Becoming the Czar

by Olivia Gaines

  “Lucky bitch,” Tim said.

  YUÑIOR UNDRESSED, HIS back resting against the headboard, and waited for Diadra to join him in bed. The day had taken its toll on him, and he needed to rest, but he wanted his woman first. He could get the horse out the gate, but it would be up to the lady to bring them both to a strong finish. Diadra came out of the bathroom ready, but noticed the droop in his eyes.

  “I’ll take care of you, Ed,” she said, pulling down the covers and seeing the readiness. Her bare form straddled his lap. The small breasts shoved in his face encouraged him to take a mouthful.

  Diadra inched her body forward, connecting them. Yuñior’s mouth dropped open as his hands traveled around her waist, stopping when he felt the telltale patch. He hesitated.

  “You’re still wearing this?”

  “I’m not your wife. I’m not your fiancé,” she said. “What I am to you is this...for the moment. We are this.”

  She moved against him, heightening their pleasure, coaxing the reserves of his strength, bringing the man to the party, and making him dance wildly. Diadra reached her climax, throwing her head back and relishing in the pleasure. Yuñior, ready to find his own, also found a deeper strong point in himself. Grabbing her around the waist, he flipped Diadra onto her back. He moved slow and deep within her, seating himself and staring straight into the eyes that saw him.

  “We are more than this. You and I are so much more,” he said, moving again. “I have 13 months. You promised me the time. Diadra, I demand that you hold nothing back and give me everything you have. Every time, Diadra. Every goddamn time. Give me everything you have.”

  “Ed, I don’t think I have anything more that I can give you,” she whispered and moved under him, doing as he demanded of her. She gave it all, holding nothing back until the release matched the sweat of their bodies. Diadra clung to him as he shuddered through his proclamation of the bold finish, holding her tight and sighing into her neck.

  “I want Emmanuel,” he said. “I want you to give me a son.”

  Diadra didn’t answer him. She wouldn’t respond to the request. She wasn’t going to help him furnish his wing. She wasn’t going to bear him children unless she was his wife. She’d be damned if she were going to put in a request for the position of Mrs. Delgado.

  If he wanted her, he knew what needed to be done.

  Chapter Twelve- Grunt

  Yuñior sat in front of the television monitor waiting for the connection between him and Tito to happen. Initially, he really wanted to talk to the man face to face, but this too would work, for now. His main desire was to plant a seed and see what the fool would do with the information.

  Diadra, double-checking all the settings, found herself in the frame when Tito’s face appeared on screen. She gasped and jumped at having his face suddenly be there. He was scary looking, but Yuñior didn’t seem to be fazed as he surveyed Tito watching Diadra leave the room.

  “I assume,” Tito spat, “since your side piece is there with you, my ‘sister’ is not.”

  “You can’t assume anything with me,” Yuñior replied.

  “Okay, then what the fuck do you want calling me like this? As you said, bitch, we aren’t friends.”

  “No, but we will be more once the wedding takes place. I really don’t want to look down the aisles and see your ugly face unless we’ve come to some form of understanding.”

  Tito held up a fisted hand. Bandages were wrapped around his wrist all the way to his elbow. The fisted left hand appeared in the front of the screen as he used his right hand to slowly lift his middle finger at Yuñior. The grimace on his face was noticeable.

  “Oooh, it looks like you’re in some pain,” Yuñior said. “Are you trying to make your middle fingers stick up like this?”

  Yuñior held his two middle fingers in the center of the camera, pointing them both at Tito. “Listen, before we get too distracted and childish, I wanted to touch base. Diadra, that’s her name, felt bad about shooting you and suggested we sit and have a conversation. This is my attempt to do so,” Yuñior explained, exhaling in boredom.

  “How nice of you to listen to your bitch. It must be really good for you to take her words into consideration,” Tito laughed.

  “It’s good enough to keep me from coming to Panama in the middle of the night and cutting off your mutherfucking head and sending it to Enrique in a box filled with poisonous snakes, so yeah, and fuck you, you mop headed mongrel,” Yuñior said, with calm in his voice.

  “Jesus on the Cross seeking the blessings of Mother Mary, you really should seek some more counseling. That is a really dark thought, young master Delgado,” Tito said, shaking his finger.

  “The sad part of all of this is that what you don’t know could fit inside your asshole, but you’re too big of an asshole to realize when an olive branch is being handed to you,” Yuñior replied, leaning in to end the call.

  “Wait.”

  Yuñior pulled back his hand and stared at the face of the man he had wanted to kill ever since he saw the state of the children in the bottom of that boat. Young brown girls, deflowered for the amusement of unbalanced men. All under Tito’s watch. He hated what Tito had done to the children, selling them as if the young lives meant nothing more than another dollar bill in his pocket. He hated that the man profited off the downfallen of their own cultures. More than anything, he simply hated everything that Tito and Enrique Villlareal stood for in this life. However, he was going to tip the scales and inch or so, then let the weight of his words do the rest.

  “As far as I can tell, you are the oldest son of Enrique,” Yuñior told him. “You are also the oldest child, which predates his marriage and the birth of Irena, which means, although he didn’t wed your mother, by blood and birth, there are entitlements due to you.”

  “Entitlements like what?”

  “One, I can’t fucking kill you,” Yuñior said, “as well as you are not able to kill me.”

  “I could hire someone to do it,” Tito grumbled.

  Yuñior leaned back in the chair and crossed his hands across this midsection. The problem, he had surmised years earlier during his formal education, was sadly, dumb people really didn’t know they were dumb. Tito was an idiot, gifted with a few ideas he believed were his own, who ran amok amongst the gentle folk, pretending he wasin charge. All of it bored Yuńior.

  “The issue here remains the same, Tito. You are dumb as hell and can’t be trusted to listen and follow a clear train of thought,” Yuñior spouted, “and it is not my intention to insult you, but trying to have a conversation with you is like talking to my little sister. At least she’s interesting and cute.”

  “I’m listening to your bitch ass, but you aren’t saying anything I don’t already know,” Tito grumbled.

  “Fine, let’s cut to the chase. In the last year, you’ve made well over twenty million dollars, yet you live in a schoolhouse on top of a rock in Panama that gets is power from a generator. A smart man would have taken that money and purchased a villa with high ground on three sides, in a cove,” Yuñior said. “You, on the other hand, spent millions on boats, a fucking submarine that you can’t even pilot, and rusty vehicles not worth the balding rubber tires they roll on. Even the men you hired aren’t loyal to you.”

  “You don’t know what the fuck I have, Delgado!”

  “Actually, I do,” Yuñior said lifting a piece of paper from his desk. “I have a complete inventory of every bank account, rock, fuel filter, and trick who raises her skirt and pumps her hips to turn a peso for you. Yes, you have money, but I have what you don’t – power.”

  “Power. Power? Power!”

  “Yes, Tito, power. It is what your father seeks by marrying Irena to me,” Yuñior said. “Power is what he has acquired, sifting money off the millions you’ve given to him freely while he lives in a fancy house with high walls all around him. Enrique is using Irena just as he’s used you to gain more power and share nothing with you.”

  Tito leaned
closer to the screen, squinting at Yuñior. He didn’t like the man who was too good looking and smart for his own good. However, if time were to continue counting down the seconds until young Delgado became Czar, then he would need to reconsider much of how he operated. He would need to consider his next moves for survival.

  “I don’t like you, Delgado,” Tito said.

  “And I hate your mangy, mop-head and ass ugly face, but when I marry Irena, I become Enrique’s son via marriage,” Yuñior said, allowing a smirk to come to the corner of his mouth. “When that happens, you are, how do you say, ah si, fucked.”

  Yuñior ended the call. He’d watched Diadra send the link to Tito to chat, and he replicated her actions and sent a link to Irena. A few minutes later she appeared on screen, the surprise on her face evident and the clothing she wore skimpy.

  “Please cover yourself,” Yuñior said, lowering his eyes from the screen.

  “Why? All of this is yours in about a year,” she pouted with her reply, walking away from the screen and showing off her body.

  Yuñior ended the call. He rolled his head back and forth, loosening the tension in his neck. Once more, he sent another link to Irena who answered, this time in a dress which covered her body.

  “Buenas,” he said, “how are you?”

  “Fine. Are you calling to tell me that I’m getting fat and need to exercise more?” she said, sticking out her tongue at him.

  “No, I was wondering if you’ve heard from or checked on your brother? The gunshot wound to his arm was pretty nasty, and if not properly cared for, he could lose the use of his hand,” Yuñior explained.

  “And when did you start giving a shit about Tito?”

  “When I realized once we marry, I shall become, legally, your father’s son and all the rights and benefits afforded thereunto,” Yuñior added with a smile, “which pushes Tito even further outside of Enrique’s circle. I know you care a modicum of scented perfume about your brother. As we move forward and get into the wedding planning, it’s time to give a great deal of these small outside matters a deeper look.”

  “A deeper look,” she repeated.

  “Yes, technically, your dowry was built with the money given to your father by Tito.”

  “What dowry?” Irena asked, looking forward, sticking her face into the device. “I don’t have a dowry.”

  “You are just adorably dumb,” Yuñior said, slowing his speech. “Me. Marry. You. Fifteen million. Five to me. Five to my father. Five to the cartel.”

  “I didn’t know this...he’s basically selling me to you for a better seat at the table?” she asked, frowning as if she’d eaten a piece of bad fish.

  “No, he wants a seat at the table between my father and my grandfather,” Yuñior enunciated slowly, finding himself smiling. “I mean, granted if you will give me a son in the first year. Has your mother changed your diet to ensure you can produce my male heir?”

  “What?” she said, placing her hand over her mouth to stave off throwing up. “I’m going to be sick.”

  “Irena, really. I thought you understood our ways. Seriously, you didn’t understand why your father has been pushing you to get me into bed?” He began to laugh. “Anyway, you might want to check on Tito. Take care, my dear.”

  For the second time, he ended the call, only to look up and see his father and Andres standing in the doorway. They were both shaking their heads at him. Eduardo stood still staring. Andres spoke first.

  “You are some kind of evil,” Andres stated, reaching over to offer a fist bump which Yuñior returned.

  “It appears I have underestimated you on so many levels,” Eduardo said. “You two, grab Micah and Angel and come into my office.”

  ON THE CORNER OF THE desk, Eduardo set four shot glasses. He poured a splash of dark rum into each. Tonda, now in with Tim for his makeover, was not privy to the conversation.

  “I never wanted to be Czar,” Eduardo said to his sons. “I didn’t want this life for myself, I didn’t want to get married, and I didn’t want to be the father of four at such a young age. My life didn’t give me choices.”

  “Papa, what did you want to be?” Micah asked, sniffing the liquor in the glass. Eduardo held up his hand for his son to set the cup down.

  “I wanted to become a musician. A rock star. I wanted to travel the world with my guitar and have an apartment in New York and a house on the beach in Malibu, California and spend my days making love to beautiful women. My nights would be spent on stage singing songs I wrote about said beautiful women.”

  Andres held out his hands. “See I have it honest! Would you happen to have a house in Malibu, Papa? I need to know these things.”

  “No, Mijo, I do not, but what I do have are four fine sons to carry on my name and make me proud,” Eduardo explained. “I’ve done everything I know to make you into good men. I would hate to see the name ruined after years of hard work to remove the stains left on it by my brothers and father.”

  His eyes were on Yuñior.

  “Becoming the Czar wasn’t my choice, but a duty which had to be fulfilled. Hugo, my oldest brother, should have taken up the mantle, but he got seduced by money and led astray into easy pesos made from human trafficking,” Eduardo said. “When word arrived that he’d been killed, it was a relief to me.”

  “What of my namesake?” Andres inquired.

  “My brother, Andres, two years younger than me, was the good time guy. The job Yuñior currently has was once his. The position was created to aid in taking our products into the world legally and get us a seat at the bigger table of pharmaceutical sales,” Eduardo stated. “Instead, he spent more time in the lab trying to create a product three times more addictive than cocaine already is in order to ensure recidivism.”

  Yuñior sat and listened to his father’s words. He knew the stories already as did Andres.

  “I became Czar of Colombia upon the death of my father,” he extolled. “Right after the death of my father, we lost Andres, then my wife ran away for three years and came back, and we made Micah. She ran and hid again from the post-partum, then came back and we made Angel and she ran away again shortly after giving birth to you.”

  Micah watched his father’s face, listening carefully. Understanding. Hearing. Learning.

  “Years,” he said. “For years I worked my body to the bone, and I was thin as a rail, working day and night. My hands bled from the labor in the fields. I melted gold bouillons my father stole from other countries to create the gold coins we give to the families to ensure they would start back having children to continue this way of life. Years of sleeping alone in my bed, caring for you with the help of your grandparents assisting in raising you to understand both of your worlds as not easy, but I worked hard to learn the business of the cartel.”

  “Papa, do you like being the Czar?” Angel asked.

  “I hate every fucking moment of it,” Eduardo spoke softly. “I am the Czar of the Americas because Ryanne is smarter than me and understood how to get the cartel on board to make our businesses profitable legitimately. Each time I sit in the room with those men, I walk out feeling as if I’m covered in a layer of filth I cannot wash off my skin.”

  His eyes were on Yuñior. Then he looked at all four boys. “Our way of life is hard. It is unfair, and it gobbles down lives and spits out bones, but that doesn’t mean we have to become men we wouldn’t recognize,” he spoke. “I sleep fine at night knowing the lives that I have taken deserved to die. I sleep fine knowing I don’t have unwanted children out in the world growing up without a father. I sleep just damned fine knowing my sons understand what it means to love and be loved. We don’t intentionally hurt other people in order to get what we want.”

  “If they are hurt in the process by their own stupidity, I can sleep just damned fine with that too, Papa,” Yuñior said, picking up the glass. He shouldn’t be drinking with the antibiotic, but he lifted the glass sniffing the rum. His brothers picked up their glasses as well, raising a toast.
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  “Don’t become a man you can’t respect, Yuñior, Andres, Micah, and Angel,” Eduardo cautioned, “and please, don’t become men that I can’t respect.”

  DIADRA SAT IN THE LIVING room with Ryanne. Dinner would be a light meal, which would fill her up but didn’t satisfy her appetite. It was okay. Soon she’d be home in New York, eating from greasy spoons and street vendors who ran food trucks. A glass of red wine sat next to her as she pulled out one of the four books she’d brought to read. On the coffee table in front of her, she placed a cool drink of mango nectar mixed with seltzer and one of the books she’d brought for Yuñior.

  The office door opened and she mentally willed herself not to look up. She didn’t want to see the look on Ed’s face or the look in his eyes after getting off the call with Tito and being called on the carpet with his father. Or so she assumed, since all four brothers were present, minus his bodyguard Tonda. Her eyes remained in her book although she read the same paragraph over and over, pretending to be engaged in the storyline.

  Yuñior arrived and took a seat beside Diadra. She still didn’t look up, but shifted her body to lean into him once he raised his arm to go over her shoulder. He picked up the drink and took a sip, followed by the book she’d brought. Before beginning any book, Yuñior would read the front and back covers as well as the blurbs on the inside of the jackets.

  “Ed, are you trying to determine what you’re getting yourself into?” Diadra asked.

  “Every goddamn day,” he said, opening the jacket to read the interior. He then flipped to page one, chapter one.

  HE COULDN’T SLEEP. He lay in bed for nearly an hour with Diadra resting in his arms, but his mind would not be still. Finally, unwilling to just lie in bed like a slug, Yuñior opted to go to the kitchen for a bit of warm milk. He poured some into a mug, warming it in the microwave. In the window, the image arrived of his father.