I steel my expression as Caleb pulls his phone from his pocket and brings up the pictures Farley sent us earlier—of his baby-mama and child, tied up and blindfolded in the back of the van, terrified. With a thumb swipe, he shows him the next picture, from Farley’s West Coast guys, confirming how they strolled into Mama Puff’s sunny little San Bernardino home and likewise escorted the elderly woman out.
Every muscle in Puff’s neck tenses a second before he lunges for Caleb with a roar.
Caleb, expecting the reaction, is quick on his feet, moving just out of reach. Likewise, the guards expected something was about to go down because three of them dive in, grabbing Puff by his arms and slamming his face onto the table.
“You’re all dead!” He screams through bared teeth, his cheek against the metal surface. He struggles against his restrainers, but they have a solid grip of him. “Every single one of you is dead!”
I know exactly how you feel, Puff.
“Did you just threaten us, inmate?” One of the guards—a steroid-filled beefy dumbass named Mills—glances at the security camera aimed in their direction. The tiny red light cuts out abruptly. He takes that moment to pin Puff’s right hand on the table and then he pulls out a hidden baton and smashes it against Puff’s knuckles.
I grimace at the sound of bones cracking.
Caleb waits until Puff’s grunts of pain to quiet before he leans forward, closer to Puff’s ear. “Do we have an understanding?”
After a moment, Puff spits out a contorted “yes.”
“I’m glad you see it our way. Pleasure doing business with you. Gabe’ll be in touch very soon.” Caleb pauses to give our father an “are you satisfied?” stare but doesn’t wait for a response, sauntering out of the visitor’s room.
He plays the part well; I’ll give him that much. Wouldn’t guess he didn’t enjoy that power. But I know he’s as nauseous as I am about this whole deal.
“That hand’s not looking good, inmate. You sure you don’t know how it happened?” Mills exclaims with mock-concern, his weapon out of sight. Two guards haul a seething, hunched Puff out the door. They’ll dump him in his cell and wait until tomorrow before they suggest visiting the infirmary, so they can mark it down as a prisoner dispute in the paperwork. Throw a bunch of inmates together and they break bones all the time. And they don’t talk.
Moments later, visitors begin trickling into the room and the guards shift back to their watchful posts.
Dad nods toward where Puff and Caleb were sitting. “Let’s hope that’s the last time we have to have a conversation with him about his obligations to our family.”
If all goes well, that’ll be the last time there is any talk of obligations to the Eastons. “On that note.” I rise. “Call Bane. I want to know she’s okay.”
“Sit down,” he barks. “We’re not done with our conversation yet.”
As much as I want to tell him to go fuck himself, cooperating will get me farther. Still, I wait a few beats before I settle back into my seat, my ass perched on the edge, primed for liftoff.
“The new fish has made a lot of very protective friends.” Dad’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. It never does. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you trying to flex in here?”
He’s talking about Mercy’s father and the ring of influential prisoners I’ve thrown bills at. Between them and the few guards I trust, the man is never without a shield. Not in the chow hall, not in the courtyard, not even in the showers.
“I don’t give a shit whether you notice,” I lie. If he’s been paying attention to that “nobody,” as he once called him, it’s not for any good reason. He’s strategizing, and Mercy’s father is a sitting duck.
Dad opens his mouth to retort, probably to call me on my lie, but decides against it. “Expect a phone call from Eduardo. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week. But whenever it rings, you answer it.”
“I guess that depends on whether my phone rings today, doesn’t it? And it better be damn well ringing by the time I get back to my car.”
He grits his teeth. “Bane is loyal but difficult, you know that.”
“But you’re so good at making people do what you want them to do.” I lean forward, meeting his gaze. “Twenty minutes or maybe I’ll be too busy to answer the phone when Eduardo calls, and he can be personally offended.”
I leave Vlad seething at the table, but my mind is spinning. If I somehow find Mercy—no, when I find Mercy—my dad will just shift his focus to her father, and if something happens to him….
Donny meets me in the hallway near the waiting room. He jerks his head and leads me into one of the small private rooms. It’s the room I carried Mercy into, the day she passed out at the security desk after finding out her father had been beaten to an inch of his life. Back when she was merely a conquest for me. “You still want me to toss his cell for that phone?”