Beware The Fury

by C. I. Lopez

  Losing his ability to reason, he employed pure animal instinct as his mouth and hands took him to a place of extreme pleasure. It was a feeling he’d never before experienced. It took him back to the days when he’d been somebody else, capable of loving and exploring these delights.

  Yasmin laughed involuntarily, unable to accept the moral scruples she’d kept from him previously and feeling fury and sadness for what their life had brought. At this moment, she was all the delight and the agony he had always wanted. She was the portal of this sensation and a stranger as if she’d come to him in disguise.

  Tomas felt new, and he wanted Yasmin. He needed her to want him. He required her to never have gone away, never to have abandoned him in that insane scheme she had concocted, never to have slept with Federico. She was his wife. His. She was the desire of his life, the young girl standing on the road bleeding from a cut on her forehead.

  Unable to deal with his new uncontrolled passions, Yasmin struggled against him and fought, but this, too, drove him on, made him feel unbounded. Tomas thought he’d done this before when he’d been too angry, too drunk, and too late. He still had her because he’d considered her a whore, and that was where he lived.

  He tore at his shirt, and her hands reached for his skin, drawing blood while he screamed of pain and pleasure. Holding her tight, he became calmer as he searched between her legs and held her flesh on the palm of his hand. Then the air grew quiet as he breathed more gently. Except for the noise of guns being dispersed below her window, there was no sound in the room. Tomas’ hand moved toward her sex while covering her mouth with his other hand to keep her quiet, but Yasmin didn’t make a sound.

  Slowly removing his hand from her mouth, he kissed her, violated her mouth with his tongue and bit at her lips, licked her face, nibbled the lobes of her ears, and still, she didn’t make a sound. Quietly, Tomas looked at her and saw the young girl who was the desire of his life, the whore at the end of the dark street. Tomas felt like he was on fire like never before.

  The thin camisole Yasmin wore fell to the bed, exposing her completely and into view came the dark triangle between her legs. Tomas fell to his knees, and Yasmin stood, placing her hands on his wild hair in front of her. She’d never seen his hair in disarray before. He was slick with sweat from the exertion of doing this thing he didn’t want to do, this thing he had to do to bring himself one step closer to her death.

  Yasmin was crying now, and he heard her breath coming in and out as she cried. He rose and licked the tears from her face as he undid his pants and pushed himself into her, who for the first time accepted him quietly, serenely, but he knew she didn’t want it, and he didn’t care. She wasn’t Yasmin anymore. The girl was a dirty whore, and he didn’t care if he hurt her or defiled her or made her ashamed. This would be the last time, and after this, he’d never see her again.

  She had to die.

  From under the bed, Yasmin slid out the box she’d been holding earlier and handed it to Tomas as he came away from her, satisfied for the moment from his wild behavior. He clasped the box with both hands. “What is this, Yasmin?” He asked, still breathing hard and dizzy with lust.

  “It’s a present I brought for you, my love.” Her eyes flickered, green and yellow moving like bees in a hive.

  Tomas couldn’t think clearly in his unfathomable lust for the girl and didn’t hesitate to open the box, his breathing still wild from exertion. Two juvenile fer-de-lance vipers, already over four feet long, launched themselves at Tomas’ neck. The snakes dug their rear fangs deeply into his flesh and his carotid artery. They emptied their entire sacks of poison, eager to let it all out, as untrained juveniles do, not holding back any venom until later.

  Screaming and writhing with pain, the panicked Tomas tried pulling them off. He only succeeded in tearing his neck while the vipers held tight with their venomous curved fangs attached deep into his neck. He yelled and pleaded with Yasmin to take them off, to help him, but she stood oblivious to his pain, like a demon calmly watching her husband’s suffering.

  The outside preparations for the possible encounter with Colonel Villalobos muted Tomas’ screams. He fell to the carpeted floor of Yasmin’s bedroom with the snakes still coiled around him and pumping venom into him.

  Tomas, in his agony, crawled toward the bedroom door, hoping to reach the hall where his guards could see him and help him before he died. Using the last of his strength, he managed to open the door. He crawled into the doorway, screaming, cursing his wife, his words drowning in the thick saliva excreting from his mouth. He called for help as the venom caused his breathing passages to block, making his saliva turn to foam, which oozed from his mouth.

  Before Tomas was out of the bedroom, Yasmin began swaying to her own rhythms. It was a dance taught to her by Ursula. Her hands were together high over her head. The beautiful body adopted a motion that started with the arms and moved like a creature made of rubber. She swayed her arms, head, neck body, and legs in a continuous wave while whistling to a monotonous exotic tune. The snakes responded to the call by letting go of an already moribund Tomas and returning to their box. Yasmin closed the box and hid it securely in her closet.

  The only guard still left at the monitors was Mache, second in command to Chilo.

  Mache stared at the monitors in disbelief when he saw his boss crawling out of his wife’s room, screaming with pain and foaming at the mouth. The guard would not be aware that the snakes were already put away safely in their box.

  On the screen, he saw Tomas’ hands clutching at his neck. Tomas, ‘the Snake’ Chacon, the Kingpin, his Boss Man’s life was slipping away. In his horror at witnessing the scene, Mache might have missed some details, but he ran to get Chilo and the other guards with a warning that the boss was in real trouble. The guards dropped everything they were doing to rush to his aid but stopped suddenly when they saw the blackening dead body of their boss on the floor.

  While Tomas took his last smothered breath, Yasmin took time to dress in one of her exquisite pencil slim skirts and a long-sleeved white silk blouse and her stiletto heels. Over her shirt, she casually draped over her shoulders Tomas’ black dress jacket, the one he had worn to the club earlier that evening.

  On her head, she placed the black fedora her husband was known to wear in the evenings, cocked at a flirtatious angle to better display her pretty face. Yasmin wore her emerald earrings to match her eyes, as they returned to their velvet green color, and she painted her lips with her bright red lipstick. For the final touch, Yasmin pulled out of her drawer one of Tomas’ most prized Cuban cigars, which she had saved for this occasion. In this way, she stood in the hallway, casually leaning against the wall to watch her dying husband cling to the very last vestiges of his miserable life.

  As the frantic guards approached running, Yasmin expelled a cloud of the aromatic smoke. The two horrified guards came to a stop, taking in the bizarre vision, paralyzed with fear and confusion. They watched Tomas’s body die, and the necrosis caused by the potent venom already blackened his face and arms. Filled with fear and apprehension, they stopped, looking at Yasmin’s fierce eyes.

  Taking another drag of the cigar, she stepped over her husband in her high heels. She portrayed a vision of pure power as the men stared incredulously at the sight in front of them.

  “Chilo … Mache,” Yasmin said. “Take him out to the crematorium in the backyard and burn him.”

  The guards stood, paralyzed, staring at Yasmin.

  “Do it!” Her voice was commanding. She stepped away from the corpse.

  Slowly the guards approached their dead Boss Man, afraid of what might have happened to make him look as if he’d been gone for much longer than he had. A confused Mache had seen him crawling out of the room only minutes before. Afraid of touching their dead boss, Chilo and Mache assigned two other guards to wrap Tomas’ unpleasant corpse before picking him up. They didn’t hesitate to deliver the already foul-smelling package to the crematorium.

 
It had been how Tomas Chacon got rid of his enemies, especially those who had not survived being tortured.

  Mache looked up at Yasmin, challenging her, asking what had happened to the boss.

  Yasmin glared at Mache and changed to an authoritative stance, speaking for all to hear. “From now on, you take orders only from me. Anyone who’s not ready to do that may leave now or face the same fate as your stinking dead boss.”

  Two guards stood up and left, hurrying out the back door.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 7

  Genesis

  The next morning, the two guards who’d chosen to leave were both found decapitated. Yasmin’s ‘man of mystery’ was standing watch outside the compound, like he had for his previous boss, making sure no witnesses ever left alive. The headless bodies had been kept hidden until the next morning when they were brought to the compound yard for all the guards to see.

  Yasmin looked directly at Mache and cocked her head, arching one eyebrow, puckering her bright-red lips, and waited for his answer.

  Mache said, “I’m staying.”

  Chilo and five others also said they’d stay.

  “Good decision,” Yasmin replied and turned away, walking toward the front door of the house. Colonel Villalobos still waited to see Tomas after the troops had been dismissed as per the President’s wishes. Yasmin ordered that all the weapons be placed back where they belonged, including the arsenal presently in the backyard. She wanted everyone to act relaxed and do what they usually did when there was no work going on.

  “Play pool in the rec room, have some beers at the bar, start a game a dominos,” she said, smiling at the puzzled men. Used to taking orders from a person with authority, they did as they were told to do. After that was done, Yasmin walked to the front door to receive Colonel Villalobos, who had stubbornly remained at the door, demanding to see Tomas.

  She told her men to put their guns away. “The man is unarmed, and there will be no shots fired by anyone in this house. Nobody says a word about Tomas, do you hear me? He doesn’t exist. Do as I say, quickly. I will let Colonel Villalobos in.” She removed Tomas’ jacket from her shoulders and placed it with the hat in the closet by the door.

  Without hesitation, the men did as they had been ordered, while Yasmin strolled calmly to open the door for Villalobos.

  He almost jumped back when he heard the door open after such a long wait, during which his determination grew to face Tomas and get answers from him. His purpose was to arrest Tomas Chacon for the murder of Lt. Santos Sosa and his wife.

  To the Colonel’s surprise, the door was opened by the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her green eyes seemed to darken to the same color of the green earrings she wore as he looked at her.

  She politely introduced herself to the Colonel, as Yasmin Samudio, and apologized for his long wait. Yasmin claimed she had been in her room, unaware of his presence at the door.

  In his shock, the Colonel shook her delicate hand and introduced himself, carefully looking behind her. He was expecting men holding guns, or at least Tomas sitting in one of his comfortable chairs holding an AK47.

  “I’m not armed,” he was quick to say, lifting his hands above his head for her to see.

  “Neither am I,” responded Yasmin with a chuckle, imitating his stance by raising her arms and turning around gracefully. While smiling pleasantly, Yasmin stopped firmly at the threshold of the door. With one raised eyebrow, she asked the Colonel to what she owed the pleasure of his visit.

  Recovering some of his bravado, Villalobos said in his policeman’s voice, “I’m here to speak with Tomas Chacon.”

  “I’m afraid you are too late, Colonel, Tomas Chacon does not live here, look around for yourself,” she said, stepping aside.

  The surprised Colonel took a cursory look around the main floor as Yasmin invited him to do. All he saw were young men playing pool and laughing contentedly in a room. Two other men were sharing a beer and talking amiably to each other in the small bar room, ignoring the visitor.

  “May I see the kitchen and the backyard?” the Colonel asked, and she gladly escorted him to the stainless-steel kitchen with the two cooks in uniform preparing dinner as usual. A look through the back door at the yard looked normal, free of the arsenal of weapons it held before.

  “I smell smoke, Mrs. Chacon. Is everything alright?”

  “Of course, the cooks are preparing a barbecue dinner. Would you like to join us?”

  “No, thank you, but do you live alone, Mrs. ….”

  “Yasmin Samudio, please,” she responded. “Widow of Tomas Chacon and rightful owner of this home. Obviously, I don’t live here alone. I have a group of guards who protect me, and I have a live-in housekeeper, a bodyguard, and the two cooks you’ve just seen in the kitchen.”

  “You are the young girl Tomas kidnapped, and from what I heard, married him against your will. You tried to escape, and one of my officers was killed trying to protect you, I’ve read the police reports from your home village.”

  “My condolences for the loss of your officer, Colonel. The man was my sister’s husband. The pregnant woman Tomas killed was my sister, and the body he left bleeding inside the house was my fiancée before Tomas forced me to marry him.”

  The Colonel squinted and looked left and right, confused by what he saw and the young woman’s attitude.

  “I would like you to leave now, Colonel, since the man you look for is dead, and you are trespassing in my home. Be aware that these guards are here to protect me from people like you, so please leave and never come back to this house.”

  “How did Tomas Chacon die, and where is his body, Mrs. Chacon?”

  “Yasmin Samudio, please,” she corrected him once again. “My husband died of natural causes, but you will never find his body. Now I think you need to leave as your mission here is finished.” Yasmin stood by the open door waiting for the obfuscated man to leave.

  Since the Colonel was doing this raid against the orders of the President, he retreated quietly, confused. A few days later, the President of the country, having heard of Tomas’ mysterious disappearance, called Yasmin, requesting a hearing with her at his Presidential Palace the following morning.

  *

  The next day, Yasmin gathered her new crew, asking Prince and Belky to sit at each side of her. She asked the men if they knew where Tomas kept the money. They all turned to look at Prince and Belky, who apparently were the ones Tomas had trusted with that information.

  Prince stood up and told Yasmin that the entire area underneath the basement was a vault full of money. He told her where Tomas kept the combination to the locked vault. He also had the information of five bank accounts that would now be in Yasmin’s name as his lawfully wedded wife, and now his rightful heir as his widow.

  Yasmin gave each man a bag to fill with money, which would be theirs to keep. Each bag could carry the equivalent of one million American dollars. The casino business, the prostitution, and drug trafficking would continue as Tomas had operated them, except for the children from the government projects, who were previously used for selling drugs.

  All the children were to attend school and would no longer be allowed to sell or use the products. Instead, Yasmin promised to refurbish all the apartments. They were to become comfortable places to live. She would ensure they were painted and had suitable appliances that worked. Funds would be used to build safe playgrounds, walkways, gardens, a clubhouse for activities, and all that public housing should have. She promised to turn the housing project from where they operate into a model for all others.

  One street, on the periphery, would be solely used as a red-light district. It would be a place for drugs and prostitution, where only her men would distribute and collect funds for the drugs. The prostitution was to be continued as it had, with the men making sure none of the girls were physically hurt by the customers. This provided a service and satisfied a need for many.

  She aimed to accomplish the same for al
l the housing projects in the city as they acquired them for their cartel. Violent retribution would be swift on those who opposed them and would be displayed for gang members to see. Fear would be their guide.

  Meanwhile, Yasmin and her Disciples wrote a proposal for the President, following the arrangement already attained with Tomas and with the additions she mentioned. To ensure the President’s re-election, she would use the money from the business. The cash would help to build schools, hire good teachers, fix churches, bring new Trade Schools to provide jobs for the residents, and have rallies and free parties for all, in the name of the President. His re-election would be assured with her help.

  At 6:45 a.m. Fausto Vargas, President of the country, stood at the window of his top-floor office in the Presidential Palace, watching the morning sun come over the sky. A white Angora cat was in his arms, which he stroked absently. Behind him were the ten top police chiefs of the city. Through the closed door of the outer office, he could hear his secretaries fielding a battery of telephone calls, none of which he was taking.

  Outside on the balcony, Ernesto Sanchez, chief of the Colombian cartel that controlled all of Central America, smoked a cigarette and looked out over the nearby slums of the city. He was awaiting instructions from the President about when to come in the room and face Yasmin. He was forty-seven, with the tough, wiry build of a street brawler.

  Entering through the front door of the palace was the impeccably dressed, delicate-looking figure of Yasmin Samudio, wearing her now-familiar fedora hat at the precise angle to highlight her lovely face. A look of power surrounded her entire countenance as she took the elevator to the top floor, the President’s private suite. She didn’t cast her gaze on any of the many employees who stared at her in awe.

  She entered the President’s suite without glancing at his secretary and walked directly to the private office. He didn’t extend a hand towards her but simply looked straight into her powerful green eyes. “Yasmin Samudio.”