“For all we know, they have,” Ruck told him. “I bet if we searched we’ll find cops who’ve been transferred for looking too hard at the situation. Or the opposite, cops transferred in to mismanage the cases to keep anyone from looking into it, or both.”
“Or they got canned,” Kilo added.
“Most likely, if they were under probation,” Ruck said with a nod. “I’m betting a lot of lives have been changed because of this group. And not in a good way.”
“Do we have a plan?” Relay asked. “Because I have one I can offer up.”
“Kill everyone?” I asked with a grin.
He gave me a look of approval. “It’s like you know me.”
“Destroy everything,” Bolo added.
“Unmake everything they’ve built,” Kilo tacked on.
“Take all of their money,” Flir said, speaking for the first time since the meeting had started.
We all looked over at him in surprise.
He shrugged. “Paying for a rush on these apartments isn’t cheap.” His gaze slid over to Bolo and Relay. “Not to mention feeding their father and brother. I swear they eat almost as much as Bolo does. Each.”
“And that’s saying something,” Strike added. “Bro eats like a hippo.”
“Hippos are herbivores,” Bolo said with an offended look on his face. “I’m like a fucking lion.”
“Lions are carnivores,” Flir said with a roll of his eyes. “You’re an omnivore.”
“Am not,” Bolo muttered.
“Yeah, this fucker doesn’t eat anything green,” Relay said, jerking a thumb at his brother.
Flir rubbed a hand down his face. “I don’t know why I bother…”
“Neither do we,” Bolo told him before turning back to the rest of us. “Don’t let the geek fool you, he’s just getting a hard-on at the idea of inventorying their warehouses. Probably jerked off last night to dreams of their excel sheets.”
“That’s…not…true.” Flir stuttered awkwardly.
“Ho-ly shit!” Bolo slammed his hands on the table. “Fucker really did spackle his ceiling to excel sheets and inventories.”
“Can we get back to The Collective?” Ruck asked, with a tinge of amusement shining through the aggravation. This was how most conversations with our brothers went. Staying on track was damn near impossible, though Ruck did his best.
“Right. Plan?” Strike asked.
“I’m working on it,” Ruck told us. “But it’s going to start with Carrick.”
“And finding Ryan,” I added. “Once he’s back here, safe, with Rue, then we can finish dismantling Carrick’s operation.”
“Any chance we’ll be able to do that without the rest of The Collective coming after us?” Bolo asked.
“That’s what I’m working on,” Ruck told him. “We need to work this in a way that separates him from the pack. Keeps things quiet until we’re ready for the rest to know he’s nothing but a fucking smear on the sidewalk.”
“I still like my plan,” Relay announced.
“Except your plan has as much finesse as a herd of buffalo stampeding,” Kilo pointed out.
“Yeah,” Bolo added, “we’ll end up fighting twenty different factions of this fucking organization at once.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Relay asked with a glower.
