🔍 Silver Tongue (Slow Updates) 🔎

If I Knew the Truth Would Hurt So Much...I'd Kept On With the Beautiful Lie

"You haven't touched your pollo guisado," Ivan said, poking around at his own. "I made it myself. Used abuelita's secret recipe."

My heart sank deeper into my chest at the name. I wasn't hungry, so Ivan's hard work would go to waste. He said he'd answer my questions over dinner, so I'd spent the better part of the afternoon working out exactly what I wanted to know. I know he was trying to make things easier on me and I loved our grandma's cooking, but my appetite just wasn't there.

Ivan took a bite and smiled. "I'm not the cook she was, but it's pretty close," he said. A bit of soup dribbled down his beard. I wanted to laugh, but that was a no-go as well.

"What are we doing in Guatamala?" I asked. It was the first question. The one that was supposed to loosen my tongue. It was still hard to say.

"You've heard of the Maras, right?" he said, wiping his chin with a napkin.

I shook my head. I'd read something about the Maras in the Washington Post, but I wanted him to talk more than anything else.

"They're these big gangs in Central America," he said. "Into the worse possible shit you can think of: kidnapping, rape, extortion, murder. If there's a hell, the Devil himself would be disgusted with these people.

"I'm here because I plan to take them down for good. I'm starting with Mara 420, and I'll take it all the way to the big multinational ones. This shit needs to stop, Em, and I'll take them out or die trying."

I pushed my stew to the side. "Why are you working alone?"

Ivan sighed, stood up and straightened his shirt. "I'm not working alone. I have Darren and Max, for starters, and a few others you haven't met. This type of work isn't something you can do alone."

I stood up, mirroring his position. "You know what I mean Ivan. Why did you leave Virtue?"

Ivan snarled. "They shot up Max's home and put a gun to your head, Em. Why do you think?"

I folded my arms. "You said you'd give me answers, Ivan. You're evading."

He looked down and shook his head. "You're right, Em. I am. I'll ask you one more time, Em," he looked up to me, pleading, "Are you sure you want to know?"

I ran my tongue along the roof of my mouth. I wasn't sure at all. I'd never be sure.

"Tell me, Ivan," was all I could muster.

Ivan nodded and pulled a gun from behind his back. "I think it's better to show you."

I fought down the urge to flinch. Ivan wouldn't shoot me. He'd risked his life to save me, several times over and he was my brother. I felt terrible having to fight it.

Ivan pulled a radio from his waistband, giving instructions in Spanish as he liked to do. Then he tossed it on the table and paced back and forth.

"You know, Em," he said, continuing to pace. "I used to believe in Virtue. Thought we did good work. We'd find the bad guys outside the confines of the law, catch them and ship them off to the proper authorities. Kidnapping, embezzlement, murder. No one could escape our gaze. No one."

A massive man dragged a smaller man into the room by his collar. The smaller one looked like one of the men from the earlier meeting, with the face tattoos and general badass demeanor. However, the confidence had fled, he was beaten and broken, mumbling through the cloth gag in his mouth.

The giant reminded me of Patience in a way. He was at least six feet, six inches tall and probably two hundred pounds and rock hard muscle. While his deep bronze skin was different than Patience's light tan, it was as if Ivan was ordering these guys through Amazon Giant or some shit.

"Meet Wrath," Ivan said, pointing to the big man. "See, team."

Wrath kicked the back of the thug's knees sending him crashing to the ground. The cloth slipped from the tattooed man's mouth. "Por favor," he cried, repeatedly. While I wasn't fluent, that was a basic word and the context of the man begging for his life wasn't hard to understand.

"¡Cállate!" Ivan shouted, sending the man into a blubbering mess.

"Ivan," I said. "What are-?"

"Nope," Ivan snapped, gritting his teeth. "You wanted answers and now you get them. Do you remember Charles Pafford?"

I nodded. "The serial rapist." I remembered that one. He wasn't Ivan's biggest or most well-known case, but it was his first. The state senator of our home state of North Carolina. Rumors followed him for years of how he sexual abused the boys in his church. Ivan put a stop to that.

"Yeah, that one," Ivan said, scratching his beard. "I gave them enough to put him away for several lifetimes. Instead he got twenty years." Ivan smacked the simpering gangster in the back of the head. "I said, 'shut up'! I'm trying to talk to my sister!"

The thug fell to the ground, moaning.

Ivan exhaled. "Twenty years, Em, because he knew the right palms to grease. Still, he was in jail where he couldn't hurt anyone anymore. Imagine my...shock," he snickered, "to learn that three years later, he'd gotten out on appeals. To only learn of this six months ago, because he'd raped again. But this time-and he's the kicker-he killed the little boy to shut him up.

"We found him...again. And after we took turns taking our own piece of justice out of his ass, Virtue wanted to turn him back over to the authorities. The same ones that let his ass out in the first place.

"I had Diligence look into our old cases. For the most part, the convictions upheld, but our good Samaritan Mr. Pafford was not the only one who'd beat the system. So new plan. Fuck the justice system." He pointed his gun on the thug on the ground. "This Mara 420 boss is guilty of at least a dozen murders and ordering dozens more, including a Guatemalan human rights activist by the name of Eduardo Caceres."

I flinched at the name of our distant cousin. We weren't close, but I'd met him at a couple of family reunions. He'd seemed nice enough. "Ivan," I said. "What are you doing? Just because he killed our cousin, doesn't mean you have to do this."

"That's the thing, Em. If I give this guy to the authorities here, I know what will happen. And it will make what happened with Pafford seem like a vacation," he said.

"Still, if-"

The gunshot rang through the house. Wrath watched with his arms folded as smoke wafted from the barrel of Ivan's gun.

And the thug's cranium caved in.

"That's why I left," Ivan said. "I put two shots in the back of Pafford's skull and I'm not sorry. I'm sorry to that eight-year-old boy that I didn't do it sooner. If I must embrace sin so that there is not another De'vante White, so be it." He handed Wrath the gun, then he pulled out his onyx pendant and kissed it. "This is why I wear this. I'll be damned if that happens again."

When Ivan looked at me, I took a step back. There was something truly frightening about his eyes that I'd tried to dismiss. I'd lied to myself and now that he'd turned back the curtain, there was no going back.

The way his face dropped when he saw my reaction made me want to cry.

Ivan turned his back to me, his voice softening. "I'll be in my room if you need more answers, Em. Wrath, have someone clean this up." With that, he walked away.

I wanted to chase after him, but as the smell of charred flesh filled my nose and the bile rose to the top of my throat, I was grateful I hadn't eaten grandma stew.

There'd be less for the maids to clean up.