GTO: Soldiers Of Hades MC, #3

GTO laid her down on the bed and she finally groaned in her pain. He could see blood welling up in her shoe and spilling out over the top.

Doc grabbed a handful of towels and lifted her foot draping the towels over to the bed to protect the mattress he carefully removed her shoe. Careful not to tip the shoe too much, blood dripped to the towels staining them red.

He held the shoe up and both of them could see the holes the bullet made. It had gone completely through her foot and out the other side.

When Doc began cleaning the blood off her foot, Luisa grabbed GTO’s hand and held on tight then whispered, “Ça fait tellement mal.”

GTO paused. That wasn’t Spanish. It sounded very different. Like French, maybe?

Biting her lip, she didn’t make any other sign of the pain she was feeling. She turned her head and planted it in GTO’s belly until Doc was finished. She was crushing his fingers with her grip but she wasn’t crying.

“Why didn’t you say something?” GTO growled at her.

“I learned a long time ago not to show my pain. It only made it worse.” She gritted her teeth.

“We are not your family.” GTO snarled.

“No, but if and when the time comes, you’ll still put a bullet in my head.” She looked up at him. “I think I’d rather it was you than my brother.” Luisa had listened to Python’s claims. She knew he’d been telling the truth. Arturo had done the worst thing he could do and allowed the blame to fall on someone else’s shoulders. That was not how they were raised. But she also knew her brother and she had no doubt, he’d done what Python said he did.

GTO frowned. “Why would you want that?”

She shrugged. “Arturo wouldn’t blink when he put the bullet in my head and I don’t want to give him that. He’s been a bully to me and the others all my life. My father always called it as he was just building his own personality and expressing his opinion. The rest of us called it pushing his weight around and we hated it. More often than not, he was proven wrong in the long run but he would never admit it. He hated the fact that Rafael was first born. Our father always leaned toward Rafael not him and that burned Arturo the most.” She paused then added, “I don’t think I want to give him the satisfaction I know he would feel. He would just tell people he always knew I would turn on my family someday. ”

“And now?” He wanted to know. “You know you can’t go back to your family, don’t you?”

Luisa nodded. “Arturo wouldn’t even wait to hear what I had to say before he killed me. His excuse would be I might have told someone the family secrets. He would tell my aunts and cousins that I couldn’t be trusted.” Taking a deep breath, she exhaled then opened her eyes wide and she looked up at him. “You gave me my freedom. You gave me a way out. That was the one thing I never had before.”

GTO frowned. “Is that good or bad?”

“Oh, it is a good thing, at least for me.” She nodded. She looked up at him and admitted, “For as long as I can remember, I hated what my family did. I grew up listening as my father and my uncles would talk about the process of making the drugs either from the poppy field to the chemicals and I detested it. All they ever saw was the end result, the money. That’s all they ever cared about. It’s why I learned English, French and even Italian. I always wanted to get as far from Mexico as I could, one day…Though, I always thought it was just a dream that would never happen.”

GTO tilted his head at her. “I wondered at the fact that you barely have a Spanish accent.”

She nodded and took a breath. “You see… I had always been different from them. They never looked at the people involved in the process. They never saw the poverty their workers lived in. They just didn’t care when one of the workers died because according to them, there was always more men and women standing in line for a job. Over the years, they grew more and more heartless. They had millions of dollars coming in every day and with that money, came power and they all let that power corrupt them.” She hung her head and spoke quietly, “I can’t help it but I’m glad they are dead. I loved my family, especially my father and my brothers, but they’ve been lost for a long time now and maybe, they will gain the peace they were looking for.”

GTO hesitated then told her, “The MC will want you to betray your family, you know that right?”

Luisa nodded. “But my family betrayed me a long time ago. I begged them to go legal, to find another way to earn their money but they all looked at me as if I were crazy. I then pleaded for them to at least help the families of the poor, of the ones who’d been left behind after being Brago soldiers and dying for them. The Brago Empire was too big to just let it all go they said and they told me if they weren’t doing it, someone else would step up and take over. They would be ruined and the reputation they took so long to build up would be gone. Someone would then come in, kill them all, step up to the plate and continue what they started. They all vowed they would never let that happen. If I didn’t care about what they stood for, they could bury me next to my grandfather.”

“That’s pretty harsh isn’t it?” GTO stared at her with sadness in his voice.

Luisa nodded. “But they told me I wouldn’t be able to just walk away from it. They would never allow that. I felt I had no choice but to go along with them. I tried to not let what they were doing bother me but it did. They didn’t think of the people they had working for them. They didn’t see the severe hardships those families had to go through just to earn a living.”

“Is that why you didn’t struggle when we took you? Why you didn’t call out to the guards on top of the roof?”

Luisa exhaled deeply. “Those guard had orders to shoot to kill. They would have killed me, I knew this, and so did they. They also know their lives depend on following orders. If they don’t do what they have been told, they would be executed.” She shivered. “I have seen it happen too many times to count. Arturo has gone over to the dark side now and there’s no coming back from that.”

“Hmm.” GTO grunted. “Arturo isn’t going to be in charge of the city too much longer. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

She trembled at his statement. “But Arturo isn’t the only one there, is he? My other brother Javier and my cousin Carmen are still around and willing to take over, should something happen to Arturo.” She paused then added, “No to mention if the men are all gone, I have a mother, two aunts and two female cousins that will step in and take over.”

GTO just stared at her. “What are you saying?”

“There is always going to be someone to step up to the plate if you take Arturo out,” she assured him with sadness in her eyes.

“Well, ain’t that just fucking great?” He growled.

Luisa shrugged but didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say.

Doc bandaged her foot after cleansing and applying antibiotic cream. He then put a clean sock on her foot to protect the bandage. He told them both it might be best if she stayed off her foot for a while. “So, GTO, you get to use those muscles of yours.” He grinned as he stepped back and went to put away his medical supplies.

GTO picked her up and carried her back out to the main room.

When Luisa got there, she noted her watch and pendant were gone and she looked up at Cobra.

He shrugged and said, “I had one of the men drive the pieces out into the desert and throw them in the dirt. If your brother finds them, he won’t find you or us. I didn’t want to take a chance you were telling the truth.”

Luisa stared at him. She had nothing left but THE truth. She kept her mouth shut though as she had been taught to do for most of her life.

“We might have a problem boss,” GTO stated with a frown.

Cobra looked over at him. “What kind of problem?”

GTO nodded at Luisa, “She claimed that even if we take out Arturo, we’d still have the rest of her family to deal with. She has another brother, Javier and a cousin Carmen, not to mention the females in her family.”

Cobra and Python both snapped their heads around to glare at her. “The females? Would your mother and your aunts really take over the reins and try to lead the cartel?”

She nodded. “In some ways, my mother and my aunts are more vicious than my uncles and my father ever thought about being. The men you and yours killed were their sons, their husbands. In many ways, the women in my family can be vicious and they would want revenge for their blood being spilled. They even carry weapons.”

Cobra looked around the room and when his eyes met his father’s, they both knew what had to happen. Not only would they have to take out the men they might have to take out the women as well. And that might be hard for them to do.

“Exactly how far would the women go to get this revenge?” Python wanted to know.

“If you lost everything that ever mattered to you, how far would you go to get revenge on the ones that did the damage?” Luisa countered. “If someone killed both your sons what would you do to get revenge? Or would you consider it justice for their deaths? Then think of what blood runs through their veins, the life they have lived while being inside a cartel family. This tells you…they will stop at nothing. They will kill your family members as well.”

Python shook his head, as he looked disgusted. “I don’t like the way you’re thinking, girl.”

The rest of the men all grumbled in agreement to his statement.