Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
TANK
It was as if my worst nightmares were coming true.
To see Diestro’s name on the list of donors for Chance's campaign was devastating. How did he even know who Chance was?
To my knowledge and the research we've done, Diestro didn't have a stable home in this city.
Now, of course, he was a ghost for the most part, so it was very possible he did have somewhere here and knew what was happening.
But it seemed like a slim chance.
The margin of error here was as unknown as the details of all the players involved.
But what I did know was that this development was a problem. Nothing good could come from this affiliation.
I stared at Chance, my heart nearly breaking because of what this meant.
I had put him in danger. My love for him and my inability to let him go has led to this.
“I don't think you understand,” I told him, my voice breaking.
He shook his head. “Clearly I don't because you're far more upset than I thought you would be. I get that this is a big case.”
I held up my hand to stop him.
“This isn't just a big case, Chance. I know there are things I can't tell you because of who you are and how it could implicate you. But this is massive. It's nationwide. I have the FBI involved.”
He frowned.
“The FBI? If it was that huge, why don't I know anything?”
“Because I don't want you to,” I pleaded. “Because the more involved you are, the more danger you're in. That's why I kept you separate for so long.”
Not to mention the fact that your father's a homophobe, and your entire political campaign is based upon conservative views. Oh, plus the fact you're completely okay with being in the closet.
I didn't add those thoughts, of course.
I kept them to myself.
But something on my face must have given it away because Chance sighed. It was the same sound he always made when he was going to give me news I didn't enjoy. Or when he had to stay late at the office and couldn't meet me.
“I understand that this is huge. You've been even more distant than normal. And I picked up on the subtle clues you've given me. It's why I haven't complained or gone out of my way to come see you.”
We both knew that he couldn't really come see me anyway. There was no reason for a future mayor to come to my office.
If anything, me coming to him made more sense. Which is why I always showed up here. It's why we would fool around in his office. Why this space had become ours more than it ever was his.
Still he went on. “I get that this is huge, but you have to understand I need to know something. Anything. I can't stop someone from donating to me when I don't even know that there are problems. Is there anyone else I should know about?”
I shook my head. “No, they've all been taken care of.”
From the way his body froze, I knew that he knew what I meant. Again, I could not implicate him, but he still knew the lingo of this world. He had watched me build it up from nothing.
He knew all the blood and sweat and rage I'd given to it.
“I want Memphis to go over this. He'll need access to your accounts. Who do I need to get in touch with to make it happen?”
I folded up the paper he gave me and shoved it in my pocket.
“You can't just go digging through financial records like that.”
I crossed my arms and sat on the arm of the chair. It wobbled precariously beneath my weight but managed to remain upright.
“I can do whatever the fuck I please, actually. I'm giving you the courtesy of asking. In case you've forgotten, donations like this are public record. Memphis would be completely justified in doing a little research.”
He stopped. “It's not a little research. Memphis is a fucking hacker. Everything he does is below the board.”
“Don't worry about what my guys do, Chance. Let me investigate this. I have to.”
He stared at me from across the table. His eyes were probing, like he wanted all the answers I couldn't give him.
My gaze back to him said more than I could vocalize.
‘Trust me,’ it begged. ‘Believe in me. Let me protect you.’
Eventually, he pulled over a sticky note and wrote down some information. He peeled it off and handed it over.
“This is the access you need. Sure, who donates is public information, but you'll have to go through this to get all the details. I am not the one who gave it to you, if anyone asks.”
“Of course not. I would never suspect the honorable Chance Sheppard of helping such activities.”
“Honorable? Am I a judge now?”
“I'll give you something to judge,” I said, like the teenage boy inside me couldn't resist coming out.
He laughed at that and the tension finally broke. It wasn't that everything was suddenly better, just that we both understood everything going on was outside of us.
These problems were external.
They didn't have anything to do with how we felt about one another.
It was just that I couldn't let him wind up hurt because of decisions I had made, because of business that I was trying to take care of.
The Gilded Ones were horrible. The things they've done would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.
While I was thankful to have taken out most of them, not eradicating them all wasn't an option. We might not be able to get to the lower-level criminals, but we could take out the big ones.
Usually when you cut the head off the snake, the rest of the minions would fall apart. They'd join local street gangs or try to reorganize themselves and pick one another off.
I had seen it time and time again growing up on the streets.
After my mother murdered my father, she and I wound up on the run for a bit. And then she had the audacity to marry another asshole who decided beating her was fun.
When she died, I went into the foster system. It was only after that when I strategically planned out my stepfather's death. It was untraceable, of course, because I wasn't going to end up in prison for that bastard.
Sure, I was proud that I'd taken him out, but I wasn't stupid. And of course, the foster system being what it was, I didn't last long there either. I ran away about a year and a half in, not able to take it anymore, despite the family I was with being an okay bunch.
My grief at losing my mother was too strong, and my need to protect others far greater than I could handle.
I didn't want anyone else to suffer the way my mother had, so I came up with the idea of a security company.
I wanted to be the person who would take a stand to protect the little guy.
I wanted to be someone my mother could have called if she’d had the chance.
Someone who wouldn't care how much someone could pay and would go even further than the law allowed.
I've done that. NightShade was the company to provide this for people. We had helped numerous clients, some rich and some not.
In the process, all my men had found their significant others. They had gone through hell and back to get there, but each were happy. I saw it every day.
Anytime a challenge arose, we worked as a team, as a family. We took care of our own.
And whether Chance was official or not, he was one of our own.
I had hidden him away for years, hoarding him like a treasure. Soon it was going to come down to whether or not I could tell the others about him or keep things as they were until it fizzled out.
I knew his campaign would change everything the moment he told me. After delaying it for as long as possible, the time was finally here.
I often wondered what our lives would be like if we were different people. If we could have been together all these years instead of hiding away.
We would have been married. Maybe have children. Hell, at this rate, we would have had grandchildren.
But that wasn't what the universe decided for us. Instead, it put him in the hands of a politician who wanted a clone of himself. And it gave me a rough start so that I could try and help others overcome theirs.
“I need to head out,” I told him after sitting in silence for a few moments.
There was nothing else I could say to him, nothing he could say to me. And the mood before was lost, the sexual tension destroyed after realizing how much I'd missed.
Not only had Mordecai bugged my office, watching my men and staying a step ahead of us, but now Diestro had found out the one secret I thought no one else could.
Not even Memphis was privy to what was going on between Chance and me.
I knew he suspected that someone had my attention here at the city offices. He just never took the time to dig that info up.
“Be careful,” he told me.
My lips kicked up in a grin. “I don't have anything to worry about. It's you who needs to be careful. He will try to use you to hurt me.”
My voice was softer as I said it. I didn't want him to feel threatened by me, but I wanted him to understand how important it was to stay diligent.
“You still have security in place, right?”
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
“I do. Same company as always.”
That did not give me any reassurance. Those idiots were useless compared to my guys, but we couldn't risk it. Not even now when we knew that part of our truth was out in the open.
Sure, it could be a coincidence, but Diestro was a Gilded One.
And if I learned anything in the months that we had been working on this, it was that the Gilded Ones didn’t do anything without some form of intent behind it. Even kidnapping Archie had a purpose.
Chance stood and moved around the desk. He approached me, moving until his body was lined up with mine. He tugged me to standing, then pressed his forehead against mine.
"I'll miss you," he said.
I took a deep breath in, allowing his scent to fill my nostrils and seep deep inside me. I wanted to stay wrapped up in it forever. If I could carry around a handkerchief and sniff it every once in a while to remind me of him, I would.
But that wasn't something men did these days.
People would think something was wrong with me, both mentally and physically. Instead, I savored the moments I had with him.
"I'll miss you too," I told him fiercely. "You keep your phone on you. Call me if anything changes."
"You call me too. This is a two-way street, Tank."
Rather than answer him, I kissed his lips. It was soft compared to before yet filled with just as much emotion.
I loved him more than I had ever loved anyone else in this world.
I adored Chance Sheppard.
He was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And though it wasn't really an option, I still kept him in my life for as much time as I could.
He returned the kiss, then pulled away before I was ready. We both knew any longer, and we'd be tearing at each other's clothes. While that had been my original intent of coming over, since it had been far too long, I knew it wasn't the time. I had stuff to investigate, a new lead to follow.
I took off, waving at Marten as I left. He could tell from my expression that things didn't go as planned, therefore he didn't stop me to chat.
I kept my eyes peeled as I left the building. I wondered if Diestro had eyes on Chance. If he saw me showing up here and knew about the connection, would he know that I now knew about his donation? Had he planned this? Was I falling into a trap?
I wouldn't know, not until I had more intel.
Memphis was my next destination. I took off straight for the office.
When I walked in, the guys were joking around, clearly having a minute of down-time between Gilded One’s research.
I hated to be the person to break it up, but I didn't have time to waste. I stormed over to Memphis's desk and ripped the paper from my pocket. Unfolding it, I slammed it to the table.
“I need you to investigate this. Now.”
The room silenced at my tone. My men gathered as Memphis picked up the page and read over it.
"Holy fucking shit, you got to be kidding me." He dropped the page as if it was on fire, then took to his keyboard.
The internet was Memphis's playground. He could wade through it like a superhero did through bad guys. It was nothing for him to find information that others either overlooked or couldn't access.
"I can't believe he donated something so publicly. And with his name," Memphis said as he went to work doing what I asked.
I leaned on the side of his cubicle. The men around me murmured to one another, so I spun to give them the details as Memphis kept working. He would get lost in his process and not answer anyone else for a while.
But I knew these guys. They weren't just going to stand by.
“I discovered that Diestro donated to one of the mayoral candidates.”
Varied reactions moved across their features. Shock and anger. Even some confusion.
"What an idiot," Cohen said.
Godric nodded along with his boyfriend as Ronan asked the question I had. "What’s the point? What’s he trying to tell us?"
I had to bite my tongue because what he was trying to tell us was obvious to me. It wouldn't be to them though.
"Maybe he's conservative and wants to support it?" Sinclair said when I didn't speak.
Memphis snorted from behind the desk. Sinclair rolled his eyes at his partner's response as Archie and Takeshi began signing to one another.
I picked up on part of the discussion, but since it seemed private, I didn't want to intrude. Takeshi had grown so much since Archie's arrival. He was like his old self, but not. Instead of being closed off and keeping thoughts to himself, he spoke up more often now.
He would sign to us, making sure we understood what he was saying, since some of us were a bit slower to learn than others.
I myself had worked with Archie privately as well as hiring outside of us to make sure I could pick up everything. I knew that the two of them were talking about me and why I kept going to the city building.
It was just another reason I shouldn't snoop where I wasn't supposed to be.
Damari raised his hand. I smiled at him and nodded his way.
“Could it be that he wants us to know that he knows we're looking for him? Like this is him waving the flag to say he's here?”
I tilted my head. “That's a good guess. I have a feeling it's some of that.”
Orion heard what I didn't say. “And what else are you feeling, boss? There's something you want to tell us? Something the team should know?”
Of course Orion would be the one to pick up on my tenuous emotions.
“I don't have all the details just yet. This is what I do know and what I need your help with. It does me no good to speculate this early on.”
Was it true?
Sure.
Was it the full truth?
Not necessarily.
Orion let it be, though, and his husband Arick pulled him closer. The two of them were wrapped up together, having barely been separated since everything happened. Sol, their son, was asleep in the room down the hall after having been sugared up thanks to Memphis. The kid had taken to everyone once he had his dad back. We were all treated like uncles, which only added to the feeling of family.
Part of me wished Chance could experience it because I knew that. What he knew to be family wasn't anything of the sort.
What he had in his life were expectations and demands. He had people who loved him conditionally based on his performance and what he could bring to the family name.
I did my damnedest to show him love could be unconditional. That you didn't have to be anyone specific and simply expressing yourself as you were was enough.
And still it never seemed to be.
As Memphis worked, the guys discussed different theories. They were running along the same page that I was, and thankfully none of them brought up that it could be a way to target me directly.
They all figured that Diestro was going for city-level influence. That if he donated millions of dollars, he might have a mayor in his pocket. That he could influence decisions and help his business.
But we still weren't quite sure what his business was.
Mordecai had been into bodies, like the evil bitch she was.
Ajax had been into weapons.
The others had various indiscretions involving drugs and collecting things, including people.
But Diestro was trickier.
His tendency to disappear at the drop of a hat, and all the stories we had of him were more like legends. It was as if people went around through towns like olden days and spoke of him over a fire in hushed tones. He was the big bad in the scary movie, the evil villain in the fantasy.
And with unchecked power like that, with unknown resources, I wasn't quite sure how to stop him. I just knew that whatever we chose to do, it had to be done quickly and efficiently. I couldn't allow him to get any closer to Chance.
If he came after me, that was fine. I could protect myself. I knew that my team would be able to take care of things.
But Chance didn't have that.
Sure, his security team could ward off a fanatical person who didn't agree with his politics. They weren't prepared to go up against trained assassins and vicious gang members of a secret society.
If I hadn't already promised Carver three favors, I'd call him. Owing the Angels of Ruin anything else wasn't ideal. The bastard was going to make me pay for it, hand over fist. I just knew it. I expected him to call it any minute, though I hoped we had more time.
The sooner I could get the Gilded Ones taken care of, the more space I’d have to do other things.
Of course, I had thought of all the other contacts I had. Preacher and Dante, the leaders of the Italian mafia. Their counterpart, Pharrell, who would also help. I thought of Enzo and his strong mafia ties as well. Then there was Yamamoto, my Yakuza contact.
I even considered people on the cleaner side of the law, like Rojas and Stryker. Any of them could have jumped in to help me and would have. But the more people I brought into the fold, the more bodies I needed to worry about.
Some of them, like those with mafia connections, could protect themselves. Others, not so much.
I didn't want to cause rifts because, though they weren't always together, there were innocent bystanders for all this.
My brain went to the Princesses, led by the hilarious Princess Aster. I thought of the men over at the Coleman Ranch working under Atticus's hands. I even thought of Gerald living his life in the city now. And I couldn't bring myself to put any of them at risk.
It wasn't fair, but it was life.
“Got it!” Memphis shouted as he slammed his fists on the desk. "This bastard is good."
"Show us," I demanded pointing to the wall.
He put his screen up on the wall, giving us a front row seat to everything he had. He walked us through it piece by piece showing us where the money was coming from and how he had traced it back.
Some of it was completely ridiculous. I didn't know what it meant, and I could have spent hours learning about computers and still be confused. But what I did get, what he said in plain enough terms, was that the trail cut out.
“He had enough shell companies and locations pinging that there was no point of origin, no place that we could pinpoint.” Memphis said. “Now, I do have a list of shell companies attached to him, and I can watch those. I can try to see if we can trace them back to any specific location. Any bank account or activity. It's tedious work, but I can maybe create a program to run it.”
“How long would that take you?” Ronan asked before I could.
“A few hours, maybe a few days. I'm honestly not sure. This is complicated stuff.”
“What if you had help? What if there was someone skilled with computers like you?”
He raised a brow. “Like whom?”
I went over my inner thoughts again and weighed out the frozen pause. I knew a few people who were technically savvy. Guys who lived ordinary lives who I'd hate to bring into this, but I had a feeling they would be willing to help.
There was one in particular who, while very young and impressionable, would get the job done.
“I’ve got two people. Really four, but I’m willing to give to you only two of them.”
Memphis laughed and shook its head. "I'll take anyone."
I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't in ages. We'd only spoken a handful of times. Hopefully owing him a favor wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass like owing Carver would.
"Tank?" he said as he answered.
"It's me. How's it going, Ricardo?"
He snorted. "It's going. What are you calling for? Did someone die?"
I shook my head and pinched the bridge of my nose.
"No one's dead. I'm calling because I need your computer expertise. I know that you don't usually work in that, but I could use some extra hands on this. Hands that can protect themselves in case of any blowback."
He hummed in understanding. We both knew of other people, people like Grayson, who worked for Stryker. We even had a few guys we knew in Bellport that could help out.
Unfortunately, they were too clean-cut to be part of something this dark. Something this dangerous.
"Have Memphis send me whatever it is. I’m busy at the minute, but I'll take a look as soon as I get to it."
"As soon as you can is best. I'll pay you or whatever. Money, favors, you name it, it’s yours."
There was a pause, and then he whistled softly. "This must be a big fucking deal if you're willing to hand out favors to me."
I turned from the guys watching me, tilting my head back as I closed them tightly, wishing I could be invisible. Wishing they wouldn't hear me.
"It's the most important favor I'll ever give out. I need your help."
"Done," he said. "Whatever you need, I’ll get it. Let me help."
I ended the call with a promise to be in touch soon. Memphis was already sending what he had, since he knew Ricardo.
Then I dialed the other number in my phone.
One that I wasn't supposed to know about.
One that I had really, truly tried to avoid.
It rang and rang and rang until a soft voice answered, "Who is this?"
"It's me," I said. And since we spoke once a week for the last three years, he knew who I was off the bat.
I had him labeled with a star. It was easy and simple.
Like me, though, he didn't have my number saved under a name. But I imagined, on his end, I was some type of emoji. Maybe a devil, or one of those faces that looked like it was constipated. He loved to torment me that way.
Him asking who I was likely was a precaution for anyone else he thought might be listening.
"Why are you calling me today? It's not our time to talk," he said.
"I'm calling because I need your help."
He gave a rough sort of laugh. "You don't need my help. You're Tank. The big bad guy who's got it all under control."
My head was still tilted back, and my eyes still closed. Instead of arguing, I gave him what he needed.
"I'm not just Tank to you. I'm your brother. I'm the man who’s willing to help in every way that I have. The one who has your back nonstop. Help me with this. Please. It's important."
“It's about him, isn't it?”
My brother Kendall, a surprise to me when he showed up all those years ago, and another secret that I kept from the team, spoke as if he knew about Chance. I shouldn't have been surprised. I had no doubt he was keeping tabs on me.
When he first appeared in my life with a blood test and proof that we were related, thanks to my mother donating her eggs for money one time, I panicked. How could I have a sibling and not know?!
I knew it to be true now. I'd done the research myself despite hating computer work.
Since then, we had had an imbalanced relationship.
Sometimes he loved me and called me "Bubby." He thought I was the greatest thing to ever happen to him. And then there were times like this where he wanted to strangle me. I thought it might be because he had different personalities, but at the end of the day, he refused to see a doctor. I wasn't quite sure.
What I did know was that I would protect him just like I would protect my team and Chance.
I also knew that he knew his way around a computer, maybe even better than Memphis. The only reason I hadn't brought him in was because his emotions weren't stable enough to do this full-time.
He sighed on the other end of the line and said, "It's fine, I’ll help. But I want you to bring me cupcakes from that place again."
The tension I felt broke.
“Sure thing. I’ll get an order of cupcakes together and fly them down there myself.”
My brother lived in Bellport after being shipped all around the country at one point. It was interesting to bring him things like that from time to time. I would need to plan the getaway soon, but not until I knew Chance was secure and that we had a trail on Diestro.
“Call it an IOU though. Things are tight right now.”
He hummed, "When are they ever not? Does this mean that your team knows about me now? Because this whole secret-keeping thing has really been a drag.”
He was so sassy sometimes. It made me wonder if my mother would have been that way had she not been oppressed by my father. I bet the two of them would have been thick as thieves.
“They know,” I answered. “They're right beside me. They can hear everything I'm saying to you.”
He giggled softly, then shouted, "Surprise bitches!"
Then he hung up the phone without saying a word.
I was met with a slew of wide eyes. Memphis was the first to say, "What the fuck? You have a brother?"
I shrugged. "You guys don't know everything about me."
And that was when Takeshi caught my eye and signed. “He’s not the biggest secret you have, is he?”
Well, fuck.
Now wasn’t the time to get into it, so I simply nodded as I tried to steer the conversation to safer topics. My time to tell them was running out. If I didn’t share it myself soon, I had a feeling they’d find out another way.