Page 121 of Unspoken Lies

If I’m lucky, I’ll just see the darkness behind my eyelids for a few hours.

IGNACIO

“I have shit to do, asshole,” I say, bored as I push a hot brand into his chest. I’m on a mission to findel Tigre’slocation. The bastard got twitchy as things became hotter for his drug business and chose to go underground.

I now have one of his enforcers in an abandoned warehouse. Liliana is with my father working out some aggression withel Tigre’swife. The bitch is his chemist, and has been in charge of creating these new drugs. My father is with her so that she doesn’t end the bitch’s life too soon.

The brand saystraitoron it, my snarky way of hoping to bring that word to fruition. He hasn’t told me shit yet, though he’s yelled quite a bit.

“You won’t find him,” the man squeals.

“He left his kids at the house under security, didn’t he?” I ask. I have no plans to hurt children, but he doesn’t know that. “I really like to play with matches and Molotov cocktails. It would be a shame if his house went up in flames.”

“You son of a bitch,” he growls, gasping as I squat by his feet and begin to take nails and hammer them into his toes. Theconstant sound of the hammer driving the nails into the bones is jarring, and just another form of torture.

I get results. Nothing else matters as he sits in front of me tied up.

“I’m just a man looking for some answers,” I remind him. “This can end whenever you choose for it to.”

“I can’t tell you,” he wheezes. “I don’t know. He left and didn’t tell me.”

“I don’t buy that,” I murmur, lifting the hammer and swinging it down to break his kneecaps. It’s a bit old school mafia torture, but it’s effective. “Is he still in California?”

“Yes. Fuck, he is,” the man cries. I’m beginning to get some tears, I’m just going to continue to work this angle. When something is effective, don’t change it.

It’s a good rule of thumb for torture and life.

“You said you didn’t know anything,” I say, aghast, laughing as I swing the hammer again. If I’m lucky, he’ll never walk again, even if I wasn’t planning to shoot him when I’m done here.

“He still checks in regularly.” Carlos is having a bad day, and I can smell his fear and pain. It’s a pungent body odor scent, and my nose is rebelling against it. However, I’ve learned to work past it. “The boss can’t be too far from the production of the drugs.”

“We’re getting closer. Where are the drugs produced?” I ask.

Twenty minutes later, I leave the interrogation room to speak to my father. We’ve been close before to finding where they make their drugs, however, they’re quick to change their location.

“What’s up?” Dad asks in the hallway, his eyes on Liliana through the window.

“I think we have a lead,” I say, explaining that Carlos gave up the production lab. It’s a ranch in La Goleta, away from any neighbors according to the map I pulled up.

“See if he knows anything else and then kill him,” Dad grunts. “The wife has been giving up all kinds of secrets that I’ll need to take care of soon, but doesn’t know where her husband is. Lili is destroying Grace at the moment.”

The wife’s name is Grace, and I don’t blame Lili for blowing off steam. I hate that I had to leave Rachelle with Elijah, Jared, and Theo. While I know that they’ve been trying to gain Rachelle’s forgiveness for all of the fucked up shit they put her through, I don’t know how well they’ll be able to do alone with her. The faster this gets wrapped up, the sooner I can get back.

While I would love for them all to be eating out of the palm of her hand by then, I’ll settle for them not killing each other.

“This may be petty, but I want to know whose idea it was to make the drugs into a gum form,” I grunt.

“Grace’s,” Dad says. “Lili took liberties with her questions. I don’t blame her after her experience with the drug. I don’t want that shit here. We’re cleaning up the streets.”

My father isn’t altruistic, but this is bad for business.

RACHELLE

It’s been two days since I started the medication, and I’m moody. I’ve been avoiding everyone, but I think my luck is about to run out.

“I said you had to sleep with us, wife,” Jared says, scooping me up into his arms as he closes my laptop, effectively also turning off my music as well.

“Do I have to?” I whine. My dreams are always too vivid when I start a new medication, and this time is no different.