Page 41 of The Guardian

Staring at me, she asked, “And you, Henry? Are you…I mean do you…”

I chuckled and kissed her knuckles. “No…I am not. But I will be honest and tell you that at one time, I did work for a criminal organization. I found that they were more sinister than I realized. I then quit working for them. That was a few years ago. Ever since then I have been my own man so to speak. I take the security jobs that I choose. I have no boss but myself. I also turn down any job that involves the criminal world, period.”

“But you said yes to Carlos and Selena,” she countered.

I smiled as I answered this, “Carlos saved my ass. In fact, I was with that criminal organization when he did that. So, I vowed to him that when he needed me to help him get those kids, I would come right away.”

“But you, him and Mr. Rain all seem to be like best friends?”

I nodded. “We spent a few months together like we were just mates…you know, buds. Carlos had been injured so we went to where he was hiding out and healing up. We just did normal guy things as they call it. Playing poker, video games, pizza, and beer. Watching football then movies at night. We got to know each other pretty well. So that is how Rain and I knew of the horrible thing his father did years ago.”

“I do not know the whole story,” Maya said. “Just what the old women told me and they were how you say…obnoxious. They said that Alex and Hope weren’t wanted by their mother and that she would rather party like a puta instead of being a mom. That she was dirty and poor. She had kids all over the place that she carelessly abandoned. The tías claimed to be angels of goodness as they selflessly took the babies in and raised them. After I knew them for just a month, I knew they were not any kind of good and selfless?” She scoffed. “They were the most selfish women I ever met. They made up whatever stories they wanted and called them the truth. They were practiced liars as I soon discovered. And they were murderers as well.”

“You mean they were about to commit murder, right?” I asked her.

Shaking her head, she replied, “Remember the man they hired to dig the graves? Bene, I did not tell you that I found his body in one of the open graves in that basement. They did not pay him, they ended him. It made me wonder about a few things that had happened over the years. People that went missing. Like the man that fixed a large plumbing problem we had in that house a couple of years back. The policía were at the house, looking for him. His familia had reported him as missing. They checked at the tías’s place because that had been his last job before he vanished. The old witches said he had been drunk and they kicked him out but they did not know anything else. But when the policía left, they burst into laughter. Then they said something like that plumber charged too much, the ungrateful maggot.”

“Wow, they were an actual menace, weren’t they? Sort of like if Lizzy Borden had a sister.”

Maya shrugged. “There were more missing people and I now believe those two may have killed more than a few unsuspecting people over the years they lived in Catemaco. I do know that they already had the plan in place to kill the twins.” She looked up at me with sadness in her dark eyes. “But I do not know how they got those babies in the first place. What they said was obviously a lie as they truly lived on lies.”

“I only found out what happened to that family a few months ago, when Gabriela Mancini’s audio clip showed up on the net.”

“Her…Audio?”

“Yes, she had a reward with it and talk about a sad story…It even got to me.” I shook my head.

“The twins didn’t know anything about their parents except for the nasty name calling and the foul stories that those witches told…” She sighed. “The kids did not know why they were there.”

“I will just capsulize it for you. I don’t want you to hear her story told by her, it will make you cry. Because believe me, you would.”

“Ay, mio dio.”

I nodded. “Yes, it also is not a pretty story. Carlos’ little sister and his best friend fell in love when they were just teens I believe. Santiago, Gabby’s and Carlos’ father, forbade it, as he wanted her to marry someone that would further his cartel. An old man I believe?”

“Yes, there are arranged marriages in Italy as well.”

“I realize that.” I nodded my head. “Gabriela and Alex ran away together and they believed they could live free of her family. Santiago then tracked them down after only a week or so and he personally executed Alex in front of Gabriela.”

With a gasp, Maya covered her mouth with her hands as her eyes widened.

I nodded. “We are talking about a soulless monster. He did not even hesitate it seems and he did not care about her grief at all. Then he locked her up and had her watched around the clock. She wanted to die after that and he made sure she had not one moment to herself. He planned to make a lot of money by marrying her off. Then she found out she was to have Alex’s baby. So, she stopped thinking about suicide and her father had her married as a business deal. The only good luck she had was that the old man who became her husband was kind to her. She then had twins and she only got to hold them for a few minutes, just long enough to name them. Then her father busted in and took them from her. She never saw them again.”

“Sto sotto.” Maya raised her head and stared at me with tears in her eyes. “Such cruelty.”

“Yes, the kind most people never experience. This was her father! How could he do such a thing? Meanwhile, Carlos never knew any of this. His best friend murdered, his little sister losing those babies. Santiago had sent him to America months before this happened. Then when he did find out, he rebelled against Santiago and was locked up after a harsh beating by Santiago’s men. After a few weeks in confinement, he was finally released. Santiago had control of him however, as he told him those kids would die if Carlos ever attempted to find them.”

“Santa Madre! How horrible, so the sisters weren’t the only monsters in that family.”

“They were evil and hideous, but their brother was as close to being the devil incarnate as you could get. I believe that man murdered hundreds, Maya. He either had them murdered or did it himself. I heard he often went out and like with Alex, he wanted to do the killing personally. He was truly a vile, soulless killer. And there were other monsters in the Castillo family. Such as the two men that the tías were afraid of. They were exactly like Santiago. Cutthroat and hungry for power, willing to trample anyone they needed to in order to get those things. To think they would have murdered those kids just so Carlos couldn’t take them back to their mother. But the cousins who were loyal to Gabby took them down as you know. I suppose they were done with that life.”

Chapter Fourteen: The Best Thing

Maya

“Is that why they came and protected her kids?” I asked him.

“Carlos had said they were fond of Gabby. They were family members and they were aware of what her father did to her. They were not willing participants in that cartel. I think they followed the first pair of cousins to Catemaco.”