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Really? “That’s it?”
“I told youel jefeis a reasonable man. You give her back, he lets you live. If you don’t, he’ll come for her.”
I looked down at the bubbling wax, which was barely blurping the occasional bubble now. Jeez, this was disappointing. Torturing the guy wasn’t exactly at the top of my bucket list, but damn it, I was curious just how effective my hot wax would have been.
Would it be wrong to do it anyway? Yeah, probably. Damn.
But then again, there were other questions this asshole might be able to answer.
“Where is Domínguez keeping his hostages?” I asked. It wasn’t like we could let this guy go running back to Domínguez, so there was no worry about him tipping off the big boss.
His brow furrowed, and he eyed me strangely, like maybe I was speaking gibberish. “His what?”
Maybe it was a language barrier? “The people he kidnaps, where does he put them?”
The guy scoffed. “El jefehas no ‘hostages’. He doesn’t deal in humans. Though, he may make an exception to pedal your pussy,puta,” he said, looking me over from head to toe, leering the same way the men inEl Víbora’sbasement had.
It made it feel like ice pellets were skipping down my spine, and I had to fight the urge to shiver.
I focused on his voice instead, the look in his eyes, his body language—all the ways I’d learned to read a person. But what I found made no more sense than anything else since we’d stepped into Domínguez’s world.
The guy was telling the truth.
I turned to Brute, looking for his assessment.
He nodded his head just a little, confirming my own suspicions.
I put the container of wax down on the table. If I wanted to use it now, I’d have to heat it back up anyway. But what was the point? The guy couldn’t tell us shit he didn’t know. So, now what?
“My boys can babysit him at the clubhouse, darling,” Brute proposed, answering my unspoken question.
It was an option, one that might just bring Domínguez down on the Old Dogs, though, if things weren’t headed in that direction already.
“It could put your club at risk.”
Brute shrugged like it was an inconsequential matter. “Domínguez seems more interested in sending messengers than getting bloody, but if that changes, my boys can take care of themselves. Don’t worry.”
Well, the alternative was to get Gabe to hold him at Onyx, but the Costas might be getting tired of playing host to the strays I kept bringing in. First Leeri, now this guy?
“All right,” I said, nodding tentatively, not missing the way Brute had already begun typing a message into his phone. “You were planning to take him regardless of what I said, weren’t you?”
Brute shrugged. “Would it make you feel better if I said I wasn’t, darling?”
I rolled my eyes. “Do you maybe want to do something about this?” I said, waving in our guest’s general direction. If there was going to be a big, domineering man around, he might as well be useful.
Brute smiled, cocked back, and hit the guy so fast, he didn’t have time to scream. The blow knocked the guy out, nearly knocking over the chair in the process.
So, that was that. I supposed all there was to do now was wait for the cavalry to arrive and cart off our prisoner.
I took the container of wax to the kitchen and dropped it in the sink, still a little pissed I didn’t have an excuse to use it. When I returned to the dining room, Brute was looking around my apartment, paying particular attention to the photos I had in frames on the walls.
“You and your parents?” he asked, nodding to the picture of the three of us at the beach when I was about ten years old.
I nodded, fighting the urge to run my fingers over the dark-haired woman in the picture. God, I missed her.
“Are they still in LA?” he asked.
I licked my lips; they felt dry. “My dad is,” I said. “I guess my mother is too—she’s buried there.” I tried to ignore the swell of pain in my chest. It was always there, like it was simmering on a back burner, every once in a while boiling over. But mostly, it was justthere.
