The room, once filled with the low, subtle chatter of brags and brittle laughter, suddenly went dead silent quieter than a cemetery at midnight.
'The Miguel Effect.'
He didn't need to utter a single syllable to command the room; as always, his aura said everything that needed to be said.
By the sheer, hard dread etched into his face, every man present understood that making even a pin-drop of sound was a very bad idea.
Miguel studied the three men dangling weakly from their chains.
They struggled in their binds, trying and failing not to make contact with one another as they swayed. The dim light in the center of the room spilled over them like a spotlight on a tragedy, highlighting every jagged cut and the channels of sweat and grime that ran through their individual bodies.
They looked like a toddler's messy sketchbook, or perhaps a university student's sign-out shirt, raw, marked, and discarded. They were hung meat in a butcher's shop, waiting for the next session of flesh-outs.
A regular, normal human being's conscience would probably be melting at the sight of their current state. But it only made Miguel's belly twitch tighter in rage.
The smeared blood, the deep, weeping wounds...it wasn't enough. He felt unsatisfied for many reasons. Primarily, it was their stubbornness.
His expectation had been to come here, extract the answers like teeth, and kill them off. Instead, he was being forced to waste his time.
It took a supernatural level of restraint for Miguel not to simply erupt and charge toward these goats. He felt the phantom sensation of snapping each of their necks, but he held back; he needed to find the root of the problem first.
That was the only way to eliminate this kind of courage from repeating itself in the future.
So these are their faces, Miguel thought, a flicker of surprise crossing his mind. He had guessed they would be amateurs, but not this young. With his hands buried casually and freely into his pockets, he shifted his gaze to the bald torturer, who immediately gave a quick, subservient nod.
A gesture that meant the stage was undeniably his.The bald man walked over cautiously, leaning forward to whisper in a voice that was hushed and nervous.
"None of them has said a thing, Sire. I don't think they work for anyone," he stuttered, scanning Miguel's face for any flicker of a response. Miguel didn't so much as blink.
The man knew Miguel wasn't buying it, but he felt compelled to finish his delivery.
"These might just be boys trying to get your attention... or maybe... maybe they just want to join the Salazar cartel or something."
Miguel threw a sharp gaze at the man, causing the poor guy to flinch as if he'd been struck.
Bull! Fucking! Shit! Miguel scoffed, shaking his head in blatant disappointment."Being illiterate can be quite concerning," he said coldly.
The man froze, caught off guard, before giving a sharp nod and retreating to his initial position.If there was anything true in the bald man's perspective, it was only that these boys were young.
But Miguel didn't buy the "attention" crap. The way they had attempted to end him was amateur, yet clean; they weren't trying to make a statement.
If that were the case, their intentions would have been announced before the first chain was even brought out. From the lingering determination on their bruised faces, Miguel concluded that these were professional assassins.
unfortunately for them, they had just entered the business and tried to kill a man who had been the architect of it for decades.
Another thing Miguel was certain about: they were hired by an influential person.
These crooks were well-stuffed, their silence bought and paid for. Miguel paid assassins himself; he was an assassin, a rich one now—and he could smell a professional before even seeing them.
He knew the rules: if they exposed the client, they'd lose something they held dear.
Unfortunately for them, Miguel didn't care about their loved ones. He needed those names like a burger needs sauce. And if it meant taking these men on a quick, brief vacation to hell?
"So be it," he muttered under his breath. After letting the silence and the simmering tension marinate into the very walls of the room, Miguel finally took a step forward. Then another. Then another.
Each soft, calculated thump of his shoes was a constant reminder to every eye in the room of how he had built an empire like this, why he was the only Miguel Salazar.
The little man who had run away from an orphanage with his friends, surviving the slums until he walked into the light of the world's most dangerous organizations. Miguel glided past the culprits, each of them shivering uncontrollably as he passed.
He walked to the end of the rough, grey concrete wall, where he reached out and grabbed a beautiful hockey stick hung neatly among the more brutal weapons.
He tapped the tip of the stick carefully against the floor, a test run to ensure the impact would be sufficiently brutal. A brief, chilling smile flashed on his face before he walked back.
He stood in front of them now, centering himself before the first man, studying the ruin of his face. He let the silence stretch for a few more seconds, then he began.
"What do you know about hockey?"
His voice came out strangely casual, familiar, as if he were speaking to a long-lost friend. The words echoed back to him, finally breaking the nauseous tension in the air.
He got no response. Just as he expected. He tilted his head forward slightly, feigning anticipation for a reply he knew wasn't coming. Not yet.
Letting the hockey stick bounce against the floor with a rhythmic clack, Miguel dragged it behind him as he walked over to the last man in the row—the one who was trying and failing to stop his body from trembling.
As Miguel drew closer, the fidgeting intensified. This was the one. His tactic all along was to find the weakest link, and this coward had made the job easy.
"You must be feeling cold," Miguel said, his voice dropping into a low, predatory register. The man avoided his gaze by any means possible.
"You remember me, right?" Miguel asked again. His tone was one of mocking kindness, but the undertones were dangerous enough to sprout goosebumps on the man's skin.
When the boy hesitantly shook his head, Miguel stood to his full, intimidating height, feigning a deep, theatrical disappointment.
"That's sad...."
To be continued...