Chapter 20
You don’t have to be everyone’s cup of tea. Be gasoline. Set shit on fire.
Hudson stuck to the shadows of the surrounding forest with Lorna, who’d decided to help out with this job in person.
The petite redhead was a unifying presence in the neighborhood of hitmen back in Miami.
She might be officially retired, but she still kept a hand in the game and a pulse on their industry by monitoring contracts.
He was grateful she’d agreed to help him.
Scout was back at the festival with Ace and Silas watching out for her. She’d been avoiding him this morning, something he deserved.
It was just as well because he and his people were going to take care of Zack Willman and anyone at the Willman Ranch involved in coming after Scout.
Today, if he had a choice in the matter.
Then…he would have to leave. There was no way around it.
Unless he wanted to admit to Scout what he did for a living.
Focusing on the present, he guided a drone over the large barn, spotted a ranch hand walking a horse inside.
When he flew it a little lower, he could see more horses in the stables.
Everything looked normal. Or what he imagined a normal horse farm looked like.
He’d only been on one before—and that had been on a job to take out an asshole who’d killed his wife and gotten away with it.
Her family hadn’t been willing to let it go though.
“Gorgeous animals,” Lorna murmured, looking at the screen.
He guided the drone higher, scanning over the training center. They’d seen a handful of trucks and SUVs leave the ranch about an hour ago, then a handful of other trucks showed up and he’d realized that it was people taking horse-riding lessons.
Everything here was relatively mundane so far.
He needed to get inside the actual main house, something that looked as if it might be more difficult than originally planned.
Not impossible, but he might have to come back after dark when there weren’t so many people milling about.
They needed to get a look at Zack Willman’s computer and his office.
His paperwork, anything that would point them in the direction of why he was after Scout.
“We might have something else.” Dante’s voice came over the comm line. “Something…big.”
Hudson’s adrenaline kicked up. This might be it.
“Dropping you a location, but it’s the south side of the ranch, about two miles from the house.”
That was a decent haul away from the house and stables, but in the direction of Scout’s property line. Experience told Hudson that drugs was what Dante had found. Or something similar.
He just hoped it wasn’t people. He’d helped free trafficked women and kids before and the images were embedded in his brain, lived there rent-free and came back to visit him on sleepless nights. If the Willman family was into that, he wasn’t letting anyone involved survive.
***
“I already don’t like this,” Hudson murmured as he and Lorna stepped out of the woods. They’d hustled through the forest behind the horse farm to the location Dante had given them.
A huge walled-in structure with a barbed wire fence around that stood in the middle of nowhere. There was what also looked like a pump house, so whatever type of building this was, they had water access via a well. This was a well-contained structure.
“Fence has gotta be sixteen to twenty feet high,” he continued as he eyed it.
“Yeah.” Lorna frowned, her concern visible even with her balaclava on.
They’d kept their masks on even during the two-mile trek through the woods in case there were cameras they hadn’t picked up with their scanners. It always paid to be paranoid, in his experience. If people didn’t know who you were or what you looked like, they couldn’t hunt you down.
“Dante, we’re on the opposite side of the structure from you,” Hudson said over the comm line, looking at the map on one of his burner phones.
“There’s an entrance on this side but we haven’t seen anyone come in or out,” Dante said. “There are two ATVs outside though so I’m guessing at least one person is inside.”
“We did manage to get a decent image from the drone, but didn’t want to fly too low and attract attention in case they’ve got sensors,” Nestor added. “Sending it to you now.”
Hudson looked down at his phone at the same time Lorna did.
“I’m into the system,” Elli said over the comm line this time. Even though she had a hundred other things she could be doing, she’d come because according to her, “you’re family.”
It had surprised Hudson that Theo’s wife would make time for something like this but he appreciated it, considering how skilled the hacker and all-around badass she was.
Even as she talked, he frowned at the picture Nestor had sent. “Is that a tiger?” he asked as Lorna did a head tilt and “Huh” as she looked at the same picture on her phone.
“Yep,” Nestor said. “There are a couple in there. Both Bengals. Looks like the female might be pregnant.”
“No Bengal tigers have the same stripe pattern,” Dante said into the quiet.
Hudson snickered. “Thank you for the random information.”
Lorna muted herself as she said, “Nessa probably told him. She’s obsessed with saving endangered animals.”
Hudson could definitely see the twelve-year-old wanting to save the world one day. Hell, he hoped she did.
“Okay, I’m linking you guys in so you can see what I’m seeing,” Elli continued. “They’ve got way more than tigers inside.”
He watched as the camera screen flipped from one to the next, showing different animals in cages.
Some he didn’t recognize, but… “Pangolins are one of the most trafficked animals and it looks like they’re breeding them.
” This was a lot messier than drugs and hadn’t been on his bingo card.
“I hate to say this, but I think I’m going to have to call in a favor.
Or a tip, really,” he added. He had a couple Fed contacts that he could involve in something like this.
This was the kind of newsworthy takedown they lived for.
“Trafficking exotic animals like this is huge,” Elli murmured. “And this looks like an established ring.”
“Agreed. This kind of building took time and proper construction. It’s clear they’re taking care to keep these animals contained,” he said. “These aren’t some assholes running exotic pets through the back of a pet store.” Something he’d also seen in the course of one of his contracts.
“I’ve got someone I can hand this case to,” Lorna said. “So you don’t have to use an old contact. Trust me, my contact will take this ring down quickly.”
“You think they’ll be able to get a warrant?”
“If they make it look like they’ve been building a case for months, then yes.
Without getting into specifics, my contact will get these guys shut down within two days.
Zack Willman won’t be worried about Scout at all once he and anyone else involved in this gets arrested.
The Fish and Wildlife guys are going to have a field day with this. ”
“We need a trail of paperwork to tie the Willmans to this. At least Zack Willman,” he added. “And we can’t let them get tipped off while the Feds get in place. They could just kill all the animals and dispose of them.”
“Already ahead of you.” Elli was distracted as she answered so he figured she was hacking into the computers inside, looking for a paper trail.
He hated not being able to physically take down Zack Willman, but this would have to do. And he wasn’t taking killing the guy completely off the board.
Not when the guy had sent those two assholes after Scout.
Willman and probably his son would get sent to prison for this. Maybe his brother too if he was involved. And if something happened to them inside, then so be it.
As long as they weren’t a problem for Scout, he could let them go.