In-house Chaos
Five minutes after MacLeish showed up with his family, neither Alejandro nor Antonio was able to speak.
They kept staring at the invisible stars up in the sky while waiting for the first to break the silence.
"I'm sorry,"
They both spoke together.
They had to pause.
No one was ready to break the deadlock.
"No, you go first," Antonio urged Alejandro. He figured that Alejandro might have a lot to tell.
"I apologize for pushing you to the wall. I said too many nasty things to you that shouldn't have been said," Alejandro apologized.
It took him a lot of courage to finally make the move to admit to his wrongdoings.
Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have considered apologizing because he felt that Antonio had done him a dirty deed.
But on a second thought, he figured it was best to make peace with Antonio, knowing the impact of Antonio in cracking that case open.
Deep down, Alejandro is aware that he can't fight for the release of the pastor alone, not after hearing the asking fee by the kidnappers.
"You don't have to apologize.
You were agitated.
I would do the same if I were in your shoes," Antonio waved it off as he wore a happy face.
The anger inside of him has finally died down, all thanks to MacLeish's presence.
"No, I was wrong in all areas.
I was this close to making you reveal the family's deep secret.
Can you imagine that?" Alejandro pressed further into admitting to his flaws.
He wants Antonio to yell at him like a boss. But unfortunately, Antonio isn't looking in that direction anymore.
"Can we not talk about this anymore?
We should focus more on getting your pastor released from the abductor's Den," Antonio implored.
He was tired of hearing Alejandro apologize to him.
"You're right, though.
However, I am still confused.
How do I afford the fifty-thousand-dollar ransom fee that was demanded by the kidnappers?
We both know I am not even worth ten thousand dollars right now," Alejandro lamented bitterly.
He also ranted about the kidnapper's command not to invite the police.
"I'll figure it out."
A voice spoke as Alejandro buried his face in the ground.
At first, he ignored the voice because he thought he was losing his mind.
It took him a while to realize that it was Antonio speaking to him
With full speed, he raised his head towards Antonio's direction.
He wiped his face with the back of his palm to be certain it wasn't a dream.
"Can you please repeat what you just said a while ago? Significantly, you do that," Alejandro implored his friend as though his life depended on it.
He also cleaned the dirt from his ear to be assured that the ears weren't leading him astray.
____
"Where am I?" pastor James asked himself rhetorically as the voice echoed back to him.
His vision became blurry as he opened his eyes and found himself in a dark room all alone.
His hands and legs were tied as he sat on the ground. He could hear those funny sounds emanating from his head.
It got to a point where he got scared that his head might explode due to the sharp pain he felt.
"Ouch, my head hurts," he wept.
Since his hands were tied together, he found it difficult to caress his head and ease the pain.
"Hello, is anyone here? Please come to my rescue. I don't want to die," pastor James cried his eyes out as he called for help.
He racked his head to recall the last thing that happened and how he found himself inside the dark room, but to no avail.
He couldn't even think straight to save his life. He kept praying for God's intervention.
It was at that point that it dawned on him that he might have been abducted.
He screamed, wailed, and did all crazy stuff to get the attention of everyone around, but it wasn't enough.
Then a thought crossed his mind and he decided to execute it.
"I am holding a knife in my possession right now.
I'll stab myself right now if no one shows up," he made the threat to whomever might have held him captive.
After he made the threat, he realized that his hands were tied, which made it impossible to stab himself with any object.
"Oh, Lord! I screwed it up," pastor James muttered in disgust.
How had already accepted his fate of not coming out of the kidnapper's den alive. He faced the ground to say his last prayers.
Just when he thought all hope was lost, the light suddenly came on.
Behold, pastor James saw two men standing in front of him. The sight of the men freaked him out more than being kidnapped.
He stuttered, "Who are you? What do you want from me? Please let me go,"
The men were dressed in black suits. They were disguised in a dark mask just to cover their identity.
They looked so tall, bad, and hefty with broad shoulders. They could pass as bouncers.
None of the men responded to his wailing.
One of them brought out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit a cigarette.
He walked towards pastor James and puffed the smoke to his face. He nearly suffocated to death.
He has never been a staunch advocate for chain smokers.
But now, he had no choice but to endure, should he desire to stay alive.
"Please, who sent you?
And how did I end up here?" Like a helpless fellow, pastor James pleaded after he was done coughing profusely.
Without saying a word, the two men shared a telling glance and mocked him with wicked laughter.
"Did you just hear that? He wants to know who sent us.
What do you think we should tell him?" One of them mimicked pastor James and made her feel miserable.
"He doesn't need to know.
He'll be fine eventually," The other abductor replied.
He turned out to be the worst.
Unlike his partner, he took a cigarette and nearly forced it into pastor James' mouth.
He struggled to get him off her body. And when pastor James saw that he was proving stubborn, he spat in his face.
"Argh! How dare you?"
Jaguar screamed in disgust.
He raised his arm to punch pastor James in the face, but Redneck was there to stop him.
He held Jaguar's hand in the air and dropped it down. "Don't do anything stupid.
Remember what the boss said. He must not be harmed,"
"Get your hands off me, man,'' Jaguar pushed the redneck angrily on the chest.
"Who cares what the Boss says?
How dare he spit at me?
No one dares to mess with me and goes Scott free, and you know it.
He must pay for doing that," Jaguar fumed.
He wasn't bothered to take off his mask just to deal with pastor James.
His temper was getting hotter than a burning furnace.
His temper could be heard from where pastor James was seated.
Pastor James had already envisaged what it would feel like to be strangled.
"Listen to me, jaguar. Don't do anything stupid," Redneck warned.
He stood in front of the Jaguar, preventing it from getting closer to pastor James.
It was starting to look like he was paid to protect the Pastor.
"Do you feel pity for him? Because I know you too well," the jaguar accused the redneck of sabotaging the mission.
"Holy moly," the redneck exclaimed in shock. That was the most bizarre thing he had heard in a long time.
"How could you even come up with such a thing?" He went further to defend himself without actually debunking the claim.
"Just answer the damn question.
Do you feel pity for him?" Jaguar stood accused against the redneck.
"Of course, not.
I'll never do such a thing." Redneck vindicated himself.
Despite how fluent he sounded, Jaguar still wasn't convinced. It feels like a Déjà vu to him.
The situation reminded him of how Redneck ruined his last operation after he aided a captive escape in Sweden, when he discovered that she was his cousin.
This act angered their Boss, Don Pedro Gonzalez, who placed a bounty on his head
To escape being executed like a commoner, he fled Sweden and relocated to California, where he met other kidnappers.