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“No,” Vasquez replied quickly. “It’s fine. I’ll have someone reach out to you before midday and give you locations for where you can meet.”
“Thank you,” I replied and ended the phone call.
“I don’t think you should go,” Benny began. “We know Vasquez, and he will probably be trying to play you. He might have a plan that we are not prepared for. Even if you are on the scene, we cannot have you show your face.”
“No, I have to be there. Weneedto be there.”
Leonardo cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Boss, Benny is right. If Vasquez is crazy enough to make another attempt on your life, there is no telling how that could go. We should keep you as far from any danger as possible.”
“So, who’s going to face them, huh?” I asked, not wanting to agree with their plans.
“I will,” Leonardo spoke up first before Benny could. “Yeah, Benny, look. I know you’re the next in line, but I’m expendable. If something ever did happen to Angelo, we would need you to call the shots. I know how to handle things like this. Let me go, and I'll wire up so you can hear everything that is being said while I’m there.”
I nodded. “Alright, but I’ll still come with you. I’ll stay outside, in the car.”
As promised, Vasquez texted the address of the meeting. A corner around the block separated both of our turf—a meatpacking plant beside the city’s largest bridge. Leonardo and Mike drove ahead in a single car, while Benny, two others and I followed behind. We parked a little over a block away but made sure that we had a line of sight with Leonardo and where he would be meeting the men. The meeting was during the day, and the plant behind them was still active. That significantly reduced the chances of anything fishy occurring.
But I had to be sure. Leonardo had put on a wire with a direct line of audio to us. It would allow us to hear everything that was being said. We listened in as Mike double-checked the audio through the speaker in his ear. Once it was all set, Leonardo got out of the car and headed towards the black Mercedes parked beside the meatpacking plant. Two men got out as he approached the car, dressed in suits.
“Who are you?” one of the men asked. Apparently, they had been expecting me, not Leonardo.
“Leonardo. I’m here representing the Preston family,” Leonardo replied without missing a beat. His confidence was clear as day.
One of the men shook his head, “No, we were supposed to come here and meet Angelo. We have no idea who you are, so we’re leaving. When Angelo is ready, he knows who to call.”
As the men turned to leave, Leonardo called out. “Hey, Angelo sent me out here because he knew that he could not come himself. The same way Vasquez isn’t in that car behind you, no? We both have busy bosses, but if you want to be the one who would disrespect mine and cause a problem, then be my guest. Otherwise, let’s talk about what we are here for.”
Vasquez’s men exchanged glances and turned back to him with a shrug. I let out a sigh of relief, thankful that Leonardo had handled the situation smoothly. “We don’t know why we were sent here; we are just here to answer your questions.”
“Good, because I have a few. A bar was hit last night in our district.”
“So?” One of the men fired back. “You saying it was us?”
Leonardo ignored the man and focused on the other who listened. “A man was abducted: Fisher Morales. The last time we got a ping from his phone, it had just as he crossed into your region. I’ve got a feeling that you probably know who would take a hit on a high-standing member of our family like Fisher and then take him back to your place.”
“We don’t know who made a hit last night. But we could do some investigating. Find out what we can and get back to you. How about that?”
Leonardo let out a sigh, and from where I sat, I watched as he took his hands out of his pockets to seem more relaxed. “Look, Fisher is an old man. Whoever took him, I have no idea what it is they’re doing to him, but he should not be made to feel uncomfortable,capiche?”
“Whatever we—”
“No, you don’t get it. If you have any ideas right now for he could be, any at all, I’ll take them. We need to find Fisher before this gets ugly.”
“Well, that was what I was about to say,” one of the men began speaking. I tried to listen in on what he was saying, but Mike began moving in the car behind Leonardo, trying to draw our attention to something. “We found that a van came through, and we tried to stop them, but whoever was driving abandoned the car a few blocks from here. We have no idea who they were, and we are doing our own investigation. If anyone took your Fisher, it was definitely the guys in that vehicle.”
“They came through here?” Leonardo asked, tapping his mic as a signal to get Mike to keep silent.
But Mike was getting even louder, yelling at them. “Right there!”
“What is right there?” I asked Mike through our microphone.
“Yeah,” one of the men sent by Vasquez answered. “In fact, the van almost crashed into this building and stopped here for a minute before it drove off. We couldn’t catch it, but we are looking hard for whoever was behind the wheel.”
“I got a signal on Fisher’s phone, and it's right there, Leonardo!” Mike finally got the word out. I froze and noticed that Leonardo had done the same. He looked behind the men at a dumpster beside the building, and then he walked over to it.
Leonardo pulled the steel latch free with one hand and slowly opened the top. It was flung open, and a large man rolled out of the metal drum, which Leonardo later said smelled of rotten meat and other decaying things. Fisher had been blindfolded, gagged, tied, and then tossed into the dumpster. Vasquez’s men jumped backward in shock, but I could see the glee in their eyes. Even if they did not know, they were excited to be part of the ploy.
I grabbed the car door and began opening it, but Benny caught my arm, forcing my gun away. Otherwise, I would walk right up to them, shoot them in the face, and then do the same thing to Vasquez. Leonardo untied Fisher in all haste, helped him back to the car, and we drove away. Vasquez had crossed a line, and regardless of how much of a pacifist I was trying to be, I had to assert my place and show that I was not a pushover. I was going to hit back, and I would hit back so hard that he would know to never mess with the Preston family again.
