My stomach knots. “He said her name?”
“Yeah. Full name. What kind of asshole calls his ex by her full name like that?”
“Did he mention anything else? Why does he want her back?”
“Something about her owing him. Said she ‘stole what was his’. I couldn’t tell if he meant their kid or something else. The guy’s got that clean-crazy look, you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, unfortunately, I’ve encountered that particular brand of unhinged before.”
“He reminded me of a fuckin’ robot. He had this weird monotone voice and crazy eyes.”
I fold my arms over my chest, turning this situation over in my mind. “Did you hear anything else useful?”
“He talked to someone on speaker phone. That person called the asshole who abducted me, Neal. Mentioned a warehouse off Imperial Boulevard. That’s all I got before he realized I was awake. Kicked me around for a while after that.”
“You should have called me sooner.”
“I did just now. You got here in record time, considering you were busy playing house with your old flame.” His grin is half misery and half amusement.
“Watch your mouth,” I tell him, but there’s no heat in my words because if I thought she was ready, I’d love to be playing fuckin’ house with Christina right now.
He shakes his head, wincing again. “I get it. You care about her. Always did. I just didn’t think you’d let it show.”
I don’t respond because it falls into the category of incriminating myself in front of everyone.
He tries to grin. “Guess I undersold it.”
Rivera winces as Stitch peels back the bandage he made by tearing up strips of his pillowcase. I can see from where I’m standing that the bruising runs deep. There’s an angry purple and red bruise running down one side of his torso.
“Couple of cracked ribs for sure,” Stitch mutters. “Maybe a hairline fracture in the collarbone. The fingers don’t appear to be broken but the soft tissue injury is gonna take a while to heal. I’ll tape him up properly. But he’s gonna need rest and painkillers. You’ll be sore for a while, brother.”
“Add it to the list of personal problems I’ve got going on at the moment,” Rivera says through his teeth.
I hand him a bottle of water. “You told me it was a stun gun and some bruises.”
“Didn’t want you tearing down here like a maniac.”
“You got three days’ worth of beating. That ain’t no small thing and you know it. How the hell did that even happen?”
He glances away, his jaw tight. “He stunned me and grabbed me off the street. I woke up tied to a chair in some basement. Concrete floor, stark overhead light and one unhinged lunatic trying to fuckin’ beat information out of me about your ex.”
“She’s my old lady now. I put her in my property cut,” I tell him curtly.
“Movin’ a little fast there, ain’t you?” he murmurs.
“We’re goin’ slow. Don’t ya worry about that.”
Stitch finishes taping his ribs and packs up.
Rivera lets out a shaky breath. “The crazy fucker would pull his shit together every now and then, almost seem normal, and then take off, leaving me chained up. I counted three nights. I lost track of time after that.”
I take a wild shot in the dark and ask, “You somehow managed to escape?”
He shakes his head. “No. I think he got tired of messin’ with me. Said I wasn’t useful anymore and dumped me off along the side of the road out here in the middle of nowhere. It took forever to get a ride. Some trucker finally stopped. I borrowed his charging cable, got enough juice in my phone to call you, and here we are.”
“He didn’t take your phone?” I ask.
Rivera shrugs then winces. “No. Dumb fucker tried to get me to unlock it, but then he seemed to lose interest in it. Like he was just spouting out lines or something.”
