Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
I stand and watch as he twitches and shakes, drools down the front of his shirt, and pisses his pants.
He makes a few garbled noises, and I smile.
“Now you’re talking, but you’re still not telling me what I want to hear.”
“Coop,” Nova shouts from across the room. “It’s time.”
“A few more minutes and our friend here will be in a much more talkative mood.”
As a doctor, Nova knows how long I can keep this up without risking killing him, but I also know that his weak stomach for pain means he’ll call it off before I can make my point.
“Coop,” he says again a minute later.
“Fine.” At that one word, he flips the switch, and the flow of electricity stops immediately. “Ready to talk now?”
Weasel nods quickly, his heart racing, and his breaths coming out in sharp, choppy pants.
“All I know is that I made a thousand bucks watching the port for any Reckless Souls or port employees. Then I made another five hundred for unloading a ton of shit off a moving truck.”
“What else?”
“It wasn’t a small moving truck like when moving into an apartment. It was a big one. The kind you use when you got a big house to fill with expensive shit. It was all boxed up, so I don’t know what was in the boxes, and for fifteen hundred bucks, I don’t ask questions.”
“Who paid you?” It wasn’t Hector; he wouldn’t be so stupid, not when he knows we’ll throw everything at him in retaliation.
“Some dude named Billy. That’s all I know. He called me Weasel, so he knows my name. I thanked him for the cash and went on my way.”
Billy was definitely Nogales, Hector’s VP. “Okay, good. Very good, Weasel. Where did you unload the truck?”
“I don’t know. They drove me there with a bag over my head.”
“Nova,” I yell with a smile.
“Okay! Okay, you crazy fuck.” He lets out several harsh breaths and nods. “There was a number on the house, 87101, and the streets were all named after trees. Spruce. Oak. Pine. Shit like that.”
“Thought you were blindfolded,” Preacher asks.
Weasel smiles. “I asked too many questions, so they shoved me in the car and forgot to cover my head on the way back.”
I nod, happy with the information he provides. “Preacher, find Wild Man and ask him to track down this address. Everything he can.”
“Good job, Weasel.”
His shoulders relax. “You’re gonna let me go, right?”
The panic in his voice is real. He’s terrified, and he should be because I plan to end this fucker here and now.
“Right?”
I look to Nova and his disapproving glare and sigh before turning to Weasel. “A deal is a deal, right?”
“Right,” he sighs.
I’m not in the mood to fight with Nova, so I go to the locked metal cabinet and pull out a few baggies for the junkie.
“Here you go. Thanks for the information.” Weasel reaches for the drugs, hands still tied, and I pull them back. “This stays between us, right?”
Weasel nods. “Never even seen ya before.”
I cut his ties, and he darts up, hands out in anticipation of his latest drug haul. I drop the baggies in his hand and take a step back.
“Pleasure doin’ business with ya, man.” He scampers off, and I fold my arms with a sigh.
“I’m surprised you let him go,” Nova says as he comes to a stop in front of me. “You know he’s gonna run straight to the Iron Kings to tell them everything, don’t you?”
I nod. “Not before he stops in an alley to shoot up what I just gave him.”
“And it was?”
“The shit we took off the streets last month. With the pink skulls.” The shit’s tainted to high hell, with what, we don’t know, but bodies dropping from tainted drugs is bad for everybody.
Nova nods his understanding. “All right then.” He leaves without another word, leaving me to hose down the piss and the spit, to clean up, so there’s no trace of anything, forensically speaking.
I clean The Chamber instead of making one of the prospects do it, using the hour to clear my mind of Kelsey so I could focus on what comes next.
Sweet fucking revenge.
Chapter Fifteen
Kelsey
Why did I agree to meet Ruby at a bakery of all places? The last thing I need is more refined sugar in my life, even if sugar is one of the single greatest discoveries on earth. The older woman behind the counter at For Goodness Cakes is a magician when it comes to making sweet baked goods.
“Everything looks so good,” I say, examining the temptations in the glass display.
The woman smooths the fabric of her pink and brown apron with the name Maven scrawled across the top in cursive writing, then points to the specials’ board.
“We have mix and match options, four, six or a dozen,” she offers with a sweet smile.