Broken Kings (House of Cards Series 0)

Cuarto Paso: El Pago

The days after the sharks started to cirlce the figuratively bloody carcass of Juntez, Reaper and his Wolf were behind the scenes, watching. Reaper had orchestrated this man's downfall, and he wouldn't even have to touch him to extract his revenge. There was no way possible for Juntez to pay back the sums he owed collectively to all the sharks and they had given him no time to run.

For once the mafia man learned that he owed, his own 'friends' left him to deal with his fate on his own. Logan and the other mafia men hadn't realized that Juntez's bad luck was caused by the Barrio Boys, but Reaper and the Boys were all eagerly awaiting the outcome of almost a month of work. Three days after calling in the markers, Reaper got the head's up that the 'collectors' were coming for Juntez.

Knowing the day and the time, Reaper figured out where he needed to be to watch the events unfold. It helped that Juntez had a personal routine that he kept to almost religiously, there were a limited number of options for the biggest message to be sent. Because the sharks were smart enough ts use this as their chance to warn other borrowers to always be ready to pay them back quickly, and giving Juntez his just desserts in full view of the public would be a very effective teaching aid for many more than just the fiscally immature Juntez. So Reaper had found a vantage point that covered the likely area of attack, already being forewarned of the date and time of the 'lesson'. He sat on the balcony of the same restaurant he had sat on with West to tell him the sad story of how Reaper was born, and saw the quickly fleeing form of Juntez running through the streets below. The man was trying to escape his inexorable fate, something many others had tried and failed to do in the past.

Stalking Juntez with clear intent were four of the burliest Spainards Reaper had ever seen, large in a way that only those bred for violence could be. And athough they were large men, they weren't exactly slow; the quickest caught up to Juntez and grabbed him by the shoulder. The mafia man then did something very stupid but almost instinctive; he tried to stab the leg breaker with a knife that looked better suited to cleaning a Senorita's nails than killing a man.

The beefy man that Reaper decided to call Mula, side stepped the blow of the small man with a smaller knife, his face clearly unamused. By this point of time Mula's equally intimidating friend, thusly dubbed Bruto, had caught up as well. The other two dangerous men, Maton and Gamberro in Reaper's mind, took their time to walk up, having no issue watching as Mula and Bruto strong armed the knife out of Juntez's grip and held him crucified between their mountainous forms. None of them looked terribly impressed with Juntez's attempt to perforate Mula and they all rather looked like they were going to enjoy the up coming duty.

"This is going to get bloody." Carlitos said softly, looking at Maya as if he were actually debating on telling her that she couldn't watch. He had no problem with the twelve year old Westley viewing the spectacle but his machismo still wanted him to safe guard the female. The look Maya gave him in return however, shut the gang leader's mouth before he could actually say the words and she rewarded him with a kiss. Reaper grinned, glad that his friend and mentor had found new love in the spit fire Senorita. Maya wasn't like Adrianna, but Malcolm knew his big sister would be pleased with the development. Carlitos deserved a chance at happiness.

Reaper looked over at his own protege, not in the least bit surprised to find West's golden eyes glued on the erupting violence below. After being forced to kill to defend himself, Wolf was being more and more drawn to violence, as if being able to accept the weight of his actions by seeing those who were still so much worse than he was. There wasn't a whole lot Reaper could do to help the boy; they both knew that Reaper hadn't actually killed anyone despite his violence filled past. The only thing he could do was to limit how much damage the boy endured in Madrid; psychologically and physically.