Page 63 of Our Tricks

“So if I understand this right, we have the eight of us, the triplets and Harper, plus Dante Black as the leaders of this war. The places we have to pull soldiers from are the Hidden Empire and the Phantom Saints,” Cognac recapped as he jotted down the information. “The triplets have international connections, and most of their targets aren’t located in the States from what Jaxson tells me. Dante has his hands in all the pies in all the places which will be helpful.”

“What about the people who sided with us?” Void asked. “Would it be unreasonable to send out a rally call?”

Sprocket narrowed his eyes at the map as he pulled his hair up into a man bun, telling me he had a plan brewing. We all knew better than to ask him about it, so we kept forging on as if we hadn’t noticed.

“That’s something we might be able to do, but I’d want to dive deep into who those people are,” Wes said. “I’ve got the list so I can start going over them and cross-check if I have any of my own information on them. I tried to keep track of all the bigger players who might have been a problem, but not the smaller gangs.”

“Wes,” Eagle started then paused as if reconsidering but then pushed forward. “How big is the Hidden Empire? We know it’s more than just California. I guess I’m just trying to figure out how big of an army we can pull just from her alone?”

Weston sat back in his chair, giving Eagle his full attention. “The whole West Coast, some parts of Nevada and Arizona. We’d also been starting talks with some groups up in Alaska around Cordova and Anchorage that run the shipping yards there. We felt it was smart to spread out some of our smuggling imports there since it’s kind of a land of its own. The government doesn’t have a whole lot of presence there. Plus, the state is massive with so many small native tribe villages who need the money we’d be happy to give them for the use of their ports and docks.”

My jaw fell and about hit the table. “Holy fuck.”

“Damn, I knew my little demon was amazing, but that’s just fucking impressive,” Void said with a chuckle. “No wonder she acts like such a badass all the time… it’s because she truly is, and no one knows the extent of it.”

“Yeah, that’s how she likes it,” Wes shared. “Not even those in other states know just how far her reach goes. We keep it closed circuit with them having a manager of sorts who leads the business, but they report to Dax. Most of them were at the announcement when she got shot, but I touched base with them all while she was recovering.”

“Right, well…” Cognac said, then cleared his throat as if still absorbing all this information. “An army will be no problem if we can pull from all her people.”

“Wait,” Sprocket cut in.

Everyone stopped talking and turned their attention to him. This was the first time Wes was going to witness how Sprocket’s brain worked, but honestly, it was just as impressive as Dax when she finally connected dots from all over the place that no one else would.

“Okay, hear me out on this. Let me say it all before you ask questions or start to pull it apart,” Sprocket warned. “Void, you said something about pulling people from those who bet for us. We also have a list of those who sided with Marco. To me, that tells me they’re either already in his pocket, too scared to go against him or want to get in his good graces. Instead of vetting who was with us, we need to look at those against us. Bear with me as I try to explain this while I fit all the ideas together.”

Cognac got up and came back with a fresh beer for everyone as we took a seat at the table, ready to listen to whatever Sprocket had brewing.

“Just like how the FBI had a list of known people Dax might associate with and gave them a feel for her reach in the criminal world, we now have the same thing for Marco. Seeing who’s backing him will also give us more information about what he has access to. We are behind on everything because we didn’t know we needed to be looking out for Marco lurking in the shadows. He took this personally since Dax destroyed the legacy he was being left and decided to take action on it before he was even in power. Using his ability as no one in our world, he studied everything about Dax for, what, at least two years before taking over and continuing to perfect his plan once in charge.”

Sprocket paused for a moment to take a swig of his beer before he continued, “Marco knew we’d get to this point. Dax told him we were coming for him. So now that asshole is going to throw out all the previously-made plans to put us off the trail, but I don’t think he planned for Mariana and Alvaro to be as willing to tell us so much about him and his operations. Right now, I’m not sure where Martin falls into this, either. Marco is at most fifty years old with plenty of time to rule this new kingdom of his. Yet naming Martin his heir and getting him to marry into one of the biggest shipping companies is advantageous for Marco, so it’s a win-win. All that to say, we need to look at everything like it’s trying to mislead us,” Sprocket determined.

We all sat there trying to sort through everything he’d said and how it was going to be useful to us. God, it was like trying to keep up with Dax when she got like this.

“You’re gonna need to break that down for us into something we of an average IQ can understand,” I commented. “I get parts of what you’re saying but not the whole picture.”

Sprocket nodded then started to pace as if needing to work off the energy his brain was creating. “Think of it this way, those who back Marco are now considered a threat, just as those who support us are now possible allies. We figure out what they provide for Marco or how he could use them against us or for his own gain. This will give us better knowledge of what his cartel really does because I doubt it’s just drugs and women. He’s too power-hungry for that, and he’d want a bigger piece of the pie, so to speak. On the other hand, he could just be using some of these as a red herring to draw our attention away from the ones we really should be focusing on. Nothing is what it seems with Marco, and that’s why I believe the smartest thing Dax ever chose to do was to let others take the lead. Everything will be geared toward how Dax looks at the world, not Cam, Magnus, or myself.”

Now all of this was starting to make sense. He was right that we needed to quickly gather as much information as we could since we didn’t have much time. The attacks were becoming more frequent and in all directions. I’m not sure where it would even be safe for us to be right now. I worried if we went back to the compound, we’d be bringing our danger to the others who were innocent in all this. New York was becoming too unpredictable, yet there were things we needed to clean up first. Dante was meeting us tomorrow then we’d have another view into all this.

“I might sound like the dumb one here, but where does that leave us with getting into Mexico?” Void asked.

“Where we started,” Wes commented. “Talking about it brought us to the point where we need the others’ input. What do the triplets have to offer, what connections does Dante have, and would the CIA even be willing to get us into the country? It might be smart not to all come in together. Let’s say Dante or the triplets get there before us and scope things out. My fear is that the moment Dax enters Mexico, it’s game on.”

Everyone muttered their agreement with that. No matter how hard we tried, there’d always be a risk of someone ratting us out. Money can only buy you so much when all it takes is a better offer to spill their guts.

“That plan has some merit,” Sprocket agreed. “There’s also the option of finding one of Marco’s locations and attacking it. If he thinks we’re on the wrong trail, it will make him relax, and then when we pounce, he’ll be caught off guard.”

“Hell, if we go with that idea, we could attack just like we did with Diego. Let Marco believe we are making that play so he runs off to another location we are really aiming for,” Wes added. “It just means we need to figure out that one hiding spot no one should know about, or if they do, would never spill it.”

Leaning back, I took a long draw from my beer, going over in my head the players on his side who we knew about already. If someone had that kind of information, Marco wouldn’t let them out of his sight or control.

Then it hit me. “Holy shit, that’s why he wants his sister back home. She’s off her leash and doesn’t have someone to guard what she says to anyone. There’s no way she doesn’t know where Marco would hide out.”

“After how we left things, I’m not sure we’d be welcomed back to talk to her,” Cognac reasoned. “Maybe Alvaro might be able to talk to her on the phone or something, but I doubt we’re getting another face-to-face.”

“Fucking Marco,” I swore under my breath. “He’s got us by the balls, and I’m really fucking sick of it.”

“I’ll hand it to the man, he’s got a wicked mind I’d love to pick apart but not at the risk of leaving him alive,” Sprocket said with a sigh as he took his seat and drained his beer.