DECISIONS

Apollo sat on their patio, scrolling over and looking at the pictures of Eros Castillo on his cellphone. What could he do to get his revenge on this man? He knew who people said Eros was, but he had to be overthrown or killed by someone someday. He was skilled as a Marine, but he didn't know how Eros and his men operates. He couldn't just pin a crime on him without evidence and Eros had his way with the laws. He was just young, but he was going to throw Eros down for stealing his bride-to-be.

He has been sad since he came back home and had barely eaten any food. He could tell his parents were worried about him but he couldn't be okay when Cassie was out there somewhere, maybe suffering. Tonight, he was outside, scheming a plan to get back his bride, even if it means fighting dirty. The moon was a bright silver plate above the sky, and the wind moaned through the trees, but Apollo seems not to notice.


The door to their house cracked open and his father stepped out with a pullover hung on his shoulder and two bottles of beer. "It's a windy night," the older man said and took the adjacent seat. "Beer?" he raised a bottle.

Apollo took the bottle from him without saying anything. He knew his father was there to talk, but he didn't know if he was ready to talk He was just distraught by the whole thing. Cassie is the only woman he loved and the reason he had fought to be alive to come back home. It looked like his world fell apart when he confirmed the news.

"Your mother was worried, she wants you to cover up," his father said and tossed him the pullover. He caught it.

"Thank you." Silence settle in between them then after a while he muttered, "I'm sorry."

His father's wave was dismissive. "No, stop it, we understand you."

"I know. But as much as you two understand me, it hurts you also to see me this way and I know you always wished there was something you could do to help me out. I am sorry for making you feel helpless."

His father didn't reply for a while, he corked the cap from the beer bottle and took a long gulp as if the drink would give him the confidence or idea of what to say. "Son, you are our only child. You are all we've got and we would support you in every way we can."

Apollo nodded and sipped his beer. "I see," he said almost in a whisper.

"It's just a few days more before you get shipped to Kuwait, I know how it feels when you can't see the person who has brought you home."

Apollo nodded and tears formed in his eyes, but he blinked them away. "I just want to know that she is okay. What if I don't want to go back to the Marine?"

"Like quit?" there was a hint of disbelief in his father's voice.

"Quit, yeah. What if I want to join the Mafia?"

"Apollo..."

"No, I want to join the Mafia too. I think that is the only way to see Cassie and maybe save her."

They heard a rustling sound behind them and turned. Apollo caught his mother's back as she left the window. She has been listening in on their conversation and he knew he had just broken her heart, but he had to fight for what belonged to him. He wasn't just going to sit there and wait for a miracle to happen. He took a long gulp from his beer.



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Eros sat alone behind his desk, in his study, tapping his fingers on the desk and looking at the picture on the screen of his laptop, his neck was plastered up. The rejection from that b*tch lying next door still rankled. He would have killed her that night. He had almost blown her f*cking head off if not for his grandmother, Adella who had stopped him. Her presence had surprised and calmed him at the same time. His grandma was the only person he considered a human and family. Although they were different, she loved him and has never failed to show that love. She was endowed with the kindest of hearts and she was quite agile for her age. Despite her wrinkles, Grandma Adella was still beautiful with naturally dark hair, she is plump and her eyes were emerald.

She had come on that night and had decided not to disturb Eros until the morning and also to surprise him, but when she heard the gunshot, she had jerked up from bed and ran to the balcony of her room, to see her grandson pointing a gun to the head of a woman lying helplessly on the ground. She had screamed for him to stop and it had frozen Eros. She had come down the stairs at once, taken the weapon away from the fuming Eros, and had checked the woman, she was a younger girl, a few years younger than Eros and she was almost naked.

She was unconscious and had lost a lot of blood, but she detected a weak pulse and had ordered that she be taken to her room, she was going to nurse her back to life. Eros had been infuriated, but he couldn't do anything about it.
Sitting there now and thinking about it, he was glad he didn't kill her straight away that night. He was going to make her pay for ever raising her filthy hands on him. How dare her? After that night, he had asked for a friend of the b*tch to be brought to the mansion and Lucia had been brought. He got her full name from her friend and ran a background check on her himself. He found out she was the daughter of Orion, the man he remembered as a sly man who hid his daughter away from them, he also found out that she was engaged to be married to a Marine. He had been mad, seeing their loved-up pictures together and it had made him close the laptop with fury. She was going to suffer in his hands and he made it his goal to deflower her. He was going to torture her until she succumbs to him.
She was going to beg him. She was going to beg him to take her and have her anyhow he wanted, she was going to be broken and she was going to crawl on her hands and knees and beg him. She was his now and his alone. He doesn't care if she was already married or about to get married, she was his. As he relished the thought, the door to his study flung open and his friends walked in.


* Idiots, he thought.*

They were the only ones who could come to his house as if it were theirs, Javier especially. Javier was his closest friend, they had been friends since childhood and grew up together. They had been trained for this work together. Javier's father was his father's capo and they had remained close ever since that time. But Javier was more inclined toward the business aspect of it than the brutal side. Eros was the sadist and he was a proud one at that. Javier sometimes urges him to take it easy, especially with women. But Eros could never blame Javier. If he was subjected to intense training and neglect, they won't be having that conversation.
Javier's father had fallen in love with his mother and his mother loved the man too. Javier was a product of that love between his parents, he had experienced what a family was like and he believes he would one day, find a woman to fall in love with too. It sounded pathetic to Eros and makes him burst into laughter each time he thought about it.

"Don Eros, leader of the El dragon, beaten and stabbed by a feeble woman?" Javier teased and burst into laughter.
Eros eyed him. If it was someone else, he would have been dropped dead by now.

"F*ck off," Eros said.


Javier, Carlos, and Pedro sat on the seat in front of him. While Javier kept snickering, Pedro and Carlos fought the smiles that were tugging at the corners of their lips.

*"Let's see la dama valiente," [the brave lady] Javier said, even though he saw the girl that night.
Eros eyed him. Anger was gradually seeping in as Javier made fun of it. This was the first time in the whole of his life he got rejected by a woman and even got wounded. He didn't think women could do anything to him and he was even mad that his charm didn't work on that woman. His ego had been dampened and he was going to do everything to gain it back.

"You are joking too much about it now," Eros said through clenched teeth.
Javier's smile quickly disappeared and he cleared his throat. "Anyway, we came with very confusing news."
Eros snorted. "What's with the serious face?"
The others burst into laughter.

"Well, you don't like to be joked with."

"Okay, it's humiliating that a woman raised her filthy hands on me and is still alive. Sometimes Grandma Adella infuriates me."

"That's why we love her!" his friends chorused.

"The last whore you slept with was found dead in her apartment," Pedro dropped the bombshell.

Eros looked at them in confusion. "What whore?" As long as he was concerned he doesn't keep the faces of the women who pleasure him. Once it was over, he wipes them off his memory.

"You know that one you were banging while we were on call? Here, this is her picture." Javier slid his phone over to Eros who picked up the phone and looked at the picture of a smiling lady.

It didn't ring a bell to him, but something else disturbed him. Almost all the whores he had sex with were all found dead, sometimes killed brutally, sometimes they take their lives by themselves. Someone was after him and that person was trying to tell him something, but what could it possibly be?