“Hot-blooded, I take it?”
“Hellfire level.” It was one of the things he’d always loved most about her.
With a sigh, God stood and limped to the coffee maker along the counter on the inside wall. As he poured himself a cup, he said, “Things have changed so much in the past two years. Not at all what we’d envisioned when Tribe came into existence. There were rules. Things were clear-cut. Then the rules were broken through one video call from your best friend, and now there are women and children in the mix.”
“Rules are made to be broken. Look at who you hired. A Navy SEAL who wouldn’t follow direct orders. A dark web contractor without a conscience. Two thieves who hold nothing sacred. A medic on a path to self-destruction. Another Navy SEAL who rubbed elbows with one of the worst cartels in the world.”
“Each one of you made choices to do what you did to protect innocents. Well, maybe not the brothers.” He referred to the twins, Nemo and Midas. “They were more like ‘take from the rich to give to the poor.’”
“Mostly their poor selves,” Steel pointed out.
“You’d be surprised what those two have within them though. There’s an innate need to protect those in need. Predominantly in Midas, but Nemo has his strengths as well. Channeling his hotheadedness has made him much better suited to the vengeance behind Mythos. He’s grown exponentially.”
There was a knock on the door, and Waters stuck his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got movement on Daleyza.”
He felt his heart rate increase. “Movement?”
“I wasn’t due to check the cameras yet, but with today’s threats from your uncle, I figured I’d better. She’s had visitors the last couple of days. No visual identification, as they’ve stayed inside their vehicle up to now. There have been no kids at the house since Livia was taken to the facility on the thirteenth. Midas checked her phone records. She placed a call to each of her day-care families. When he checked the recordings, she told them she would be unavailable for the unforeseen future due to a family emergency.”
“Mierda!I still don’t know how they figured out I’m alive.”
“Answer is easy,” Waters said, his focus still on the outside world. “It was mentioned earlier in the meeting. The Salieri have photos of your secret visits to your wife and mother. Whether you want to believe it or not, your family has gone to bed with the enemy. And if that’s the case, we need to move even faster. We have no clue whether whoever is watching them is Salieri or Colonel Cartel. My guess is that it’s the former using the cartel to do its dirty work. They sniffed out your involvement with them, and with us, and now they’ve got the perfect excuse for retribution against Tribe for the execution of Zion, as well as our past run-ins prior to that.”
Steel asked, “Do you think it’s General Howard pulling the strings? We haven’t been able to locate him or the kid, Andres.”
“Don’t know. Midas watches Howard’s accounts twenty-four seven. There hasn’t been so much as an attempted login. If he’s surfaced, he either has other accounts hidden or he has support from the Salieri brotherhood. Maybe he even has a liquid source somewhere to pull from, making it untraceable. As for the kid, there’s been nothing on him either. Andres may have been cut loose as a liability.”
“You mean executed,” God supplied.
With a nod, Waters leaned against the wall, arms across his chest. “Certainly a possibility.”
“What about the kid’s inheritance?” Steel asked. “Could Howard be accessing that?”
“Unlikely,” God volunteered. “Midas shut down the plantation’s accounts almost as fast as Nimbus’ when Cherry and Demon returned from St. Lucia. There hasn’t even been an attempt to access it, according to the digital trip wires he’s put in place, and his systems check daily. Nothing going out, and the only thing going in is accrued interest.”
“He must be getting help,” Waters mused. “My spidey senses are telling me that Howard is a smaller fish. More like Norton, probably, trying to work his way up the ranks. The banking guy, Giudici, identified himself as one of the Worthy, the second tier. A descendant of one of the seven adopted continental leaders. That means there are six more of him out there because Zion was still working his way up the chain. But those seven didn’t act on their own.”
God swore under his breath. “The Worthy are answering to someone else. A big boss. Someone we’ve missed.”
“My guess is it’s a descendant of the original leader. Fucker could be anybody,” Steel muttered. “How do you find someone who has that kind of protection around him?”
“Well, I was just thinking about that.” There was a pause before Waters spoke again, his voice subdued. “You lure them out. You give them what they want most.”
Their boss whirled around. “Out of the question!”
“We can’t let these people keep operating their organization. Right now, they’re like a computer virus, running rampant and unstoppable. Intercepting a single shipment of women is just a nuisance to them. It doesn’t have any real effect, and they just keep going.”
“Doesn’t mean we stop trying,” God growled.
“No, but if we want to stop them—really stop them—we need to go for the head of the snake.”
This couldn’t be happening. Waters could not be suggesting what Steel thought was being put on the table.
The tingle started. A faint halo shone around Waters. A flash of sight—his friend surrendering, beaten. A pinch. Fire racing through his body. Broken. Extreme sorrow. A flash of Kubrick’s smiling face. His girls laughing. Both images hazy, as if in a dream. Cold. Fire, then cold. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Darkness. So sick. Weakness. A sluggish heartbeat.
He shook his head to clear the glimmer. That could not be his friend’s plight.
Waters’ tone was resigned as he insisted. “Boss. You know I’m right. All of this started with me. I disrupted the supply chain. Granted, Sarah found them, and Cherry helped, but Zion worked to keep her out of it as much as he could. Grinds my gears, but it’s true. These past few years have all been about revenge on me, and by extension, Tribe. Kubrick coming along gave them a doorway into us, and the hits have just kept coming. We’ve been lucky so far.”
