Carmelo didn't get to be the second biggest drug dealer in Miami by being afraid. He earned that spot by being smart, deadly and fearless. Second-guessing wasn't part of his character. Neither was hesitation. He earned it by knowing he was the best.
Then Michael Westen walked into his club. It was the first time Carmelo ever hesitated. When Westen walked out, it should have been simple: Carmelo should have ordered someone to put a bullet in Westen's head and plant him in the nearest dumpster.
Only, he didn't. He told himself at the time it was because Westen's plan helped put a competitor out of business. But that wasn't it, not exactly. And it wasn't that he didn't think he could manage to kill Westen. No, it was the nagging doubt that he wouldn't be able to kill him fast enough or catch him off guard enough to win in the end.
Westen had stood in a club that he'd loaded with explosives, smiling into the guns of Carmelo's bodyguards, and calmly drank champagne while he ordered Carmelo to help him. Carmelo could still hear his voice: "If you don't do what I want, I will rain hell down upon you 'til one of us is dead, and I am really, breally/b good at raining down hell."
Carmelo had no doubt about that. He lived in a world full of sharks and murderers and psychopaths that would kill you as soon as look at you, but Westen was a whole different breed. Despite all the pain and destruction that they could do, Carmelo was sure it was nothing compared to what Westen could "rain down" if he wanted to. No. Carmelo understood that he and his ilk were merely pretenders to a throne that Michael Westen ruled from.
And if there was one thing that Carmelo knew it was that you didn't mess with the king.