blend in and to learn not just one language or two but four. Those Dominguez's were thugs and that's all they knew. Brute force, bullying, and being underhanded were their way of life, so he was overdue for a taste of his own medicine.

  At first, the Dominguez and Salazars operated in different parts of the region. They were irrelevant until Malvo and his boys cased our hit and struck first. That was the day Mama gave the decree that if we had an opportunity to do so without the possibility of trouble, take his ass out. Needless to say, that was eight years ago. We did not go out looking for him, but if we found him, he was a dead man.

  The district was not far from my home near Jovellanos, so I took the job, and it would damn sure make the Salazars happy when Malvo saw his demise. It might cause war, but Mama was adamant about getting rid of him for infringing on our territory. It was underhanded, which was the way Dominguez operated. We had a code that we lived by and sometimes, I think that caused them to hate us more.

  The hospitals and certain parts of Cuba worked the same. They either knew you or they didn’t, but pesos always spoke louder. I gave the lead nurse some money to go to lunch and made my way into the room she pointed out to me. Malvo must have really pissed off Des for him to dump him here alone with no guards and in the shit hole of a hospital.

  Once I made it to his room, I double checked the number on the outside of the hospital door. The man lying in bed did not look like Malvo Dominguez. My only confirmation was that he had the tattoo on the side of his neck that was a signature of the Dominguez. The elaborate letter “D” in old English.

  My Beretta M9 twenty-two caliber pistol was to my side with the silencer screwed on and ready to strike. The only reason I hesitated was that I wanted to make sure it was the same man and not a setup. Quickly scanning the room, I saw nothing that would alert me to anything different, so I took aim. One shot to the head and the other to the heart.

  The swift noise that escaped the chamber was clear and that brought me comfort. Oddly enough, taking a life meant nothing to me anymore, especially the lowlife of Malvo Dominguez. He could roll over in hell for all the havoc he brought to our small town.

  As I pulled out my phone to capture the image of the dead man, I heard a noise on the side of the bed. This quickly had me aiming my gun towards the sound. And to my surprise, the small head of a woman appeared, showing her red-stained face and her mouth wide open.

  “What have you done?” She screamed. “You just killed him.”

  She was American.

  “¿Que?” I hissed in confusion.

  “You just killed him,” she yelled again while coming around the bed as tears poured from her face.

  My gun was still on her since no witnesses were allowed.

  Ever.

  “No Inglés,” I said in an effort to gather her sense of the Spanish language.

  Then, she dropped to her knees and murmured, “Go ahead and kill me. You just did. He was my last chance.”

  What the fuck?

  Her tears, beauty, and absolute surrender overtook me at that moment. This woman was asking me to kill her. Why the fuck would she do that?

  “Last chance for what?” I finally asked in English.

  She simply shook her head covered with tightly coiled curls. The woman was a thin, sickly thing, but there was something else about her that seemed off. She was not as weak as she appeared, and I was glad I grasped that revelation when I did.

  In a flash, her fist jabbed out towards my leg with a sharp blade that I barely dodged and then she came with what would have been an uppercut to my balls. Yet, it was with another knife. Thankful for my quick reflexes, I was able to move, grab her left hand, and put the knife to her own neck.

  “Drop the other knife or you will die right here.” I pulled her frail body with her back against my chest as my mouth was near her ear and eyes on her right hand. “Now! Or that will be the last breath you breathe.”

  When the clinging of the knife hit the ceramic floor, I twisted the knife out of her small hand and turned her around.

  Yes, she was beautiful but vicious.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Nobody now,” she responded with a barely raised eyebrow.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I asked as I held up my gun next to her head. “My patience is wearing thin, now talk.”

  Her eyes squinted to the size of slits and then she did an elaborate inhale before she rained all hell, fire, and brimstone on me.

  “Who am I?” She screamed. “I’m a fucking dead woman walking. My only form of a donor was right there. He signed the papers,” she pointed to the rolled up, crinkled sheets on the bed. “The doctor is on his way here to do a transplant, and you just put a bullet in his head and heart. I’m a fucking dead woman. That’s who I am. So, shoot me, you slimy piece of shit. Shoot me or the first chance I get, I will slit your fucking throat.”

  At that point, she was on her toes and in my face. My gun be damned, she had no fucks left to give. So, she was either crazy or what she said was true.

  Before I could really ration what to do with the woman, either kill her or leave her, I grabbed her by the arm and hissed, “One word and I will kill you and the person that tries to help. Comprende?”

  There was no answer, but she also did not mutter a single word.

  Once we made it to my truck, I tied her wrists with a zip tie around the glove box handle. There were not many cars in the alley, but I figured if she were doing some back alley deals with donors, her car would not be hospital parking lot.

  “Where is your vehicle?” I asked.

  Her head jerked towards the back causing me to turn and see a small green Pinto.

  “The green one?” I asked. “Keys?”

  Apparently, she was through talking since her head nodded towards what I would assume was her left pocket. My hand dug into the loose-fitting jeans and found a simple key ring with two keys. One was larger and had a long-jagged edge, which was probably the vehicle’s key.

  “Move and I’ll shoot you in the head first.” I said as I walked to see what I was dealing with and who this mystery woman was.

  Killing her would not be a problem, but there was something about the feisty thing that sparked my interest. Opening the car, all I saw was a small mesh bag with papers, over ten thousand dollars, and a black bag full of dressing packs, hospital gear in plastic, and a small machine at the bottom.

  Fuck, was she a junkie or a thief.

  As I was walking back, I saw movement around my truck. As I ran up on the vehicle, I saw that she was gone until I heard a small scream near the dumpster. My gun was out, and I was ready but only a rat scrambled across the alley and then my prisoner took off running.

  One shot had stopped her dead in her tracks. The frail thing turned around with her mouth open, “You almost killed me!”

  “If I wanted you dead, you would have been already.” I shared. “I told you not to move unless you
wanted a bullet in your head. You do one more thing and that is what you will get. Up against the wall.”

  I motioned with my gun for her to follow my orders as I advanced towards her.

  “What are you on?” I asked.

  “What?” She looked confused.

  “What drugs are you taking?” I narrowed my eyes at her and then held up her bag.

  She sighed and said, “What does it matter? You just killed me.”

  My irritation with her melodrama was growing. Holding my gun pointing upward with the barrel on her chin, I asked, “Do you really want to die?”

  The look she gave me answered the question, but the pursing of her lips and the sneer that came next let me know she did want to give me the satisfaction.

  “Obviously, I don’t. I came out here to get my lifeline. That…” she pointed towards my bag. “Those are my dialysis treatments that I get three times a week. So, yes, I want to live but with Senor Dominguez dead, my rare blood type, and this damn disease kicking my ass, I really don’t have a choice anymore. There is nothing that can be done here. I need to get to my next destination. I won’t tell anyone.”

  I could tell a liar, but the American women were known to be cunning. This time, I thoroughly searched her and found another knife sewed into the cuff of her sleeves. The discovery made me check her cuffs, bra, that curly mess of hair, and her boots.

  Once I removed her last weapon, she was zip-tied back to the glove compartment. Her information needed to be verified, but in the meantime, I had no clue where to bring her. So, we rode around the city for all of an hour until I figured I’d bring her to the studio. There was a basement that she could stay in until I found out what to do with her. Mama would be none the happier; but, this was my operation, and we’d decided years ago, whoever led made the call.

  Therefore, keeping her was my decision.

  ****

  “What should I call you?” I asked the woman who hadn’t spoken since we left.

  Her hands were zip-tied in front of her small body as I guided her up the narrow, wooden stairwell of Salazar’s studio. From the outside, it almost looked like a large industrial barn, but when you entered the facilities, almost everything was new. The shiny wooden floors were newly polished, the bars along the walls had mirrors on every side in the main studio and on each floor. Latin music was our specialty, but the rhythm and the beat of the soul were in our blood. Our father was a professional dancer, who went all the way to the states to compete at the national level. He died ten years ago due to a heart attack.

  According to mama, the man was good and that was one of the many reasons she fell in love with him. She, on the other hand, came from a crew of assassins and that was how me and each of our brothers were born and raised with the dual forces, music and hit men within us. We had been killing since we were eight years of age and as time went on. Our uncles and cousins were heavy in the business, and my mama managed it all. Over the years, she acquired some help, but we were traditionally trained dancers and assassins; all mentored by professionals.

  Prime Ministers, queens, dignitaries and the elite would come all over to train at our facility. The dancing business was quite lucrative and could almost financially rival the assassin side of our jobs. We set our own schedule, decided which hits we would take, and we lived by a code.

  No children would be killed, and the kill needed to have a verified reason that we deemed acceptable. For instance, two months ago, a job came along the way and a wife wanted to put out a hit on the husband for cheating. Neither my brothers or I took the job because a man cheating, in our opinion, should not warrant his death. His embarrassment, maybe, but not his death. Mama felt that it was a good reason to kill, so she hired out to another contractor. Oddly enough, my brothers and I were selective about the jobs we took, but it depended on the job and what we were willing to do.

  “Where are we?” The woman finally spoke in a hoarse tone as I opened the door to the dungeon-like room.

  “That’s the least of your concerns.” I responded. “I need a name. You want your story verified? You better start talking or you’ll die out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Destini with an ‘i’ and my last name is Swift.” She cleared her throat. “I came out here to get a kidney and that’s the only reason. I won’t tell no one what happened. I just…” the woman cut herself off. “I need to leave here and find another donor.”

  When I pulled out my knife from my side pouch, the woman’s eyes grew slightly larger as I cut the plastic ties.

  “I’ll be right back,” I called. “No one knows you’re here, but if you think help is anywhere in this building besides me, you’re mistaken. If someone finds you here like this, they’ll kill you for sure.”

  Those weak eyes met mine, then she turned and sat down on the floor of the room.

  “I just want to leave.”

  I almost told her that she wasn’t but kept my mouth shut. I might have to kill her after all. Especially, if her story didn’t check out. There would be no grace.

  Before I set about making the necessary calls, I reheated the leftover chicken with rice and grabbed a bottle of water for her. She looked ready to pass out, so I wanted to make sure she would at least stay awake before I could call Curtis and have him run down her information.

  Destini, she had a familiar accent, as if she was from New York with no hint of Spanish at all. She was a black woman and not that they weren’t around Jovellanos, they didn’t frequent this particular area. Her clothes would suggest she was coming from a hot place, maybe the east coast during this time of year. As I went through the bag she had with her in the hospital, I saw she traveled light, rented everything over the past three months because there was nothing but receipts with everything paid in cash. In her bag, she had over ten thousand dollars and casino chips from Triumph Casino in Atlantic City. A quick search on my phone showed me that the establishment was in New Jersey, so she was definitely in the east coast recently.

  I came back to unlocked the room where she was held, left the food inside the door, and relocked it again as I commanded, “Eat. When do you need your so-called medicine next?”

  “Tomorrow.” She mumbled.

  Locking the door back, my next move included calling Curtis, my brother.

  “Hey Curt, where are you in the states right now?” I asked.

  “Mi Hermano,” he greeted me. “How are you?”

  “Good, now where are you?”

  “Philadelphia, what do you need?” Curt sobered up when he realized this was a business call.

  “Need you to do some recon for me. A woman by the name of Destini Swift. She has a story, and I need it checked out. The last place she visited was a casino in New Jersey called Triumph. I’ll send you over a picture of her along with some other shit.”

  “Fuck, okay.” He answered. “I’ll get right on it. Sounds serious. You alright?”

  “Yeah, just want to find this shit out as soon as possible.” I told him.

  “Consider it done. I’ll be in touch.”

  We hung up the phone.

  Nobody was in the studio at this time of day, but they soon would be. We not only offered classes here but would occasionally through a party for the town’s people of Jovellanos. Mama said it was a way for everyone to relax, no matter how bad things grew in the country. When people had music, they had love. I never understood the saying, but I knew music would always put me at ease. Love, well, that never seemed to go my way.

  All the women in and out of town wanted a Salazar man, but none of them wanted to put the work in that was necessary to keep one. We were too complex of a creature to just settle for anyone. The woman we chose mattered, it made a difference, and if mama didn’t drill anything into us, it was that. This was the reason why we were mostly single except Hugo, the youngest of the brothers. It helped that we mostly stayed to ourselves. The only people who knew we were assassins were other assassins and people that needed assassins. This wa
s not gossip, and if it was ever breached, people died. Our way of life and this method was about survival only.

  As the hours went by, noises began to fill the studio, which meant the clients were arriving. I moved to the offices on the top floor, so I could overlook the main dance hall. You could almost see everyone dancing around, doing their steps, twirling about and having fun. It was often a highlight on a bad day.

  “Hola, como esta?” Catalina, my sister, greeted me.

  “Hey sis,” I responded. “Speak English. That is the only way to rid of your accent.”

  I always told her this.

  “Why?” she huffed. “I’m not an assassin, and I’m never leaving Cuba. I need my accent.”

  She could be such a pest sometimes. I shook my head because she was making me put on my big brother hat.

  “You never know what you’re going to have to do to survive. You need to be prepared for anything. An unprepared mind…” She cut me off to finish.

  “…results in scattered brains.” She rolled her eyes.

  She went to walk past me, and I grabbed her wrist.

  “Seriously Cat. Things are changing. You’re getting older, and this cushioned life won’t be here forever. Learn what you can now.” I cautioned.

  In her sisterly way, she leaned up and kissed my forehead.

  “Yes, Diego. I understand.” She walked to the back office. “Mama’ll be here around seven. She’s meeting with Uncle Vance.”

  That was never good. The man was a mercenary, who had his own code, which including killing any and everybody. We rarely consulted with him, but if mama was talking to him, it was about something she didn’t want us to know about.

  “Aye.” I shook my head.