Page 8 of The Wild Charge

“It’s a cattle trailer, actually,” Walsh drawled. “There’s a difference. Just as there’s a difference between you and Abacus. They might have included you in their scheme, but I don’t buy for a second that theyvalueyou at all.”

Luis’s lips pressed together. His nostrils flared, and his face flushed. “They sent me–”

“To Mexico, to revive an already-dead cartel,” Walsh said. “Though I imagine it did offer you some personal satisfaction – a chance to get back at Daddy Dearest – you were nothing but a pawn. A means to open up the drug lanes from south of the border. Or are you actually cooking the stuff?”

Luis hesitated, clearly warring with himself. He was insulted, and still proud, but the light kept glinting off the pliers in Mercy’s hand. “I’m producing what they need, yes.”

“The paralytic?”

“It’s revolutionary.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” Walsh made a note, and, without lifting his head, said, “I’m assuming you used it on Allie Henderson and Nicole Myer?”

“Ye–” Luis cut off abruptly, eyes flashing wide a moment, before he tightened his mouth and said, “Fuck you.”

Mercy walked around behind him, casual and easy, and a moment later the sharp littlecrackof a finger breaking echoed off the concrete.

Luis shouted, more from shock than pain, Reese thought, though his eyes did water.

Mercy clipped him in the side of the head with the pliers before walking back around to his front. “Shut up. Answer the question.”

Luis panted a moment, open-mouthed, gaze pinned warily on his torturer. Reese wondered if he had any idea how much worse things could get.

Walsh prompted, “We know you and your buddy Peter had them disappeared. He confessed to it.”

“It was a little hard to understand him by the end,” Mercy said, grinning, “after I pulled his teeth out.” He waggled the pliers in demonstration.

“If you cooperate now,” Walsh said, sounding bored, “you can save yourself some hurt, before the end.”

He glanced between them, and, even, toward Reese and Tenny, where they stood against the wall. Tenny waggled his fingers and grinned.

Luis’s gaze narrowed. “You survived.”

Tenny’s mask was firmly in place, but Reese felt him tense beside him.

“You’re the one I shot,” Luis continued, derision touching his voice. “I can even see the scar.” He tilted his head, smiling small and vicious. “How’d you manage not to die?”

Tenny gathered a breath.

And Reese spoke before he could. “Because your aim is terrible.” Anger reared its head in his belly for the first time this evening. Luis was a worm; Luis was nothing. Watching Mercy torture answers out of him had neither repelled nor attracted him; it was part of the job, in this case. But hearing Luis taunt Tenny catapulted him back in time to that moment in the doctor’s mansion, Tenny twitching and gasping on the floor, his blood running hot through Reese’s fingers. That left him seeing red. “The gun was too powerful for you; you weren’t used to that amount of recoil, and you were only using one hand. An amateur mistake. You use guns to impress people. You think that Desert Eagle you carry frightens people, but, really, it frightens you; it would have been smarter to carry a smaller caliber gun, but you couldn’t resist looking like a movie character, could you?”

Luis’s triumphant expression had melted away. He looked defensive, now.

Dimly, Reese was aware of Mercy and Walsh staring at him.

Tenny hissed, “What are you doing?”

Reese pushed off the wall and stalked forward, aware that his pulse had picked up, and that his hands had curled into fists. “You’re afraid right now. You’re stalling. You know that the pain’s only going to get worse – Mercy broke all of your father’s toes before he finally started talking. But the difference is, he got to live. You know that once you’re done talking, you’ll be dead, and you’re afraid to hurt, but you’re even more afraid to die. That’s why you ran away in Texas, and let Candy kill all your men. That’s why you work for Abacus, isn’t it? You aren’t smart and strong enough to run your own organization. You do what they tell you, and you’re more afraid of them than you are of us.

“Which is worse? Dying right here? Or dying in New York?”

It was the first time he’d ever addressed someone like this: first time he’d ever verbally challenged an enemy of the club, his voice prickling with angry heat, not at all indifferent and cool. It was the first time he’dwantedto.

HehatedLuis, hated him in a way that left him reeling, because, in retrospect, that hate he’d felt for Tenny a few months ago hadn’t been hate at all, had it?

It was silent a moment. Luis stared at him, sweat trickling slowly down his temples, misting his upper lip.

Finally, Mercy chuckled. “How about this,Holy Father. Answer our damn questions, or I’ll leave you alone with this guy for five minutes.”

---