Page 67 of Creole Kingpin
I lie awake for as long as I can, savoring the moment. Until eventually, I succumb to a deep sleep, where my dreams are filled with laughter and sunshine, and dark-haired babies calling me Daddy and asking for their mama.
It’s a good sleep. A real fucking good sleep.
Forty-One
Somewhere else in New Orleans
“Please, just let me go. I gave you the money. I’ve got jewelry too. You can have it.All of it.Just take whatever you want and go. Please, just leave me alone.”
She hasn’t stopped crying since I put her in her own trunk, drove back to her house, and tied her up to an ugly chair in the living room. I smile to myself because the blood that’s going to stain it won’t make it any uglier. It might even be an improvement.
I sit down on the coffee table in front of her and watch her cringe as I knock off a vase. It shatters on the floor and her gaze follows it. If she wasn’t tied up, she would have jumped out of her seat to save it.
She doesn’t realize her problems are just starting.Perra estúpida.
“You are going to tell me what I want to know.”
Wide-eyed, she jerks her head around to look at me. “What do you want to know?”
I pull out the only picture of Ricky I have and hold it in front of her face. “You know him?”
She squirms against the duct tape trapping her in the chair. “Why?”
I pull a knife from my boot and test the sharpness on my thumb. Blood wells as the blade slices into it. I smear a red streak across her cheek. “I am the one asking the questions here. Another one out of you, and this will be your blood. Understand?”
Tears stream down her face as she trembles, nodding her head so fast her teeth clack together.
I hold the photo up again. “You know him?”
“I don’t know him. I just saw him once. At a bar. When you called, I thought you were him.”
I nod slowly. “Good. Who did you pay him to kill?”
She goes sheet white. “How—” Correcting herself, she shuts her mouth and takes a deep breath. “Three people.”
“Who?”
She snuffles and nods. “My husband. His whore. And the madam.”
I shake my head at her. I was right.Estúpida perra.
“Names.”
“Alberto Brandon. That’s my husband. His phone said the whore’s name was Naya.”
“And the madam?”
“Magnolia Maison. She owns the house they fuck in. I looked her up on the property tax records.” There’s snot rolling out of her sniveling nose. So pathetic.
“And did this man,” I tap the picture, “call you to tell you that he had completed any of the kills?”
She shakes her head. “No. I told you, I thought ... I thought he might be dead because the police found a body—a man—in the madam’s condo building. I thought ... maybe it was him. I thought maybe that bitch killed him.”
Ice-cold rage fills my veins, but I don’t let it show. I learned long ago how to mask my feelings. That’s what working with the cartel teaches you. Never let them see your emotions on your face.
I smile at her instead, hoping her blood runs just as cold as my rage. “Where is your husband?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in over a week.”
