The old warehouse as it was popularly known as was located in the heart of Los Angeles. It had been abandoned by the owner for four years due to a lack of funds. At first, the owner had refused to sell the warehouse to him. But when Jose had begun to list the dirty things the man had done, he had agreed to his proposal immediately. No living, breathing thing was ever found anywhere near the abandoned land since they had no business there. It was the perfect place for Jose Fernandez to use as his drugging business headquarters and that was exactly what he still did with the place after about thirty years of acquiring it. He still made sure the warehouse looked battered and abandoned. The years gone by like a flash had aided in the disguise he chose for the place.
Three feet under the warehouse, underground rooms rested peacefully there without the knowledge of any outsiders except the elites of the Vermin Cartel. In each room, different kinds of hard drugs were being produced daily. There were several men who worked round the clock ensuring that there was enough production of drugs to go round no matter how huge the orders they got were. And they do get large orders since the Vermin Cartel was the second largest drug-dealing cartel in Los Angeles after the Sanchez Cartel. The Vermin Cartel was birthed out of hunger and sheer desperation to overcome the cruel fate life had thrown at the founder. And it kept growing over the years. It grew so much that no other gang had ever been able to come close to being its rival.
Founded under the drug lord, Jose Fernandez, a man who originated from the Mexico City of Sinhala. He sat on a gold plate sofa chair, a long forgotten cigarette in his hand. He fingered the deep mark that decorated his left cheek and winced. His thought centered on his past for a reason he couldn't fathom. He had been abandoned by his parents at the age of eight years old, and he had fended for himself for two years. Through the two years of being alone, Jose had learned to adapt to any situation at a quick reflex than most of the adults could even do. He stole food and money just to survive. He slept among the beggars and the homeless people at night. He became a loner even at such a young age when most of his mates were always running around with no care in the world.
Sometimes he slaved himself away for cash just to be able to feed himself. Sometimes, he would go to bed hungry. The hunger would wake him up in the middle of the night and he would never be able to get back to sleep. He remembered those days he had eaten people's leftover meal once they stood up. Sometimes, he would pour the remaining food into a rejected bag so he could have something to eat later. If he was really famished, he picked food from the waste bins and ate them. Anything to keep his body and soul in one piece. He remembered a time he had even stolen a biscuit from a dog, because he felt like he would die if he didn't put anything into his stomach soon.
He had quickly learned from the selfish acts of the adults he lived with that if he wanted to survive on the streets of Mexico, he had to be ruthless in his dealings with others. Even though he was homeless like they were, and he was a little kid for that matter, they still dared to steal from him every night when he slept. He hadn't noticed at first because had trusted them. But, at point, he had begun to notice the disappearance of his precious money little by little. He had kept his eyes open for two consecutive nights, he had noticed that two of the beggars were the ones robbing him. When he had accused them the next morning, they hadn't bothered to deny it. It made him so much angry, he had to clubbed one of them with his fist.
He never went back to their midst anymore, regardless of howlonely he was. He stayed under the open sky for weeks, come rain or sunshine. Sometimes, Jose would go for a day or two without any meal in his stomach. He would go around asking if anyone needed his service around, and didn't get customers most of the time. He had no friends or family to call his own. It was while he was still plummeting the street of Mexico that Alvarez Tata had found him and took him home. By that time, ten years old Jose was looking for a miracle, he was ready to give Lucifer himself a chance.
It was when Tata took him home with the promise he would never lack anything that Jose found out that he had just been recruited by the biggest drug lord of Mexico himself. He was a man who summoned fear in the heart of everyone whenever his name was mentioned. Young as Jose had been, he knew about the man and how the Mexican police force had been trying to nap him to no avail. The government was tired of Alvarez Tata's existence, but there was little to nothing that they could do about him. He had just been introduced to the rest of the man's workers full of men and young boys like him and demanded he was thought the rope of the business. And that was how Jose began his journey as a lackey under the man. The man Tata had put him in care of had begun to teach him immediately, wasting no time at all.
Jose could still remember the first time he had been sent out to deliver a package to a customer. He had spotted the man through his red handkerchief in his hands as he had promised. Jose had walked up to the man and told the man with a loud voice that his cocaine had arrived. The man had looked around to see if anyone heard what he had just said. Jose thinking that perhaps he got the wrong man had shouted again that he had the cocaine and he was here to deliver the package. The man had left immediately without the swap. After Jose waited but didn't see anyone, he returned home. Tata had slapped him hard across the face for such stupidity. After that, his direct boss had told him his mistakes. After that day, Jose never made a mistake anymore.
All the deliveries he had after that, he delivered perfectly. Even when the others failed at delivering the package, Jose would return victorious. After Tata had slapped him that day in disappointment, he had been determined to earn the older man's trust. No matter how hard the delivery was, Jose got it done in the blink of an eye. It wasn't long before Tata specifically began to tell his direct boss who was also the mafia's right hand man to send Jose for difficult deliveries even though Jose didn't know about it. Until Tata had called him over one day and let him know he has been chosen as the head of production management. At the time, he was only fourteen years old. From doing another excellent job. He had gotten promoted to being a left-hand man to the drug lord. That was at the age of sixteen years old.
The journey hadn't been easy. He remembered all the nights he would sleep at his own little corner as a ten years old child and had to listen to the talks about him from the other children around in their deliberate not so hushed voices. The bold ones among them would walk over to him to assault him sometimes. Jose bore all until one night when he couldn't control himself anymore. He had gotten one of them and beaten him to a pulp while the rest of his friends were asleep. Another night, he broke the arm of another one. The next night, he gave one of them a cut mark. After those days, they steered clear of him.
What about the first time he had killed a man? He had been about fourteen years old then. Jose was seated on his own when this guy came over to him with a frown. The guy had accused Jose of stealing a thing of his and Jose had flared up, knowing that he hadn't stolen anything. Still, he calmed down and tried to tell the guy he was mistaken. Jose had even try to offer help in finding whatever the other man was looking for when the guy punched him in the face. Jose had retaliated without wasting a single breath. When the guy saw that he wasn't winning the fight, he had taken out a knife to try to stab Jose with it. Jose on the other hand tried to made sure the knife didn't hit him. It was in the middle of the struggle that Jose had accidentally stabbed the guy. To make sure no one found out about what he had done, Jose had dragged the man deep into the forest and buried him there. Nobody ever found out about it.
After that, he felt more confident about himself. Whenever Tata needed a man to assassinate someone, Jose would volunteer himself. And he always did the jobs perfectly. What about robberies? He was always the leader of such assemblies. He felt in power and dominion. He became ruthless in his dealings with people. If anyone offended him or tried to obstruct him, Jose made sure the person breathe their last in less than twenty-four hours. Tata would always clasp his hand on his shoulder and told him that he was doing a great job. That became a motivation for him. He wanted to be a wealthy and influential man like his boss. If possible, he wanted to be a powerful man like his boss.
The first time he had sex, it was with a young lady who was the same age as him. They were both eighteen at the time and Jose had asked her out. She had poured water on him and insulted him out of their house. Jose had felt so angry that by night, he had kidnapped her away from home and had taken her to the forest. There, he pumped three doses of ecstasy into her system. She had relaxed instantly with no thought about protesting against whatever he did to her. Even when he had forced his way through her virginity, she couldn't scream in pain because of the drugs in her system. For three days straight, Jose had mercilessly used her body for sexuality experiments, turning her body every which way he wanted. After he was satisfied with himself, he had returned her to her room with her parents. He got to know later that she couldn't move or talk anymore because of the effect of the drug he had injected into her. Her family had to move away six months later because of the shame.
There was another time Jose was supposed to deliver a truck full of hard drugs. Then, a man had driven the drugs to the owner without seeking permission from Jose. Worse, when the man had returned from the delivery, Tata had seemed like he was very impressed with the young man. Afraid for his future and what would happen to him if the mafia lord lost interest in him and focused on the other man. Without wasting any more time, Jose had taken the man with him the next time he went for delivery and shot him dead. When he returned back home and the man was asked, he told them he had been killed in the police shoot out. Which he had barely managed to get away from.
The one which had always stayed in his heart was when he had killed the right-hand man of the drug lord so that the position could belong to him without stress. After searching for the man and not knowing what became of him, Tata had refused to believe that the man had disappeared on him. Two days later, one of them found the right hand man where Jose had made it look like he fell and broke his neck. Tata finally accepted the loss. But Jose had messed things up for himself when Tata had told him to deliver a job to one of their biggest buyers. He hadn't been at alert and the police had seized the two trucks full of drugs from him. While Jose had barely been able to get away from the police, the other man who drove the second truck hadn't. The only luck they had was that the drugs were never able to be traced back to them.
It was at this time a man named Dagger had appeared. A friend had brought him into their inner circle because he was in search of a job to fend for himself. Still disappointed in him, Tata had chosen Dagger to deliver the goods the second time and the man did a clean job of it. In all the excitements and all, Tata had appointed Dagger as second in command. Jose knew that all his efforts to be the second in command had gone down the drain. And he couldn't kill the new man yet, Tata might begin to suspect him. So, he kept his cool and waited for an opportunity to present itself. But the competition between Dagger and him became fierce. It seemed that whatever Jose did, Dagger always wanted to do it better than he did. Even though none of them spoke about it, they both knew that they were on a competitive edge with one another.
Then, a new mafia rose. It was all of a sudden to the mafia world. He hadn't existed before and the new mafia wasn't buying supplies from any of them. As a matter of fact, no one knew who he was or even his real name. He only went by an alliance of Short, and nothing else. He didn't stay around, neither was his production factory anywhere in Mexico City. Tata had even done the research and yet, he couldn't find the man's smuggling details. Worse was, this man seemed to be specifically after Tata since he went mostly after Tata's customers and the fools had stopped patronizing them.
The mafia world of Mexico City came together to fight their common enemy. They knew that they all would be ruined also if Tata was ruined. He was after all the backbone that gave them support. The downfall of Tata meant the downfall of Mexico's mafias. But it was hard to find a way out of their new predicaments since no one knew who the man was.