Chapter 54
Chapter
Fifty-Four
Alejandro
We went straight from our meeting with Carmichael to our warehouse near the docks. On the way, Jax took a call—a lead on who Lucy Callaghan really is.
I knew there was more to her story. Lying little bitch.
She obviously targeted my Alana, using her to get to me. Maybe she and Blake are both in on it and her fear of him was all a ruse.
What I know for sure is that she’ll never be anywhere near my wife again after today. I’ll make fucking certain of that.
But for now, my focus needs to be elsewhere.
Hank greets Jax and me when we arrive.
“Are they all in there?” I ask, referring to the men I tasked with finding Blake Fielding for me.
“Yeah. And suitably shitting their pants, Boss.”
Good. They’ll be doing more than that by the time I’m finished with them.
I walk through the large open space with Jax following close behind. The four men standing in the center of the room turn when they hear our footsteps, and I can smell their fear from thirty paces away.
As they step aside, a naked man strapped to a chair comes into view. A single table sits against the wall, full of all manner of surgical instruments. I take off my suit jacket and remove my cufflinks and hand them to Jax.
The restrained man lets out a muffled cry through the rag stuffed in his mouth.
His four guards move to form a line directly in front of me while I unbutton my shirt.
These men aren’t my enemies. I know them and their families.
Anton has been with me for seven years, Ray and Marco eight, and Jimmy almost ten.
But they fear me as much as any enemy of mine, and they have every reason to.
“Can any of you tell me why the fuck I don’t see Blake Fielding tied to that chair?”
“He’s disappeared, Boss,” Anton says.
“He was in the wind before we could get a lead on him,” Ray adds.
I hum to myself as I remove my shirt and hand that off to Jax too. I glare at each of them, searching their faces for something that might calm my anger, but I find nothing. “You’re telling me that some low-life, scum-sucking cabrón from Chicago has avoided four of my best fucking men?”
“We’ve got his cousin, Boss—” Anton starts.
“His cousin?” My voice echoes off the bare walls of the vast building.
“I don’t want his fucking cousin. I want him!
And the fact that you had me come here to speak to the little prick tells me that his cousin knows fuck all.
Or are you all so fucking incompetent that you can’t even extract information by yourselves now? ”
“He’s given us some other leads to chase, Boss,” Ray says.
I get right in his face. “Leads? It’s been four fucking days, and all you have are leads? Are you fucking shitting me?”
The four of them shuffle their feet, looking down at the floor while Blake’s cousin whimpers in the background.
“Fucking look at me when I’m talking to you.”
They lift their heads until their eyes meet mine.
Rage courses through my veins. “You do realize that this hijo de puta you’re looking for threatened my wife.
He put his hands on my fucking wife!” Three of them visibly flinch, but Jimmy remains steadfast. He’s always been a tough son of a bitch. He’s also good at his job—usually.
“You’ve all fucking let me down. I gave you one fucking job.”
Jimmy nods. “We know, Boss.”
He’s barely finished his sentence when I punch him square in the jaw. He staggers backward and falls on his ass.
Ray steps forward. “We’ll find him, Boss.”
“Oh, I know you fucking will. Because you will not set foot back in this city until you have that fucker with you.”
I walk past them to Blake’s cousin. “What is this cabrón’s name?”
“Calvin,” Jimmy answers, already on his feet again and dusting off his pants.
I take a moment to appraise Calvin. He’s covered in welts and bruises, and his left leg is obviously broken.
I grab a handful of his hair and tilt his head back.
His eyes are glassy, pain making him lose focus and slip in and out of consciousness.
I take the rag from his mouth and toss it on the ground.
“Pass me the epinephrine,” I bark, and someone hands me a hypodermic needle from the table. I inject it into a vein in Calvin’s arm, and his eyes focus on me, his breathing getting heavy. I slap his face. “Hey. Focus. Where the fuck is Blake?”
He violently shakes his head from side to side. “I don’t know, I swear. I don’t know.”
I hold out my hand, and Jax places a small scalpel into it. I press the sharp blade against Calvin’s chest. “Where is he?” I repeat.
“I don’t know!”
Slicing through his chest, I rip open his pectoral muscle and cut his nipple in half. He screams and blubbers as I take hold of his hair again and lean down to him. “Next time it will be your balls. Now tell me where the fuck I can find your cousin.”
He tries to shake his head, tears and snot streaming down his face, but I hold him still. “I don’t know,” he howls. “You need to speak to his girlfriend. She’s not who she says she is.”
I lift my foot and stomp down on his groin, and he vomits all over himself. “You think I don’t already know that, mal nacido! You think I haven’t worked out who Lucy Callaghan really is? You think I’m fucking stupid?”
His body convulses with sobs, and I hold the scalpel right in front of his face. “You’re going to die, Calvin. I can make it quick and end your suffering right now, or I can drag it out for days. It’s up to you. Tell me what I need to know.”
He blinks at me, his eyes full of defeat.
He doesn’t have the information I need. I could go on torturing him, but it won’t get me any closer to finding Blake.
The old me would have tortured him for the hell of it, to feed the rage clamoring for payment.
The new me—all he wants to do is get home to Alana.
Besides, someone’s helping Blake. Someone with the resources to evade me.
And given who Lucy Callaghan actually is, I shouldn’t be surprised.
I walk away from Calvin and tell Anton to finish him off. He happily obliges while I speak to Jax and Jimmy. “Blake’s either dead or someone’s helping him. Either way, he’s got bigger friends than we realized.” Wiping my hands on a wet rag, I tell Jax to fill Jimmy in on Lucy.
Before Jax and I leave, I give my other four men a final pointed glare. “Find me Blake Fielding or the next time you see me, you will be strapped to a fucking chair, and I will personally castrate the fucking lot of you.”
“Yes, Boss,” they reply in unison.
Heading for the door, I shrug on my shirt and call back, “And clean up this fucking mess.”
If only the mess with Carmichael could be dealt with so easily. No matter how I handle that one, I’m worried it might bring about my greatest fear.
Losing Alana.