DOPE (The Cartel) Episode 4 Written by Erasmus Ugochukwu Okafor
**The new leader**
Stone was already having a meeting with other survived stakeholders of the cartel at the event hall located in the basement of the white mansion and making arrangements on how to take over as the new CEO of Mortos Rio but his hopes and dreams were cut short by Hugo’s entry into the large hall, still having the blood of his father all over his body because he had to put on the same cloth he wore during the shootout.
The entire stakeholders, who were loyalists to Ramon Fuentes, were so happy to welcome him back from the land of the dead because they thought he was alive.
Stone was so speechless but he had to pretend that he was happy to see Hugo alive but inwardly, he was raging and wished that Hugo was killed like his father. Suddenly, he rushed towards him and embraced him, “welcome son. I guess you came at the right time but I wonder where you’ve been because five days have passed and we all assumed you didn’t make it out alive, just as many other cartel members,”
“It wasn’t an easy adventure but I’m glad that I made it through the deadly escapade,” he uttered in an angry tone.
The entire people stood in ovation and happily welcomed him home to take up the mantle of leadership.
“As I was saying before Hugo Fuentes entered,” Stone continued in a bid to take over the leadership of Mortos Rio before his intentions could be jeopardized and greeted with apathy. He was already having a popular vote since the entire stakeholders thought that Hugo was dead, “since Hugo is only fifteen years and may not be able to understand how the business works, I’ll still stand by my words; I wish to take over the leadership of the cartel, probably hand it over to Hugo when he’s of age and mature enough to pilot the affairs of the cartel as the pivot because it’s a well-known wise saying that no matter how tall or short the human neck, a head must sit on it. This means that we can’t allow the cartel to be without a head, no matter how bad the situation might have turned to be,”
There was grave silence amongst the people due to indecision.
Hugo was in total support of Stone’s decision due to his gullibility, especially thinking that Stone may be a good man as he thought even though he had his doubts.
After a while, Gustavo raised his hand to be recognised.
“Go ahead and air your view,” Eduardo Pedro, the oldest among the stakeholders urged.
“The boss made it known to me that his son would be the one to take over the leadership of the company when he’s gone. It was for this purpose that he took Hugo to the plantation, even to the extent of having his son’s signature appended as one of the recognised signatories in the signing of the new contract that made the new plantation site an asset of Mortos Rio,”
This revelation gave others the confidence to stick with making Hugo the new leader of the group.
Stone was so infuriated and miffed for this but he disguised his aggression and made it vanish like a mirage. He blotted out his anger behind that impish grin that got some people thinking that he was being sincere with his appearance but it was only Gustavo that knew that something was fishy, though he was yet to know the true intentions of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“I need to show Hugo the mole that tipped off the American D.E.A and engineered the ambush that got his father killed,” Stone said to the people’s surprise and parted his lips in anger.
Hugo was so pissed to hear that a member of the Mortos Rio cartel clued the US forces that made bringing down the plantation an easy task. He bemoaned not being able to notice the spy on time which could have prevented the action.
Quickly, he followed Stone and some other men who followed to witness how the detractor would be murdered.
When they got into the interrogating room where the mole was kept, Stone showed Hugo what was remained of the culprit because he was already tortured to the extent that his tongue was already cut off so that he wouldn’t be able to say anything.
Gustavo was smart enough to notice that Stone had a skeleton in his cupboard but he kept studying him to be sure that he was exactly the devil he felt he was.
Stone brought out a knife and handed it over to Hugo. “Now, can the new boss demonstrate how competent he is to take over the leadership of the cartel?”
“What am I expected to do?” Hugo hurriedly asked with vague feelings of sadness.
“Kill the man,” Stone charged angrily. “Show us how ruthless you’re like your father who has killed numerous numbers of rivals just to stay in business,”
Hugo didn’t believe what Stone said because he never believed that his dad was a murderer which got him numb as he reminisced on his last moment with his dad, especially when Ramon told him that he only killed one person out of self-defence.
It wasn’t just easy for Hugo seeing himself having the same hardened and mean personality of his dad, so he quickly dropped the knife and ran out into the event hall, hunched over one of the seats and wept bitterly feeling that he wasn’t ready yet.
Stone quickly finished the business by killing the prisoner in the instant and came back to the event hall to prove a point.
“Can I have your attention, please,” he solicited while other listened, “From what just happened, it’s obvious that Hugo isn’t ready yet just as I warned. How do we have a leader who can’t face his enemies and squarely end their miserable lives in a wink of an eye? Hugo is weak and jejune. He can’t just do this?”
Stone actually thought that his convictions could be convincing based on the practical demonstration, but most of the stakeholders still supported that the position of the CEO be transferred from Ramon to his son, even though he was still fifteen years old.
Gustavo Paulo was happy that he garnered much support from the loyalists to the late boss so that Stone, who he suspected with questionable and dubious character, wouldn’t take over as the new drug baron to engineer the affairs of Mortos Rio cartel.
The entire ardent and well-committed members known as the ‘twenty-four elders’ supported Hugo’s rulership and were there to guide and teach him more about the business.
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For Hugo, it wasn’t easy combining his education with his position as he gradually began to learn the drug business but his dad’s voice was always lingering with echo in his mind whenever he thinks of giving up, which served as a driving force that pushed him up the ladder of learning about the business.
Gustavo deactivated the tracker on Hugo and guided him more through the processes involved in knowing more about the business.
It was almost impossible getting acquainted with the ruthless life of a drug dealer but the new boss forced himself to learn the new unsmiling nature of his dad to fit u perfectly into his shoes but it was obvious that he couldn’t be as bad as Ramon who wasn’t just sleazy but a bigot who took killing as a hobby.
Stone quietly started plotting on how to pull Hugo down and take over the leadership; he started grooming street guys who were the ne’er-do-wells in Brazil.
He offered some hope to the guys to make them convinced that he wanted to better their lives and usher them into the newness of life as drug dealers.
In the woods, he pitched some tents for the recruits and built a cabin for himself where they meet regularly. He succeeded ousting the leader of the ‘brotherhood of the deadly skull’ and took over the position as the new leader by spending lots of money which changed the lives of the members for good, thereby earning their unalloyed support and loyalty. He waited for an opportune time to strike as he groomed his army from ordinary men to forged weapons.
Hugo always remembers the smiling face of Stone when his father was shot which kept making him suspect his dad’s personal assistant as someone who betrayed him.
With the help of Gustavo who happens to be his best friend, Hugo discovered that the person behind the ambush by the D.E.A was Stone which he achieved through Fernando as his informant but after having a successful operation, Stone cut off his tongue so that he wouldn’t implicate him during interrogation, making Fernando carry the can and died for Stone’s sins. The rule of a deadly game is that the bait always dies.
The most heartbreaking discovery to Hugo was that the secret CCTV that Gustavo recovered from the raided plantation showed that Ramon died by Stone’s bullets not even from that of the DEA agents that tried to capture him alive for questioning. Hugo breathed threats against his greatest enemy that he just added to his black list but Gustavo tried hard to make him be a man and not act so fast with a heart overladen with vengeance because Stone is so shrewd and smart that he may not easily be outwitted. It was obvious to Hugo that he who fights and runs today leaves to fight the next day.
Being that Stone was very cagey, cushty, skanky and cunning, Hugo became more embroidered with astuteness as he handled the affairs of the drug business to avoid raising some dust of suspicion and buy some time to get to a vantage point before the enemy strikes.
Leaving the Cartel made it obvious to everyone that Stone wasn’t the good guy they thought he was but filled with greed and malice as quest for power overtook him completely.
Gustavo ensured that the chip on Hugo remains totally destroyed so that Stone would have no access to him or monitor him as they used to do. He even had to undergo series of trainings in attaining that wizardry in the computer and technical world to ensure that when the new business is back and booming, security and technical advancement of the business would be stronger. The computer guru became not just the best friend to the new boss but someone who guides and directs him as he climbs the ladder of being the strong leader to pilot the affairs of the cartel.
Hugo was always so heartbroken whenever he remembers how good his dad was to him amid his purported ruthlessness as a killing machine. He wasn’t even so sure that his dad was as deadly as he was made to believe because of the love and care that he showered on him as a father even when he had no mom to cuddle him in the time of need for parental care.
Even though Hugo was later assured that his dad was a man who took pleasure in killing his enemies, he wasn’t ready to step into the same shoes or toe the line of his dad because he believed that he needed not just the guns but wits and cleverness in order to succeed. He couldn’t even imagine that he was already the leader of the same business he vowed not to be part of. His assumption of the duty of the leader of the cartel wasn’t engineered by self-interest but as an honour to his dad so that his death wouldn’t be in vain. He knew that wherever his dad would be in afterlife, he would definitely want him to avenge his death. Nemesis is a bitch.
To be continued…
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