67|A Process

~Klaus~

Whatever dad’s response was, I didn’t hear it. I shoved my phone in my pocket, leaving the line open.

Kino, my treacherous cousin, walked to where I was. Five armed men followed behind him. My eyes drifted to the captain’s deck; Gomez was nowhere in sight. I’m afraid he left this earth earlier than his time. He was a good man; he had been with the mafia since I was a kid. Leandro and Juaquin stood on each side of my wife. Dressed in the shirt I made her wear, hair still disheveled from our coupling, she stared back at me. The determination in her gaze could liquefy steel.

“You know the drill, cugino,” Kino murmured with a straight face, planting his foot firmly in front of me. “Do as I say, or they’d hurt your precious wife.” (cousin)

My hands itched to wring his neck. Oh, how easy that would be. He was so close that the stench of his betrayal upsets my equilibrium.

Hands tightly clenched on my side, I stepped forward. His men, all five of them, pointed their guns at my head,