<h4>Chapter 798: Chapter 798 : Responsibility</h4>


    *Three Months Later*


    *Elio*


    I’d like to say the three months of waiting for Ignacio to take the bait and trigger the trap went by quickly, but it didn’t. It drawled on and on like the boring lectures they’d made us sit through back in school.


    Mindless waiting was always the worst part for me. I could never sit still in school, always wanting to be out and doing something. I hated the stuffy indoors, the monotonous routine, and having to take tests based on how well we could memorize what our teachers droned on about.


    I usually studied the book an hour before the tests and then immediately aced them. It staggered my teachers but I just wasn’t built for learning the way they wanted me to learn.


    Patience was just not my strong suit.


    Luckily I had Cat to keep me from charging in and ruining the n I had set up in the first ce. Franky’s grateful look whenever she silenced my rants during a meeting ticked me off more than I’d like to admit.


    But Cat, unlike me, was full of patience, the kind of person who had endless amounts of faith in you. I was goddamn lucky to be engaged to her and hopefully after all this mess was over, married.


    So I grit my teeth and put up with three long months of practically nothing happening as the slippery bastard Ignacio kept changing locations, first heading out of the country and then faking another trip abroad before driving to the next state for a day trip, all leaving anding back at different times of the day.


    It seemed like Ignacio had no n or idea of what he was doing. Either that or he knew he was being followed and was just trying to drive us nuts. It was working, I had to admit as Leo and I had several explosive arguments in deciding what to do and what the next move was.


    Franky and Cat, meanwhile, had been the only calm-headed and rational figures who practically had to drag us away from one another by our ears like school children on a yground. It was getting old, even to me and Leo.


    All of us were exhausted and running out of steam on this mission, especially as we neared our fourth month of this.


    Finally, though, it had been Franky who had gotten us our breakthrough.


    “Are you sure that’ll work?” I asked for the dozenth time that day as I lounged in the backseat of the SUV we’d taken.


    Franky scowled at me from the passenger seat, all sorts of tech set up as he typed away on hisptop. Some kind of surveince feed was being pushed through and I didn’t even pretend to know what he was doing.


    “Yes, now shut up,” Franky snapped, dark bags under his eyes from all the work he’d been doing to track this asshole for the past few months.


    I sighed but fell quiet as I stared out the tinted windows with a frown. “I can’t believe the onlymon ce he goes to regrly is a fucking spa in the middle of nowhere.”


    But sure enough, we all perked up as we recognized the car with missing license tes as it drove up. Out stepped Ignacio, his head covered with a hat and eyes obscured with sunsses, but I knew it was him immediately. He was nked by only two guards, just as Franky predicted.


    “One hour a day every week for thest three years,” Franky smirked. “Gotcha, bitch.”


    “What a shame,” Leo sighed as Ignacio disappeared into the little hot spring spa just off the route heading from LA to San Jose. It was a little dingy shop, almost quite literally like Leo said in the middle of nowhere.


    I doubted it was even on the inte because it was so remote. It seemed more like a tourist trap for anyone stupid enough to take a wrong turn to LA but the workers inside, a kindly old woman who I was pretty sure was blind and her husband, who I was pretty sure was deaf were incredibly kind.


    We’d paid handsomely to get a time booked at the same time as their best customer and they had agreed all too willingly, asking no questions, probably because they were used to shady people like using around.


    Still, if this n worked and we got Ignacio, I would be sending them a very expensive gift basket and funding them for a whole year.


    “Alright, go now,” Franky ordered. “Take out the guards first and then grab Ignacio.”


    “Physical damage to the target allowed?” Leo asked with a vengeful smirk.


    “As long as you don’t kill him,” I said easily, getting out of the car.


    Leo and I entered together, a few of our men posting themselves at the door to make sure there were no escape routes. The kind olddy at the desk waved us on through as soon as she noticed us, humming to herself an old folk song as she tidied up the lobby.


    It was embarrassing how easy it all was.


    His guards were clearly untrained and undisciplined, one ying on his phone as he stood guard and the other leaning against the door and head nodding to the side as he continued to doze off and then jerk awake.


    My men were never that sloppy.


    Leo and I took them down without a struggle. I made sure to ce their unconscious bodies somewhere they would easily be found while Leo ducked inside. I didn’t bother going in. Leo was enough to take care of that asshole.


    Sure enough, I dutifully ignored the shouting and sounds of a fist hitting the skin and the wailing screams that followed. Leo came back out a minuteter, dragging an unconscious Ignacio by his legs. His face was covered in blood but I ignored that, checking for a pulse and then nodding to Leo.


    I whistled, sending the cue to the men posted outside, who rushed in. I pointed at Ignacio and then the back door we’d scoped out and they grabbed him, hauling him outside. I pursed my lips at the bit of mess left behind and red at Leo.


    He looked offended and then sighed, relenting as he cleaned up the blood trail left behind and fixed up the few things he’d knocked over in the struggle. I wasn’t going to leave this mess for that nice old couple to do.


    We were in and out in less than ten minutes, and I left a hefty sum of cash for the old couple on the desk before leaving. Franky was all too pleased with himself on the drive back to the warehouse, which was understandable.


    Finally, we’d got Ignacio in our clutches.


    Time to put an end to all of this.


    Ignacio gasped back to consciousness after Leo dly threw a bucket of ice water over his head. Only in a robe and underwear, he was tied to a chair by thick ropes and shivered as he nced up to see me, Leo, and Franky standing there.


    I leaned against the wall, arms crossed as I stared down at the shivering fifty-year-old man in front of me. It seemedughable now that he had caused us so much trouble, but he had.


    And now it was time to end it.


    Ignacio caught my eye and a slow grin spread across his face as he burst intoughter. “I knew you were plotting some kind of trap but this? Your n isn’t going to work, Elio. I’ve made sure of it!”


    “Hm?” I tilted my head uncaringly at him. “And what do you think my n is?”


    “To trade me to end the war, of course,” Ignacio smirked like he was the mastermind and I was just a simple pawn in his game. His arrogance truly knew no bounds it seemed. “My men have already been instructed! This war won’t end until your entire gang is killed!”


    “Really?” My lips twisted into a dark smirk, a low chuckleing from deep in my chest as I pushed my foot against the wall, walking straight up to Ignacio until I was standing over him. The light cast my long shadow across his form,pletely overtaking him as his confident grin slowly fell.


    “But see, that was never my n, Ignacio,” I said coolly. Any hint of humor dropped from my face as I grabbed the cor of his robe and pulled him closer to me, a snarl on my lips. “You went after my wife and child. There will be no trade.”


    Ignacio swallowed, his eyes darting all around as he finally noticed that dozens upon dozens of my men were surrounding the walls, each one with a menacing look and just waiting for their turn at revenge. They’d lost their fathers and brothers, their family to this bastard, and I wasn’t the only one holding a grudge.


    “You will never lead anyone again, Ignacio,” I said confidently, dropping him and turning my back on him. “I’ve got the Feds in my pocket, and they’ve had enough of this little war between us. They’ve graciously agreed that the one causing all this mess, namely you and your men, need to be taken care of.”


    Ignacio’s eyes blew wide open as he stammered, “You’re bluffing!”


    Franky, however, stepped forward with a sneer. “We’ve been tracking the movements of you and your men for months now. Every safehouse, every business, and drop off, all of it was delivered straight to the Feds this morning. By now, everything you’ve built is being raided and seized.”


    “Your time in LA is over.” I sent the finishing blow, watching as Ignacio crumpled, truly panicking now as I snapped my fingers and our men began toe closer, some cracking their knuckles and others gripping old pipes and crowbars they’d found. I’d told them no guns and they’d gone a little wild.


    “Wait, wait,” Ignacio stammered as I began to walk away from him, my mind already on other things. “Wait, we can make a deal! You can’t just kill me like this! WAIT!”


    “Make sure nobody finds him,” I said coldly to Franky, who gave a nod.


    I heard Ignacio’s wailing screams as I exited the warehouse, already putting him and MS13 behind me.


    I felt nothing, like an empty shell as I got into the car. It wasn’t until I picked up the phone and called Cat to let her know it was over and I heard her sigh of relief that I finally felt like I’d done the right thing, that all this violence was worth it.


    “I’ming home,” I said softly to Cat, hearing Emilia cooing on the other side.


    “We’ll be waiting.”


    And it was those words that kept me going, that allowed me to still smile and have joy even after all the blood I had on my hands, all the violence I’d taken in.


    Cat and Emilia were everything to me.


    It was high time I took responsibility to protect them properly.


    There would be more men like Ignacio trying to threaten them, to usurp my position, but I would handle them much better than I had Ignacio.


    I was the Don of the Valentino family in America.


    It was high time all the gangs knew that.