THE PLEDGE – CHAPTER 15

After taking another sip of the tea Victor Montoya, Elvis' right hand man, provided for them, Sonny gently set the teacup down and looked at Elvis. "I thank you so much for your hospitality, but enough of this. Why did you think you could get away with transporting drugs through my territory without my permission?"

Dara sighed inside. She had had a hard time sitting patiently next to Sonny while he played nice guy with the man who put Marcus' murder in motion with his greed and stupidity. Finally, now, things were about to happen. She couldn't wait to see this man's blood soak the sole of her Nine West slingbacks.

"I'm sorry, Sonny- -" Elvis began.

"My name is Mr. Corinthos. We don't know each other, Elvis, well enough for you to call me by my first name," Sonny interrupted, noticing the frown on Victor's face. "Do you have a problem?"

"You should show a bit more respect to Mr. Elvis," Victor reprimanded Sonny.

Without a second thought, Sonny shot Victor in the shoulder. Dara steeled herself to not to react.

Elvis watched his second in command fall onto the floor, clutching his arm and visibly started shaking.

"Now as I was saying, who do you think you are?"

"I- -I don't know- -"

Sonny nodded. Reynaldo walked over to Victor and shot him in the gut.

"Aaaa," Victor moaned continuously.

"I hate liars. And I hate repeating myself."

"I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Corinthos. I just wanted to make a little extra money. That's it," Victor stuttered.

"Does your boss know about your little side venture?" Sonny asked calmly. "Victor, be quiet."

The groaning continued. Sonny cocked his gun and it instantly stopped. The moment the moaning stopped, Dara saw a wet stain covering the front of Elvis' pants and down the side of his leg.

"Elvis, does he know?" Sonny repeated.

Shaking his head violently, Elvis whimpered, "No. No, sir."

Dara stared at the now crying Elvis in disbelief. Did it just dawn on this idiot whom he had messed with? He couldn’t possibly be that stupid. But judging from his delayed reaction, he had no idea. This was the man who had inadvertently put her husband's, her children’s father's murder into motion. What a disgrace. Marcus deserved better than this piece of sniveling coward.

"Did you know you were running your drugs through my territory?"

Elvis nodded.

"In English," Sonny commanded.

"Yes," he stuttered.

Sonny pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded, as he crossed his legs, putting the gun on his thigh. "Did you think you were too important to contact me? To ask me my permission to run your filthy drugs through my territory?"

Starting to shake his head, Elvis remembered and spoke. "No, no sir. I just- - I didn't think anything. I- - I needed the money for my sick grand- -"

Enough was enough. Grabbing the gun off of Sonny' thigh, Dara's shot barely missed Elvis' shoulder. "Sonny asked you not to lie to him, but yet you insist on doing it again. What is wrong with you? Your house gets invaded this morning, you're placed under house arrest, but somehow you still think Sonny is someone you can toy around with, lie to as your friend lies beside you bleeding to death. Just be man enough to admit that you put everything in motion because you wanted the money, the power. At least Sonny could respect those answers. Before I met you, I thought maybe, just maybe," Dara said, as she stood up and paced the floor with the gun in her hand, "you were using the drug money to help yourself gain more manpower so you could take over your boss' territory. Become the big boss around these parts, but seeing you and listening to you, it's clear that you have neither the brains nor the cajones to pull that off. And to top it off, you become a cop killer by hiring users to transport your drugs. My husband is dead because of your unbelievable stupidity." She paused in front of him. "I came here to watch you die, but you don't deserve it. You deserve to spend the rest of your pathetic life in a maximum security prison where Big Earl, Hector, and Tyrone all get a chance to try the new fishy out, while the guards look the other way. And as you're servicing your boyfriends, living in your tiny cell, and making license plates, you can contemplate what brought you there, your own foolishness."

Glad she followed Sonny's example and kept the gloves he gave her on, she looked Elvis dead in the eyes, "Whenever you start having little pity parties for yourself remember you got off much easier than Detective Marcus Taggert did." She held out the gun for him to take.

Elvis shook his head as his lips trembled and tears flowed abundantly down his face.

"Take the gun, Ike Coward. What an appropriate last name."

Elvis cried harder.

Like a mother assisting her child with a difficult task, Dara took Elvis' shaking hands and wrapped them around the gun and trigger. Elvis opened his mouth to speak, but upon seeing her shaking head, he closed his mouth and cried harder. Following her body and sign language, he obeyed her commands, stood up, then with her fingers on top of his they pulled the trigger and shot Victor in the thigh. The unconscious Victor barely reacted to his latest gunshot wound. His body jerked slightly.

Sonny tilted his head pointing to Victor.

Reynaldo bent down and put his index and middle finger to Victor's neck. "Soon," he said, answering his boss' unasked question.

Taking out a cell phone, Sonny quickly dialed. "Habla espanol?" He waited for a moment, then rapidly rattled off in Spanish that he heard gun fire at 5643 Indiana Avenue to the 9-1-1 Spanish speaking operator and promptly hung up.

Dara took the gun from a crying, stunned Elvis and shot off the rest of the rounds in the chamber. "No easy way out for you," she told him as she threw the gun down near Victor.

Sonny held out his hand which Dara took and briskly guided her out of the house and into the waiting non-descript car. As soon as Reynaldo and Charles were in, the car sped off passing speeding police cars and an ambulance along the way.