Ty glanced between us all, probably even more confused since neither had actually answered his damned question.
“The Lorigan Trials are death matches,” I answered. “Assholes with too much money and time on their hands enroll their best fighter in the competition as entertainment.”
“Death matches?” Ty asked. “Like some kind of human cockfight?” He didn’t hide his horror at the suggestion.
Kyle sneered. “Every time you move those luscious lips of yours, you remind me how little you know about how this world really is.”
“Kyle,” I snapped to get him to shut his trap, and then explained to Ty, “The original Lorigan Trials were connected with the sort of trafficking operation Blackmore and his ilk were involved in. They ceased after the IPB started taking out different member groups, so I’m surprised to hear they’ve started up again. Have you guys heard anything about this?”
“Nope,” Tara said.
“Nah,” Kyle followed.
Mick typed some more, and I pressed, “Mick?”
“Oh, no, no. Nothing on that front. I’m looking it up now, but nothing current. Everything on Blackmore is the usual follow-up from the nineties operation.”
“Well, the IPB’s clearly still getting intel about Blackmore from Kyzer, so I have a hard time believing no one at headquarters knows about the Lorigan Trials.”
“You think it’s connected?” Kyle asked.
“Maybe. It could just be starting up now. So many cockroaches running around, the IPB can only keep up with a fraction of them. Either way, it’s not surprising Junior’s taking after his daddy. This family is fucked up, always has been. Of course they would fucking place bets on human life.”
“So we put a stop to that too?” Ty asked.
The room grew eerily quiet as Kyle turned an annoyed glare Ty’s way. “What do you think this is? Altruism? You think every time we see fucked-up shit going on in the world, we put a stop to it? We’re not saints. We have missions. We have hits. In this case, we have a direct threat. At the end of the day, we have to tackle these things as the IPB calls them, not try to carve out every bit of darkness in the world. Plus, putting a stop to the Lorigan Trials doesn’t touch the larger issue of whatever fucked-up shit it’s connected with.”
I could tell by the way Ty’s frown deepened that it was a tough thing to hear, but Kyle was right.
“It’s just the way it is, Ty,” I said, understanding his frustration. Lord knew I went so many fucking years feeling the same way, but whether I liked it or not, there was only so much we could do when it came to purging the world of sick fucks.
But this wasn’t a TV show, and we weren’t heroes.
“I think it’s safe to say we all have our work cut out for us,” Tara said, returning the focus to the mission at hand, “so I’ll draw up a schedule for everyone for the rest of the week, and we’ll exercise due diligence before the auction.”
We divvied up responsibilities before splitting up.
After the day we’d had, I was ready for some sleep before we were back to the grind, working our latest mission.
Ty showered off first, and I followed after, then entered the bedroom. Ty lay stretched out across the air mattress, naked from the waist up, the crack of his ass exposed just barely above his briefs, his legs under the sheets, as he played what looked like a game of solitaire.
“Want me to deal you in?” he asked without looking up.
“If you could. Kind of had a tough day at the office.”
He snickered as I stepped around the mattress. Slipping out of my boxers, I slid under the covers, the entire mattress shifting with my weight.
Ty folded the cards together and shuffled.
“Surprised I had to have another day at the office, more than anything else, really,” I admitted.
“I’ll bet.”
“I’m sorry if Kyle seemed harsh earlier, when you asked about us stopping the Lorigan Trials.”
“No, it’s okay,” Ty said. “I guess I was being naive.”
“You were being a good person, Ty. Caring about making the world better. There’s nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, that’s what I like to think all this work was for, but you do learn that making the world a better place isn’t about casting out the darkness as much as constantly working to keep the light on. It’s a tough job, and it takes time. And you do what you can, but this auction and what it’s part of are bigger than the Blackmore Clan. And I assure you, the IPB will be looking into it once we get Junior and haul his ass back to headquarters.”
