Page 65 of His Obsession

I put my flask away and put my hands in my pocket. I knew Jimmy was smart, but I didn’t think he was this intelligent. It’s what I get for underestimating my enemy.

“If you polish that knife anymore, you won’t have any metal left,” I said, brushing by him and walking to Ralph's room. Tonk was meticulous in everything he did, cleaning, killing, and everything in between, much like me, but he took it to another level.

“It’s got to be clean. You don’t want them to die of infection before you’re finished.”

True.

I shook my head and strutted through the door. Inside was a forty-five-year-old man, bald by choice and overweight, probably from all those cheeseburgers they found him covered in. Well, the wrappers, not the cheeseburgers—that just sounds like a weird fetish. I mean, seriously, who fucks hookers while eating a cheeseburger?

“Ralph, I see you’re living up to your name,” I snorted. The vomit on his lap and floor reeked. “I didn’t even hit you that hard. You’re such a puss.”

The man in front of me sneered. “You ruptured a nut, motherfucker.” His body trembled with agony while his voice shook with rage.

“Well, that happens when you take a bat to them. It's simple science. Are you ready to tell me where Liz is and how you know Jimmy?” Lowering my voice to let him know the banter was over, and I was deadly serious.

“I told you, I never met no Jimmy, and I don’t know a Liz either. I was getting guns.”

I picked the hose up from the corner and sprayed him in the face full-blast, and watched him gag on the water jet.

Spraying him benefited me for more than one reason. On the one hand, it took care of the putrid stench in his lap, and on the other, it was an effective torture technique without having to get bloody or cutting off a body part—I had a dark soul, but I wouldn’t let it turn tothatshade of black. After a few moments, I turned it off, and he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

“Try again.”

I didn’t have time for this. We’ve been working non-stop on these guys, and we weren’t getting results. My mind has been going nuts, second-guessing myself and trying not to think of all the shit Jimmy was doing to her. I hated that bastard. He’d been the blight in my life that I couldn’t seem to kill off.

I had to keep shaking violent thoughts that ran through my mind, replaying all the horrors I lived with while he was around. It was crazy, I knew what the outcome of those memories was, but I still couldn’t help but fight the ending, to make a different choice hoping maybe it wasn’t a memory, but I had somehow traveled back in time, and I could change it all.

Ralph coughed the water from his lungs and spoke through gasps of air. “I’m just a Patch.” He panted. “I do what they tell me. I got the order that Alvarez was doing a gun deal, and we were to intercept the guns—that was it.”

“Intercept, does that mean to shoot down my men and his?” I snapped.

He shook his head. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“And what was the plan, Ralph? You expect Alvarez to just hand over his guns and go on his merry way like he’s the Mexican version of Santa?”

“We were to get the guns and run them back to the club. They told me it would be an easy in and out. We were told Alvarez wasn’t packing heavy because he was with a trusted source.”

Water dripped off his scalp, and he shook his head, clearing the drops before they hit his eyes.

“And?” I was getting irritable; well, I had been irritable through this process. Why did they prolong the inevitable? Just tell me what I wanted to know, and then it was done and over with.

For once, couldn’t I just get a scared person who, as soon as they saw the knife, spilled their guts without me having to use it?

This was exhausting. I didn’t know why Tonk liked this. I’d rather spend my energy elsewhere.

“Alvarez’s crew started shooting at us the moment we popped up.” Ralph’s statement didn’t surprise me. When a rival gang showed up, you didn’t walk over and shake hands. You knew they were there for nefarious reasons.

“Who gave the order?”

The way I saw it, Jimmy told the rival club there was a deal going on. He knew there would be a shootout, hoping I would get caught in the cross-fire. Goddamn chickenshit didn’t even have the balls to do it himself this time. I didn’t understand, if he wanted to kill me or capture me, why would he specifically tell them there would not be firepower?

The more I thought about it, the more questions came to mind. How did he even find out about my deals, anyway? Why not bring the firepower to my home—assuming he still had it? Why not take Liz the night he broke in? What is his end goal?

“Snider passed it down, and I don’t know who told him.” My eyes widened, and I got pissed. I had the link to Jimmy sitting in the room next to me the entire time, and he sat as pretty as could be, not yet touched. The pieces were falling into place, and we were narrowing this down and getting closer to Liz by the minute.

I’ll find you, baby girl, just hold on.

“If I find out you have been wasting my time, that ruptured nutsack will be the least of your worries. Trust me on that,” I said, nose to nose with him.