Killian smiled, but it never reached his eyes. “It would require going to or letting outsiders in, and they don’t like that. That aside, something I imagine is still a problem on that new ocean planet they now inhabit, is that it’s pretty damn hard to bring people down to where they are, not to mention a lot of tech doesn’t really work well at those crushing depths.”
“I imagine,” Ender agreed, as he started walking forward again.
“What are the plans for today?” Cyrus asked.
“Meetings, and then Killian and I will work on a few things together. I have more of the system to show you. Cyrus, you shall stand there and watch.”
The Fate sighed. “Can I at least be in the room this time?”
“If you must.”
Killian giggled as the other man sighed again.
“How are negotiations with The Zver Group going? They seemed on board at the last update. Please, tell me we’ve finally moved past the talking stages of things, and some sort of action is being taken?” Ender asked. “I would like to get a foothold in Russia by the end of the year.”
There were few countries where they didn’t have some sort of base, and Russia was one of them.
Cyrus cut in with an objection before Raynir, the one monitoring negotiations, had a chance to say anything. “You can’t seriously want to work with them?!”
He sighed as the triplets snickered. The others remained silent at the interruption. Interruptions seemed to happen on the regular during meetings with Cyrus hovering. It was sort oftheir new routine. They’d talk about illegal shit, and Cyrus would randomly get huffy about it.
“Serious as a grave. They are our foot in the door in a country that is a pain in the ass to breach.”
The Fate scoffed. “More like a foot in the grave, with the shit they get up to. Not to mention, their values are not even remotely similar to Cryptid Means.”
Ender wrinkled his nose. The Fate wasn’t wrong. The Zver Group was a cross between a mercenary group and a rebel one, with a little bit of mafia thrown in there for fun. Truthfully, the things they did were often more about lining their own pockets over helping Cryptid kind. That being said, gathering intel from locations they didn’t have a foothold in could be, no pun intended, like Russian roulette. Shit got missed.
“What do you know that we don’t?”
“You are aware they are working for the Russian mafia, but you are off base on what they are doing for them. They are heavily involved in human and Cryptid trafficking. Not to mention, thanks to them, the Russian black market on organ harvesting and sales are through the roof.”
Ender let out an angry hiss. “I knew that report sounded a bit too squeaky clean.”
The oldest triplet, Dessa, tsked. “They likely managed to wash the records before they got to us. They are the underground authority there, so it would be easy for them to do.” The Manticore was currently sporting bright candy-apple red hair, and he only knew it was her due to the beauty mark beside her left eye, and because she spoke at all. Being his Domestic, or rather Earth Intelligence Officer, it was her domain.
“Someone was slacking!” Kaisa giggled. Her hair was currently ocean-blue, and the beauty mark by her mouth identified her easily as the youngest sister.
“And your excuse for Maris is?” Meara drawled slowly. The middle sibling’s hair was forest-green, and her beauty mark was by her right eye.
“I was the one who caught him!” Kaisa snapped.
Dessa snorted. “Yeah, AFTER he already sold us out.”
Aside from their report being wrong, it also meant someone had managed to clean the records they stole from the Bureau as well. Or rather, the official report on record wasn’t real, due to whoever was in charge of it at the Bureau being dirty. A dirty agent the Bureau was obviously aware of, since another official report must have existed for Cyrus to know about it.
Shaking the thoughts away, and realizing the triplets were about to devolve into a shouting match, Ender cut them off. “New plan! We pretend to join them, and destroy them from the inside out, murdering as we go, before ultimately taking over their operations there and expanding our reach, just as I wanted to, and likely faster at that!” He glanced back at Cyrus. “Better? Or do you have more comments?”
The Fate rolled his eyes. “Still illegal…but better than actually working with them. I am going to pretend I didn’t hear the murder part though.”
“You do that!” He chuckled and winked at the man.
Ender smirked when Cyrus snorted.
It was interesting. The Fate was a goody two-shoes, there was no denying that. Cyrus was a man who liked following the laws. But while the Fate was a stick in the mud, he wasn’t as strict as he’d assumed he would be. Laws aside, Cyrus could be very logical in his choices and decisions, and would in fact bend like a small twig with just a bit of pressure, as long as the rationale was solid.
Ender snickered at the thought of the muscled, big tiddied man being a twig. He blinked on realizing some of the others were frowning at him, but chose to ignore them.
Killian relaxeda bit in his chair, as Ender sat down in his. It was more than a struggle to ignore Cyrus just standing in the room by the door, looking as if he might want to knock his own ass out to get away from the boredom. The blank expression on his face told him that the Fate was likely not about to remember a word that was said. Muscles his man may have, but guarding was not doing it for him.
