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I had gotten the elbow to the eye myself by accident—emphasis on the accident part. But it had happened. I knew many detectives who roughed up suspects. I had just never been one of them. Never wanted someone to not get jail time based on something I had done.

The grilling for information had eaten up our day, so I was not surprised we had to work well into the night to catch up. We had a lot of driving to do, a lot of places to visit, a lot of people to see, and a lot of cash to bring back to Joaquin’s bar, Jimmy Rig.

Once we were there, one of Joaquin’s hostesses led us toward a room in the back.

“Why aren’t we going to the office or the VIP room?” Andre questioned as a man I had never met before or even seen opened the door.

Inside the sparse interior we had been led to, a couch was left vacant for us.

Joaquin stood with five men in the corner, and only then, stupidly, did it occur to me that I had not checked in with the DEA guys or the FBI agent all day long. I had a nine-millimeter strapped to my side, but I couldn’t get to it without risking someone putting a bullet in my head. I was at Joaquin’s mercy, and I had walked right into the fire all by myself. I had not done anything quite that dumb in a really long time.

“Get on your fuckin’ knees!”

So the couch was actually not for us.

Andre, Benny, and I were all grabbed by the back of the neck and shoved down onto the cold concrete floor. As I watched, one man separated himself from the others. It only took me a second. I had seen a lot of pictures of Esau Modella; I had just never seen him in real life.

“Apparently, we have a cop in our midst,” the man in charge of security for the Delgado cartel informed us. “And we’re about to find out who that is.”

Interrogation or torture—it was impossible to differentiate between the two.

The first thing that happened was, I lost track of time. It was tough to tell one day from the next when you were locked in a dark room.

It was impressive, really, what Mr. Modella knew about inflicting pain, but being on the receiving end of it, of his ingenuity and patience, was grueling. The worst part of it was, they suspected one of the three of us: me, Andre, or Benny. Someone, they thought, had been wired for sound for six months, feeding the Feds information. I wanted to point out I hadn’t even been with Joaquin for a month, but it came down to the fact that somebody was a cop and the other two knew or were covering. Or only one of us was covering. Mr. Modella didn’t know. Joaquin didn’t know. But they were determined to break us to find out. What that told me was that either Benny or Andre was on the job. I just didn’t know which.

As the days slipped by, it was difficult to focus enough to figure it out.

I had been beaten unconscious the first day, and then, because they took my watch, it was too hard to figure out how the days bled into each other.

It was a kindness my shirt wasn’t ripped off so no one saw the stitches, or I was certain those would have been pounded on. Joaquin didn’t mention it, but still, occasionally, someone caught me there. It winded me instantly—the acute, splintering pain—and on my drop toward the floor, my face took some more damage.

My left eye was swollen shut, my nose broken—again—and between the piss and blood and vomit, the cell where they kept me reeked. We had been transferred at some point—or I was, having by then lost contact with Benny and Andre. I couldn’t hear the others screaming anymore. I was proud of myself for not yelling, but when they broke my right arm, I didn’t have a choice. The howl was involuntary and loud.

The questions were always the same: Are you the cop? Do you know who the cop is? What have you told anyone about us?

They only gave me water, nothing else, and when I saw no one for what felt like days, I thought maybe I had been left to die. My only regret was I had not gotten to live with Aaron Sutter. I would have really enjoyed coming home to him every night.

Since walking was no longer an option—even standing was dicey—I was dragged to an area of a warehouse and thrown down in front of Joaquin and Esau Modella. It was funny to see what appeared to be pain wash over Joaquin’s face. We were his men after all. It couldn’t have been good for him to be the one with the weak links.

Andre had been beaten, much like me. Benny was worse, and his breathing sounded wet.

“So,” Esau said, striding forward, “the only person who has said nothing at all is you, Mr. Ross. Why do you think that is?”

It took me a second to find my voice since I hadn’t used it in however many days.

“Because I’ve only been here a month,” I answered him.

“And what have you seen or heard from Benny or Andre?”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“Meaning, are they fuckin’ cops?”

Both men were looking at me.

“No,” I answered. “You got this all wrong.”

“Unfortunately,” Esau Modella said, removing his gun from the holster under his Armani suit jacket and maneuvering around behind Benny and Andre, “we know that can’t be the case.”