Surprise Motherfuckers

Anna: “You need to come to Mexico with me”

Brandon: “I need to do what?”

I looked at Anna, a confused look on my face. Anna always had to go to Mexico to see the boss, but I never had to go. Even though I was slowly making my way through the ranks of the cartel, I always just got phone calls, or a visit from someone. I guess they figured someone with my popularity would be spotted easily if I went to Mexico or something.

Anna: “I don’t know why, but Nacho says you have to come with me. So just come”

Nacho was Joaquin Guzman’s son, and the second in command of the Sinaloa cartel. Since Guzman escaped jail years ago, he was in hiding. I had never seen him, Anna had never seen him. The only people who were allowed to see the leader were his family and ones close enough to trust. We were just petty workers when it came to the cartel. We were well trusted by Nacho, but that didn’t mean shit when it came to meeting Guzman.  So even though Guzman was still the leader, and still the one calling the shots, everything was relayed through Nacho.

Brandon: “Did he say what for?”

Anna: “No, he just said that we were needed for something important. He said that both of us had to be in Tijuana and that we had to come as soon as possible”

Brandon: “That’s weird. I’ve never had to go with you before, why do I suddenly have to go now?”

Anna: “Look Brandon, if I knew, I’d tell you. But I seriously have no idea why. He just said make sure Brandon is with you”

Brandon: “Fuck…alright just let me call Karly and make something up again. She’s going to be pissed”

Anna: “I don’t get why you don’t just tell her what you’re doing. Karly would understand, wouldn’t she?”

Brandon: “I wouldn’t count on it. Karly’s been getting really upset with me lately. Saying I’m not spending enough time with her or James, that I’m working too much, all of that kind of shit. She’s happy that I’m bringing in so much money after what happened when you vanished last year…but still”

Anna: “Well I don’t know then. Tell her that you have to go to Mexico to scout some potential IWF wrestlers”

Brandon: “That’s not a bad idea actually”

I grabbed my phone and started to call Karly as I sat down at the office hidden in the back of a local Los Angeles Taco Bell. This is where Anna and I operated the main Los Angeles branch of the Sinaloa Cartel. Anna and I were the co-managers of the store, and most of the employees were on the cartel’s payroll. We ran a regular Taco Bell business obviously, but behind the scenes we did everything. Smuggle drugs, weapons, people, sell them off, name something illegal and we were doing it. It wasn’t a particularly enjoyable job, but the money was unreal, and I was trying to help Anna as well as look out for my own family. This just seemed like the best option at the time.

Karly: “Hey babe, what’s up?”

Brandon: “Hey Karlyboo, I have some bad news”

Karly: “Don’t tell me. You’re going to be gone for a few days”

Brandon: “You know me too well. Jessica called me and told me that I had to drive down to Mexico tonight and scout some potential signee’s for IWF. I tried to tell her that I couldn’t, but she really pushed it”

Karly: “Honestly Brandon, I wish you would just quit working for them. They always make you do so much shit, don’t they have anyone else that can do it?!”

In reality, IWF never asked me to do anything really. It was all cartel business. But I couldn’t tell Karly that. Not yet at least.

Brandon: “You know I’m under contract. Plus, it’s the one job that I’m really good at, and it pays better than anything else would. Jessica said that this is just busy season, soon she won’t ask me to do pretty much anything.”

Karly: “Ugh…fine…you’re lucky I love you so much. Just please come home tomorrow ok? James misses you, and so do I”

Brandon: “I will. I love you babe”

Karly: “Love you too hun”

I hung up the phone and put it back in my pocket. I looked up at Anna, who was already at the door, waiting for me to follow her. I grabbed my wallet and keys and shoved them in my pockets, before following Anna out the door and through the Taco Bell kitchen. Anna talked to the assistant manager for a moment, who nodded his head at her before turning back to the rest of the workers to talk to them. Anna and I walked outside and into her car. I sat down in the passenger’s seat and pulled my sunglasses down over my eyes, as Anna started up the car and began the two hour or so drive to Tijuana.

This was all going so fast. The drug dealing, the involvement with this cartel. All of it was just crazy. When I was somewhat forced into joining some five months ago, I never expected that it would lead me to here. So much had happened in those five months. My life had been completely flipped upside down.

The first month was easy. Anna was my boss, so she basically just told me what to do. I was used a lot as security. The cartel trusted her and her alone with overseeing the big deals. She was tougher than pretty much any woman I knew, but she was still just a small woman. Without any security, it was a hell of a lot more likely that somebody would try to take advantage of her. So a few guys and myself would go with her. We all wore masks; we just stood by as Anna worked out the deal. It would have been really weird if we ever got busted, five guys standing around in masks while a little woman was collecting a ridiculous amount of cash in exchange for a truck full of heroin. But we had enough cops on our payroll, and enough security looking into safe places to exchange that we never got caught.

So I did that for a month. Nothing more than security and occasionally assisting Anna with shipment papers and laundering stuff. Eventually about halfway through my second month working for them, I got a call from Nacho. He told me who he was, and told me that they were very happy with my work. They told me that they had a very important job. They knew I used to be a world famous wrestler, how could they not right? So they told me that I had to convince the IWF to let me back in as some kind of management person. Someone who had all kinds of backstage access, but wasn’t going to be a huge on-camera guy. They needed me to keep some form of secrecy. They said that they would have more instructions for me if and only if I was able to secure the job. But with these guys, there was no if. There was either, get the job, or face the most severe consequences. So pretty much, I was forced to go get a job with IWF.

I went to see Jessica, who was GM of Battlegrounds at the time. I was going to talk to Corey, the owner, but I realized that Corey was a dick sometimes and would probably just say no for some stupid reason that he would make up on the spot. Corey and I were never really great friends, although we were never really enemies either. There was a time where we were close, and a time where we were really far apart. But most of the time, we just acknowledged each other’s existence and that was really it. We could talk about stuff if we had to, but I wasn’t inviting him over to my house for ribs any time. So I figured Jessica was my best bet because she was always so nice and basically didn’t know how to say no.

So I went to see her and asked for a job. Of course she was hesitant, what was the point of hiring me? But after I bullshitted her, talking about how I used to be GM and I was well-respected around the locker room, something she might not have been because she was never a wrestler, she agreed to bring me on as her assistant.

So I called Nacho and told him that I got the job. He was very pleased, told me that I was moving way up in the cartel ranks. He said I would be in charge of big distributions across America and the world, since I would be travelling with IWF. I was able to forge paperwork for trucks of drugs to be driven to the arena along with all the other trucks of equipment. It was there that I would meet one of the distributors in whatever city we were in, who would exchange the truck of drugs for one full of money, unknown to anyone except me. It was the perfect cover. Trucks came and went from IWF arenas all the time, dropping things off and picking things up. As long as I was around to make it look like it was something IWF related, nobody ever suspected a thing. Not to mention the cartel gave me enough drugs to constantly supply pretty much every single wrestler and backstage staffer in the entire IWF.

So, essentially, I was the IWF drug lord. You wanted something, you came to me. I learned my system from the best, and nothing was ever traced back to me. The cartel loved me. Nacho called me weekly to inform me of how highly the boss thought of me, or how I was getting a pay raise, or how they needed me to do more for them. However, I still never spoke to the boss. I still never went to Mexico to meet with Nacho or anyone. That was always Anna. She was still my boss, because she was essentially the person in command for all of Los Angeles and the west coast area. So everything I did at some point went through her.

Anna had changed a lot since she started this job. I mean, she had obviously changed so much from when I first married her. At that time, I was really the only person she had ever dated, and she didn’t have a ton of friends. She was shy, quiet, sort of stood in the background of me and didn’t really want to be a part of anything. I pushed her into helping me wrestle a bit, but that was it. Of course, I was also cheating on her at that time with that stupid fucking bitch whore Ashley, which I regret two hundred percent and Anna knows it. But I sort of pushed Anna to get out of her comfort zone a bit, and she did, but it was reluctant.

After she was kidnapped and held in Iraq for those months, after I was brainwashed and beat her, after she saved my life twice and got us home from overseas, she was never the same again. I thought she would have been more reluctant to try new things than she even was before. But instead, I think she realized that you never know when your life could end, and she decided to really start taking some risks. She started commentating for the IWF with Chuck Matthews. She also started riding Chuck’s pogo stick around the same time, but I still hated thinking about that. So after our nasty divorce, and our brutal rivalry, we sort of got over it. I helped her get through whatever the fuck was going on with Chuck at that time, when he pretended to lose his memory. Anna started dating Aaron Rogers, the pro football player, and that was nice. But he was a Packers player, and Anna was a Bears fan, so it was doomed from the start.

It was after that where Anna’s life really took a TV-drama-series-dark turn. She started dating Gianni Giordano, of the Giordano crime family fame. He was the son of mob boss Giancarlo, and he did a lot of the grunt work. But Anna seemed to love him, so I was fine with it. It was at this time that Anna also started wrestling in the IWF. And fuck was she good. She was by far the best female wrestler that the IWF had ever and has ever seen. No disrespect to Molly Reid, or Tiffani Michaels, or Blyss Lockhart, but none of them could compare to Anna in that ring. I don’t know where it came from. I mean I taught her some stuff here and there, but I never really full on trained her to become a wrestler. But she learned somehow, and she was amazing. If she didn’t have to fucking run away and fake her own death, she would have become IWF champion. But alas, shit happens.

So Anna got in some kind of beef with the Hart crime family. And they just wiped the Giordano family off of the fucking map. Just Anna and Gianni were left. They actually fucking shot me at my own god damn wedding. That was the second time in two attempts that my wedding was ruined. I think I’m cursed. First it was Nick Ridicule and Corey Casey on fucking horses, and then it was a mob war. But I digress. So after my wedding, Anna flew and fought at From the Ashes, and lost, before vanishing. She never called me, never really said goodbye to me other than what she said at the wedding. I understood why. She had to go into hiding. Her life was over if she didn’t.

And then she died.

Except she didn’t really die. But everyone, myself included, thought she did. However they faked those bodies, all the DNA testing that was done, it was amazing. Because there was not a single bit of evidence that suggested those bodies were not Anna and Gianni. So I was devastated. My best friend, my first love, one of the most important people in my life was suddenly gone. It really crippled me emotionally. I can’t remember how many times I cried myself to sleep, but it was a lot.

Eventually, I got over it. Well that seems harsh. I was never really over her death. But I just learned to deal with it better. I was back to my normal life, and I even had a future IWF Hall of Fame match set up. And that’s when everything changed.

I heard her voice. Just sitting at a stupid Taco Bell, and I heard Anna talking. I was skeptical at first obviously, but when I looked over and saw that girl talking to one of her employees, I knew. I had known Anna for so long, that it would have been more crazy if I didn’t recognize her. And that was obviously how everything started.

Even right away, I noticed that Anna was different. She was colder, didn’t seem to care about anything aside from a few people and things in her life. She was much more impulsive and willing to try new things as well. But she was also empty inside, I could see that much.

Her husband, who she loved more than anything, had basically left her. She told me that after his dad died, after the Hart family had taken everything from them, that Gianni changed. He was distant with Anna. While they were in hiding, he would vanish for days, not telling Anna where he was going or when he’d be back. When they finally got into the cartel, Gianni was the first to volunteer to do solo work for them, leaving Anna to move back to America on her own. She hadn’t even talked to him in months. She said she still loved him, but I could tell how much it pained her to say that. She was telling herself that she loved him, trying to trick herself into really feeling that way.

So yeah. That’s what Anna had been feeling lately. That’s what I had been doing lately. And now, I was on my way to Mexico for some reason. Who knows why. But it must be a pretty huge deal for me to have to go. Maybe a major shipment or something. Maybe they wanted to talk about the thin ice I was skating on with IWF. I was getting close to the edge. We all were. It felt like just a matter of time before somebody came in and took over for all of us over at IWF management. While I wouldn’t mind fresh faces, I need that job to keep up with my cartel duties. Without it, I would really be in trouble. Hopefully that wasn’t what we were going to Mexico for.

Anna: “Do you think this was a bad idea?”

I snapped out of my thoughtful trance and looked at Anna. We were just in line for the border crossing and she was looking over at me. She had a sort of sad look on her face. It was a far cry from her usual emotionless look. I still didn’t know what she was talking about though.

Brandon: “Do I think what was a bad idea?”

Anna: “This. Drug dealing. Working with these guys. Brandon you know that if we ever got caught, we’re in jail, for life”

Brandon: “Better than being dead, which is where you would’ve been if not for them right?”

Anna: “I guess. Sometimes I just wonder if we should just run away. Just leave. Fly away to some island in the middle of nowhere, start a life there. You could bring Karly and your son, I’ll meet someone somewhere, or live alone”

Brandon: “You have Gianni, you could bring him”

Anna: “Yeah…I have Gianni. Haven’t talked to him in fucking months, haven’t heard anything from him. He’s probably dead”

Brandon: “Come on, don’t fucking say that. He’s your husband”

Anna: “Actually he’s not.  We never actually submitted any of our marriage papers, so we were technically never married. I tore them up a few weeks ago…”

Brandon: “Seriously?”

Anna: “I was just pissed off at him. I mean what the fuck kind of husband just leaves his wife and doesn’t talk to her for months? Clearly he doesn’t love me. Clearly he just doesn’t give a shit about me. Ever since his dad died, he’s been a completely different person”

Brandon: “Well I mean, his dad died, everyone changes when they go through a loss”

Anna: “Not like that…When Jenny died, I was upset, but I didn’t let it affect my feelings for Chuck or anything. Fuck wow. I’m sorry.”

Anna put the timeline together in her head instantly after she said that. That was the summer that she was cheating on me with Chuck Matthews. I was cheating on her too so I deserved every bit of it. It didn’t bother me when she talked about it. I love Anna and I always have, always will. I just want her to be happy, and she was happy with Chuck. For a time at least.

Brandon: “Honestly Anna, its fine. You know I don’t care about that, it’s so long in the past. We both made mistakes. Shit happens, we’re still friends, isn’t that all that matters?”

Anna: “Yeah, and you know I still love you right? Especially after all this. The fact that you’re going through this all with me just makes it that much easier for me”

Brandon: “Yeah, you know I still love you too.”

Anna: “I just wish we weren’t mixed up in all this”

Brandon: “Yeah but what can we do? We can’t just run away, they would find us. We’re stuck Anna. Until it gets shut down, or we find a real possible way to get out. But that’s as unlikely as anything”

Anna: “True. Fuck our lives right?”

Brandon: “We’ll still got each other. It’s not so bad”

We pulled up to the border patrol and handed over our passports, hoping that nothing would get red flagged. Thankfully, the delay was minimal, and the guard let us pass. Getting into Mexico was easy, it was the getting out that was always a pain.

We drove for a few more minutes, until we reached the terrible dump of a neighbourhood that Anna was no doubt told to go to. We got out of the car and walked into the dilapidated house. It smelled like shit, and looked even worse. We walked together through the house, and into the backyard. There, standing near one of the giant fences that surrounded the backyard, was Nacho and a few other men. A small shed was sitting right beside them as well.

Nacho: “Well, well, well, the great Brandon Macdonald. So good to finally meet you in person”

Nacho looked exactly how I expected him to, except maybe a few pounds lighter. Clearly Mexican, complete with a typical Mexican ‘stache and black hair. He was fairly well-built, but no bigger than your average man. Just looked like it because most Mexicans were skinny as all hell. The three men beside Nacho were pretty huge though. I felt like I could take them though if I had to.

Brandon: “You must be Nacho”

Nacho: “Indeed. We’ve spoken over the phone plenty of times”

Brandon: “So what compelled you to bring us down to Mexico to meet you in person? I’ve never been asked to come anywhere before”

Nacho looked at me and smiled. He walked towards me and extended his hand, motioning towards it with his head. Hesitantly, I took it and shook.

Nacho: “I just wanted to personally thank you for all the hard work you’ve been putting in for us. You and Mrs. Stone both. Just two wonderful additions to the cartel”

Brandon: “No offense Nacho, but cut the bullshit. There’s no way you got both of us to come all the way down here, just to thank us for the work we’ve been doing. What’s this about?”

Nacho: “Anna didn’t tell you?”

I looked at Anna. She looked genuinely confused. She clearly had no idea what she was supposed to have told me.

Anna: “You didn’t even tell me anything, you just said you needed me to do something for you, and that you needed to ask Brandon about his job or something”

Nacho: “And that’s all I brought you here for. I just wanted to talk to you both about life, you know? Jobs, and all that”

Brandon: “Look, I’m working on keeping this job, I can still run the sales through IWF, nothing’s gone wrong yet”

Nacho: “Yet. But we don’t like to deal in yet. We prefer to be guaranteed in our business. And if you get fired from IWF, that creates a massive problem in our business. You are aware of how important American sales are for us correct? And you know what a huge blow it would be if you were to lose your job, and cut that entire business out of it”

Brandon: “Look Nacho, I’m well aware. I’m doing my best ok? It’s not easy there. People are always going to argue my decisions and things that I do. But I can’t just do nothing, or people get suspicious. People look like they’re going to lose their jobs all the time in the wrestling business. But it’s rare that they actually do. Trust me when I say, I’m going to keep this job as long as I possibly can.”

Nacho: “Good. Because I can assure you that it would be very bad if you lost your job. Well, maybe not bad for you. But bad for your brother. Bad for Keagan Davis-Brown. Bad for Molly Reid. Bad for your wife and kids.”

I froze up. How dare he threaten my family and friends like that.

Brandon: “You leave them out of this”

Nacho smiled at me. He knew he had struck a chord, which was bad for me. You should never show a drug lord your weakness, but I couldn’t help it. Nobody fucks with my family or my friends.

Nacho: “You and I both know that I can’t do that Brandon. You work for us. We have insurance policies that we have to take out on our employees. Now of course, we don’t like to cash those policies. But in the event that you fail to do your job, we have to take them out. You know how the business works”

Brandon: “I will keep my job. I will continue to work for you guys for as long as I possibly can. I promise you that much.”

Nacho: “Good. That’s all I needed to hear. Now. Onto much more pressing issues.”

Nacho motioned to his men, who walked over and unlocked the shed. Nacho led Anna and I inside. As soon as I walked in, I could see Anna covering her mouth in what seemed like horror. I looked over and saw two men on their knees, with large black bags over their heads. This had escalated quickly.

Anna: “What the fuck is this?”

Nacho: “This is something that we need you to do for us Anna”

Anna: “What?”

Nacho: “Anna, let me be blunt. You’ve been great for us. Everything that we’ve needed from you, you’ve accomplished.”

Anna: “Thank you?”

Nacho: “I wasn’t finished. You’ve been great, but we need you to be more. We need to be able to trust every single one of our members with our lives. And a few of us wonder if we can trust you”

Anna: “I’ve done everything you guys have asked! You know you can trust me”

Nacho: “Do I? You’ve proven to be a great business woman for us, but how do we know you haven’t been feeding information to the feds all this time? We take your word for it? You’ve been so squeaky clean with your new identity; you could start your life over with their help.”

Anna: “Ask Brandon, he knows I would never!”

Brandon: “It’s true, she would never”

Nacho stared at me with a piercing glare.

Nacho: “I will expect you to speak when you’re asked a question Brandon.”

He turned back to Anna, who still looked on in horror and fear. He grinned at her before motioning to his guards. They ripped the black bags off the heads of the two men in front of us. I looked at them as they tried to look around and adjust to the light. They were still gagged, but I could tell that they were young. Younger than I would have ever expected.

Nacho: “These two were once young members of our cartel. They were highly recommended by one of the local gangs. However, recently, we have learned the truth about these two. Undercover agents working with the DEA. Apparently, since all their adult agents were getting killed, they would start sending young ones to attempt to infiltrate us. But it’s all the same to us. A rat is a rat. And they need to be exterminated.”

Nacho grabbed a gun from one of his bodyguards and handed it to Anna. She held it, her hands shaking, as she stared down at the two kids. I knew Anna. I knew she wasn’t going to be able to do this. Gianni had taught her how to kill, but these were kids. No matter what they had done, I knew Anna wouldn’t be able to bring herself to hurt these two.

Anna: “Why me? I can’t do this”

Nacho: “Are you telling me that you’re declining a job that we’re giving you? They betrayed the cartel. If you don’t kill them, they’ll go to the feds. You’ll go to jail”

Anna: “These are kids! I can’t kill them!”

Anna was crying, her hand visibly shaking with the gun in it. She wiped her eyes as Nacho looked at her angrily. He yelled at her.

Nacho: “Do it!”

Anna: “I can’t!”

Nacho: “Do it Anna, or else!”

This was ridiculous. Anna wasn’t like that. She couldn’t kill people at the drop of a hat like people like Nacho and myself could. He knew that. Why was he doing this? He was giving Anna an impossible task, setting her up to fail. What did she do wrong that forced Nacho to do this to her? I wasn’t going to let them not only give an excuse to kill Anna, but to fuck up her mental state. No, not today.

I grabbed the gun from Anna’s hand, aimed at the two teenager’s heads and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered everywhere, and the two bodies slumped down to the ground.

Anna: “Oh my god”

Anna covered her mouth in shock. Nacho looked down at the bodies at his feet, and then up at me. I was still holding the gun, and I stared him down. He shook his head at me. This escalated very quickly.

Brandon: “We’re leaving”

Nacho: “You shouldn’t have done that”

I backed out of the shed, holding Anna’s arm, dragging her with me. I never broke eye contact with Nacho, who just stared me down the entire time. Once we were outside of the shed, we hurried through the house and out to the car. We hopped in and I immediately sped off towards the border.

Anna: “What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck”

Brandon: “Calm down Anna, just breathe”

Anna: “Brandon you just killed those two kids! And you did it when I was supposed to. Now they’re going to come after us!”

Brandon: “No they aren’t. They’ll bitch at us, but in the end, the people who needed to die, died. They don’t really care who did it.”

Anna buried her head in her hands, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes. I reached over and put my arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

Anna: “Why did they do that?”

Fuck if I knew. I couldn’t figure it out. What had Anna done that had pissed them off so much that they were willing to give her an impossible task like that, one that they knew she wouldn’t be able to complete. It gave them an excuse to get rid of her. But she had been nothing but faithful to the cartel. It made no sense.

Brandon: "I'm trying to figure that out myself. Did you do anything recently that might have pissed them off?”

Anna: “No, nothing. I’ve just been doing exactly what they’ve told me to do. Nothing more, nothing less”

Brandon: “No idea then. Maybe they just decided that it was time for a change”

Anna: “Brandon, what are we going to do? They’re going to come after us. We can’t hide from them”

Brandon: “Anna, trust me. They aren’t going to come for us. They’re going to give us another big job, we’re going to do it, and that’ll be the end of that. This isn’t something that they’re going to kill us over”

I didn’t really believe what I was saying. This was something that these guys might be crazy enough to kill over. A drug cartel would kill anyone without any hesitation if they didn’t think they brought any value. And for whatever reason, these guys had decided that Anna wasn’t worth anything to them anymore. And I guess now they’d be coming after me. This was getting worse and worse the more I thought about it.

Brandon: “You know what, on second thought. You should come live with me.”

Anna: “Please? That would make me feel a lot safer”

Brandon: “Karly won’t mind. Just come stay with us, and say that your house is being fumigated or something stupid like that. Just don’t you dare mention anything about this stuff. I don’t want to worry her or anything like that.”

Anna: “I wouldn’t dream of mentioning it.”

That was good. If Karly found out about what I was doing, she’d leave me in a second. I couldn’t let her know about this until I figured out a way to explain it to her in a positive way. Although there really wasn’t any way to make my drug dealing positive.

Anna: “Brandon. Are we going to be ok?”

Anna looked at me, with a sad look in her eyes. I could tell she was scared. Fuck, I was scared too. This all happened in maybe twenty minutes, and we were in some trouble. I couldn’t honestly tell Anna that we’d be ok, because I didn’t know. But I couldn’t tell Anna that. I got her into this by taking the gun from her and shooting those kids. This was my fault. No, it was the cartel’s fault, but I didn’t help our cause. I had to fix this myself. I was going to fix this myself. I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt Anna, Karly, my kids, my friends, my family. No, that wasn’t going to happen. I was going to protect my family at all costs, no matter what it took. We were going to be ok.

Brandon: “Yeah. We’re going to be just fine”