13. Dax
DAX
“Did you just agree to send Harper and the guys she’s with to Russia, little hellcat?” Eagle asked once I closed the laptop.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” I answered.
“How else would you put it?” Sprocket asked with a raised brow.
Pushing out of my office chair, I started to pace behind my desk.
“Look, you heard what he said. He’ll give us any weapons we need along with a motherfucking tank.
The Wright brothers won’t let anything happen to Harper, and it keeps her out of danger, believe it or not, to be moving around.
Plus, they need to keep out of sight for this job, so it’s a win-win. ”
“I’m not saying it was a bad choice, Dax. I’m just surprised you’re risking her life like that,” Eagle pointed out.
Hearing him use my name, I stopped and looked him in the eye. “This is my world. This is how I do things. If I have an asset to use, I use it for the better of the Empire. Should I have said no?”
“Only you know the answer to that, little rebel, but I think it was the right call,” Sprocket said as he stood and grabbed my shoulders. “Harper can’t hide from the darkness in the world around her anymore. It’s better to show her it can do some good every so often.”
“That’s a good point,” Void agreed. “Besides, I think they need a woman on that job to help the girl come to terms with what they’re making her do. She’s going to be pulled away from what sounds like the only family who gives a shit about her.”
“When Levin decides you’re worth him protecting or looking after, he’s all in. I should know. He’s been looking after me ever since I met him, whether I wanted him to or not,” I muttered, rubbing my face with both my hands. “Okay, so now I need to call Magnus and tell him what I learned.”
“You want us to stick around?” Sprocket inquired.
“No, this won’t take long. I’ll join you guys with Wes and the others when I’m done,” I informed them, pulling out of his hold to grab my cell.
Sprocket kissed the side of my head before he left with the others. I typed in the number that Magnus had me memorize and let it ring once then hung up and called back right away.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you’d get back to me the next day,” Magnus commented as he picked up on the first ring.
“I have the rest of the information you need. I’m sending you an email with a photo of her as we speak,” I shared, opening the laptop again.
“That will certainly make things simpler, thanks. Now, what else do you have for me?”
“Her name is Primakova Maximovana, and she’s a student at ESS private school.
She lives either near the school or on the property, but the KGB is providing since they’re hoping to enlist her after she graduates if not sooner.
The Mafia is also after her like I told you.
I was informed you have about ten days to get her out of there before they come for what they’re owed.
She likes to go by Prim and works weekends at a coffee shop.
I added a link to the place in the email along with the school’s website since I’m so thoughtful,” I teased.
“Fun fact, she’s wicked good at science which is how she got the scholarship to the school. ”
“Hmm, I can’t tell if this is going to be a simple grab-and-go job or if I’m going to want your head on a platter when this is over,” Magnus mused.
“You tell Harper yet?”
“No… well, not the whole truth. She knows we’re going on a trip, but I didn’t tell her where or what we’ll be doing there.”
I let out a whistle. “Fuck, man, you’re playing with fire doing that. Trust me when I say getting her pissed at you isn’t going to help on this trip.”
“Forgive me for not taking your advice on this matter. You don’t have a clue what our relationship is like,” Magnus growled. “Don’t butt into our business, and I won’t ask you about your ever-growing group of men you’re taking to your bed. An FBI agent? You sure that’s a wise move?”
“Know what, you’re right. Let’s not go down that path. I’d like to still be friends with the men dating my best friend by the time this whole thing is over, and you have to share her with me again.”
“Oh, you think we’re going to give her back?” Magnus started to laugh.
“Guess we’ll find out after you get back from your trip with a teenager who doesn’t know her grandfather is sending people to extract her,” I taunted, knowing this last bit of information would get under his skin.
“Fuck me sideways.”
“Nah, I choose life. Harper would kill me if I ever touched a guy she was interested in, let alone fucked them.”
“As delightful as it’s been to chat with you, it seems we have some adjustments to make to our plan,” Magnus stated then hung up on me.
Pulling the phone away from my face, I glared at it. “Now that was just fucking rude.” Stuffing it in my back pocket, I headed out to find the others in Wes’s office.
The warehouse was one-half open space for containers getting packed or unloaded of our goods while the other half was offices.
Mine was in the main area since I liked to keep an eye on things.
Wes preferred to have the least amount of interruptions possible, so his was set up in the back.
It used to be three offices, but we took down some walls and opened it up, leaving him space for his computer station and then his normal office.
Seriously, the room looked like you could launch a spaceship with all the tech set up, not to mention the five computer screens of various sizes.
The guys were huddled around a large table covered in paperwork and backlit for the best reading while keeping the room as a whole dim.
“Got anything good going on?” I asked as I entered, drawing all their attention.
“You could say that. We managed to track down an actual drug shipment coming in two days from now,” Wes informed me.
My brows shot up at this development. “How the hell did we manage that?”
“The Mad Dogs are still recovering from losing the number of people they did, and some things fell through the cracks. Seems they’re having trouble with transport once it hits Nevada.
They use the train system and have the train car branched off on an abandoned rail, but their guy who works that angle is dead.
My contacts in the deep web alerted me when they reached out, looking for a new middleman who can make the same thing happen,” Wes explained.
A smile grew on my face as I could see what a gift this was being given to us. “Oh, man, is it my birthday early?”
“Depends… did you make a wish on a candle somewhere before you got here?” Wes asked, matching my smile. “I don’t think we could have come up with a better plan than this.”
“Ah, is anyone going to tell us what plan this is?” Picasso interjected, crossing his arms and glaring at us. “Unless you two need another moment to make us feel like idiots.”
Rolling my eyes, I walked over to the table where a map of the rail lines on the West Coast was laid out.
“The Mad Dogs just made our job all that much easier by not only giving a real drop to go after but the perfect means to test out our people. We need to be the ones sending a person out there who can pose as what they’re looking for.
This means I can reach out to my people and ask who we can have reach out to them, saying they can get the train car where they need it to be. Get it now?”
“Holy shit,” Cognac exclaimed once they all understood. “Dude, I need to get me some contacts like yours, Wessy-boy, because that’s wicked helpful.”
Wes nodded his head at Cognac and grinned. “As long as you’re with Dax, I’ll help you out with whatever you need. I won’t give you my contacts, but I’ll have them at your disposal.”
“Can’t blame you on that. I wouldn’t give away my best weapon, either,” Cognac said, slapping Wes on the back. “So we have a plan… now what?”
Pulling out the cell from my back pocket, I walked over to the large couch Wes had slept on more often than not and flopped down on it. “Now it’s my turn to play and do what I do best.”
“You’re gonna need to narrow that down, beautiful. You’re rather amazing at a lot of things,” Cam flattered.
Picasso gagged, pretending to throw up at Cam’s words. “I’m sorry, your brown-nosing is making me sick.”
“Yes, I can see you’re allergic to it, which is why you suck at it,” Cam commented as he examined his fingernails.
“What’d you say?” Picasso demanded, marching up to the man.
“Clearly, you heard me if you’re all upset about it.
No shame in not being skilled in the art of flattering, but there’s always time to learn.
I’m sure Cognac can teach you. He’s rather good at it,” Cam answered with a smile, turning his back on Picasso and coming to sit next to me and pulling my feet into his lap. “Show them how it’s done, beautiful.”
I gave Cam a less-than-impressed look as I started dialing the first contact. “You know, you might not be as good at this as you think, so I’d quit while I was ahead.”
“You wound me,” Cam gasped, clutching his chest. “If my dad heard you saying that, I might be disowned.”
“So should I call him now or later to make that happen?” I asked, wiggling the phone in my hand. “Because I feel like that conversation will be way too fun to pass up.”
“Why don’t we save my demise for when you’re bored,” Cam muttered, trying to distract me by massaging my legs.
Grinning, I hit the call button, cutting anyone off from taking my win from me. It didn’t happen often with the new, more confident version of Cam, so I wasn’t going to let him take this from me.
“Weston,” Percy answered the phone.
“Actually, it’s Dax. I need your help with something important. Something you can’t tell anyone else about,” I said, my tone all business.
There was a pause on the other end as I caught him off guard. This was the first time I was reaching out to any of my people who worked directly under me since I came out as Two Tricks.
“How can I help the leader of the Hidden Empire?”
“I need someone who knows about trains…”
It took me the better part of the afternoon to make all the calls I needed to and work out a plan with each person in question.
Now, I knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as hey, send us a person who can do this job, and then when it didn’t happen or the Mad Dogs show up in force to stop us, telling me who did it.
No, see, you need to make them work for you even when they rat you out.
Plus, I was sending this call out to ten different people.
Little did they know I gave them each a different time, each matching up to a train coming into the station, and picking a random car with differing supplies since we didn’t know when or what car the goods would be in.
It didn’t really matter, though, because once we took out who they sent to deal with us, we’ll also have a person we can torture to get the information out of.
Simple if you think about it—kill more of the Mad Dogs, stop them from getting drugs, and find out who our mole in the Empire is.
“Damn, loba, you came up with that entire plan on the fly with only the information about the trains to go off of?” Cognac asked with pride.
Shrugging my shoulders, I got up from the couch and did some stretches, feeling stiff.
My shoulder was a dull throbbing ache, reminding me just how invested I was in this battle.
“I’ve done more with less. Guess it’s a skill I’ve acquired over the years.
The thing about plans being made on the fly is it’s harder for people to figure it out beforehand and fuck it up. ”
“So what now?” Eagle asked from where he was leaning against the back wall.
While I’d been making my phone calls, Wes was working with the others on the actual plan for the train station job.
It seems as we flushed things out, it was going to work best in two parts—what we told the people we thought might be ratting us out and what we told the people we trusted to have our back, fighting alongside us.
Once we figured out who the mole was and they were removed, it was full steam ahead for taking out the Mad Dogs for good.
Wes made the right call getting that action set up as well so we could carry the momentum right into the bigger battle.
“Here’s a question for you. What if it’s not a member of the Mad Dogs, and it’s someone from the De León Cartel?” Cam mused, cracking an eye open from where I thought he was sleeping on the couch. “Or it could be one of Marco’s people if you think about it.”
“What the fuck, man? Why are you bringing this up now?” Picasso snapped. “We just laid out all these plans assuming it’s the Mad Dogs.”
I waved off Picasso’s worry. “It doesn’t matter.
They’re all interlinked. The Mad Dogs are the closest of their people to deal with us, so no matter who the mole is paid by, it will bring the same response.
My money is that the person inside the Phantom Saints is from the Cartel, though, since you guys would be able to sniff out someone from the Mad Dogs in a second.
You don’t have an enemy like that and not keep tabs on each other to know who is who, which is why they would hide easier in my world.
It’s larger and can hide them in the shadows of someone higher up in the Empire. ”
“All good points, beautiful, that I also agree with. I just wanted to see if the others would have thought things through as much as you have,” Cam explained with an exaggerated yawn before getting up.
“Seriously, man, why do you keep trying to make us look like we’re idiots?” Cognac demanded, stepping up into Cam’s space. “You might be some fancy FBI, con-artist double-agent bullshit, but I bet I could break you over my knee in a real fight.”
“Pssh, I’m pretty sure they teach them self-defense and hand-to-hand combat in FBI training,” I whispered loudly.
“Cam’s favorite thing to do is get under people’s skin.
The less you all react to his bullshit, the faster he’ll leave you alone.
Right now, you’re his new toy he wants to play with, but he’ll soon get bored. ”
“Now, why are you telling them all of my secrets, beautiful?” Cam asked with a pout on his lips. “I wanted to see how long it would take for one of them to actually come after me. How can I trust they will be any good to us if I don’t know if they can fight?”
This caught Void’s attention, and he pushed off the wall where he was standing next to Eagle. “You want to see our skill? Then let’s have a fight. We’ll show you our skills.”