The neighborhood was originally divided into four sections, each with four buildings, be they single-family houses or two-story town houses. They were separated by three mini gardens full of emerald-green grass and flowers of all the colors of the rainbow; the neighbors took turns caring for them all. A comfortable place to come home to at the end of the day.

But that day was now long gone.

The first house in the fourth section was simply referred to as Building One. It sat in a row of four buildings with nothing to differentiate it because there simply wasn’t anything else for miles except three other shacks in the same condition. The emerald grass was gone and so were the colorful flowers the little kids picked for their moms. Cactus, scrub, desert weeds, and sand was all that remained.

Buildings Two, Three, and Four were identical and housed the members of the Scorpions. The word squalid was way too kind to describe the interiors of the buildings. There was no water, no electricity, and no plumbing of any kind because the shell company that had been created to hide the identity of the real owner had failed to pay the taxes on the properties, and all the utilities had been turned off. The buildings smelled of rot, decay, feces, urine, unwashed bodies, and cannabis, of which there was plenty. But the gang had jerry-rigged things so they had electricity for their computers and cell phones.

There was only one difference between the four buildings—Building One was the domain of the so-called supreme leader of the Scorpions. It was where he sat on his throne, made up of two milk crates held together with duct tape. A red rag covered the crates, and it was whispered among the gang that the rag was red because someone’s blood had saturated it, then dried. Of course, those who did the whispering had probably failed high school biology and had no idea that dried blood is actually brown, not red, but they never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Another makeshift stand held a brand-new Apple laptop—stolen, of course, from the backseat of a high roller’s Aston Martin at one of the casinos in town. Dirty, filthy mattresses, stolen from the Trump International Hotel, littered the floor. In this room, the supreme leader ruled his disciples with a dirty fist and a meat cleaver. His name was Alonzo Zuma Santiago. It was a name he had given himself when he was ten and living on the streets with no parents that he knew of. No member of the Scorpions dared question the title he’d bestowed upon himself.

There was jerry-rigged electricity; water pipes, also jerry-rigged; and outside, four porta potties. All stolen. The members took turns emptying them.

At the moment, Building One was filled to capacity, with runaway or homeless young thugs of all ages lining the ramshackle walls and filling the doorway. The stench was sickening to the point that several of the disciples had to go outside, where they choked and sputtered as they fought the bile threatening to erupt. The meeting continued without them. It was a given they would pay for their defection, but they were young and didn’t care. Later, they would learn the hard way that, whatever the circumstances, when the supreme leader said attend a meeting, you attended the meeting—no matter what.