I not only saw Tyrone twitch at that I felt his emotions spike, fear coming through stronger than anything else. I smiled at him and patted him on the shoulder before taking a step back and ushering them into the little motel room. I said oh so politely, “Why don’t you two take a seat on the bed, we’ll get started in just a minute.”
The two sat down on the edge of the bed and I moved toward the dresser, leaning back against it. Then I just stood there staring at the two of them. The first minute was uncomfortable, by the time the time the second minute came and passed the two were feeling an excruciating amount of anxiety. Why were they feeling this, probably due to their guilty consciousnesses, it probably had nothing to do with me ramping up their anxiety. Janet started squirming within the first 30 seconds and if not for a firm hand on her arm dimpling her flesh she might have cracked right there.
After the two minutes passed Tyrone couldn’t take it anymore and spoke up, “So why’d you want us to come here?”
I didn’t respond, I just continued to stare at the duo. I felt Tyrone becoming more and more frustrated, his anxiety also started to go through the roof. He started to get up saying, “Well if you don’t need us I’m heading out.”
I lashed out at him with a whip of fear and I saw his hands start to tremble. I finally spoke, my voice hard, “Sit back down Tyrone, I did not give you permission to leave. Besides, not everyone is here yet, we can’t start a meeting without everyone being here.”
Janet started to panic and Tyrone’s anxiety jumped through the roof, he asked, “Who else is coming?”
I smiled, and said in a playful voice, “Oh I’m not sure exactly but I expect they’ll be simply wicked.”
The duo seemed to understand what I was implying and they both attempted to bolt. I kicked out with a little extra speed and tripped Tyrone. We went down with flailing arms and ended up bringing Janet down with him. They fell into a pile of tangled limbs and I walked a little closer to the pair. I said, “Tyrone, Janet, I don’t believe I gave you permission to get up off the bed, but since you want to be on the floor so much you can stay down there until our other guests arrive.”
The two finally managed to untangle themselves and Tyrone attempted to push himself up, I however didn’t approve so I stepped on his back, hard. He crashed into the ground and I heard his teeth click. I grinned then shuddered a bit, those damned impulses that deity awakened were kind of making me into a sadist, something I’d rather not become.
I used my command voice to say, “Stay down and keep your eyes open, you need to understand exactly why crossing me is a bad idea. This is the one mistake I’ll allow you as you new boss. Mess up again and you will disappear. No one will know what happened to you, you will just disappear off the face of the earth.”
I extended my senses outward ignoring the pulsing fear radiating off of Tyrone and Janet, and we waited. We spent maybe ten minutes in silence before the door burst open and two hispanic men burst in. I was of course ready for them as I felt them as they were making their way up the stairs. I was on the move as they were opening the door. They burst through the door at 1 quarter speed which allowed me plenty of time to take note of their appearances, one was in his early 20’s lighter skin tone while still obviously hispanic, he was dressed in a white shirt with jeans, had a gold chain and a shaved head. He was also sporting a small caliber handgun which I promptly took out of his hand. I might have broken his finger while disarming him, but who knows he could have started screaming for no reason whatsoever.
His buddy had spike black hair held back by a red bandana, a short sleeve collared shirt that for some reason he’d only buttoned the top button of and of course he was also sporting a gun. I snatched the gun out of his hand and for some reason he started swearing like a trucker. Now there was a lady present and I couldn’t let him befoul her ears with such filth so I closed the source of filth with my fist. I then decided to help the screamer with his pain by relieving him of the consciousness that was hurting him so much. I knocked out with a tap to the temple. The whole scuffle lasted for maybe 5 seconds.
Having completed my introduction to the diablos I turned to face Tyrone who was stunned on the floor. He apparently didn’t remember how fast I was, probably because when he saw it he was knocked out almost immediately after witnessing it. It probably skewed his memories, made him think he just wasn’t prepared for my attack which is why I was able to take him down. Now I think he understood that we weren’t in the same league. I hunkered down next to the stunned Tyrone and terrified Janet. I then said, “Now that you have a little bit of a better appreciation of who your dealing with I don’t think you’ll do something so foolish as to try and ambush me with a couple of thugs will you?”
Tyrone shook his head, “please… please don’t kill me…”
I smiled, “Oh Tyrone, I’m not going to kill you because you’re going to be my little helper aren’t you and Janet is going to be my loyal assistant right?”
They both started nodding frantically, tears streamed down Janet’s face again. I adjusted my position a bit so I was facing Janet directly and said, “Now Janet this is the second time you haven’t warned me about an ambush. Learn this lesson now, if you come to me with information like this I will protect and reward you. You should understand at this point if you have my protection no one will lay their hands on you because I will lay my hands on them so much harder. Now I know you and Tyrone have a relationship, I’d like you to make sure he doesn’t do anything this stupid again. Can you do that?”
Janet nodded and squeaked out, “yyyeah I cccan do thatttt.”
I smiled down at her, “Good I’m glad we understand each other. Now we have some guests and I’m sure they'd like some coffee as they seem to have fallen asleep. Why don’t you be a dear and go make us some coffee.”
Janet got up off the floor and began to limp out of the door, I’m guessing her leg fell asleep while she was stuck on the ground these last few minutes. When she closed the door behind her I returned my attention to Tyrone, I addressed his cowering form and said, “Now look here Tyrone, our guests are going to think we are inhospitable hosts if we just leave them in the entry way like this. You should make them more comfortable while I relieve them of all the things weighing them down. I then collected their wallets and a knife from the bald one. Meanwhile Tyrone dragged the two out of the entryway and leaned them up against one of the inner walls., he propped them up almost like they were sitting although their heads lolling against their chest quickly dispelled the illusion that they were even remotely conscious.
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I sat on the bed, double checking the contents of their wallets. Let’s see here we had one Hector Mendoza and Javier Hernandez. They had a combined 23 dollars on them which implied to me that they were low level enforcers, maybe recruits, definitely not high up in the hierarchy. I decided to clarify things before I made too many assumptions, “So Tyrone, when you decided to go to the diablos, who did you talk to and who did they say they’d send?”
Tyrone responded, “I talked to Jorge Mendoza, he’s one of the sargento’s of the diablos. He’s in charge of this area, makes sure everyone pays their rent on time. He usually sends these two to do the collecting, but if someone fails to pay Jorge’s the one that shows up and makes them regret his visit.”
I nodded, and guessed Hector was probably a nephew, cousin, or son of Jorge, and Javier was probably his friend. As I expected fairly low on the totem pole, but Hector might know something if he’s the type to pay attention.
I decided to wake up Javier first, he was the bald screamer and likely easier to break than Hector. Now personally I am not a fan of alarm clocks so I figured a loud noise might not be the nicest way to wake Hector up, so instead I gave him a nice firm slap to the face. The smack resonated around the room, but didn’t seem to do much for sleeping beauty so I delivered a back hand. That one seemed to have an affect. Javier’s head lolled to the side and his eyelids began to flutter. I also saw some blood leak out of his mouth.
I lifted Javier’s head by the chin and looked him in the eyes. I could see he was a little out of it, probably a result of having his brain rattled around from my punch. Not exactly a great state to get information out of him, at the same time he’d likely be too messed up to try and lie, so there were some advantages to giving him a concussion. I saw his eyes, well one of his eyes focus on me and then I saw anger begin to cloud it over. Rather than let him build up a head of steam I smacked him in the face again and said, “If you know what’s good for you boy you will continue to sit there and..”
Javier lunged at me. Of course he was in a bad position to do so as his legs were splayed out in front of him. I could have just ignored the awkward attempt at attacking me, but I didn’t want to encourage such behavior so i gave him another responding slap. I imparted enough force into the slap so that it overbalanced the little gangster, he ended up in a awkward sprawl on the ground. I then grabbed him by the throat and returned him to his original position against the wall. He grabbed onto my forearm while I was returning him to an upright and locked position, his nails were digging into my skin. I think he was choking because he started gasping when I eventually released his throat.
I hunkered down a bit so we were eye to eye again and said, “Now let’s try this again, or would you prefer I beat you unconscious and then when you wake up I question you?”
Javier was beginning to feel some fear, which I happily encouraged, and he blustered, “You just signed your death warrant Puta. No one lays a hand on the diablos without catching a bullet.”
I laughed, not chuckled, I straight up laughed in his face, who the fuck says that kind of shit. Who tries to scare the guy that just beat the shit out of you with comments like that? He might as well have just said that his dad could beat up my dad. When I calmed down enough I said, “So you think that your gang is going to shoot me, and who exactly are they going to be shooting? What’s my name? Who knows what I look like? Come on buddy if your gang’s going to come after me, who am I?”
It took a second for Javier to come to grips with the fact that I was basically anonymous and unless they wanted to shoot every black man over six feet in Charlotte his gang wasn’t going to avenge him. He apparently couldn’t think of an appropriate response but his fear did ratchet up a notch which I encouraged. He tried bluster again, “Fuck you man, we know what you look like and our boss knows about Tyrone, even if we can’t get you that fucker will just have to take your place.”
I smiled, then put a little mock fear and a lot of sarcasm in my voice, “So you want to torture and kill the guy that just betrayed me? Damn, anything but that… As for you guys knowing what I look like, who in the world said you would be leaving this room alive?”
I let him sit with the question for a couple of seconds before I spoke again, “You idiots broke into my room with guns drawn I could kill you both right now and when the cops show up I would get off scot free because I was defending myself from armed intruders. Or I could just make you two disappear, no one see you or hears from you again. As for your last known whereabouts, you went into the room of a large black man and were never seen again. You need to understand one thing right now Javier, You. Are. Fucked. The only way in which you don’t end up dead is if I decide not to kill you. The only way I’m not going to kill you is if I am given a compelling reason not to. Tyrone is still alive because he gave me a reason not to kill him. So why shouldn’t I kill you right now?”
Javier seemed to be stumped, his eyes started roving around the room looking for an escape. His fear started climbing to the point where I thought he might start having a panic attack, that’s when I looked a little deeper. His thoughts were racing, very few of them were coherent, probably due to the mild concussion I’d given him, but the main premise of his thoughts were, “how do I get out of here, how do I escape?” So I inserted one simple clear thought, “What if I offer to serve him?”
I let him think for another 5 seconds before repeating my question, “Javier you don’t seem to be paying any attention to me, which is so rude. I asked you why I shouldn’t kill you.”
Javier then blurted out what I was hoping for, “If you don’t kill me I’ll do whatever you want man. Seriously just don’t fuckin kill me man.”
While Javier was offering up his loyalty Hector was beginning to wake up. I didn’t want him to affect the current situation so I lightly tapped him on the chin. His head ended up rocking back and hitting the wall. That would probably buy me a few minutes to properly bring Javier into the fold and drain him of information. Tyrone’s eyes widened at my strike, but he showed no other signs of reacting. Javier however flinched at the strike, his eyes closed and hands raised up defensively. I amplified the pulse of fear he felt then sent a flash of relief. Javier opened his eyes and they once again desperately looked around the room, probably searching for something to help him escape. They locked on Tyrone and when he helplessly shook his head I could see the defeat in his eyes. Javier helplessly looked back at me and I smiled down at him.
I commanded in the form of a question, “Now Javier I believe you were about to tell me everything you know about your gang isn’t that right?”
Javier nodded his head up and down like a bobble head and started stuttering out, “Thththere’s 24 enforcers like ma ma me and Hector, wa wa we work for his tio Jorge whos a sargento, he’s got 5 other guys under him. There are 2 other Sargentos they’ve got 4 guys and 6 guys respectively. Then there’s the Capitan, he’s got a crew of 7 guys that directly report to him. Ththey have the best gear and the easiest jobs. The sargentos are all responsible for different things, Hector’s tio is in charge of collecting rent from all the independent businesses, and all the pimps that aren’t part of the gang. He and the rest of our crew also do most of the fighting, whenever some knucklehead tries to rise up, we’re normally the ones that put them in their place. The other two sargento’s are responsible for the drugs and the girls.”
I nodded and clapped Javier on the shoulder, the sound and the contact made him flinch. I said, “Good, it’s nice that we can have an open and honest conversation. Now Javier, how do you think Jorge will react if you and Hector don’t return home today?”
Javier shrugged, “I don’t know man. He might just think we went out to get drunk, we do that a lot, he probably doesn’t expect to see us til tomorrow.”
I asked, “And when you don’t show up tomorrow?”
Javier thought for a second, “Well, he’ll probably come after that puta Tyrone once he realizes we’re missing.”
I smiled, “Well that’s just perfect. Now Javier I think you are ready to be smart about this, so I’m going to extend an offer your way, you can take it or you can leave it, though I’d really suggest you take it. You see, I plan on taking over your little gang, then I’m going to take over every other gang in the city. By the end of the month I expect to have complete control over every bit of organized crime in the city. Now you can be a part of that, and if you prove capable and loyal I’ll promote you, I’ll give you power and wealth, all you have to do is obey my commands. Do you think you can do that?”
Javier nodded, then I could see confusion clouding over his features he asked, “Wait, how are you going to take over all the other gangs? Even if you managed to take out el jefe and get the hombres to follow you, we can’t take the other gangs…”
I laughed, “Muwahahaha, don’t worry about that Javier. All you have to do is follow my orders and answer my questions honestly, if you do that I guarantee you’ll be living the high life in no time at all.”
Javier began to nervously laugh and responded, “Okay boss, you say the word and I’ll do whatever you want.”
I could feel that Javier wasn’t being entirely honest with me, but then it takes time for the fear to properly set in and loyalty to sprout from said fear. I’d give him some time and let him see me beat the shit out of his former boss. After that I’m sure he’d start to see things my way.
I said, “Now Javier as the newest member of my gang, I’m going to give you some errands while I have a talk with Hector here. Here’s all you have to do…”