Price of Loyalty
Chapter 24
*The next morning.*
The crew woke early, trading quiet greetings as Amy started pulling together breakfast — until a car horn cut through the morning, blaring from somewhere down at street level. At first, nobody thought much of it. Probably just one of the dead had wandered into a car overnight and gotten itself stuck against the horn. But it kept going, longer than any accident would explain, steady and deliberate, clearly meant to get someone's attention.
Eventually Sasha gave in and pulled back one of the curtains. What she saw pulled the whole crew to the window in seconds.
A man stood below in an Italian tuxedo, a fedora tucked under one arm, flanked by four men carrying automatic rifles. They knew exactly where the crew was hiding. The only real question left was how long they'd known — and what they actually wanted.
Even holed up inside, the group had almost nothing to fight back with — just the shotgun and pistol taken off Tony and Omar the day before. Brad's arm was still healing, Kaito hadn't woken up yet, and none of the women had much experience handling a gun. That left it to Leo and Duncan to go deal with whatever this was. Before heading down, they told Alex to stay behind and watch over the women — the last line of defense, if it came to that. It was a heavy ask on short notice, but he accepted it without hesitation, which said more about how far he'd come than anyone probably had time to notice right then.
"Ah, boss — look, they're coming out," one of the gunmen called, leveling his rifle as Leo and Duncan stepped outside, hands raised.
"Quit it, you idiot. It's four against two. What are you so scared of?" the boss snapped, smacking the man's shoulder, a heavy Spanish accent running under every word.
"Hola, amigos. Me llamo Alejandro." He introduced himself warmly, almost too warmly — the kind of polite that put both of them on edge immediately. He looked, at a glance, like someone who couldn't hurt a fly. Looks, Leo already suspected, were doing a lot of lying here.
"I'm Leo. This is my friend Duncan." He kept his tone level. "This is our hotel." Not a challenge, exactly — just enough to make the point clear, given they had nothing but themselves to back it up if this went sideways.
Alejandro laughed, genuinely delighted. Most people he dealt with either started begging before he'd even finished a sentence, or folded the second he named his terms. These two hadn't blinked at the guns, hadn't blinked at the numbers. That kind of nerve was rare enough that it had carried him a long way up through his own organization — rare enough that his name meant something now, whether these two knew it yet or not.
"Have either of you had breakfast?" he asked, already taking a liking to them — Duncan especially, something about the messy hair and the sharp, watchful eyes reminding him of a hunter sizing up a room.
Leo and Duncan traded a look, hesitated exactly one beat, and agreed to go with him.
---
"While we make our way to the sanctuary, let's get to know each other a little, hm?" Alejandro said smoothly, from the back seat of his car, glancing at Duncan more than once.
Leo didn't waste time on small talk. "How long have you known we were in that building? Before the horde, or after?"
That caught Alejandro slightly off guard, though he covered it with a smile. "Why do you ask?" he said, playing it mysterious, enjoying himself — there was no reason to show his hand when he could just let curiosity do the work for him. He was hoping to needle Leo a little further when Duncan cut in.
"Your shoes," Duncan said, almost offhand.
"What about them?" Alejandro asked.
"Tailor-made, aren't they." Duncan held his eyes as he said it. That landed harder than he expected — the only two people who knew where those shoes actually came from were himself and the man who made them. It stung his pride, just slightly, to have a stranger read that off him so easily.
The conversation trailed off from there. At one point Leo caught sight of a large hospital building passing by the window, though not close enough to make out its name, before the car pulled up ten minutes later at a club that clearly served as the real headquarters — bikers, gangsters, ex-convicts, every flavor of dangerous the old world used to lock away, all gathered under one roof, several of them already drinking themselves half to death this early in the morning. Leo and Duncan kept themselves as far from that crowd as the walk to the office would allow.
Alejandro's office, once they reached it, was decorated well enough to make clear none of it had been paid for. A couple of women were already waiting inside; he waved them off and told them to bring food for his guests instead.
"So. What do you think? Impressive, no?" he said, settling into his chair, lighting a cigar with a slow, theatrical pull. "In this place, anything is possible. Whatever you want, whoever you want — so long as you follow my rules, what you do is none of my concern." He exhaled a long stream of smoke directly toward their faces.
"Ah — food's here. Sit, eat," he said, waving them toward the table. One look at the spread told them everything they needed to know. Nobody put out food that lavish without expecting something back for it. This wasn't hospitality. It was an offer, dressed up as one.
Both of them clocked the setup instantly, and turned to leave — only to find the exit already blocked by more of his men.
"You still don't understand. You don't have a choice here. Sit. It would be such a shame to waste food made so graciously for you." Alejandro popped a grape into his mouth, smiling as he took a slow sip of wine, watching them like he already knew exactly how this was going to end.
