Chapter 13 [ Need To Find That Lady ]

I think I overreacted. I blurted out hurtful words without thinking.

I don't want to walk out of this.

Why would he even think that?

Not his fault though I would think that about me if I were him.

"Gustavo if you can hear me... wherever you are, I am sorry. Please come back. Give me this one chance to do better." I mutter in a low tone even though I know that there's no one else in the suite with me.

I also have to apologize to Belinda.

I searched the pocket of my trousers and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Furthermore, I got out a lighter and set it on fire. Taking in enough suck and spewing out the remaining, I watched the smoke fly away with the cool morning breeze.

PS. I started smoking long before now so don't think I started it after assuming Gustavo's role. I got a ring on my phone, walking back to the suite, I find it lying idly on Belinda's dressing table.

"Hello?"

"Santo, it's Antonio. What the hell man? You ran out on me last night. I could barely find my way home."

I laughed weakly, "Sorry brother. How did you manage?"

"Don't ask me... But what happened to you though?"

"What do you mean? Nothing happened to me."

Antonio sighed, "I am referring to the beauty you went after last night."

I perfectly understand where his inquisition is headed.

Bravo! I might as well ask him to run some search to help me find that woman.

"Er... brother, I got to talk to her, but I couldn't ask for her name. I wasn't sober enough to remember to do that."

Antonio's contagious laughter interrupted me and I found myself wearing a grin on my face.

"Come on now. Why are you laughing?"

He retreated from laughing before replying me, "But why it's you Santo. You are the reason for my laughter."

I am a bit confused. Although I know how rotten his thoughts can get. Let me see if I am right.

"How am I the reason for your laughter? I didn't know I have suddenly become a clown. Hahaha" I teased him.

"Wait! Santo, you expect me to believe that you only just talked to her. I mean there was no scene of romance or even sex? You? Santo that I know so well?"

I said it, his thoughts are indeed rotten.

Haha haha

"You make me laugh Antonio. Hahaha"

I halted from laughing; we both actually.

"Brother help me out. I need to find that lady. Maybe go by the bar and ask around or something. Who knows you might even get to see her in person." I pleaded for his help.

"Why are you so eager to find her? Did she steal from you?" He demanded.

My answer was quick, "No no no. I just. I have my reasons for wanting to find her. So please help me out alright?"

"Alright alright... I called your pops immediately I got to work this morning."

"Ah Antonio you did? Thank you for checking on him on my behalf."

"Don't thank me yet. He insisted on speaking to you and no one else. Just you."

I frowned my eyebrows and dimmed my sight as if trying to think of his possible reasons for insisting that.

Or could it be his health?

"Antonio did he say anything else?"

"Yeah that he'd call you later today, so I should give him a line of yours that he can reach you on."

I nodded my head because that was an easy task.

"Okay man. Thanks for informing me. I'd reach him instead."

The call dropped, and I thanked Antonio in my mind. Turning to look at the beautiful golden clock on the wall, the time had struck 10:00 am.

'Time is far spent. I better go out to see to the affairs of the hotel—my hotel.'

**

Why am I hearing a man groaning in pain? And what prompted me to come to the fourteenth floor in the first place? It's a lonely area. I moved closer but silently to the door of the suite, there was no door hole for me to peep into but at least I could hear them speak. Placing my functional ear by the door, I was determined to listen carefully.

**

•Inside the suite•

"Just one fucking mission and you and your useless brothers could not pull it off. Bunch of fucking losers! I hope you all rot in the hottest parts of hell. My mood is gravely affected by your gross incompetence," he halted from speaking and took in a smoke from his pipe to cool his nerves.

"Yuri!" The mafia boss signalled one of his boys. In an instant the tall, huge brawny is standing before him.

"Yes boss!"

"Make him feel pain so much that his insides squeal from my heavenly terror."

"Okay boss!"

His victim was shivering from fear of the unknown, "Wait! Wait! Please boss we did it. We all shot him to be sure, one gunshot each from all three of us"

A hard slap on his face from the mafia boss shut him up for good.

The mafia boss held him roughly by the chin and spat on his face. Then he spoke, "When you cross to the other side, you and your brothers can have the whole eternity to search out Gustavo in the spirit world."

With that said, the mafia boss let him go and adjusted his fur coat thus sending a coded message to his boys to torture the culprit to death.

Each of the men immediately brought out their personal knives and began to slash his skin in different body parts—wrist, arms, chest, knock, torso, leg, feet, back, side— all over with so much intensity.

The effect of his tendons experiencing a painful deep incision resulted in a splash of reddish fluidly larva all over.

As the victim continued to groan in pain, softly, obviously too exhausted to scream or yell, although he had been doing that for hours of unending torture, but nobody came, the mafia boss inclined himself to giving off a ruthless beam.

Cold-blooded serial killer!

After a brief moment of struggle, his victim stopped breathing, his hands were loosened and allowed to fall lifelessly on his sides, leaving a gruesome view of him in his own blood pool.

Then there was deathly silence.

Soon after, I began to hear thumping footsteps, not of men running but of men walking hurriedly inside the isolated suite. I could sense that his victim was dead. But before I could unfreeze my legs to make a move, I heard the mafia boss say something else.

"The next time our paths cross in another lifetime," he began, "Be weary to never double-cross the no-faced man."

I heard him spit and then nothing more.

Now my thoughts were scattered crazily in my head.

There is a mafia boss in the hotel Magnífico?

I mean a man was just murdered right?

I know I am not hallucinating.

This is even more dangerous than I expected.

Holy shit!!!!!!!

'Gustavo! Please I need you now more than ever.' I pleaded in my mind.

Hurrying off to catch a lift, and watching the door shut before my face, I said a prayer in my heart.

Thinking out loud, I mumbled, "I hope I haven't given anything away to cause this ruthless mafia boss to suspect that there was someone listening to the conversation all along? And that, that someone was me; the assumed Gustavo Rodríguez."