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Speaking of headaches, I was gonna buy painkillers in the morning as well.
“You’re not a low-man,” I told the guy. “Youusedto be…but now you’re runnin’ around with a twelve-man security detail. Know what that tells me? You’ve climbed the ranks. You left your two-bedroom in Long Beach and bought your ugly Malibu house four months ago, which gives me a time frame of when you started makin’ more dough.”
Only one Blanco member had visited Carillo Mesa in prison, and that man was Luiz’s uncle, Jorge Gomez. Both men had chosen Carillo’s side. Both men also had a criminal background in Brazil; Jorge had immigrated with his Mexican mother in the seventies, after the dad had died in prison. But Jorge had traveled back and forth for years, eventually bringing a teenage nephew with him to the States. By then, Jorge was already an official member of the Blanco Family, and Luiz became part of his uncle’s crew.
Running errands and dealing drugs for a lieutenant didn’t get you a house in Malibu, though.
“You haven’t been seen in public with your wife in a while either,” I went on. “I bet she’s on vacation somewhere. Probably took the kids too. And she’s not coming home until you deem it safe. Because you know you’re at war.”
Luiz thrashed against his restraints and yelled something undoubtedly pleasant at me.
I scratched my eyebrow and took another swig of my water.
“Anyway,” I continued. “We’ve established you’ve come into money recently—conveniently around the time I bet Carillo was in the final stages of planning his escape from prison. You have too many guards to be disposable—or you did. So that brings us to right now. My brother and I want information we know you have, and if you try to deny it…” I raked my teeth along my bottom lip and studied him. River could profile him better tomorrow—actually, he already had after we’d tracked this motherfucker for so many days. But I was sure Riv would continue building that profile once the interrogation started. And in the meantime, I could only guess that this guy wasn’t going to give anything up easily.
The plastic on the floor alone spoke volumes. People didn’t tend to walk away when they were restrained on plastic. Plastic meant blood and DNA. So the intel he sat on was his one and only bargaining chip.
“If you scream when I remove the tape, you’ll only wake up my brother,” I said. “You know nobody can hear you. You know we threw out your phone on the way. Cooperation is your one shot at surviving this.”
I rose to my feet again and debated whether to pile on the lies—or if I should wait. I didn’t wanna cover too much ground before he’d brought things up himself, and chances were he’d be more resistant to having his mind fucked if I word-vomited. If I offered too many bullshit promises about how he could survive, he’d never believe me.
Mental torture was best served in small morsels.
That settled it. For once in my life, I could practice patience.
I closed the distance and grabbed a fistful of his hair as I peeled off a bit of the tape before I could rip it off.
He screamed the second I yanked, and I probably pulled enough hair from his head to make a wig.
I guessed the rip-the-Band-Aid method wasn’t good for duct tape.
“Son of a whore!” he yelled once his mouth was free.
“We had our problems, my ma and me, but she was by no means a whore,” I replied.
I let him get his issues out while I retrieved a bag of chips and one of the meal bars. Tomorrow, I’d pick up another chair somewhere too. For now, I had to settle for sitting on the ground in front of him.
I opened the bag of chips, plain salt—which was Shay’s favorite—and threw a few into my mouth. Maybe some fast carbs could wake up my hunger. Both Gray and Elliott had posted reminders in our chat about not forgetting to eat.
“I don’t have anything to fucking tell you,” Luiz spat out.
I twirled a finger and then dug out another couple chips. “Try again.”
I didn’t know how many times I’d found River and Shay with a bag of these chips—and Cokes—before breakfast. I was the one who made breakfast, but not until after I’d worked out, and if they woke up before I was done cookin’, they broke out the unhealthy snacks and sodas. Sometimes just to provoke me.
The shits had an unhealthy obsession with ramen cups too.
It wasn’t fucking food.
But what I wouldn’t give to go through that banter-filled morning routine with them again. Shay and River on the couch, me in the kitchen, River hollering the headlines from the news, Shay all cuddly and with a bed head.
Shay had changed everything for the better. He’d taught my brother and me that there was a life outside kink and work. We’dcreatedthat life—together. For the first time since River and I had been, what…sixteen, seventeen…? We had a family.
And they were worried sick too.
“I’ll make it real easy for you,” I said. “We wanna know where you’re holding Shay Tenley hostage. And Marisa Ortega and Blake Hayward.”
Three innocent people had been kidnapped because Elliott had done his fucking job and put a murdering coke dealer behind bars. It could’ve been any of us being targeted.
