30. Layla

Chapter thirty

Layla

I whistled a tune as I all but skipped down to the basement. Having Tommy in my interrogation room was a real mood booster. The guys were all busy today, so I was visiting him on my own, which worked better for my next attempt to get him to talk. I quietly entered the room and observed him for a moment. Tommy was shaking slightly, staring straight ahead with a zoned-out look. I would have thought he had thoroughly checked out, except that he flinched at the more visceral parts of the video. Tommy wasn’t broken yet, but he would be by the time I was done with him. I left the lights off as I approached him, wanting to keep the atmosphere more intimate.

I paused the video on a good shot of the shark popping out of the water. Its big black eye looked like it was staring into my soul. “Uncle Tommy,” I said sadly. “I have to admit, seeing you like this hurts the little girl inside of me who thought you were one of her heroes.” I turned the lamp on and switched off the TV and shark tank lights. The lamp cast a warm yellow glow around us, our own little pocket in the darkness. Lining up the chair, I hit the buttons to loosen the chains and carefully lower him into it. He winces as his limbs change positions. I attach the IV bag to the pole nearby to keep it elevated and note the feeding tube in his nose. Seeing those life-preserving measures in place fills me with joy. Now, I can keep him alive indefinitely, slowly feeding him to my sharks bit by bit. I mask my happiness as I move closer to him and remove the eye speculums. His eyes fall shut for the first time in days, and he almost groans in relief.

I sit in a chair in front of him and regard him sadly. “You know, it doesn’t have to be like this. You weren’t always a traitor. You used to be loyal to my Father. Find that man. Let him out of whatever prison you’ve banished him to in your mind, and tell me how to find Anton. Do that, and I’ll put you out of your misery. All of this will stop, and you can die peacefully.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Tommy replied after several minutes of silence.

I sighed. “That’s too bad.” I grabbed the eye speculums from the table to put them back in.

“Wait!” Tommy said. “I want to bargain with my life. I’ll tell you where Anton is, and you let me go.”

“Sorry, but you can’t bargain with something that doesn’t belong to you,” I replied as I tried to put the first speculum in. Tommy thrashed his head to make it difficult, so I grabbed his chin and forced him to look me in the eye. “Stop struggling, or I will knock you out, and you’ll wake up missing some important bits,” I growled. That calmed him down, so I continued talking as I got both speculums back into his eyes. “Your life is mine for what you did to my Father. You will never leave this room alive, but how long you stay here, and how painful your final days will be, is entirely up to you.”

“Then go to hell,” Tommy replied.

“Suit yourself.” I hooked his saline bag back to the chain and hit the button to suspend him again. I grabbed my knife and torch, and once it was heated enough, I sliced a chunk of Tommy’s ass off.

Tommy’s angry, pain-filled scream echoed around the room as I turned the shark tank lights back on and tossed the ass meat in. Once I had the video playing again, I saluted Tommy and left the room to let him sit for a while. I was unsurprised when I opened the door and saw Colt coming out of the observation room. I figured one of them would have snuck down here behind me to make sure I didn’t run into any trouble.

“Hellcat, what happens if you can’t break him?” Colt asked.

“Oh, he’ll break,” I assured him as we headed back upstairs. “He went from ‘kill me, I’m not saying anything’ to ‘spare my life, and I’ll tell you everything’ in three days. He’ll break.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll torture him until there isn’t anything left to torture, and we’ll find Anton on our own,” I replied.

“I need to talk to you,” Tyler said, poking his head out of his office, as we passed the office hallway. Sometimes, he was such a creep. The only way Tyler knew we would be walking past at that moment was if he watched us on the cameras. We adjusted course, and as we reached his office, Colton kissed my cheek and went inside.

“What’s up?” I asked Tyler as I dropped into the seat across from him.

“So you know how Kadence wants to handle her ex-partner alone?” Tyler asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’ve still been quietly looking into him, and I found some things that might be useful to Kadence. Including his location,” Tyler replied. “What do you want to do?”

Every cell in my body wanted to demand the information and go hunt the fucker down, but I made a promise to Kadence, and I keep my word. “I’ll call her and see if she’s interested.” I went to my office and shut the door. Molly had the day off, so I was alone. I pulled up Kadence’s contact info and hit send.

“What’s up?” Kadence said when she answered.

“You sound out of breath,” I replied. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Uhh, nope. Just finished a workout,” Kadence replied.

“Who said we were finished?” a voice said in the background—a voice I recognized.

“Shhh!” Kadence replied quickly.

“Was that Freddy?” I asked.

“No.”

“Hiii, Queen!” Freddy yelled. “Ouch!”

I started laughing. “One of these days, we’re going to have to get together so you can fill me in on what’s been happening at Scotty’s.”

“Definitely. I have so much to tell you,” Kadence replied. “Hold on, let me go somewhere quiet where we won’t be interrupted.” I heard a door close and the scrape of a chair. “Ok, what’s up?”

“Tyler found something on your partner that he thinks might be useful to you,” I said, not bothering to ease her into it.

Kadence didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “I thought I told you to stay out of it,” she replied. I could tell by her tone that she was not pleased.

“I did stay out of it!” I quickly reassured her. “But Tyler doesn’t let things go so easily, and likes to keep track of all the players on the board. Your partner is still a threat, so he’s going to keep digging and looking. I gave you my word that I wouldn’t go after him, and I’m not.”

“I can do this on my own, you know. You aren’t the only one capable of hunting someone down. I’m a fucking detective, for fuck’s sake!”

“Kadence,” I said, trying to calm her down. “I know you can do it on your own. I wouldn’t have agreed to let you handle him if I didn’t believe that. All I’m saying is call Tyler. See what he has to say. If you use his intel, great. If you don’t, then that is also fine. The choice is yours, but from the excited sparkle in his eye, I’d say whatever he found out is good, and you’ll want to know about it.”

“Fine,” Kadence replied. “I’ll call him.”

“That’s all I ask,” I said. “Now, what the hell is going on with you, Scotty, and Freddy?”

“Oh no. That’s an in-person conversation,” Kadence laughed before getting quiet. “If I’m being honest, part of me is afraid to talk about it. If I say it out loud, the bubble will pop, and it will end.”

“Are you happy?”

“Deliriously.”

I smiled to myself, my heart swelling with happiness for my friend. “Then don’t worry about saying it out loud. Just enjoy yourself. The rest of it can wait.”

“Thanks, Layla. How are things going with Sean and the guys?”

“Well, they’re hating the cock cages,” I snickered. “As for Sean... we’ve made progress. But... he hurt me so fucking much, Kadence. I love him with my whole heart, but something is holding me back from letting things go back to the way they were.”

“Maybe that’s because they can’t return to how they were,” Kadence said. “Maybe they need to go somewhere new.”

“What on earth does that even mean?” I laughed.

“I have no idea,” Kadence replied, laughing with me. “But it sounded really wise.”

I shook my head. “I think it’s just going to take time. Neither my brain nor my heart are ready to trust him again fully. Not yet. It’s too soon. I hate feeling like he has to prove himself to me, but I do.”

“How?”

“I have no fucking clue,” I replied. “Maybe it isn’t any one thing. Maybe it’s just getting up every day and understanding and accepting my boundaries without pushing me for more than I can give. He let me beat the shit out of him the other day.”

“I hope you didn’t hold anything back!” Kadence growled.

“I didn’t,” I chuckled. “I was too mad for restraint. Sean just laid there and took it until I wore myself out. Sean’s always been good at the gestures that matter.”

“That man loves you, Layla,” Kadence replied. “I hate to admit it, ’cause I want to kick his ass for eternity, but you’d be blind not to see how crazy he is about you.”

“Sometimes I worry that won’t be enough,” I admitted. I heard muffled voices in the background and Kadence’s giggles.

“Layla, I’m going to have to let you go. I’ll call you later.”

“Ok. You have fun,” I replied.

“You too. Oh, and Layla?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re allowed to forgive him. You don’t need anyone’s permission, but I’ll do it if you still think you need someone to tell you. You’re allowed to forgive Sean for what he did to you. And you’re allowed to forgive yourself for what you thought you did to him.”

“Thanks, Kadence,” I said softly.

“I love you.”

“Love you, too.” I hung up the phone and groaned as I laid my forehead on the desk. Why the hell did it have to feel so complicated?

“She’s right, you know?” Tyler said.

I jumped three feet in the air and shrieked at the sound of his voice. How long had he been there? “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” Tyler replied. He approached where I was sitting and turned my chair to face him. He dropped to his knees in front of me and grabbed my hands. “You’re allowed to forgive Sean and yourself. He’s part of our family; sometimes, family hurts each other when they only try to do the right thing. He messed up.”

“It was a pretty fucking big mistake,” I scoffed.

“It was,” Tyler agreed. “But isn’t there some saying about love being patient? It also says that love keeps no records of wrongs.”

“It also says love protects,” I countered.

Tyler gave me a small smile. “Isn’t that what he thought he was doing? In some twisted way, he thought he was protecting you in the long run.”

I groaned as I closed my eyes. “Why does it have to be so complicated?”

“It doesn’t,” Tyler replied. “You just have to figure out what you can forgive and forget and can’t.”

“What do you think I should do?” I asked. “Just let it all go and move on?”

Tyler stood and leaned down to kiss me. “I can’t tell you what to do, Layla. Only you can decide what you can and can’t live with. My advice? Follow your gut. You’ll know when it’s time and what is truly important at the end of the day.”

Tyler left me alone in my office with my thoughts. After weighing the pros and cons for what felt like hours, I finally decided to heed Tyler’s advice and stop pushing myself for a resolution. It would happen when it was meant to and not a moment sooner. I checked my watch and smiled, my spirits lifting. It was time to check on Tommy again. Maybe this time, he will have something to tell me.

I headed back downstairs. The lamp I had left on gave me just enough light for what I needed to do, so I didn’t bother turning on the overhead lights. I paused the movie and looked up at Tommy. He still looked angry but also more resigned to his fate. That was good. “Have you decided to cooperate yet?” I asked. I started heating my knife as I waited for an answer.

“Layla, I don’t know how many times I can say that I’m not telling you a damn thing until you believe me,” Tommy said, sounding tired. I was wearing him down.

Without a word, I circled behind him, grabbed ahold of his balls, gross, and sliced them off. Tommy’s screams filled the room, and when he saw his balls in my hand, the man fainted. I guess he was attached to them. Now, it was more of an emotional attachment. I snickered at my little joke as Tommy came to. I made sure he was watching and then dropped his balls into the shark tank.

“I think maybe I’ll give you a day or so to evaluate your quality of life and make some tough choices,” I said.

I wrinkled my nose at my hands, which now had Tommy ball germs all over them, and pumped a handful of sanitizer into them from the bottle on the table.

“That was fucking hot,” Zach said.

“What the fuck is it with you guys today and scaring the shit out of me?!” I yelled as I spun to see him emerge from the shadows.

“Sorry,” Zach said sheepishly. “I was going to say something when you came in, but you looked like a woman on a mission, so I figured I’d just let you do your thing.”

“Wait. You’ve just been sitting down here watching Tommy watch the video,” I asked, wiping the excess sanitizer on my hands onto my jeans.

“Yeah,” Zach laughed. “Sometimes I just yell out ‘shark’ and watch him freak.” Zach moved into my space, backing me against the table. His lips were inches from mine as he trailed his fingers from my hips, up my sides, and into my hair.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Like I said, that was fucking hot. It shouldn’t be. As a man, I should not be turned on by my girlfriend cutting off another man’s balls, especially when she currently has my dick in cock prison, but I am.” Zach lifts me onto the table, his hands immediately going to the button on my jeans.

“Wait! Here? Now?” I ask as he tugs my jeans off.

“Yep,” Zach replies.

“But you’re—“ I groan as he bends, pulls my panties to the side, and swipes his tongue through my folds.

“I’m fucking starving,” Zach growls into my pussy, finishing my sentence.

“Oh, fuck,” I moan. I lean over, scrambling for the remote to start the video again so that the sound drowns out my moans.

“Leave it,” Zach orders. “Let him fucking hear us. Let him hear what he will never again be able to participate in.”

This was next level fucked up, but I couldn’t make myself care as Zach plunged two fingers inside of me and latched onto my clit. I expected him to spend some time edging me. Given his current predicament, I wouldn’t have blamed him. So, I wasn’t prepared for the orgasm that suddenly slammed into me like a freight train.

My nails dug into Zach’s scalp as I pulled him closer, smothering him as I came. Not that he gave a shit considering his tongue never slowed down once. When it was too much, I pushed him away from me. Zach straightened, licking his lips, a smug look on his face as I lay sprawled across the table, twitching.

“That definitely deserves a reward,” I said when I could form words again. I sat forward and pulled the key from beneath my shirt, but Zach reached out and stopped my movements. He gently took the key necklace out of my hands and tucked it under my shirt.

“I’ll wait,” Zach said. “I’m getting used to it now. And when it does finally come off, you won’t be leaving the bedroom for days, and waiting for that is totally going to be worth it.” Zach winked and left me and Tommy alone.

I got off the table, found where Zach had tossed my jeans, and pulled them back on. Once I was dressed, I grabbed the remote and started the video again.

I smiled at Tommy and waved. I turned the lamp off, and now the only lights in the room were the shark tank and the TV. It was time to let him do some long-term stewing.