“Get her what she wants, if it can be obtained, or talk to me,” he told Cook.
He also commanded Cook to look for shit he knew would make her more comfortable on the twelfth floor. A hand in every jar, the man knew where everything in the tower could be found. If they had it on hand, Cook would see it delivered to the correct place.
Mac was eating at a table in the commons where all the men met at dawn to get daily orders. Next to him was Nixon, another male who had survived Darre for more than a handful of years. As his trainer and weapons master Nixon oversaw keeping the men in shape and ready to fight.
Across from Nixon sat Seta. Darker-skinned and younger than the other three, he managed Darre's eyes and ears in the sector.
"Gentlemen." Darre greeted them with a wolfish smile. He didn't like to think that any of his men were plotting behind his back, but he found it unlikely they knew anything about crates of registered women coming into the sector. Officially blocked and heavily policed, travel out of Sector 2 without Darre's knowledge should have been impossible.
Someone had been playing a game while he'd been up in his tower, oblivious to it.
Whether it was goods, information, or bodies, Darre had total control. All the underground exits and thus the underground trade, sat under his watch. After taking over the sector, Mac himself had helped Darre set them up.
These men at the table were top of his team. There were ways to communicate digitally inside and outside of the sector, but those channels were also largely under Darre's control.
The alphas in the room watched him carefully, no doubt surprised to see him on the first floor. It was well-known he only left the tower to kill someone.
They didn’t wear their emotions on their faces, though. Darre didn't surround himself with weak simpletons.
"Mac said you have a mate. Thought you'd be enjoying her still," Nixon said, returning Darre's smile. It was genuine. Nixon enjoyed women and had a beta tucked away that Darre knew he took good care of. There was just a touch of envy in the other male's eyes, but he wasn't the kind that stabbed a man in the back.
"I enjoyed her all night," Darre said. "Want to get crap done with those crows and everything else so I can enjoy her more. You have a report for me, Mac?"
He sat at the table next to Nixon and motioned at one of the drones for food and tea.
"Alpha, you said to talk to the Tenbel’s breed women. Six of them were registered. Of those six, five woke up in Sector 2 one day without knowing how they got here. Three of those five climbed out of a wooden box, like a shipping crate. Three of the others were born here and one was born in the Southern Un," Mac said.
"Five kidnapped betas, plus my mate. That is a lot of women coming into Sector 2 who don't want to be here. Why didn't I know this before?" Darre looked at Mac and Seta.
"The wall is secure,” Mac said. “They are coming in legally without being properly checked on the other side. You know we check nothing that is brought in.”
There were no guards at the gate, no Administration building for people to go through. But there should be watchers who knew what the fuck was going on. Darre eyed Seta.
Seta shoved a piece of meat in his mouth and chewed a couple times before answering. "Told you that beta priest had women."
"Did you know they were stolen women from outside the sector?"
"I suspected, but hadn’t confirmed. Where else would they come from? I knew that black robe got a lot of shipments, but thought we was workin' with him and that you had approved it."
"What were Tenbel's connections outside? Where were the shipments coming from? How was he arranging the shipments?" Darre asked. He didn't smell lies or fear, but it was seriously difficult for him to believe that a man he had chosen for his intelligence and guile had missed these points. Was he withholding information?
If Seta felt the extra scrutiny, it didn't show in his eyes. "I don't know if it was Tenbel or one of the men close to him. Someone had a connection for sure. I’m working on finding out, but his drones don't talk. Some of them are missing tongues and some of them had their vocal cords cut on drone farms.
“The betas I have workin' for me have had a hard time getting in close. They could sit in for the book readin' crap and some social time, but Tenbel was careful about his inner circle."
The drone brought Darre a plate piled high with meat, pan-cooked potatoes, and pickled cabbage. Darre speared a piece of meat with his knife.
"Back to the women. You talked to them?" Darre asked Mac.
"You know they don't want to talk to me."
"One of them, a pregnant girl, said she knew my mate. I want to know where that leads."
Thin lips twisting on his ruddy face, Mac said, "You stormed out of there in a fury. All them women burst into tears and cried for hours. I barely got what little I told you."
Nixon, who'd been listening, chuckled. "Boss always did have a way with the ladies."
Seta leaned forward. "Let me talk to them."
