“Come on, firestarter,” Asa teased. “You telling me you don’t want a little payback for these fuckers trying to flambé you and your boyfie?”
It wasn’t about that. Of course, he wanted revenge. He wanted all of them dead. He’d said as much yesterday. He just didn’t think it would be as easy to break one of them as the others thought.
Atticus cleared his throat. “The good news is Calliope has identified the cops involved. Luckily, there are only three with a paper trail leading back to the crew.”
Arsen frowned. It had been less than a day. What had changed? “I thought you said she was having a hard time following the money to the cops being paid off?”
“That’s ‘cause the money was flowing in the opposite direction. We thought the gang was paying off the cops to look the other way, but it’s the cops who are paying the gang to do their dirty work for them. Once she realized that, she was able to run them down pretty quickly despite their countermeasures,” Atticus said.
“Who are they?” Cree asked.
Cree’s adoptive father was a former cop. Now, he was a drug addict, hooked on prescription pills following an injury sustained in the line of duty. He’d been a piece of shit before the drugs, but he was worse now. And his mother spent all her time praying, as if that would somehow fix the problem she refused to believe existed. That was why Cree tried to never visit home. He didn’t think of them as his real parents, anyway.
“Two detectives and the police chief,” Jericho said, voice grim.
“You want us to take out a police chief?” Nico said, eyes wide. “People are going to be all over three dead cops, Coe. Four if you count the guy Arsen already took out.”
“You think it’s an accident that we haven’t heard dick about that guy? No. Even if they do suspect he’s dead, they’re keeping it quiet because they can’t afford questions, either,” Asa said. “Trust us, this isn’t our first rodeo.”
“One missing cop isn’t the same as three dead cops. And even if they don’t find the body, nobody is going to ignore a missing police chief. Especially not with three other detectives gone, too.”
“That’s where I come in,” Zane said, waving a hand lazily from the floor. “Calliope is going to make it look like one of the detectives ‘anonymously’ forwarded me information due to a guilty conscience, asking me to break the story about a mysterious cartel with a local gang and even the police chief in their pocket.”
Arsen frowned. A cartel? For all the crime in their neighborhood, the cartel was blissfully far removed from them. Sure, they were likely somewhere in the 4Loco supply chain, but not close enough to be local.
“Do you think that will work? Blaming it on some random cartel activity?” Levi asked. “I mean, won’t the cops try to find out who killed their people even if they were dirty?”
Zane scoffed. “You would think, but that’s not what will happen. We’ve seen it a million times before.”
“Yeah, they just need all the loose ends tied up in a believable story,” Asa said.
Felix nodded. “We point them towards an easily digestible boogeyman, the Keyser Soze of our story, and we make these murders look like retaliation for ratting them out to Zane. A story he can spin any way he wants.”
“Won’t they investigate? Look for this mysterious cartel?” Arsen asked.
“Jamesville PD?” Felix asked. “Hardly. They lack the resources, and this is a bad look for them. They’re going to be under fire for having four dirty cops in one small police force. The local politicians will want to bring in new management immediately and then pretend the whole thing never happened.”
Zane nodded. “An investigation drags things out. They’ll want to close this case and move on as quickly and quietly as possible. That’s why we’re giving them the cartel. It’s an easy out. Nobody blinks about cartel violence and it’s also not shocking when nobody is ever punished for the crime.”
“What about the feds?” Lake asked. “Won’t this draw their attention?”
Avi made a face. “Debatable. But if it does…we have connections. Let’s dive off that bridge when we get to it.”
“Yeah, right now, we need to find someone who will spill all the intimate details of the operation,” Asa said. “Leave us to handle the cover-up.”
“Who has that kind of information that would be willing to talk?” Atticus asked. “Not everyone in the gang can be privy to everything in their operation, no?”
“They’re not a very big crew,” Seven said. “I would imagine, when moving human cargo, you need all hands on deck. Even if they’re taking women and children primarily, not everyone is gonna go without a fight. There are guards, lookouts, enforcers, handlers. They can’t afford to not have everyone pull their weight.”
Arsen glanced at the closed bedroom door, grateful Ever was still asleep. Hearing them so casually discuss the captivity of these victims would probably only make him feel worse, and he was already swimming in unnecessary guilt. None of this was his fault. But it had taken forever to convince him of that.
“So, who’s the weakest link in the organization?” Lake asked.
“Cherry,” Jericho said without hesitation, his expression grim.
Arsen’s eyes went wide. But before he could say anything, Levi said, “What? Wait…you want us to torture a girl?”
He didn’t sound opposed to the idea, more surprised. Torture wasn’t really something they had to do in their line of work. At least, when they weren’t teaming up with the Mulvaneys. Usually, their jobs were like Jennika. Quick and quiet. In and out. Torture wasn’t something any of them enjoyed. At least…not as far as Arsen knew.
