Chapter 11
I can’t see red flags because I sat too close to the TV as a kid.
— Brecken to Shasha
SHASHA
“Boss.”
I looked up from my paperwork to find Alexi standing in the door.
“I’m back,” he said.
“What did you find?” I asked.
“A whole bunch of nothing,” he admitted. “Did Ivan tell you about the Jeep parked at the house being constructed down the road?”
“Yes,” I said, warmth filling me at the thought of her so close. “Don’t worry about it.”
He frowned. “You’re not worried that there’s a woman sitting in a Jeep, staring at your house, for multiple nights in a row?”
“No,” I said, grinning inwardly at her persistence. “Because I know who she is.”
“Okay…” He shrugged. “And before you ask, Lev’s not found anything either.”
I grumbled something under my breath and leaned back in my chair, my gaze now fully on Alexi.
He was wearing a Metallica t-shirt and jeans. His usual attire.
But he looked…
“Your wife got to you finally?”
“Ex-wife,” he repeated automatically.
I shrugged.
Ex-wife or not, Kira Petrov was once the woman he loved, and Alexi let her stay in his life despite being fully capable of kicking her out of it if he wanted to.
“I’m not the one that looks like he’s just been freshly fucked…” I pointed out.
“I made a mistake,” he grumbled.
Alexi was always making mistakes when it came to Kira.
But that was neither here nor there.
“What about Cayden?” I asked. “Did you see him?”
“When I got to his place, the entire thing was locked down tight. Not a single soul in sight,” he reported. “Do you want a suggestion?”
“Sure,” I answered.
“Call the meet with the Seven,” he suggested. “Something is seriously hinky right now, and the fact that Cayden was gone means bad things. Him not being there, being visible…shit’s gonna hit the fan really fuckin’ fast.”
“The Seven” as he called it was a group of seven men. All of them were masterminds of the criminal underworld. We all also had drawn a sort of truce, as you could call it.
All of us—or more accurately our families—had been feuding since before we’d been born.
Turns out, all of our parents had passed within about four years of each other, and we’d found ourselves with a brand new dilemma on our hands.
Did we continue a feud between us that was going to continue to kill our people? Or did we find a way to create a truce? One that would ensure that we always could count on each other, even if it was one of those truces that was shaky at best.
Cayden and I had gone into this with a solid front.
We had each other’s backs. Always.
But if he was missing, and he wasn’t anywhere to be found, the others needed to know.
That, and they might have an idea that could help us identify what, exactly, had killed my men and taken Cayden into hiding.
At least, I hoped he was in hiding.
“I’m already waiting for the conference call to come through,” I said. “I had a feeling your news would be weak at best.”
Alexi shrugged. “I gotta get home to my kid. If you need me, call me.”
I jerked my chin up at him, and he’d just closed the door to my office when my computer beeped, indicating an incoming call.
Thankful that Lev was able to help set up this system for me—although I was great with computers, I didn’t have the patience for the tediousness of it—and I pressed Answer on the screen.
I was the last to arrive, by the looks of it.
Split into six sections, every one of the Seven filled the screen except for Cayden.
In the top right box there was Romeo Rossi. Middle top was Santiago Navarro. Top left was me. Bottom left was Milo Grey. Bottom middle was Broderick Morrison. Bottom right was Campbell Reid.
“Gentlemen.” I nodded at the screen. “It’s good to see you.”
“Good to see you, too,” a few answered, while others like Broderick and Santiago were silent.
“What’s the reason for the meeting?” Campbell asked, his eyes tired.
Campbell Reid was a police officer. A dirty one, but still a police officer.
He was called out at all hours of the night in order to hit up crime scenes. It also didn’t help that he was in LA and they had a lot of fuckin’ call outs and crimes being committed.
“Cayden is missing,” I said. “I had three men go missing at the docks in Houston. I talked to Cayden last week about them, and he seemed fine with me being there and investigating. This week, he’s gone missing.”
“Gone missing, or gone into hiding?” Broderick asked in his light Scottish brogue.
“I can’t tell,” I admitted. “Alexi was down there for going on ten days and found nothing. He also admitted that the crime in Houston has gone rampant without someone to run the ship and keep them in line.”
“The kind of rampant crime that’s going to draw attention?” Romeo asked.
“The kind that will draw attention,” I confirmed. “I am going to go down there tomorrow morning and have a look around. See what I can find. In the meantime, I wanted to know if any of you have heard anything that has happened. Romeo, you went down to Houston a few weeks ago, correct?”
“Yes, for a wedding,” Romeo confirmed. “My sister married a cop down there.”
I grimaced.
That sounded fucking awful.
“Why’d you let her do that?” Milo questioned.
My sentiments exactly.
“Because my sister did it without my knowing six months ago in Vegas. She’s pregnant with his child now, and they wanted a family event.” He paused. “Plus, I felt a bit better about it all knowing that her new husband was on Cayden’s payroll.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ll call them, find out what’s going on from their end, see if he’s heard from him.”
“Appreciated,” I said. “Has anyone else been having issues?”
“None.” Milo paused. “Which, come to think about it, is quite weird. I always have issues.”
“Same,” Broderick confirmed. “It’s almost like whatever is happening is spreading all over. I haven’t had a single problem with anything in I would say at least a month.”
“About when all this started down here,” I said. “My men went down there for their usual inspection at the docks. The shipments were there, from what I was told by my men before they went missing. When they were supposed to check in next, they didn’t.”
“Three men going missing isn’t abnormal, though,” Campbell pointed out.
“No,” I agreed. “But when this is my ninth man in seven months that has had the same experience. All of which happened when I sent them to the docks…”
“Sounds like you need to go to the docks,” Romeo pointed out.
“Only if he wants to get killed himself,” Santiago pointed out.
“Not sure how else you’re supposed to be fixing this.” Santiago continued. “We’ve had men go missing, but not to the point where we don’t know where they’re going. The Armenians have been hounding us relentlessly over the last six months.”
“Same for me with the Haitians,” Milo grumbled.
“It’s been calm here,” Broderick admitted.
“Shouldn’t have said that,” Romeo pointed out. “You’re next.”
“Whatever,” Broderick said.
Man of few words.
“I’m headed down there tomorrow. The next shipment is in a week,” I said. “I plan to stay down there long enough to find out exactly what’s going on with them.”
“Do you want us there as backup?” Milo asked, sounding bored.
“No,” I said. “I’m just letting you know where I’m at if I happen to go missing.”
“Noted,” Broderick said. “Let us know your findings. If I hear anything about Cayden, I’ll update y’all via the chat.”
The “chat” was actually a secure messaging server that we used to communicate. When messaging wasn’t enough, then came the secure server we used to talk face to face via the internet.
An insistent knock was coming from my door, and I looked up and found Artur pushing his way in. “Boss.”
I held up my finger to him outside of the camera’s range and said, “Bye.”
I hung up without waiting for their goodbyes, then turned to Artur.
“Your little rabbit is on the move,” he said. “She’s currently wading in the water in the back.”
I smiled.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”
I was halfway down the length of the backyard’s walkway that led down to the lake when I got the text from Romeo saying exactly what I suspected.
Romeo:
Everyone knows he’s gone. No one knows where he’s gone.
Frustrated beyond belief, I shoved my phone in my pocket and hurried my steps.
I found her at the base of my yard, steps away from being on my dock.
“You’re trespassing,” I pointed out.
She jerked her head up, then suppressed a smile. “I’m not trespassing. In Texas, you can be in the water, just not on the land.”
“Those are semantics, and you know it,” I retorted. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
Maybe if I warned her enough, she’d get the hint and stay away.
Because, it seemed, I couldn’t make her leave on her own. And my warnings so far had gone unheeded.
“I’m interested in finding out some answers.” She shrugged. “I figure if I annoy you enough, or maybe if I show you that I’m trustworthy, you’ll tell me.”
“Those two things are semi-contradictory,” I pointed out. “You want me to trust you, yet you’ve been casing my house for days. You won’t leave me alone. And you trespassed today.”
“I didn’t trespass,” she disagreed. “I’m telling you. I googled it. I can be here.”
“If you say so,” I said, jerking my chin toward the dock. “Come up here, then we can go for a walk through the neighborhood.”
“Okay.” She smiled.
She hopped up to the dock without my help, even though I was about to offer her my hand.
She practically skipped toward the end of my dock, then hopped onto the concrete that led up to my back door.
Instead of taking her inside, though, I led her around the house, using the keypad at the back to unlock the reinforced gate that would keep people out as well as in.
She followed behind me dutifully, then walked with me along the fence line.
“I have dogs, you know,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that I would be able to get to you before they would, but I don’t want to find out that I’m wrong about that.”
She jerked her head. “You have dogs?”
“Three of them,” I said, then decided to lay it all out for her. “I’m a dangerous man, Brecken, and you’re playing with fire. I don’t have a normal day-to-day job that keeps me on the straight and narrow. My whole life has been lived in the darkness. You can’t keep insinuating yourself into my life with your quest for answers.”
“Then tell me what I want to know,” she grumbled, stopping to pick up her socks that were near the road.
I waited for her to put her feet into her socks, then her shoes, before saying, “What do you want to know, Brecken?”
“I want to know who killed her. I want to know if her baby survived. I want to know if her husband was involved and is raising this child that he shouldn’t have any part in.” She fisted her hands at her sides and glared at me.
The light from the lamp we were standing under made her eyes look defeated.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “What guarantee do I have that, if I give you this information, you won’t use it against me?”
“You don’t,” she said. “But maybe you’ll feel better if you tell me.”
I didn’t bother to tell her that I wasn’t upset in any way that she didn’t know what I knew.
Her knowing would put her in danger.
Her knowing also gave her a level of trust that I’d never given anyone before in my life. Hell, not even my family knew what I’d done.
But there was no reason she couldn’t know that the baby was safe…
“Her daughter is safe,” I supplied. “She’s fine. I can promise you that.”
Her shoulders instantly wilted in relief.
Then she started heading toward her car.
But when she got to the doorless Jeep and hefted one shapely leg inside, she turned and caught my eyes. “Just answer me this…”
“If I can,” I offered.
“You’ll make him pay?”
I grinned then, loving the way that she didn’t shy away from me and my dark nature, even if she had no clue just how dark it was. “As you wish.”