Claimed

Four

El Rey waited for fifteen more minutes before his patience ran out. Standing right there, he ordered his men to call reinforcements which arrived surprisingly fast.

Standing right there, he brainstormed a plan to declare war over the 18th Cartel, their ex-ally. To maintain his dominance over the others, I think.

Standing right there, he announced the war through a phone call and standing right there, he sent a number of the men that had accompanied him in SUV after SUV to fight the war.

Just as the last of the SUVs left, the King moved towards the container I was hiding behind and stopped with a frustrated motion of one of his hands raking his curls. As soon as the thought of running my own hand in his hair appeared, the opportunity that I was waiting for, for almost an hour did too. With his back to me, the king emptied his pocket and threw the gun at the sorry excuse, “Keep it away from me or I might just shoot one of you and I don’t want to unnecessarily hurt family.”

As endearing as his care for his family was, I wasn’t going to let him stray me off my path with distractions so I took off the two scarves I was wearing around my neck and slowly dunked them into the two bottles of Brandy that accompanied me on this dangerous journey, leaving the edges out of the bottle.

Eyeing my handiwork, I lit up a cigarette with a lighter, placed it in my mouth and lit the edge of one of the scarves I had left out of the bottle. Once I was sure the flame wouldn’t extinguish, I stood up, picked the bottle with the lit scarf and threw it as far as it would go which wasn’t much but just what I needed as it landed on an SUV and the car suddenly caught fire with the bang.

Chaos ensued within seconds and everyone ran towards the car as the King stood where he was, glancing in my direction but unable to locate me. Just as the smoke wafted out of my mouth, I silently cursed and spat the cigarette, unwilling to get caught after so much hard work.

After a few seconds of staring and not getting the answer play itself out in front of his eyes, the King turned around. Just as he did, I emerged out of my hiding place, uncaring of the fact that I had revealed myself and threw the butt of my gun to his temple as hard as I could. Stunned, he turned around to see what had happened when I, as panicked as I felt, hit him in the same spot with the same fervor.

He aggressively tried to move forward and I hit him again making him groan and stumble. Using his moment of vulnerability to my own benefit, I produced the handcuffs from my back pocket and cuffed his hands. That’s the moment when a few of his people turned towards us to see what was going on and instantly raised their guns to charge towards me but thinking quickly, I used the king as my human shield and put my own gun to his temple.

I can bet I would not be able to pull it off if the King was in his senses but he was barely able to stand because of the concussion I had surely given to him. Making sure that my body was completely covered by his, I ordered his men to turn around. When they didn’t listen to me, I ground the gun harder against the King’s bleeding temple and he grunted, making his men hesitantly follow my instructions.

Careful to keep my movements inconspicuous but being on guard at the same time, I pushed the King to his knees following him and lit up the other scarf, making another Molokov bomb. His eyes widened but before he could yell a warning out, I threw the bottle hard and it landed among the unsuspecting gang members who started to scatter but failed as the bomb went off and threw the king and I back with its force as it was nearer this time.

Since the King was already injured, the impact of the fall made him lose his consciousness and knocked most of his men out. The smell of burning flesh saturated the air as I got up to find that I was the only one standing in the veil of smoke, decorated with red and black.

It's only going to get even crazier from here on out. Brace yourselves.