BXBX NOVEL Chapter 228: Reliving the Past
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Alex nodded his head in regards to the question that Maria had just asked him. Causing her to tremble in fear at the man, especially after he said his next thoughts on the matter.
“I kept trying to warn you that I’m not a good man… But my relationship with the Zetas is more complicated than you might think it is…
In all honesty, I owe the Zetas a debt that they don’t want paid for with cold hard cash, they would rather me pay this off through a very specific kind of work… And because of that I have little choice but to entertain them.
Although there are limits to what I have agreed to do, for example, my contract with La Madre is very strict on the types of jobs I can accept. Any job that results in the harm of innocents is something I am not required to take part in. And because of that, I only accept jobs that directly target the enemies of the Zetas.
So, all I do is hunt down men who are worse than me, and put an end to their violence permanently. I’m not a good man, but I’m also not a monster like the ones who hurt your family… Normally I wouldn’t admit to this, but I have decided to be honest with you from the start, something that man I see around your shop quite frequently has not been doing…”
This was a lot of information for Maria to digest, and she was struggling to remain calm. Alex had sworn that he did not harm the innocent, and instead only hunted the criminals and murderers who plagued this country like a swarm of locusts.
According to what Alex said, he was in a particularly difficult situation with Los Zetas, and because of this, he was forced to fight for them. There was a very clear question on Maria’s mind regarding how exactly ended up in La Madre’s debt, but she did not ask this, instead she honed in on the bait Alex had lain regarding Angel.“I’m sorry, are you talking about Angel? How exactly has he not been honest with me?”
Alex could tell Angel had been lying to the woman about his identity based upon her affection towards him. And after hearing Maria’s backstory this was all but confirmed. Thus, Alex tried his best not to sneer wickedly as he redirected Maria’s anger and hatred towards his rival.
“Angel is the heir apparent to the Jalisco Cartel… He is among the most vicious and ruthless murderers this side of the border. Did you not know this?”
This information shocked Maria so much that the glass that contained the wine she was drinking slipped from her hand and shattered on the stone floor. Causing a scene. She once more began to shake in fear as she thought about the possibility of what Alex had said.
The man who was so chivalrously trying to court her was the Drug Prince of the Cartel that murdered her family? How could this be? No, Alex had to be lying, and she was quick to ask him about where he got this information.
“You’re lying! How could you possibly know that!?!”
While Maria was being hysterical, and the staff of the restaurant was cleaning up her spill, Alex smirked before crossing his arms while he smugly touted his knowledge and the source of it.
“Did you forget who my employer is? It’s my job to know the names and faces of all the bigshots within our rival organizations. No, there’s no mistaking it Maria, Angel is exactly who I say he is… And it is my job to get rid of him… One way or another he will be gone, and sooner than you think…”
Maria looked at Alex strangely… He was so casually talking about taking another man’s life… But this man, if what Alex said was true, was largely responsible for a lot of the death and destruction that was tearing this once great nation apart… Perhaps…. Perhaps Alex was the divine avenger that was sent by God in heaven to avenge her?
This was the rationality that Maria used to stay strong in this conversation, and Alex’s tactic of moving the anger and hatred that the woman felt for him towards his rival had proven to be successful. As was displayed by the system to Alex’s sight.
[Maria is abhorred by the fact that Angel is a vicious drug prince… Though she is anxious about your work, the majority of her anger has been shifted to your rival!]
[-1000 Affection from Maria to Angel!]
[Maria’s Affection to Angel: -100/100]
[Angel is no longer capable of conquering Maria’s heart! You are one step closer to victory!]
[Warning! When Angel finds out that Maria now hates him, he may take drastic measures! Be on alert for a violent reprisal! Failure to do so will result in a Game Over!]
Alex had never received a warning from the system before. And he nearly choked on his wine when he saw it. Even when Chad tried to murder him, Alex had not heard a single warning from the system. For the system to warn him, this was very serious…
However, Alex had far more important worries at the moment… Maria was shaking in fear, and looking away from him, causing Alex to grab hold of her hand. She tried to yank it away, but Alex held onto it firmly, and looked her in the eyes with an intense gaze.
“Maria… You want to know why I was forced into this life don’t you? I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but you have to promise me to let me make sure you get home safely tonight…”
Maria was startled by this comment, but Alex seemed serious. She did not know why exactly he suddenly seemed so curious about her safety, but for whatever reason her curiosity compelled her to stay, instead of running out the door right then and there.
“Okay… I’ll stay… For now… But you have to tell me why in the hell you would get involved with such horrible people?”
Alex sighed as he let go of the woman’s hand and sank back into his chair with a defeated expression on his face. He swirled his wine before taking a big gulp where he then told the woman the story of his past.
“It all started with my mother divorcing my father, and remarrying a billionaire…”
—
Angel was incredibly pissed off… Not only was his little half-sister infatuated with this stranger from north of the border, to the point where she inexplicably had an entire video library dedicated to pornographic content of the man.
But this very man was making moves on Maria. A naïve, and innocent girl Angel had long since been trying to con into becoming a member of his harem… Well, that was the goal, but unlike Alex, Angel did not yet have a harem. He just had his eyes on several beautiful women.
One was Maria, another was his own half-sister Isabella, and a third was the lovely and deadly Drug Queen from a rival faction, none other than La Madre herself. As for the other two, Angel had yet to come into contact with Amahle or the hacker known as “Redacted” but they were destined to cross paths before long.
Angel was so frustrated with Alex that he had actually hired his father’s scouts to find out information on him, and currently Angel was staring at a dossier while gnashing his teeth. The dossier included information on Alex, his occupation, his finances, and of course his personal life.
The fact that a grand total of 21 women were listed as “potential love interests”, half of them on the other side of the globe gave Angel an enormous headache. How could one man possibly satisfy the needs and desires of so many women? And they were all world class beauties at that!
While Angel was reading the dossier, a knock resounded on the doors of his private quarters, to which he was quick to answer it.
“It’s open god dammit!”
Soon enough, an elderly man stepped forward into the room. He was dressed in the lavish attire of a butler, and appeared to have a tablet in his hands, which he handed off to the young master of the Ramirez family.
“Young master… It would appear that the man you asked me to track has indeed taken out that young woman you are interested in. They are having a conversation over dinner at this very moment. I apologize for the inconvenience, but the facility’s cameras do not detect audio, so there is no way of knowing what they are saying, not unless the young master reads lips…”
The butler obviously knew that Angel did not read lips, which caused the young man to glare at his caretaker. Still, he knew enough about this man, hand his terrifying past not to make a comment on this. If there were two men that Angel feared in this world, it would be his father, and this butler. Thus Angel responded almost submissively to the man, as he waited for him to leave the room.
“Thank you, Jorge… Is there something else that you need?”
Jorge’s dark eyes twinkled, almost with a murderous gaze as he pointed towards the screen that displayed Alex as he talked about his past and how he ended up asking the Zetas for help to deal with Richard and his family. There was an almost sinister smile on the elderly man’s face as he spoke in a blood chilling tone.
“That man…. Whoever he is his hands are drenched in blood… By the looks of it, he practically bathes in the stuff… If I were to guess who that mysterious whelp is that the Zetas are employing as their new dog, I’d say it was this man… You might want to look into when he entered the country, and what he has been up to since then…”
After saying this, the butler turned around and left the room without waiting for Angel to respond. Obviously, the term “mysterious new whelp” was referring to the infamous “El Cucuy.” And thus Angel took a hard look at Alex’s figure, before looking back at the entrance where the butler had long since vanished.
Angel whispered in a voice so low it was almost not even audible. Perhaps he was afraid that the butler would hear him if he were to speak any louder.
“It takes a monster to recognize their own, huh? Very well Jorge… I will look into this Alex Smith even further… If he turns out to be El Cucuy, then neither he, nor his harem of sluts will be safe from the wrath of Jalisco!”
—
Alex had no idea that his rival was watching him as he spoke about his troubled past to Maria. He had just finished up how he met all of his women in Korea and returned to America when he began speaking about the hit that Richard had put on his head.
“Anyway… It was about this time that my stepfather put a hit on my head, and that of my mother. If he were to get divorced, it would be half of his fortune that my mother was entitled to. And well, he hated me from the start…
So, after surviving a particularly dreadful attempt on my life, and making contact with the Zetas through one of the assassin’s who tried to kill me, I hired them to get rid of my little problem… They were quite thorough… More than I would have liked them to be.
But in the end my family and I were safe… So… When La Madre asked me to pay up, I figured it would be a large sum, but of course I had just inherited a vast fortune and was prepared to pay with it. Unfortunately, the only form of compensation she was willing to accept was my services as a Sicario. Thus… Well, here we are now….”
Maria had listened quietly to Alex’s entire tale. And was stunned by what she had heard. But what was the most shocking of all was the fact that Alex had blatantly admitted to having 23 different women, including Olivia and Claire…. This was beyond Maria’s expectations, and she was quick to ask about this fact.
“Twenty-three… You have twenty-three women that are exclusively in a relationship with you? How!?!”
Alex was baffled by this sudden outburst… Which nearly the entire restaurant could hear… He had an almost awkward smile on his face as he questioned whether or not the young woman had paid attention to a word he said outside of this.
“Maria… I just told you how I ended up working as a hitman for the cartel, and you’re worried about that? It’s really not that important!”
For whatever reason, Maria was stuck on this particular issue and was quick to reinforce her thoughts on it.
“I beg to differ! Do you have children with these women?”
Alex once more felt a bit surprised that Maria was so focused on this, and was quick to comment on it with an honest answer.
“Some of them… In fact I just had a group of daughters born a few months ago. I mean honestly Maria we’re getting off track here. Is this really all that important?”
Maria did not know how to feel about this giant revelation, and thus pulled open the cork on the bottle of wine that Alex had bought for dinner and began drinking from it directly. A simple glass would not be able to calm her myriad of emotions right now. And thus, after drinking more wine than she probably should have, the young beauty was quick to demand a more thorough backstory about Alex and his many “wives.”
“From the start… I want to know about each and every one of these women that you are involved with!”
Alex could only sigh and shake his head… It would appear that he and Maria would be occupying these seats for quite some time, thus he motioned for the server to come forth and asked for a few more bottles of wine, while also tipping him generously. He would continue to explain what Maria wanted to know before eventually taking her home. But that was a tale for another time.