Chapter 13: The Initiation Rites
Elijah's breathing remained slow and measured. When he finally opened his eyes, the trailer was quieter, though still thick with a fishy smell. The rhythmic thudding had stopped.
Zigi, looking utterly spent, was curled up on the dirty floor, asleep with his arm flung over the Mexican girl, who lay breathing heavily beside him. Yuri was still at the folding table, intensely focused. He was dressed in clean clothes—a dark hoodie and jeans—and had two cell phones pressed to his ears, typing furiously on his laptop.
The girl stirred slightly under Zigi's limp arm, her swollen lips parting in exhaustion. Elijah watched her for a moment, his gaze flickering from her disheveled hair to the faint bruises blooming on her inner thighs—marks that spoke less of violence and more of enthusiastic consumption. Yuri caught the direction of his stare and snorted. "Focus, freak."
Elijah slid off the bed and stretched. He noticed a plate resting on the nearby counter piled with instant noodles and canned meat. He grabbed the plate and began munching lazily, turning his attention back to Yuri. "Did you arrange everything?" Elijah asked, his mouth full.
Yuri pulled a phone from his ear. "They're done. We have the meeting at The Stinger bar downtown. Two o'clock sharp." He glanced at his laptop clock. "You were asleep for exactly four hours, Boss. You must have needed it."
He sneered as he typed on his phone. "Try not to use the bed in front of an active contract next time. It's bad for morale." He flicked his eyes toward the sleeping girl, her chest rising and falling in slow exhaustion.
Elijah glanced at his phone. "It's one-thirty. Thirty minutes. We should prepare." He finished the food in a few large bites, tossing the empty plate onto the mattress.
Elijah nodded, unconcerned, then gestured with his chin toward the floor. "Why is Zigi on the ground? Did your negotiation skills involve tossing him off the bed?"
"I tried waking him a couple of times; he just mumbled and rolled onto the floor," Yuri muttered, rubbing his temples. "Kept saying something about 'not sharing with cockroaches.' He was too dead to move to the empty spot on the bed."
Elijah sighed and nudged Zigi's ribcage with his boot—not hard enough to bruise, just enough to jostle. Zigi groaned, swatting vaguely at the intrusion without opening his eyes. "Fuck off," he slurred, curling tighter around the girl like a possessive octopus. "My shift starts in five centuries."
Rolling his eyes, Elijah crouched and grabbed a fistful of Zigi's greasy hair, yanking his head back just enough to expose his throat. "Shift's now, dipshit,"
Zigi shot up with a guttural yelp, flailing as he tried to figure out where he was. He found himself tangled in the trailer girl's limbs on the cold floor. "What the—? Why the hell am I on the ground?"
Elijah watched, unmoved, as Zigi rubbed his sore scalp with one hand while trying to untangle himself from the girl's limbs with the other. She groaned but rolled away, still half-asleep. "The fuck did you drag me up for?" Zigi hissed, glaring blearily up at Elijah.
"You should ask yourself," Yuri called out. "You climbed down off the bed sometime around 11:30 and fell asleep there."
Zigi groaned, rubbing his face with both hands like he was scrubbing away the remnants of his exhaustion. His fingers snagged on the dried spit at the corner of his mouth—leftover from his faceplant onto the trailer's grimy floor. "The hell's the emergency?" he muttered, voice thick with sleep, before blinking up at Elijah's silhouette looming over him.
He looked frantically at Yuri. "What time is it?"
"Nearly two," Yuri replied.
Zigi leaped up, suddenly frantic. "Two?! Why didn't you wake me up earlier?!" He scrambled toward his clothes, only to trip over his own discarded belt—fumbling wildly before faceplanting into the pile of laundry with a muffled "Fuck!"
"I tried, idiot. You just grunted." Yuri shook his head.
Zigi grabbed the trailer girl by the hand. "Come on, chica. You're bathing with me. We stink." The girl, now fully awake, grabbed a sheet to cover herself and stumbled after him toward the cramped trailer shower, her bare feet slapping against the linoleum.
Yuri threw up his hands in exasperation. "Don't even think about doing it in the bathroom, Zigi! We need to leave! That associate isn't gonna wait forever!" The trailer's thin walls immediately transmitted the sound of running water and Zigi's lewd laughter—followed by a sharp yelp from the girl as the cold spray hit her bare skin.
Elijah and Yuri finished preparing, and when Zigi emerged—slightly damp but energized—they set out. The bar was a few miles away, so they walked, the tension of the impending meeting tightening their focus. Zigi, meanwhile, bounced on his heels, hyped up on adrenaline.
————
The Stinger was exactly the kind of dimly lit, smoke-hazed dive bar that reeked of stale beer. They located their target in a corner booth.
The associate was a middle-aged, bald man with a prominent beer belly and a thick cigar clenched between his lips. The man was flanked by two enormous, silent bodyguards. He saw them approach and gestured for them to sit.
Yuri slid into the booth first, taking the seat facing the man directly—the position of the negotiator. Elijah and Zigi slid in behind him, their posture deliberately relaxed but watchful, presenting themselves as Yuri's dedicated goons.
He smiled, revealing yellowed teeth stained by tobacco. "Mr. Vasquez," he introduced himself, extinguishing his cigar in a dirty ashtray. "And you must be... the crew. I'll get straight to the point. I need reliable hands. I'm focusing on climbing the ranks in the Family, and I need people to handle the side hustles—the collections, the cleanups, the distribution. The things the older capos won't touch anymore. You work for me."
Yuri nodded, his gaze steady. "And what's in it for us, Mr. Vasquez?"
"I will pay you handsomely, boys," Vasquez grinned. "And more importantly, you get protection. My name opens doors and closes mouths. Your little underground jobs just got a whole lot easier."
Yuri leaned back, crossing his arms. "Money and protection are nice. But what stops you from deciding one day that our 'handsome pay' should stay in your pocket? What assurance do we have?"
Vasquez chuckled deeply. "Trust, kid. That's all there is. If you don't trust me, you can walk away. No hard feelings. But I'm giving you an opportunity. I've heard rumors about your... works. Let's just say I'm giving you a chance to stop playing on the playground and start running the streets."
Yuri didn't flinch at the lie about their reputation; he was here to secure a deal and act like the boss. His mind was already plotting how to make Vasquez their pawn instead of the other way around. He gave a sharp nod. "We trust you. But we'd like to see the terms first."
Vasquez grinned again and gestured to one of his bodyguards, who produced a sleek tablet. Yuri took it and read the contract carefully. After a few silent minutes, Yuri looked up.
"We agree to the partnership," Yuri stated calmly. "But we would like to amend some clauses to ensure fairness for both parties."
Vasquez raised a heavy brow but nodded, intrigued. "Go on, boy. What amendments?"
Yuri pulled out his own laptop and typed furiously, his fingers flying across the keys as he simultaneously explained, "Your current profit margin calculations are underestimating operational risk—see these figures? A standard crew would lose 40% to logistical failures alone." Vasquez smirked at first, but his amusement faded as Yuri projected revised spreadsheets onto the tablet, his voice smooth as silk. "But with our overhead—no middlemen, no wasted manpower—we can deliver the same results at 60% efficiency. That means you pocket the difference and keep your hands clean." Yuri leaned in, tapping the screen. "Except here's the twist—we're not asking for a cut of those extra profits. We just want autonomy over how we clean up your messes."
The bodyguards shifted uncomfortably when Yuri slid the tablet back, Vasquez's own terms now glaringly altered in red text—every loophole sealed, every advantage tilted toward their control. "Oh, and Section 12? We amended it. If you ever decide our 'handsome pay' is too handsome..."—he tapped the new clause—"...we dissolve the partnership and you forfeit your entire westside operation to us." The room temperature seemed to drop. Vasquez's cigar ash crumbled onto his lap, unnoticed, his face frozen between a frown and grudging admiration.
He then broke into laughter first—a deep, wheezing sound that shook his belly like a sack of wet cement. He wiped tears from his eyes with a meaty hand before slapping the table hard enough to rattle the ashtray. "You've got balls, kid," he admitted, still chuckling. Then his smile vanished. "But you forget who holds the leash." He snapped his fingers, and the bodyguards stepped forward—until Zigi's chair screeched back violently. His hand was already inside his hoodie pocket, fingers curled around something metallic that made Vasquez's smile twitch.
"You got a good brain, boy. Smart, despite your age." Vasquez exhaled cigar smoke slowly, tapping the tablet with deliberate restraint. "Fine. Amended terms. But cross me—" The threat hung unfinished as Yuri slid a pen toward him, eyes glinting with the quiet victory of a fox who'd just convinced a wolf to wear a leash.
Vasquez stabbed his finger at the screen. "Done. The partnership starts now."
Vasquez's demeanor shifted to business. "Your first job: collecting protection money from the business owners under my territory." He slid a detailed list across the table. "You get to keep twenty percent—standard rate—unless they give you trouble. Then, I expect bruises and broken merchandise. Understood? Call me when you are done."
They stood up to leave, the deal secured, but Vasquez stopped them. "One more thing."
He snapped his fingers, and a bodyguard produced a small, silver briefcase, setting it on the table and opening it. Inside lay a black pistol, a few magazines of ammunition, and a set of keys.
"A gift from me," Vasquez said, gesturing to the contents. "Use it wisely. And the keys are for an old taxi—not new, but it runs—parked just outside. I trust the smart one can figure out how to drive without a license. Side jobs for your crew."
Yuri took the briefcase. They gave brief nods of acknowledgment and left the bar, stepping into the humid air. The taxi—a rusted, boxy sedan—sat half on the curb, its windshield cracked but engine idling roughly.
Yuri, without a word, climbed into the driver's seat. He had no license, but he had watched enough mechanics videos on The Grid to figure out the basics. He turned the key. The engine groaned to life, coughing out smoke like a dying smoker. Elijah climbed into the passenger seat, resting his elbow on the open window, watching the bar's neon sign flicker behind them while Zigi sprawled in the backseat—already lighting a cigarette—the glow casting eerie shadows across his grinning face.
They drove the taxi back to the mobile home. Zigi, vibrating with excitement in the back seat, immediately tried to grab the gun from the briefcase.
"Stop!" Yuri snapped, slamming his hand down on Zigi's wrist. "We train first. That's not a toy, Zigi, it's a tool. We need to be able to use it without attracting every cop in the county."
It was then that Elijah's personal phone vibrated with a text message notification from Chang. He opened the message and found a stream of high-resolution pictures: Chloe, in the park, mid-conversation with Mark, then them kissing, then her sliding into his car—followed by GPS coordinates and timestamps. Nothing incriminating, yet everything damning. The last image showed Chloe entering a motel room, Mark's hand hovering too low on her back. Elijah exhaled through his nose, tucking the phone away like he'd just received a weather update.
A slow, devious grin stretched across Elijah's face which Zigi caught on the rearview mirror—his cigarette dangling forgotten between his lips. "Man? What's with that creepy grin on your face?" Elijah shook his head, "Just some petty nuisance," he muttered, forwarding the photos to a burner email before deleting the message trail.