Page 27 of LA King

I take the Advil and lie back against the pillows again.

The events of last night replay in my head on a loop, and I try to make some sense of what happened. Who was that man in the restaurant, and why did he target me? He mentioned my father, which makes zero sense. I have no doubt my father has angered many people throughout his political career—but enough for them to want to shoot his daughter in the middle of a crowded restaurant?

Alejandro will get answers, but whether he’ll give me the truth about it is another matter entirely. He and my father aren’t friends, even if they publicly claim to be allies. But an ally doesn’t threaten to expose you to the FBI and then demand your daughter’s hand in marriage as the only way to prevent it.

It still baffles me that a man like Alejandro felt the need to do that. There must be dozens of women who’d jump at the chance to marry him. Is it a power thing?

I groan loudly. My headache isn’t helping me think straight at all, but something about this whole arrangement doesn’t add up. If Alejandro won’t give me the truth, then I’ll find it for myself.

Chapter

Sixteen

Alejandro

Ienter the old warehouse and head toward Jax, Hank, and the other men who’ve been keeping the gunman from last night hostage.

Hank and Jax meet me halfway, the former flicking his lit cigarette into the distance.

“Those things will kill you,” I say.

“Well, something’s gotta,” he replies gruffly.

I turn my attention to Jax, a man who’s able to find information on anyone anywhere when I need him to. “What do you have for me?”

“Layton Cooper. Forty-four. Lives in Virginia. Wife left him last year. They had a daughter. She died a little over two years ago when she was sixteen. Suicide, apparently.”

“Has he said much?”

Hank shakes his head. “No, Boss. Per your orders, we haven’t interrogated him yet. And he’s been quiet as a church mouse all night except to ask for some water.”

I thank them both and head over to Layton, who’s bound to a chair, grabbing a bottle of water on my way. My men were here all night and would have openly enjoyed their provisions in front of him, and they wouldn’t have shown him any mercy by giving him so much as a sip of fluid.

I pull up a chair and sit directly in front of him. “You thirsty?”

He blinks a flake of dried blood away from his eyelash. “Yeah,” he croaks, his eyes fixed on the bottle.

“Why did you try to shoot my wife?”

“I didn’t care about her being anyone’s wife. I just wanted to hurt her father,” he says. “I wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

I open the bottle and hold it to his lips. He gulps greedily until I take it away.

It’s easy to say he wouldn’t have hurt her, but he got to her and he put a gun in her face, and I will never forgive that. “Why do you want to hurt her father?”

He looks me dead in the eye, no expression on his face. It’s the face of a man defeated. “Because he took everything from me.”

“Do you have a death wish, Layton?”

He shrugs. “I have nothing left to live for. Why don’t you just shoot me in the head and get it over with?”

I lean closer. “I’m not sure you appreciate who you’re dealing with. I don’t just shoot people in the head, cabrón. I like to torture them first.” Now we have some emotion. Fear. The color drains from his face as he realizes the situation he’s in. “Especially when they point a gun in my wife’s face.”

“I told you I never would have hurt her. She seems like a good person. And I just wanted to scare her. I wanted her to tell him how terrified she was so he would know exactly how it felt.”

“How did you know where she’d be?”

“I knew she was in Bel Air, and then pictures of you two at that restaurant were posted all over last night.”