Manuel Torres
Manuel “Manny” Torres was a Cuban and Dominican American security professional from the Bronx. He was in his mid-thirties when he joined Ezra Cruz’s reconstituted personal security detail with Jared Dawkins in August 2035 and worked under team leader Cisco Medina. Manny was the more experienced member of the new pair.
Background and Security Career
Manny was raised in the Bronx by a Cuban mother and a Dominican father and spoke English and Spanish. Spanish came to him readily when he was tired or speaking with family; he and Ana moved easily between the two languages. Before joining Ezra’s detail, he served in the military and spent approximately ten years in private security. He had protected three principal clients, two in music and one in film. One of the musician clients had a cocaine problem and once evaded Manny by leaving a restaurant through a bathroom window while the front and rear exits were covered. That escape remained a practical warning against assuming that secured doors meant a principal could not disappear.
Work with Ezra Cruz
Main article: Manuel Torres and Ezra Cruz
Manny and Jared joined the team in August 2035 after two prior detail members resigned following the Berlin crisis. Cisco introduced them to the operating rules around Ezra’s privacy, sleep, recovery, and tendency to test unfamiliar staff. Manny read Cisco’s security protocol three times before his first day on the detail.
Manny approached the assignment through established security procedure. During the apartment assessment on his first day, he connected the loft’s window configuration to Ezra’s use of the fire escape and contrasted the organized vinyl collection with the unorganized books. During the public outing, Manny worked parallel proximity, blocked a photographer’s sightline, monitored a fan encounter that grew from two people to approximately twenty in under three minutes, and secured Ezra’s shopping bags when Ezra ran toward a group of street musicians.
Their first introduction tested his composure. Manny offered a practiced handshake and began, “It’s an honor to be—,” but Ezra refused his hand and cut off the greeting in Spanish. Manny did not argue; Cisco noticed his jaw tighten. Ezra challenged Manny more sharply than he challenged Jared, and Manny had to learn that a polished manner would not, by itself, earn trust on this detail. Later, when Ezra asked for a nearby toy store, Manny knew one on Chambers Street. It was a small moment of practical acknowledgment between them.
Manny’s first shift also included a meal at a Dominican restaurant and overnight coverage at the loft. He heard Ezra return to playing trumpet, shared a late-night meal with him, and discussed with Cisco how to balance personal concern for Ezra with the requirements of the job. His continuing presence at events in 2036 established that he remained on the detail beyond the initial assignment.
At the restaurant, Ezra asked about Manny’s parents in Spanish and recommended pernil with tostones. Manny relaxed enough to enjoy the food, then watched Ezra pay for every occupied table. Walking out, he told Cisco, “Mi abuela would have loved him.” During overnight coverage, Manny found footage of himself collecting Ezra’s abandoned bags while strangers filmed the street performance. He listened as Ezra tried the trumpet again, heard the rough starts and the phrase that finally held, and did not record it or send it to anyone. The uncased instrument and Ezra’s return to playing told Manny that Ezra had not given up music. After Ezra made rice and chicken for them after midnight, they ate together with little conversation, in Spanish.
Personality and Communication
Manny was measured, prepared, and observant. He retained a military-era habit of arriving fifteen minutes early. He maintained professional composure when Ezra was dismissive and adapted his behavior as he learned the difference between general celebrity protection and Ezra’s specific needs.
Manny had close-cropped hair, broad shoulders, and a forward-weighted stance. He moved through crowds with efficient, shoulder-first purpose rather than aggression. His experience gave him a ready framework for exits, spacing, and risk, but he could revise it when Ezra’s behavior or needs did not fit the pattern.
Manny’s Spanish allowed him and Ezra to communicate directly. Depending on context, they used it during professional friction or ordinary conversation.
Family and Core Relationships
Cisco Medina
Cisco hired Manny for the detail, supervised his work, and remained the team’s operational authority. Ezra funded the team.
Jared Dawkins
Jared joined the detail alongside Manny as the less experienced member of the pair. Their first assignment established a collegial working relationship.
Ana Torres
Ana was Manny’s wife and lived with him in the Bronx. She followed Ezra’s career enthusiastically and remained Manny’s connection to life outside the detail.
When Ana learned Manny had joined Ezra’s team, she asked whether Ezra was eating and sleeping well. She independently told Manny that his grandmother would have loved Ezra, echoing the thought he had voiced to Cisco earlier that day. Their calls were warm, bilingual, and frank about the distance between the job Manny expected and the person he had met.
Memorable Quotes
“I didn’t expect the speed. From two to twenty in under three minutes.”
“Mi abuela would have loved him.“
“The document’s good. The preparation was thorough. I read it three times. It doesn’t cover the part where he pays for a restaurant full of strangers and then cries on a sidewalk because he sang for the first time in five months.”
Related Entries
- Ezra Cruz
- Francisco Medina
- Jared Dawkins
- Manuel Torres and Ezra Cruz
- Ezra Cruz Security Detail
- Berlin Overdose (Early 2035) - Event