Happy Reading.
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The suburbs of Los Angeles breathe a different kind of silence from the hustle and bustle of the city center. Wide streets lined with Mediterranean-style houses are lined with low fences and towering palm trees on the sidewalks. The morning breeze carries the faint scent of the sea, mixed with the fragrance of bougainvillea blooming wildly along the fences of neighboring houses.
In the distance, green hills hug the horizon, while seagulls fly low as a sign of the beach's not-too-distant proximity. The occasional roar of a car passing by sounds light, muffled by the expanse of large trees. The friendly California sun shines warmly on the facades of the houses, creating soft shadows that weave along the black-paved road.
Leiya had just finished drenching her body with the cool bath water in the shower. Hearing someone ring her doorbell in a hurry, she immediately finished her bath to go outside until she almost slipped on the fluffy carpet at the side of the bathroom. With her footsteps still leaving water marks, her body led her to the front door to see who was rushing to ring the bell.
The door opened, a teenage boy shorter than her dressed in a delivery service company's ID. Holding out a wooden box containing some fresh vegetables and fruits. Leiya accepted the box and gave a tip, the teenage boy immediately turned to leave without saying anything.
"It's a wonder the delivery company isn't late, usually it's over an hour before it's delivered to the house." Leiya grumbled to herself, she went inside with the box while trying to fix her bath towel.
She placed the box in the kitchen, then went upstairs to put on some clothes before starting to cook. With all her speed, Leiya only wore a black casual t-shirt with knee-length pants, pinned back her hair that was still dripping water and walked to the kitchen to cook immediately. The television broadcasting the news Leiya turned on at once to accompany her in solitude.
The local news was reporting international news originating from the country of Spain, the male reporter spoke in a firm voice as if authorizing the viewers watching. The news about the Cartel was suddenly mentioned. The reporter brought up the topic of the biggest smuggling cartel in Spain that was caught and killed by the local police just one year ago. The reporter explained that there had just been another person suspected to be an important part of the Cartel caught.
Leiya sharpened her hearing at the name just mentioned by the reporter, Javiér De Leon. The name made Leiya open his hand, dropping the knife he was using to cut the tomatoes, falling almost on his own foot if he was one second too late.
"Javiér...?" Leiya's body turned, her footsteps quickly approaching the television in the living room, watching the video of the arrest of a very familiar figure in her life. Being carried into a police SUV. That face, it was definitely someone Leiya recognized.
"Javiér De Leon was reportedly caught while making a clandestine move to Portugal. In his attempt to escape, he was caught just before crossing the border bridge." The reporter continued to report the situation of the international fugitive's capture on television.
A small part of Leiya's already broken heart witnessed how her father, the El Patrón or Cartel big boss referred to in the news, had been mercilessly killed by law enforcement. It was even more devastating to hear that more and more of her father's subordinates began to be caught by the police. A sense of confusion crept into his mind without permission, filling the cracks of his sadness into a sense of directionlessness for the rest of his life.
Tears welled up in her eyes, the clear liquid glistened reflecting the video shown on the television news. Leiya's breathing immediately became labored several times. The circumstances of Javier's capture with the wound on her face still wet, showed that there had been some resistance before she was taken down. Javiér's necklace, its pendant the symbol of his extended family's Cartel, explained the man's great loyalty to her father.
"As more and more important people from the Cartel are caught, will I as the son of the big boss of the Cartel eventually be caught as well?" The tremor on Leiya's lips strongly showed Leiya's greatest fear at the moment, but she seemed to have no other choice to continue living.
If she died, at least he would not be caught by the police languishing in prison, that was all Leiya could think about. His brain was already too deadlocked with no other plans to think of. Leiya was alone in a city far away from her birthplace, with no one to accompany her own subordinates or her father's trusted people.
The house bell suddenly rang once, distracting him. Leiya turned her face away quickly. She swallowed her saliva frantically, was it the police? Leiya felt a little unlikely that it was the police who rang the doorbell. She had covered all the gaps for the police to track her whereabouts, even changing her identity to go to Los Angeles after escaping from Algeciras, Spain. But if it was indeed the police, Leiya was completely finished, the history of the Cartel family would no longer be heard of.
Taking a deep breath as a sign of gathering courage, Leiya stood up turning her attention away from the television that had changed to another broadcast. Stepping closer to the door with really slow, deliberate steps. The doorbell rang once again. Leiya immediately grabbed the door knob, turning it slowly until when it sounded the full turn of the knob, Leiya pulled the door with a bow of her head.
"Leiya, what took you so long?" said a voice that sounded like a man 20 years above Leiya's age.
Leiya immediately raised her head to look directly at the face of the person standing in front of her. Two men, with dark brown hair and a leather jacket and jeans, which were worn like dirt. For a few seconds Leiya was stunned trying to process to realize who was standing in front of her. The two men stared at each other with the corners of their lips turned up, then one of them raised his hand and his finger gently pushed Leiya's dreamy forehead.
"EZGAR, IDGAR!!!" Leiya shouted enthusiastically to see who was in front of her, the Allandale brothers, her father's subordinates who had the best relationship with her.
The two brothers happily accepted Leiya's invitation to hug both of them together, both Ezgar and Idgar considered Leiya like her own sister, they agreed to continue to look after Leiya no matter what problems befell her extended family Cartel. That hug, the first hug that Leiya got after a year of hiding herself, behind the busy suburban city in Los Angeles. A single tear escaped her eye as the hug ended.
"You guys, how did you find me here?" Leiya asked stammeringly.
"Aren't you going to tell your uncle to come in first? We're fugitives, Leiya. Very vulnerable to being caught." Idgar interrupted, Leiya opened his mouth and his eyes rounded.
The girl with long blonde hair tinged with pink quickly pulled the hands of the two Allandale brothers to quickly enter the house, closing the door with the lock repeatedly. Then closed the curtains that did not penetrate from the outside into the room. When she made sure it was completely safe, Leiya leaned her back against the wooden door.
"So... where did you get the news of my location from, Uncle?" Leiya asked again.
Ezgar laid his body down on the slightly messy sofa full of cloth. "My acquaintance informed me, he's a civilian. He told me that he saw you wandering around the outskirts of Los Angeles several times in the late afternoon, what are you doing, Leiya?"
"What, a civilian recognized me? Why did you tell him my whereabouts, Uncle Ezgar? If he reports to the police, then my very existence is jeopardized, and our Cartel family syndicate will be completely clean." Leiya grumbled throwing questions back and forth, but Ezgar just put on a relaxed face resting his facial expression.
"Yes, that's why. He won't inform the police of your whereabouts because I'm holding his US card. Never mind. Idgar and I have been looking for you for weeks, thinking maybe you would escape to Italy or the Vatican, but it turned out to be a transcontinental escape." Ezgar raised one index finger, causing Leiya to furrow his brow in annoyance.
"If I escape to Italy or the Vatican, I'll have the same fate as Javiér De Leon who was caught at the border." Leiya chirped back, adjusting his leaning position so that he was hunched over.
"Wait, what did you say, Javiér was caught at the border?" Idgar interrupted.
"Yes, just a few minutes ago it was on the news. He was caught at the border of Spain and Portugal when he was just about to cross the country, and he looked like he had a lot of facial injuries. It looks like he put up a fight." the girl explained quickly, then stepped into the kitchen to prepare drinks for her two Uncles.
Ezgar and Idgar looked at each other, Javier was also one of Leiya's father's subordinates in the Cartel and the head of the inter-country distributor who had been working very neatly. The sound of the television set the scene for the tense atmosphere of Leiya's new bad news.
"I was going to invite you to look for her whereabouts to gather more strength, but we're getting pushed out at this rate, Ezgar. The people with great power in the Cartel are starting to dwindle again, that means their legal searches are tightening, our time will be running out." Idgar summed it up quickly, shifting his couch closer to Ezgar.
"Time for what?" Leiya came in with a tray of two full cups of iced milk coffee, she listened intently to the Allandale brothers' conversation.
"Time for us to regroup, Leiya." Ezgar chimed in, sliding the soda can off the table for Leiya to set down the tray. "Idgar and I came because we wanted to share some news that I believe will be truly useful to the Cartel, if you are willing to reciprocate. It's up to you, Princess of El Patrón."
"What exactly do you mean?" Leiya chuckled in annoyance.
Idgar leaned over to take Leiya's glass. "I was determined to look for you because I found something, if it wasn't for that news, Ezgar and I wouldn't have intended to look for your whereabouts. Because if the Cartel disbanded, it means that our business has nothing to do with it at all."
"Idgar found a useful loophole to lead us to the clue of the most obvious and most plausible reason, how could the shipment of Narcotics and Cocaine one year ago be detected by GRECO*. Even though we made sure that the distributor was very safe because your father was directly involved." Ezgar added.
Leiya was still trying to process what exactly the two were trying to say. Ezgar didn't explain right away, he took something out of his jacket pocket, holding out a small black box that looked like a Micro Safe Box. Taking the box with a bit of curiosity, Leiya saw that there was a chip stuck on the inside, there were several small-sized wires with bright colors leading to the chip.
"What is this?"
"You open it by connecting it to your phone or laptop, the contents will definitely surprise you. If I told you directly, I'm sure you wouldn't believe me so easily and might think I'm making it up. That's why I'm providing proof right away." Ezgar explained.
*GRECO: GRECO stands for Grupo de Respuesta Especial para el Crimen Organizado, which means Special Response Group for Organized Crime, including Smuggling Cartels. Originated in Spain.
See you in the next part!
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