Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
Alejandro
Ienter the old warehouse and head toward Jax, Hank, and the other men who’ve been keeping the gunman from last night hostage.
Hank and Jax meet me halfway, the former flicking his lit cigarette into the distance.
“Those things will kill you,” I say.
“Well, something’s gotta,” he replies gruffly.
I turn my attention to Jax, a man who’s able to find information on anyone anywhere when I need him to. “What do you have for me?”
“Layton Cooper. Forty-four. Lives in Virginia. Wife left him last year. They had a daughter. She died a little over two years ago when she was sixteen. Suicide, apparently.”
“Has he said much?”
Hank shakes his head. “No, Boss. Per your orders, we haven’t interrogated him yet. And he’s been quiet as a church mouse all night except to ask for some water.”
I thank them both and head over to Layton, who’s bound to a chair, grabbing a bottle of water on my way. My men were here all night and would have openly enjoyed their provisions in front of him, and they wouldn’t have shown him any mercy by giving him so much as a sip of fluid.
I pull up a chair and sit directly in front of him. “You thirsty?”
He blinks a flake of dried blood away from his eyelash. “Yeah,” he croaks, his eyes fixed on the bottle.
“Why did you try to shoot my wife?”
“I didn’t care about her being anyone’s wife. I just wanted to hurt her father,” he says. “I wouldn’t have gone through with it.”
I open the bottle and hold it to his lips. He gulps greedily until I take it away.
It’s easy to say he wouldn’t have hurt her, but he got to her and he put a gun in her face, and I will never forgive that. “Why do you want to hurt her father?”
He looks me dead in the eye, no expression on his face. It’s the face of a man defeated. “Because he took everything from me.”
“Do you have a death wish, Layton?”
He shrugs. “I have nothing left to live for. Why don’t you just shoot me in the head and get it over with?”
I lean closer. “I’m not sure you appreciate who you’re dealing with.
I don’t just shoot people in the head, cabrón.
I like to torture them first.” Now we have some emotion.
Fear. The color drains from his face as he realizes the situation he’s in.
“Especially when they point a gun in my wife’s face. ”
“I told you I never would have hurt her. She seems like a good person. And I just wanted to scare her. I wanted her to tell him how terrified she was so he would know exactly how it felt.”
“How did you know where she’d be?”
“I knew she was in Bel Air, and then pictures of you two at that restaurant were posted all over last night.”
Fuck. I won’t be that careless again. But he never should have gotten past my guards. He looks unassuming enough, but they need to do better.
“What exactly did Foster Carmichael do to you?”
“I told you. He took everything from me. He took everything from me.” Tears squeeze from the corners of his eyes.
“I’m going to need a little more than that, Layton. Or would you like me to pull out your fingernails until you feel like talking?”
He blinks at me, terror in his eyes. And then Layton Cooper tells me all about why he hates my father-in-law so much.
I walk out of the warehouse and wipe the blood from my hands. Jax is two steps behind me as the rest of my men clean up the mess inside. In a little over an hour, there will be no trace of Layton Cooper left to be found.
Jax and I climb into the car. “Take me to the hotel. Use the underground entrance. I need to get cleaned up,” I tell my driver.
“Of course, Boss.” He nods and puts the car into drive.
I tell Jax about Alana’s revelation last night, and he’s as furious as I am. “Find out where that piece of shit is because I intend to pay him a visit very soon.”
Jax pulls out his cell phone. “Already on it,” he says, tapping on his screen. I have no idea how he does it, but the man has tabs on everyone of any importance to our business.
“So we know Carmichael is a lying, deceitful piece of shit, but what Cooper just told us is …” He blows out a breath, eyes still on his phone screen.
“Did you have any idea he was involved in anything like that? I have the guy on my radar, and I’ve never dug up anything on him even hinting he’s capable of it. ”
I shake my head, angry with myself as much as anything. “No. Although nothing should surprise me.”
Jax lets out a low whistle. “It’s fucked up.”
If what Layton Cooper told me was true, I almost feel bad for killing the guy, but nobody gets away with putting a gun in my wife’s face. He should have taken his grudge up with Foster Carmichael and not his daughter.
He cocks an eyebrow. “Do you think Alana knows about it?”
“No. No way.” Alana thinks her father is a good guy, but I didn’t realize how wrong she was.
“Bingo,” Jax announces. “He’s in Nevada until tomorrow.”
“Nevada?”
He nods. “Meeting with some solar energy company.”
That works out perfectly. I can be there and back before my meeting with the mayor at four. “Have the jet ready to go as soon as possible.”
“Already on it,” he repeats.
Foster Carmichael is about to learn what it means to cross me.
I wait until I’m alone in my suite before I call Alana.
I don’t intend to tell her anything about Layton Cooper and her father’s involvement with him or about my planned visit to him this afternoon.
I know she’ll ask about the former, but until I know for sure what happened and whether I can trust her with that kind of information, she’ll remain in the dark.
She picks up on the second ring. “Hi.”
Her voice is an instant balm, soothing my frayed edges. “Hey. How’s the head?”
“Throbbing,” she groans.
“I told you to be careful with that Scotch.”
“Yeah, well. The thing is, if you tell me to do something, I’m likely to do the opposite, especially where you’re concerned.”
And I could have so much fun punishing her for it. “Is that so, princesa?”
She hums. “So, did you find out who that guy was last night?”
“Just some guy your father pissed off, that’s all. He won’t be bothering you again.”
There’s a few seconds’ pause. She knows better than to ask me about my business or the methods I use to deal with problems.
“Pointing a gun in my face because he was pissed off seems a bit extreme. What exactly did my father do?”
“I don’t know.” The lie comes so easily, and to my surprise, I feel a twinge of guilt. “But he said he didn’t intend to hurt you. Just wanted to scare you, apparently.”
“What was his name?” she asks, and it doesn’t escape my attention that she used the word “was” and not “is.”
I see no harm in giving her that. “Layton Cooper.”
She hums again. “Never heard of him.”
I sure fucking hope not, I think but don’t voice. “What are you doing today?” I ask instead.
I shouldn’t care what she’s doing, but I do. Images of her body pressed against mine last night force themselves into my brain, and I feel my cock getting hard again.
“Just going to lie by the pool and read. Maybe I’ll have a swim.”
Now all I can see in my mind’s eye is her in a tiny string bikini. The ache in my cock transforms into an insistent throb.
I clear my throat to try and clear my head, but it doesn’t work. “Sounds like a good way to cure a hangover. I have a meeting this afternoon, but then I’ll be done for the day. I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
“Okay,” she says, sounding eager and happy about my return.
Just what the fuck are you doing, Alejandro?
“Enjoy your swim, and I’ll see you later.”
“Bye, Alejandro,” she purrs, and the words bypass my brain and go straight to my aching dick.
“Adiós, princesa.”
I end the call and sink back into my chair, images of her still filling my head, not helping the situation in my pants. For a moment, I consider not going to see her father, going home to her instead and fucking her until neither of us can walk.
But Carmichael needs to pay first.
And then I’ll fuck his daughter.