The Job 6

Part 48: The Beach

"He's taunting us" said Salvador from the desk he was now just sitting on instead of lying on. "Like a cat with a mouse."

"Dad... what are you going to do?" Asked Arturo, concerned.

"Whatever I have to" answered Ricardo, completely blinded by his anger at this point. Arturo and Salvador watched and then followed as Ricardo exited the room they were in and walked out onto the catwalk overlooking the warehouse work floor. "Everyone listen up. There has been a thorn in our side for far too long and it's about time we dealt with it once and for all. All of you know who I'm talking about which means you all know what needs to happen to him. Forget what you're doing and go look for him. Search houses, cars, shops, god damn bushes if need be. Just do whatever you have to to find this fucker and bring him back to me alive."

"Dad, we're not going to get away with this without everyone in town realising what's going on" said Arturo, attempting to calm his father. "If we start tearing through everything they won't stand for it."

"Most of them hate Milo just as much as we do" replied Ricardo, slightly turning to face his son. "Hopefully they'll see the good in what we're doing and actually help."

"And if they don't see the good?" Wondered Arturo, biting his lip.

"Then I've got a way of handling them as well" responded Ricardo, facing back at all his workers and seeing they hadn't moved yet. "Well fucking go then... and if anyone gets in your way, deal with them as well."

Arturo just stared in horror as he took in what his dad was implying. The short space of under a week, Ricardo had lost two brothers, almost lost the third, had unknowingly emotionally lost his own son, and now he was willing to lose everything else just for the sake of finding some college student that was causing him some grief. There were smarter ways of going about this, ways Arturo and no doubtably Milo had already thought of. In a way it was sort of sad. The fact the Reyes gang had dealt with Milo's gang so easily when there was an actual gang involved but now they're losing their heads when it's only a group of friends pretty much having a laugh. When Arturo had told Ani he was going to help her, he was being truthful but not completely. He assumed Milo was going to do whatever it took to won, including killing Ricardo, and that was cemented when Ani had confirmed it to him. He always knew it was a possibility. However, Arturo also thought he might be able to convince his dad of changing his ways before it was too late but apparently he had been wrong about that. So as all the gang members suited up and grabbed various weapons from shelves and tables and Salvador grabbed a weapon of his own, Arturo just watched what little humanity his dad had left slipped away into nothing. It was almost as if he actually watched it leave his dad's body and gradually sink down to the floor where it evaporated out of existence. Then the question of had it ever really been there in the first place came to mind. Had Ricardo ever wanted what was best for anyone or was he always just one nudge away from falling off the edge into complete and unfiltered insanity? The person that was in front of Arturo now was no longer his dad, this person that had always been there for him no matter what. They were a stranger and Arturo or anyone could see they were consumed by darkness.

What happened next was anything but clean. Ricardo and his followers left the warehouse and headed into the centre of town. From there Ricardo assigned them all districts and areas they were to search for Milo in. Like he had said, they were to do anything and everything possible to find Milo and bring him back for proper punishment by Ricardo. They split off, spreading like a virus throughout the entire town. Some were in the shopping district, some in the residential areas, a few on the high street, many spread along the length of the beach, and some even posted at the roads leading out of town just in case Milo was attempting to leave that way. It didn't take long for the town's people to notice something was wrong but that point it was loo late. Some of them questioned the new military-esque groups dotted about town and from there on everything turned into chaos. Shops, houses and buildings of all sorts were broken into and and completely ransacked so that every nook and cranny could be searched, people were thrown out of their property onto the cold and wet streets if they didn't let the gang inside, and slowly but surely the idea of burning some especially large buildings so Milo couldn't hide inside began spreading. However, just like that idea, fire spreads too. The flames gradually started to cover everything they managed to reach, engulfing entire buildings, cars, trees and occasionally the rare human if that person was unlucky enough to get too close. Soon enough about 60% of the town was glowing an eye achingly bright orange, billows of smoke blocking out the stars and raining ash back down onto anything that was alight. From the couple towns that were close enough, screams of pain and terror could be heard echoing off the hills and through the forests. It was just inanimate objects that were taken by the violence either, people were also falling victim. Anyone that got in the way was brutally beaten, some were burnt to nothing in the fires, and groups of people that had either known Milo or were suspected of possibly helping him were lined up along walls and shot. Crowds were mowed down with bullets, holes of varying sizes littering most of the buildings that were still standing. People cried in the streets and wished for death as their loved one's blood coated their hands, running from the bodies and down street drains. The town of Lasdich was falling and at the centre of it all was Ricardo.