Chapter 19

Mexico City.

A storm was breaking over the coast, but Zavier stood by the massive arched windows of his estate, untouched by the chaos outside. Lightning illuminated his sharp features - angular, sculpted, cruel. His dark suit was still soaked from the night's hunt, but he didn't seem to notice. His main focus is only on the information about Agustín and the chaos which unfolded in America.

The room behind him was grand and cold. No warmth. No softness. Just marble floors, glass-topped furniture, and weapons tucked into corners like accessories and above all that the darkness in the room which sometimes makes the men's vision very dark who enters inside the room. They didn't even see his face properly all these years because he mostly stays in the dark and whenever he comes into light, no one dares to look up at him.

Suddenly the door creaked open which he knew already because he heard the faint footsteps coming from the very end of the hallway. One of his remaining men, Niccolo, entered hesitantly, bruises visible across his temple. He closed the door behind him and stood there with his head bowed waiting for him to start talking.

"Llegas tarde." Zavier said without turning around to face him.

(Translation: You're late.)

"Nosotros... lo seguimos hasta el apartamento de Madrid. La niña está viva." Niccolo muttered in his low voice.

(Translation: We... we followed him to the Madrid apartment the girl's alive.)

That caught Zavier's attention. He turned slowly because of the new found information he got after his spies were dead in America. He sent his men to find all the information about America's incident and since then they were following Agustín wherever he goes without him getting aware of them.

"Se suponía que debía arder. Ese burdel quedó reducido a cenizas." he said quietly. Too quietly as if talking to himself.

(Translation: She was supposed to burn. That brothel was ash.)

"Agustín la había alcanzado desde una cámara cerrada y, según la información, Patrick y sus hombres la habían escondido allí durante tres meses. Él salvó a todas las chicas. Las trasladaron a España con nuevas identificaciones." Niccolo said and swallowed hard waiting for his reaction.

(Translation: Agustín had reached her from a locked chamber and as per the information she was hiding there for three months by Patrick and his men. He saved all the girls. They were flown to Spain under new IDs.)

"Subestimó lo lejos que cavaría." Zavier said and his lips curled into a slow, venomous smile.

(Translation: He underestimated how far I'd dig )

He walked across the room to a table where maps and blueprints of the brothel were spread. He picked up a charred corner of the floor plan - salvaged by one of his men after the fire. He raked his dark gray eyes keenly all over that floor plan and his eyes stuck to that one room in which Innara was locked that day, when Agustín rescued her.

"Siempre hay un patrón en su caos. No quema cosas para purificarlas, las quema para borrarlas. Para destruir su existencia. Y eso significa que ella es importante." His voice dropped few octaves down.

(Translation: There's always a pattern to his chaos. He doesn't burn things to cleanse them - he burns them to erase. To destroy it's existence. And that means she's important.)

"¿Deberíamos mudarnos? España es un riesgo. Su familia...--" Niccolo nodded nervously and was about to complete his sentence but got cut off by Zavier's venomous voice.

(Translation: Should we move? Spain is risky. His family-)

"Su familia es un circo. Demasiado drama. Demasiada vigilancia. Pero su apartamento... es tranquilo. Ahí es donde la puso." Zavier said and his eyes darkened.

(Translation: His family is a circus. Too much drama. Too much surveillance. But his apartment... that's quiet. That's where he put her.)

He walked to a display case, removed a small velvet box, and opened it slowly. Inside, a gold pendant glinted - the same one that had once belonged to a person living in that same brothel, taken the night he left America and after that never stepped at that land. His mind wandered to the memory of that blurry person about whom he knows nothing because he never chose to look for them.

"Ella no es solo una testigo. Es un secreto viviente." he murmured recalling something making Niccolo confused she was witness of what.

(Translation: She's not just a witness. She's a living secret.)

He snapped the box shut because he doesn't know anything about that person and nor he wanted to. All he cared for them to die in that life taking fire which burned the whole brothel down with all the sins and secrets in it. He turned towards him and his authoritative and dominating aura reeking of him.

"Quiero que vean ese edificio. Sin sangre, todavía no. No hasta que yo lo diga." He said to which Niccolo bowed his head and stepped back.

(Translation: I want eyes on that building. No blood, not yet. Not until I say.)

"Y Niccolo...si Agustín te ve-" Zavier called, pausing as thunder cracked again overhead which made Niccolo to stop dead in his tracks. The threat in his voice was loud and clear.

(Translation: And Niccolo...if Agustín sees you-)

"No me verán, jefe." The man, Niccolo nodded and said understanding his warning loud and clear.

(Translation: I won't be seen, boss.)

"Bueno." Zavier said turned back toward the window, watching lightning slash across the sea.

(Translation: Good.)

He looked out at the darkness spread out to miles away, as far as his dark gray eyes could look. His voice dropped to a whisper:

"Que el juego comience de nuevo." He said staring into the void because he was so close to get that girl and sensed something is going on with Agustín because no way he would keep a random girl to even if she needed help, in his personal apartment and take care of her like her man.

(Translation: Let the game begin again.)

He knew something more than empathy, pity and sympathy is taking place in his heart because it's been two weeks since she was living with him and completely fine too. If he wanted he could have let her go to live on her own like the rest of the girls but no, he didn't do that, instead he was taking care of her, doing all the things a man should do for his woman like a love sick lover and Zavier's sharp mind has already senses the outcomes of his care and attention towards that girl.

He was waiting for the day his men gets a single chance to fetch her in silence. Anyways, he was deliberately taking time to take he away from him because it was more than easy for him to do than a snap of fingers but he wanted her to become his weakness first, he wanted her to make space in Agustín's heart so that he would suffer without her and than he would snatch her away from him. He would take her like she didn't even exist in this world.

"¿Dónde está ese hombre?" Suddenly Zavier questioned Niccolo alerting her.

(Translation: Where's that man?)

"Jefe, todavía está encerrado en el sótano." Niccolo replied curtly but didn't get any reaction from him for a while.

(Translation: Boss, he is still locked in the basement.)

"Tráelo cuando lo llames." He ordered which made Niccolo nod and he immediately left from there.

(Translation: Bring him when called.)

Few hours later, Zavier was done with some conference meeting needed for the underworld people which was about some weapons and gold. They contacted Zavier because Spain doesn't promotes smuggling anymore due to the changed opinions of the dons of that territory. The Fernandez family and they won't even let their shipments pass through their territory.

So the people reached out to Zavier for help knowing the enmity between him and the family. They knew he won't deny helping him when it comes to challenge the Fernandez family. The whole underworld was aware about the grudges between them and don't leave any chance to take advantage of it. After the meeting was over he shut the laptop with a thud. The storm had passed, but Zavier's rage hadn't.

Now dressed in a sleek black turtleneck and slacks, he stood inside his private armory - a vast underground room carved into the cliffside beneath his estate. Weapon cases lined the walls. Not just guns, but antiques, heirlooms, and war relics. Each told a story. Each was used once. Never wasted. It belonged to his uncle who raised him into a man he was in today.

His fingers ran across the hilt of a blade - long, curved, elegant. The same one he once used to teach obedience to those who disobeyed him. The memory made his lips twitch. The sadist inside him was smirking evilly recalling all the tortures landed on the people who choose to defy or cross him. He took out his phone from his pants pocket and typed something before putting it back into his pocket.

His dark gray eyes raked over each and every weapon as if they were the treasures to cherish. Since his childhood he has spent his time between these weapons practicing and making himself strong. His childhood was never normal like the other kids because he chose this life a long time ago. Violence was in his blood and hate course through his veins more than blood. Suddenly behind him, Niccolo returned with a man dragged in chains. A traitor.

Zavier turned around to look at Niccolo and then at that man who was on his knees by now. He didn't say a single thing making that man's heartbeat increase with each passing second and he wished to die on his own before getting tortured by him. The beast inside him smirked knowing the man was scared to death and he should be after trying to cross him, he knew what happens to the people who try to get into his mind.

"Él estaba en tu nómina, alimentaba a los hombres de Agustín con ubicaciones falsas, pensando que eran nuestras." Niccolo muttered knowing he doesn't need to say much as his death was already standing in front of him.

(Translation: He was on your payroll, fed Agustín's men false locations thinking they were from us.)

Zavier tilted his head and turned side to side as if conversing with the beast inside him like a maniac and then slowly turned to face the man again- bloodied, terrified, coughing from the blow he'd received moments ago from Niccolo in the basement.

"Pagué por lealtad. Me diste polvo." Zavier said softly as if sympathizing him for getting on the nerves of his beast.

(Translation: I paid for loyalty. You gave me dust.)

"P-por favor, no sabía que era él-" the man gasped and tried to plead but got cut off by him.

(Translation: P-please, I didn't know it was him-)

"Siempre sabes cuándo es Agustín. Se mueve como un fantasma, pero apesta a orgullo y redención. El tipo de aroma que hombres como yo podemos oler a través de océanos." Zavier snapped, his calm veneer cracking for just a second.

(Translation: You always know when it's Agustín. He moves like a ghost but stinks of pride and redemption. The kind of scent men like me can smell across oceans.)

The man whimpered as Zavier approached, bending forward towards him. He tried to back away but stopped right away with Niccolo's feet, who was standing right behind him.

"Dejaste que mi fuego se apagara demasiado pronto. Esa chica debería haber desaparecido. ¿Sabes lo que es, idiota?" his voice dipped lower, almost reverent

(Translation: You let my fire burn out too soon. That girl should've disappeared. Do you know what she is, you fool?)

The man shook his head frantically, praying to get saved from the worst but he didn't know that the worst was about to happen with him.

"Ella es un peón, peón que me llevaría a la victoria sobre Agustín, sobre esa familia Fernández." Zavier hissed out like a venomous snake ready to bite his head off.

(Translation: She is a pawn, pawn which would lead to my victory over Agustín, over that Fernandez family.)

The blade in his hand tilted upward. Not toward the prisoner, but toward himself - his reflection faint on its polished surface making it look more threatening that it already was. The man gulped fearing for his life now but he knew there is no going back now, he can't resume his betrayal with the beast.

"Ella debería estar aquí para que Agustín sufriera allí." Zavier said and his eyes darkened.

(Translation: She should be here so that Agustín would suffer there.)

With one clean swipe, the blade cut through the silence - and blood splattered across the marble floor like a shower splattering all over the floor. Niccolo didn't flinch. He was used to this. He has seen Zavier's cruel way to meet the betrayers.