Page 72 of LA Reign

“You’ve heard what I like to do with these, Joey?” I ask.

He nods as his whole body starts to shake.

“Release one of his hands,” I say to Jax.

Jax walks over to Joey and cuts the zip ties on one of his hands, freeing it from behind his back, before holding it out to me.

“No! Please!” Joey shouts as I lean down and place the pliers on the tip of his thumbnail. Sweat is pouring off him, and he stinks of piss and fear. Exactly what I had in mind.

“I have some questions, Joey. And if you don’t answer me honestly, this will be a very, very long and painful day for you. You understand me, cabrón?”

He nods as I pull, tearing the nail from his thumb in one swift move. I may look like a businessman, but this is not my first rodeo.

Joey shrieks loudly and starts to sob.

“That was just a taste of what’s to come, my friend. I just wanted to let you know what it felt like, in case it helped settle your mind. So, I’ll start with your fingernails, all of them, and then I will take your teeth. Those big ones at the back can be tricky, but with the right tools and enough force, they eventually come out. Gets bloody, but what’s a man to do? Anyway. After your teeth, well…” I look at Jax, raise my eyebrows.

“Fingers?” Jax suggests.

“Hmm? Or maybe, as we’re so time-pressed, we go straight for his cock?”

Joey wails, the sound like a trapped animal. Which is exactly what he is. “I’ll answer any questions you have. I swear,” he cries, snot and tears running down his face.

I pull up a chair and sit in front of him. “Okay. Well, let’s run through the rules. This is how it will work. I will ask you a question, and every time I think you’re lying to me, I will remove something. Maybe your teeth, maybe your nipples, maybe your balls. There are plenty of body parts a man can live without, although in the case of some, he wouldn’t want to. I’ll keep going until either your heart gives out because of the pain or I have the answers I want. So how this ends is really all on you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he sniffs. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, Alejandro. Anything!”

“Oh, I’m sure you will, Joey. But I want the truth, you hear me? Something about the threat of losing your manhood can make a guy say things he doesn’t mean. I don’t want to hear a single lie pass your lips, or…well, I’ll slice them off too. Understood?”

He nods, his desperate eyes on mine.

“Good. Then we’ll begin.”

An hour later, Jax and I walk out of the container. I’m now confident that Joey Ortega knows nothing about my father’s shooting. He lost three fingernails and two teeth proving that to me, but at least he’s still alive. The truth is, I don’t have time to keep pursuing dead ends, and that makes Joey a very lucky man indeed.

What he did give me, though, is lots of very useful information about his crew. He turned his back on every single one of them to save his own skin, as snakes will do. While that information will be useful in the coming months when I have more time to act on it, it doesn’t help me right now.

I’m letting Joey go but I suspect that once his crew discovers he sold them out, he will be a dead man walking anyway. In the meantime, I have his nuts in a vice. I’ll keep his secret for as long as it suits me.

“What next, amigo?” Jax asks me, as we walk back to the car.

“Back to the fucking drawing board,” I say with a snarl. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t the Ortegas, but part of me wanted my uncles to be right. It would have been a fuck of a lot simpler.

Chapter

Thirty

ALANA

Hugo gets Kelsey’s bags from the trunk, leaving us both in the back of the car to say our goodbyes. It’s time for her to leave, and I’m spending every last moment I can with her, even down to coming with her to LAX.

“I’m going to miss you, honey,” she says as she wraps her arms around me.

I hug her back tightly, not wanting to let go. “I’m going to miss you too, Kels. I’m so sorry you had to spend your weekend with us under house arrest.”

She pulls back and grins at me, shaking her head. “Will you stop! I’d happily spend a year under house arrest in that beautiful place. Tell Alejandro to get the pool house into shape and I’ll be spending every vacation with you guys.”

“I’ll get onto it as soon as we get back,” I assure her with a smile. “I’ll make it my own personal project. I’ll do it in all your favorite colors, I’ll stock your bookshelves. Before you come back, I promise I’ll even find the LA equivalent of Tony’s so we can have our very own pizza parties.”