Sun in the South |• Southern Horror Series

13. Who Am I?

O-two and Roulette followed Vasquez as he walked into the private Fit Time gym. After Vasquez had finished with Monica at the Cathedral, he'd gotten in his Acura and arrived at Guadalupe in less than thirty minutes.

Oscuro was here for the meantime. Political matters needed his attention. He was a resigned Prime Minister that still held the Head of government by their balls, and played the current Prime Minister like a pawn in a chess game. He hadn't been a politician for more than one year when he finally decided to be a Godfather.

Despite his very small age of fifty, the vicious racket he was pulling in government and underground was the reason more than half the people that knew him quivered at the mention of his name. He was the government itself, and when he wasn't playing that role, he was heading the most notorious gangs in the whole on North America, trafficking weapons in and out of the country. Though it wasn't safe to say, but he was the reason for a huge number of lives that were lost to gun violence in the streets. A refined thug was what he was.

Vasquez never liked taking petty issues like this to him because how much of a busy man he was with serious ones, but if he needed the best yet wildest solutions to his problems, Oscuro was his first call. Ramon had made sure to hand him over to Python a couple of years before he died.

"Will be out here, Smoke," Roulette said, coming to a stop at the foot of the escalator. He didn't need to be told that Oscuro never wanted them near eyeshot. He'd made it clear by yelling curses at them a few number of times.

Vasquez climbed on the first stair. As he journeyed up the building, he surveyed it with his watchful gaze. There were different sections of private gym rooms that looked like different small boxes of glass in a giant one.

Oscuro's was to the extreme left once Vasquez made it up. Walking slowly, he hoped to meet him in a good mood. Not like there would ever be a difference whether he was or not, it just was good for the mind.

The door slid open and Vasquez trudged in like all was well. He'd paused at the center for a moment before walking to take a seat on one of the sofas, so as to watch Oscuro lift.

A few minutes went by. Oscuro finally did his last hundred and dropped the weight. He picked up his towel, dabbed sweat off and eventually said, "What trouble is it?"

When Vasquez called, he hadn't mentioned there was a problem. Just a request for his location and a line that he was coming. But Oscuro knew he was never sought out unless he was needed.

Stroking his stubble, Vasquez said, "Harley's donor—"

"Is supposed to be dead, Vasquez!" Oscuro barked with a darkened expression and stoned Vasquez's face with the balled-up towel. He naturally didn't have a terrifying voice, but once he made the effort to sound menacing, the message was immediately gotten—like right now. "She's barely recovered, you can't possibly have bad news already."

Hell yes, Vasquez was sorry, he had to be. Oscuro had been helping his game and saving his life for years without asking anything in return - except loyalty. The one favor he ever asked was to find a donor, a match, for his daughter's cancer-infected kidneys, which Vasquez had spent two weeks scraping the street of Mexico for.

"Not healthy enough."

"Not this one."

"Not a match."

Dr. Schmo's particularity was a huge problem, because when the blood of the donor wasn't matching Harley's rare o-negative blood type, the tissue wasn't. Or both weren't matching at all.

It took abducting twenty-eight people, later cajoling nine with a payment promise, and sacrificing six, to finally find Pepe - a good match.

But when you take out a man's two kidneys to save someone else, it is expected that they cease to exist.