30. Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Dax
I’d asked Mateo to meet me at a dive bar in South San Francisco.
It was a quiet, industrial neighborhood with trucks and dumpy-looking cars parked on the street.
I didn’t spend much time in bars, and I wasn’t anticipating being there long.
When the middle-aged bartender with a graying beard and a potbelly asked what I’d like to drink, I ordered a neat bourbon and waited for Mateo to show.
I knew there was a chance he wouldn’t come.
He’d thought I was dead. I knew it the second he answered my phone call yesterday, which meant Bianca and Ricky were right.
He must have been the one who planted the bomb at the restaurant.
If the fucker had half a working braincell left inside of him, he’d show up.
The rage of betrayal slicked my skin as I took a small sip of the bourbon, the burn sliding down my throat in an almost comforting way.
Two fucking years. We’d worked side-by-side for so many nights I’d lost track.
So many small conversations as we prepped for dinner rushes and scrubbed down the kitchen into the late hours of the night.
My thigh twitched a little as I settled into a dark booth near the door, waiting.
I stilled, focusing on the cool metal of the Glock strapped to my side underneath my leather jacket.
I knew there would be a better chance of Mateo following through if we met in a public place.
What he didn’t know was the bar was directly across the street from a small, soundproofed warehouse I happened to own.
It was where my Pagani was currently stored and waiting for my return, along with an artillery of devices that hadn’t been touched since I moved to this city.
That was about to change.
The front door cracked open and a cool breeze drifted through its gap.
Mateo was far from what I’d consider to be an intimidating man; his small stature and the soft lines around his eyes made him seem approachable and nonthreatening. I should have known better than that. The ugliest monsters were always the most inconspicuous.
He didn’t notice me at first, walking over to the bar and sitting at one of the stools in front of the beer taps.
He ordered something from the bartender and hunched his shoulders nervously as he handed him a cold beer.
He looked over his shoulder, scanning the dim room, which was empty except for a couple of construction guys playing darts by the jukebox on their lunch break.
His eyes landed on me and his posture struck rigidly, but his mouth trained into a tight smile. I raised my hand. Not a greeting—a summons. He approached the small booth, his lips turning white with the pressure he pressed them together with.
I gestured for him to take a seat across from me, finishing my bourbon in a long swig.
“You need another drink, boss?” he asked in a nonchalant voice, as though this was a perfectly normal meeting under perfectly normal circumstances on a perfectly normal day. His facial expression suggested otherwise though, still wary as he gestured to the bar with his beer.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said smoothly. “Take a seat, Mateo.”
He hesitated, and for a second, I thought he was gonna bolt. His better judgment seemed to win him over, and he slid into the booth opposite me. He twiddled the cold beer between his hands but didn’t drink it.
“It’s good to see you’re alright,” he started talking. “When I showed up to Bellissima on Saturday, you can imagine my shock that it was gone. And when I didn’t hear from you, I-I thought you might have…” His voice trailed off, but I already called the bullshit in his careful tone.
He was fucking lying to me. Despite everything I’d already been suspicious of, there had been a huge part of me hoping I was wrong. Disappointment and anger racked my bones, but I kept my gaze steady on him.
I reached under the table and pressed the Glock right up against his shin.
Mateo’s eyes darted to mine, encased with fear.
“What…what do you want?” He sounded so meek and pathetic I considered shooting the bastard right then and there.
But then I would have to deal with the rest of the bar’s patrons, and that really wasn’t something I had time for.
“Put your cell phone and keys on the table, Mateo,” I demanded, deep and hushed.
His chin wobbled as he shakily did as I told him, but he didn’t speak.
I reached for my empty glass with one hand, keeping my gun gripped in the other, the muzzle pressed against his leg.
I brought the glass down onto Mateo’s phone with a pulverizing crack.
I glanced over to the bartender and construction guys, but they hadn’t seemed to notice the noise over the classic rock blasting from the jukebox.
Mateo winced, and I grabbed the keys and slid them into my jacket pocket along with his destroyed phone. Then I reached for his untouched beer and took a sip from it, my eyes never breaking from his. His face looked gray as he watched me.
“In ten seconds,” I told him, “you are going to walk out of this bar and wait outside for me. If you try to run, you will be shot dead in the street. There are seven pairs of eyes on you, and they will shred your skull in the blink of a fucking eye. Do you understand?” I jerked the gun against his shin, and he started sputtering for a moment but then seemed to think better of it. He nodded.
Maybe the asshole wasn’t as fucking stupid as I thought he was.
I watched Mateo lift himself out of the booth and walk out the door. I spent another precious minute waiting in my seat. On the outside I was cool, collected, and unassuming. On the inside, I was burning with contempt. I took another gulp of his beer before following him out the door.
It was surprisingly easy to get him into the warehouse. He didn’t try to escape. Didn’t flee down the street, not that he would have gotten far. Some of Clay’s best men—the same ones who’d protected my home—were watching us from different vantage points as we’d walked down the street.
Now it was just me and Mateo in the warehouse, where I’d handcuffed him to a rusty folding chair. He hadn’t said a word since the bar. Didn’t try to resist me as I strapped him to the chair. However, when I left for a moment and then returned with a long, sharp pair of pliers, he started to panic.
“No!” he gasped. “Please, no. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…” He started hyperventilating.
What the fuck? He wasn’t even going to try to deny it?
My throat burned as I stared down at him with disgust. “What exactly are you sorry for?” My voice was full of poison, bitter and angry. “Let me guess. Are you sorry for blowing up my restaurant? For deceiving me and trying to kill me?”
His teeth chattered. “I-I didn’t want to. I swear. I’m so sorry.”
I thought he was about to start crying. What a fucking pussy. I hadn’t even gotten started on what I’d do to him after he spilled everything he knew. Everything he’d done.
I rolled my eyes as I edged closer to him.
“Unfortunately, sorry isn’t gonna fucking cut it, buddy.
” I loomed over him, darkness clouding the edges of my vision so all I could focus on was his increasingly pale skin.
“But there are a few ways this can go down, and it’s for you to decide what happens next.
I’m gonna ask you some questions. If you’re honest with me, then I will make your death as quick and painless as possible.
If not…” I clicked the pliers in my hand menacingly.
“I will pull out every single one of your teeth with these, and I will take my fucking time doing it.”
Mateo’s eyes widened as he glanced between me and the pliers. Then he started screaming bloody murder, but the sound didn’t echo in the sealed warehouse. He wailed for help, unaware no ears would hear him outside these walls. I tapped my foot impatiently.
I didn’t have time for this shit.
I reached for his head and wrenched it back by his short hair, tilting his face up toward me. He stopped screaming when I held the pliers millimeters from his eyeball. “Shut the fuck up, or I’ll take this eye out before I get started on your teeth,” I hissed.
He whimpered and a sharp, putrid smell filled the air. Ugh. He fucking pissed himself.
I shoved back from him. “Question number one, are you Wrangler?” I tapped the pliers against my palm.
Mateo’s eyes somehow grew even wider. “What? No, no no.” His voice came out in pants, and I wondered if he was about to have a heart attack before I laid a finger on him.
A growl clawed its way up my throat. “Then how long have you been working for him?” I spat.
His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to find his words.
“No…it’s not like that. They forced me to do it.
They were gonna kill Becky and Ronnie.” His wife and daughter.
My stomach twisted. There was panic in his voice, desperation.
I’d seen this before, more times than I’d like to remember.
They always started with excuses. Whatever first thing came to mind that might stand a chance at garnishing empathy.
I have children, or I have a wife. I have a diabetic goldfish, and he needs me to feed him his daily meds.
I’d heard it all. And too bad for Mateo, because I was fresh out of empathy to give. I clicked the pliers together and started moving back toward him, holding my breath to mask the scent of his urine.
“I swear to god, boss! She kidnapped them. She had photos of them. Told me she’d kill them and make me watch if I didn’t do it.” Mateo’s voice was riddled with fear, but then there was something else I recognized. Veracity. He was telling me the truth.
Then it hit me. “What do you mean, she? Wrangler wasn’t the one who set you up to this?” I tried to keep my voice emotionless and cold. I needed him to tell me everything he could, but I wanted to keep that fear running through him. It might have been the only thing keeping him honest.
A look of confusion flashed across his face. “Yeah, it was a scary chick with a cowboy hat. She had a couple of younger white guys with her. A redhead and a blonde.”
Icy trepidation sloshed over my head and I reeled back. “Are you saying Wrangler is a woman?” I felt ignorant for not considering that could be a possibility, but even Marty Sanchez had referred to Wrangler as a he. This didn’t make sense.
Mateo nodded his head violently. “Yeah, really scary chick. She was gonna kill my family, Boss. I didn’t know what else to do. I’m so fucking sorry, I—”
“Shut up for a second,” I thundered.
My new phone started buzzing in my back pocket. It didn’t have any numbers saved in it yet, so I didn’t know who was calling. I considered ignoring it but then thought it might be Lucy, so I answered.
“Yes?” I didn’t have enough time to engage in formalities.
“Dominic,” Emile’s voice rustled through the speaker, “I found something. I decided to invert the color format on Phoebe’s video, and some details showed up on the bricks in the background.
I’m sending you a screenshot now.” I heard some tapping on the other line and then a message dinged on the phone.
I opened the message, and it took me a second for my eyes to register what I was seeing. The cell looked different with lighter hues in the adjusted photo. More details showed up in the grainy background.
And then I saw it. I took in a sharp breath. My heart felt like it burst right inside my chest.
There, in the back of the cell, what looked like a few layers of paint coated the rough edges of bricks against the wall. Faintly, the outline of other brush strokes formed detailed lines of an image. It was one I knew well. Seared into my memory and inked across my skin.
A phoenix.