Mimi's Demons

Chapter 82: Spoiled Goods

Trigger warning and a reminder: Duke is a mafia boss. There's going to be some being mean to a kid. You've been warned. 

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Duke couldn't help but compare his first meeting with Mimi with the kid at the top of his driveway, framed by muscles in suits. Where Mimi had been dirty, greasy, tiny, and fierce, this boy was clearly well cared for...and spoiled. When the suits bowed their heads to their navels to Duke, Garcia the younger kept his head tall and chin lifted. He met Duke's eye, not fearlessly as Mimi, but with expectation.

"Are you Cosack?" he asked in clear, accented English.

The bodyguards visibly tensed. The bodyguard next to Duke did so as well.

There was a reason Duke hadn't brought Cromwell or Omen with him.

His knee jerk reaction was to beat the kid over the head—make him show respect. But Mimi's concerned pout rose to the forefront of his mind. The boy was one of those who had yet to hit puberty, so he was small for twelve. Mimi would definitely frown at him beating a little child, and, for all he knew, she'd found a window to watch him out of.

"It would do you good to follow the example of your escorts," said Duke lowly.

The kid looked at the men around him still bowed at the middle, frowned in confusion, then sort of bounced himself like a bird desktoy dipping its beak in the water. Before he could rise back up, a guard's hand flashed out to the back of his neck and kept him down. The kid squawked in protest.

Duke sighed. He'd been afraid of this. Maybe it wasn't too late to send the kid back and demand territory instead.

He gestured, signaling the Mexican guard could be at ease. The kid was let back up, scowling as though he'd been denied ice cream instead of forced to bow for his own safety. Duke excused the men and they filed away without so much as a glance back at the black headed twelve year old rubbing peon germs off his neck.

"So, what's my room like?" he asked, giving that damned expectant look into Duke's eyes again. "Does it have big windows? I like lots of natural light in my room so if it doesn't I can switch, right?"

Omen Four kept glancing at Duke with the skin about his eyes paling. The hands behind his back had clenched.

Duke made his way back towards his house, his guard naturally falling in step. Sharp taps came as the kid followed.

"What's your bandwidth? My dad had the best in the world so I could keep up with my schooling. I've been tutored by professors from Harvard, you know. It'll give me headaches if their classes keep lagging, I hate that, and I got to keep up my gaming skills too. My dad probably told you, but I'm one of the top Black Ops players. I need bandwidth to keep that up."

The handle of the front door was like ice against the heat of Duke's hand.

"And I need a queen size bed, at least, because I move a lot in my sleep. I'll fall right off. And nice sheets, none of this 1000 threat count stuff, I hope that isn't a bother, but my skin is sensitive. I can't use my brain if I'm sleep deprived—I doubt anyone could! Wow, your house is nice. I mean, the décor is different from mine, not really my taste, we have more gold."

Duke could hear a hissing in his ears. He was barely aware of his guard putting more space between them.

"Where's that kid of yours? I'm supposed to be tutoring her, right? Is she cute? No offense, but if she's ugly as sin—"

In a motion swift as a striking snake, Duke pivoted, took hold of the kids wrist, and twisted.

A violent snap cracked across the parlor.

The kid screamed.

Duke rolled his eyes. He'd broken his own bones for fun when he was this age.

"Quiet," he growled.

But the kid just kept screaming and now sobbing, trying to tug his broken wrist from Duke's grip which was retarded as it would only make it hurt worse. And he'd been told this kid was smart.

"Quiet, or I'm breaking your leg next."

The kid choked, hiccupped, and bit his lip hard. He kept letting out garbled sobs but it was at least better than the screaming.

"First lesson," he tossed the kid onto the ground. "Don't be stupid."

"I-I-I was-wasn't—" Another horrible wet choking sound. God, you'd think he'd torn off a limb. "Why-why-I'll—I'll tell my d-daddy—"

"I will spell this out for you this one time only." Duke dropped to his haunches, all the better to glower at the snotty wreck the brat had become. "Your father has a right-hand man he entrusts everything to, right? Trusts them more than his own wife, or favorite woman, I should say. Trusts that man more than himself at times." He waited. "Nod or shake your head, kid."

Little Garcia nodded fervently, clutching his arm to his chest.

"Now, imagine if someone else he trusted used that trust to go into his home and try to kill that man. What would your father do?"

"He'd—He'd kill—"

"But this man was working for another group, let's say mine." And because Duke was impatient about getting this stupid lesson over with. "When he comes to me to ask what the hell, I just say 'oh, I didn't tell him to do that,' and I just give him some money. Would that go over well? The life of a man key to your father's entire operation, irreplaceable, was threatened. Would that slide?"

The boy shook his head. Duke wondered if he was just doing it to appease him at this point, but he didn't care.

"Well, that's what your 'daddy' did. Then he had the gall to send a subpar middle man to offer me burritos like we're buddies." Duke's eyes narrowed. "Your father didn't understand that, if I cared to, I could wipe your stupid cartel off the map, because while your father owns Mexico and a splattering of South America, I own the rest of the world."

The boy looked a little gray now and his eyes were shivering like pachinko balls in a cage. Good.

"A smart man would have already known that," said Duke, a bit more quietly, because just remembering was raising his ire. "But I had to call your papa up here to remind him. Forcibly. And to avoid me taking out the price of my man's blood out of him and hundreds of his workers, for that is the worth of the man your father threatened," Duke curled back his lips in a mocking imitation of a smile that only served to show all his teeth. "He gave me you. Said you were smart. But apparently that was a lie because you pranced into my home like you owned the place and made demands about windows and video games."

Young Garcia was shaking violently now. The sobs had turned to whimpers and his upper lip gleamed with sweat.

"So, tell me." Duke leaned in close, voice just above a whisper. "Were you smart?"

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Some people spoil their kids to make themselves feel good and make the kid shut up so they can ignore them. The rest of the people are grandparents that have a license to do so. 

And all the animes, webcomics, and mangas I want to enjoy are never finished...*sigh*