“Shut the fuck up, Pendejo. You’re ruining the vibe,” she says and shoves some sort of cloth in his mouth.
Liana stiffens beside me as she takes in the scene before her. My sweet sister is dressed in a pair of leather pants and combat boots with a little black tank top. Her hair is pulled up into a wild half ponytail and she’s got a dark shade of red lipstick on. She looks like a menace and nothing like the last time Liana met her. Meanwhile she’s got a naked man strapped to a chair and what looks to be burns covering various parts of his body. I pause the music from the main speaker and her head whips around to face me.
“What the fuck? It was just getting to the good part,” she snarls.
“Have you gotten any information out of him or have you just been playing with your food?”
“We’ve been getting to know one another. You can’t rush chemistry, mano.”
“It’s been days, Nicci,” I say and roll my eyes.
“You hear that?” she asks the man and slaps his dick hard. “My brother says we have played too long. That I have to start the timer now.”
The man’s eyes go wide and he starts to shake his head back and forth frantically. Liana squeezes my hand even tighter. Nicci drags her fingers down under the man's dick and we watch as her fingers pick up a long cord that hangs from the chair. She clicks a few buttons and red numbers come up on the small screen.
“What’s that?” Liana whispers.
“You don’t want to know,” I say with a chuckle.
The cloth is ripped from the man’s mouth and he cringes as my sister squeezes his balls a little too tightly.
“You fucking cunt. My people…they’ll come for me. You hear me? You’re fucking dead….” his last word is cut off as he starts howling in pain.
“Tik-tok,” Nicci says as she spears his dick with the hot poker making me cringe.
‘Christ.’
“Just tell us why you attacked my brother’s wife,” Nicci says and gestures towards us. “Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll grant you mercy.”
His head whips toward me and Liana and his eyes narrow but he doesn’t speak. I walk over to him and circle the chair. His chest is heaving and his tattoos are all fucked up from the burns but I can see one clear enough. It’s a capital R with an identical R intertwined on the back of his neck. The mark of an MC chapter out of Yuma. These guys aren’t supposed to operate this far north.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask him, leaning in close. My voice is soft, almost gentle. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“I know you,” he says. “You’re a pretty boy. Cartel trash. You think you run shit because of your old man. But your family is nothing. You’re…”
Nicci jams the poker into his bicep this time, and his words melt into a howl again. She pulls it back, then wipes the tip off on his thigh causing him to scream again.
“Oops,” she says, deadpan.
I crouch in front of him.
“You touched my property,” I say. “I want to know why. Who sent you, and what did they promise you in return.”
He shakes his head, laughing through the pain.
“I just wanted to fuck your whore,” he slurs and looks at Liana.
I hit him, hard enough to crack a tooth and his head whips back.
“You don’t look at her.”
Nicci leans against a workbench with her arms crossed.
“He’s not going to give you anything,” she says and eyes the cord with the timer dangling between his legs. Then she sighs and walks over to a long chain and pulls it. Four large plastic drapes come down, stained with a rusty brown color, effectively closing him and I inside.
“Such a shame,” she yells to the man as I push through the drapes, exciting the plastic cage. “I could have kept you around a little longer.” She connects some straps that hold the plastic pieces closed.”
“Wait,” he screams. “What did you leave in my ass, you bitch?”
