Chapter 59: It's about sending a message
<What is going on?!>
<These shots—they are coming from somewhere behind us!>
Seeing two men fallen down like that, the remaining King Lion thugs first paused in shock, then cheered in relief.
Someone was helping them!
And soon, more shots followed. They were less precise than the first two, and there were still no shooters in sight, but they had to be far away from the sound of their guns.
Even without the first shooter\'s precision, these shots took down two more Cuatro Angulos people.
The rest were left to panic without a clear view of the threat or the surroundings.
They tried to run for cover or toward their getaway cars, but were only shot from all sides, anyway!
And among all the unseen attackers, there was one whose shots always struck true. Like one-two-three, that sniper quickly killed every Cuatro Angulos thug left.
The person with such incredible shooting skill was Tristan Hayes, who was lying on a roof of a garage with his Remington rifle.
As for his skill…
[Firearms shooting: 814]
He had put 200 points in it before this attack.
Tristan lied there for a minute longer, as the King Lion survivors gathered their bearings, and the rest of Tristan\'s team moved out of their cover behind garages.
Only after he was sure that no more Cuatro Angulos thugs were around, Tristan stood up and began climbing down from the roof.
There were five more people in his team, one of which was Pierce. However, unlike the other gangsters, all of which wore combat gear and had rifles, Pierce still wore his everyday suit and only wielded a handgun.
There was a bulletproof vest underneath the suit jacket, but Pierce still didn\'t hurry into the fray.
Now, though, he expertly organized clean-up of the aftermath. The bodies were gathered and put inside the empty "weapon" crates, and the wounded were given first aid.
When Tristan approached, Pierce gave him a narrow-eyed look. He still held a grudge.
"Good job, Hayes," he praised with sarcasm. "One dead person from our side to three and some pieces of one of Angulos\' men. Mr. Clavon surely will like those numbers."
"One to five. The traitor doesn\'t count, Mr. Pierce," Tristan said, nodding at the body that was carried away. "This was better-than-average expectation, anyway. And if we fought directly, we could\'ve easily had one-to-one proportion."
This was true.
Although Tristan\'s plan had a lot of merit, it required a bait. A sacrifice.
To not be noticed, Tristan and Pierce\'s team had to hide at some distance from the fake weapon stash, so their response time wasn\'t immediate.
And to not raise anyone\'s suspicions, the guard of the truck couldn\'t be higher than it\'d be normal.
Tristan actually suggested putting fewer men there, so any ambush won\'t kill as many.
\'At least, by attacking so swiftly after the truck came to the point, the Mexicans spared me the time,\' Tristan thought.
Pierce pursed his lips and turned away from Tristan.
He didn\'t care about dead people either, but the young man had to be cut down.
"Don\'t waste valuable time standing around. Help the others with the cleanup, Hayes. We still have a message to send."
***
Next morning, somewhere else.
Dagoberto Quixada stared inside the box, which was discovered before sunrise in one of the streets under his management, at the edge of Cuatro Angulos territory. Around him, several subordinates stood with expressions of shock and disgust, looking at the same thing.
His fists were clenching and unclenching in powerless anger.
The box was found by an old lady who came out early to visit the food market. Thankfully, she didn\'t open the suspicious box that smelled of blood, and didn\'t call the police. Being a woman who lived all her life alongside gangs, she went straight to Cuatro Angulos, and the box was quietly taken away.
If she opened the box, the old lady would\'ve probably had a heart attack.
Quixada clenched his fists, staring at the bloody severed heads inside. All of them were missing their eyes. Half of them had gunshot wounds that split their skulls like eggshells.
Precise shots that were familiar to him.
He was sure.
The sniper was the same person who had crossed Quixada before.
<I will kill you this time, cut you into pieces and feed the body to pigs,> Quixada swore quietly. <I didn\'t start this war against King Lion Gang, but I will finish it.>
***
Next morning.
Although it was still early, the Good Lion Bar was full of people.
By this point, the night operation against the Cuatro Angulos stopped being a secret, and the information about it spread among the gangsters.
And right now, almost thirty people—not the entire gang, but a big part of it—were packed in the bar\'s hall. Every table was taken, and many people had to stand next to the walls.
At the center of it all was the massive figure of Leon Clavon, who was giving a statement.
"For years, we shared the city with Cuatro Angulos. These hyenas were always people without law or principles, ready to attack anyone who wasn\'t their own. But when they thought they can attack MY people, and MY territory and leave alive, they were wrong. Pierce, show it!"
With a smile, Pierce reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a plastic bag with something round, white and red.
But after looking closer, the people in the audience realized…
That was an eye!
A blood-shot eye that was pulled out of a corpse.
"I took this from the head of the attackers\' apparent leader. The heads of them all were sent back to where they came from," Pierce said. "Even rabid dogs can understand a message like that."
Leon nodded.
"They paid for every our man they killed. We will hold a funeral for those soon. But before that, I want to praise a person without whom this operation wouldn\'t have gone so well. This is…"