The Untouchables

20. Calculated Impulses

Before I can knock at the door, it opens and the smell of chicken fires in my nostrils.

"Hello, dear. How can I help you?" A woman welcomes me, a smile showing her old age through wrinkles.

I smile back at her. "I'm here to meet with your son. He told me he would come home soon. May I wait inside?"

"Of course, sweetheart. You're beautiful." She keeps the door open for me as I walk inside.

Random kindness is something I'm not used to anymore and I can't help but be grateful to that woman for cheering me up.

I sit at the dinner table, watching his two children running around it as another woman in her forties cooks for them. She walks to the table, serving the chicken in the middle. Then, she finally notices my presence.

She smiles, wide-eyed. "Hi. I'm Tara."

"I'm Gabriela, just a friend of your ex-husband." I shake her little, delicate hand as her initial shock turns into joy, not into the concern I expected to see. What do they know about him, his money, his power?

The kids immediately sit to start eating, and their mother and grandma join us soon after.

I lean my arm on the table and get straight to the point. "Your man keeps secrets."

Strangely, Tara doesn't look afraid of me, nor does anyone in the room as they eat calmly. They don't know a shit about Carlos' position in the world war for drugs.

"I know he has another woman now. It's not a secret," Tara says, taking another bite from her chicken wing.

I sigh, shrugging. "Whatever. The less you know about his business, the better. I don't want to make you regret your whole life spent with him just before you die."

Tara looks at me before I pull out my gun and shoot her in the head. The kids stare at her corpse loosely leaning back on the chair, then one screams and so does the other as they hurry under the table.

The grandma stares at me in terror. I grab her by her arm and drag her outside, under the snow, on Christmas.

I pick the shotgun from the back of my car outside and load it. "Hey grandma, have you ever seen a head exploding?"

The poor woman shakes like a leaf and I laugh at her, ignoring guilt hitting like a punch in my stomach.

I take my phone and call Carlos. He picks up the call, but no words come from him, so I talk.

"You better die before I find you. Consider this warning as my way to bless you with what's remained of my compassion for you." I hang up, toss the phone in the snow and walk inside the house again, followed by grandma.

"He left a message for you!" The old woman yells, grabbing a letter from the kitchen.

I take the paper and read his words under an address with a future date and a time: My dearest Gabriela, if I can't make you love me, I'll make you hate me. In any case, we'll be stuck together forever. With love, your friend Carlos Quintero. His sign is written with the delicate hand of a man that doesn't give a fuck about what's happening here.

I tear the paper and toss it out the window, growls coming out pushed by my chest. I can't control the anger anymore, and my cold personal revenge turns into something else. Madness.

I had to torture five of Quintero's allies for hours before I got the address of his family house. Apparently, five deaths weren't enough for him to feel hurt, and three more corpses won't make a difference, no matter how close these lives are to Carlos. That bastard is willing to lose people as long as their deaths are worth money and power or doesn't take any of those from him. He knew. He knew I would come and kill his family, and he didn't care.

"I will take away fucking everything from him," I growl to the grandma, then I search for the children's rooms. "Your dad hates you, kids!"