Gods on the fucking streets, is he using Aislyn to get to Brooks?
Or is she just bait to drawmeout?
“We were complicating things,” Daniel says suddenly, unaware of the thoughts racing through my head.
“What?”I ask sharply.
He points a finger at the screen, to the column that indicates where the girls are going.“We thought they were using multiple transportation methods.Trains.Cars.Ships.But we were wrong.The girls either go to the auctions or they go onto ships.They either stay here or go into the international market.But the dock was always the same before.Always Pier 9.Now, it’s…”
“Now there are multiple piers,” Hunter follows up.He clicks some buttons and brings up another spreadsheet.“I can get you a list of the piers they’re using.”
I try to adjust my mind to that, take it all in, because that is important.We only had one dock to worry about before, and that made things slightly easier.But now they’re using the whole port.The operation has somehow, in the last twenty-four hours, gotten bigger.
Shit.
“But none of the girls has a pier assigned to her until after she’s shipped,” Hunter continues.“It’s a postmortem record.Not a preorder.”
Postmortem.The word makes all the hairs on my body stand up.But it’s bigger than a reaction to a simple word.
Because that means we don’t know where they’re sending Aislyn—if they’re going to send her at all.And if Dom decides he’s finished with Brooks—which he will, eventually—and sends her back into the ring, we won’t be able to see where she’s going, either.
“Russians,” a voice says behind me, and it’s so unlike the thoughts my brain currently has that I jerk like I’ve been punched, then frown.My mind scrambles for several seconds, trying to understand what the fuck the word even is, before I turn and see my cousin standing behind me.
The last time I saw him was this morning, when I sent him on a very important mission.
The time before that was when he was pulling me out of a van and leaving my girl behind, though, and I’m still not certain how much I trust him.I understand that my father told my men to leave Brooks behind.I even understand why—or at least my father’s version of it.
That doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven any of them.
And I have to admit that I sent Luke on his mission this morning because I’m not entirely sure I want him around.Of course the problem with a mission is that eventually they have to return.
“Russians?”I say sharply.“I sent you to Sean Duhon, not Moscow.What the fuck do the Russians have to do with it?”
Luke’s normally easygoing face darkens a bit at that, and I almost feel sorry for my words.
Almost.
Luke might not be to blame for my father’s decisions, but he saw Brooks there.Met her eyes dead on, then reached around her, grabbed me, and left her behind.So no, I still haven’t forgiven him.
But he’s been in the Duhon camp at my request, and I want to hear what he found out.
“And Sean Duhon has been talking about Russians,” Luke says, almost without skipping a beat.“I got in like you asked me to.Jacky was more than happy to see me.Told me his father has been acting strange and being even more secretive than usual.Said there are a lot of strange men in the meetings.Men he doesn’t know, and men he doesn’t think he can trust.His dad is taking deals he doesn’t tell the boys about and then forcing them to follow orders they don’t understand.”
I watch him carefully, putting the information into my mental file on the Duhon family.Sean Duhon is the wildest wild card I know, and belongs only to himself.He’s got his fingers in everything in his town–gambling, weapons, shipping, drugs, and girls–and I don’t trust anything about him.He’s the sort of man who’s your friend one day and stabbing you in the eye the next, and you never know which version you’re going to get.
When I went to the leaders of the city for help against Dom Landry two days ago, Sean Duhon laughed at me.
And that makes me trust him even less–which is why he’s the one I sent Luke to spy on.His youngest son, Jacky, is the best of the bunch, as far as I can tell.Devon and Marcel, the twins, are older than Jacky and have more responsibility to the family, and I haven’t decided yet whether they’re actually on board with what Sean does or just playing along until they get their share of the power.
Jacky, though, has never bothered to keep quiet about his opinions.I’ve known him since we were young and always liked him, so when Luke got old enough to start working for me, I put him in Jacky’s path and encouraged the two of them to become friends.
Made it awfully easy to send Luke into that camp to collect information from the one family I don’t know if I can trust.
And if what Luke is saying is true, I trust them even less now than I did.Jacky knows almost everyone in this town, and if he says his father is taking meetings with men he doesn’t know...
“Did he give you any names?”I ask quietly.
Luke grunts like he was expecting that, and I think, not for the first time, that I’m fucking lucky to have the kid.He’s huge–taller than me–and broad enough that he looks like he should be playing football for a college team rather than running rackets for one of the most powerful families in New Orleans.His sunny good looks mean people trust him more often than they don’t, and those blue eyes of his will get him through almost any door.
