Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 636(@200wpm)___ 509(@250wpm)___ 424(@300wpm)
A normal person in their situation would have stood on the side of the road and asked for a ride, but they needed to vanish from the area without anyone remembering their faces. He pulled Miguel behind a bush when a dark red pickup truck slowed down, coming to a halt in the shade of the last tree in the row.
Nero tried not to think about the life he’d lost today, set on planning only a single step ahead until their situation became more stable. Anything else would be a matter for the future, irrelevant if they didn’t manage to evade pursuit.
His lips dried when he heard the truck doors open and slam. Moments later, two men walked into the field, focused on the canopy flashing in the tree crown like a flag, but Nero’s gaze was drawn to their ride. In this thing, he and Miguel could get away without drawing attention and easily traverse the rough terrain.
“Be quiet.”
Miguel gave him a surprised glance and he mouthed, No.
Yes, Nero responded by nodding at a fast pace. He was relieved when Miguel remained motionless as the two men rushed past them, unaware of their presence. They must have seen Miguel and Nero’s frantic glide, because they were calling out to the owner of the parachute and offering help.
Good people always lost. Because had those two been selfish, Nero wouldn’t be sprinting toward their vehicle with every intention of hijacking it and leaving its owners in the field. But it was a dog-eat-dog world, and he had every intention of surviving.
Nero opened the driver’s door as gently as possible and smiled at the sight of the key sitting in the ignition. This was his lucky day. What next? Would he be scoring with Miguel?
He felt like a fox sneaking into a hen house, and didn’t even need to look back to know that Miguel was right behind him, regardless of the earlier protests. Once Nero gave Miguel a thumbs up, his guardian rushed from the shadows and jumped into the passenger seat.
Drinks and snack bags littered the seats, as if the men had just shared a trashy meal, but Nero’s attention was on the sun and the road leading toward it. The road that would take them far from danger.
He stepped on the gas pedal, fleeing from the two figures moving their way at the first sign of life from the truck.
Miguel grabbed his gun and stuck it out of the open window, firing into the sky. The last Nero saw of the vehicle’s owners was them both dropping to the ground with fright.
He laughed and sped down the road, ignoring that some loose items fell from the truck bed, dropping onto the asphalt. Perhaps the smaller load would help them drive faster and use less fuel? Someone would eventually find those guys, but by that time he and Miguel would be far away. And it wasn’t as though the theft of an old truck was the greatest concern for the police.
“Look for a map,” Nero said, prompting Miguel to search through the glove compartment.
He opened a tattered old map with a deep sigh. “Maybe if I knew where we are, we’d have a starting point.”
“We’ll be on the lookout. For now, I’m just gonna enjoy this,” Nero said, relaxing into the seat, which the truck’s owner decorated with a colorful blanket that looked handmade. “This could only be better if we were in a tractor. Really wanted to drive one of those when I was a kid.”
Miguel relaxed a little in his wobbly seat. “Yeah? Daddy Moreno didn’t get you a gold-plated tractor the moment you mentioned it?”
Nero chuckled and shook his head as they rushed across the landscape, farther and farther away from the villa and the bodies they’d left there. “No. He said I was thinking like a loser. That someone like me would not work with his hands.”
Miguel grabbed a pack of cigarettes out of a canvas pocket attached to the passenger door and lit it with a deep sigh. “Funny. When I was little, my father told me to be ready to get my hands dirty, if I wanted to improve the life of our family. At the time I thought he meant planting tomatoes. Now I know he meant me joining his organization.”
“‘Organization’?”
Miguel shrugged. “A small-scale drug-smuggling operation. Los Sepultureros.”
Nero swallowed as the possible reasons behind Miguel’s revenge quest floated to the surface. He cleared his throat. “What happened? Were you… in the way?”
Miguel took a long drag of smoke and exhaled through his nose, watching the fields stretched across the vast flat landscape surrounded by green hills. “The Caimans wanted to take over and offered my father some scraps, but he wanted to stay independent. A week later. Raul Moreno and his men killed him and all five of my sisters. That was when my tango lessons ended, because it no longer mattered if I knew how to dance. I became the man of the house and had to learn what my father did for a living.”