Chapter 9 Skye
SKYE
“So let me get this straight. This Ramirez guy, who’s an accountant, by the way, somehow ended up protecting this Everett Longwood kid after his safe house was attacked and both the U.S.
Marshals and the FBI that were supposed to be guarding him were compromised?
An accountant?” I reiterated, leaning back in the chair.
I was pushing it to the limits, the front legs no longer on the floor.
I took a bite of my apple as I eyed Maverick.
He was sitting on the other side of the desk, in the spot that was typically Luca’s, as he handled all the day-to-day crap that came with running a business.
I was happy to let him deal with it, even if I was perfectly capable of doing it as well. I was more of an action guy, anyway.
Maverick snorted.
“A forensic accountant,” he corrected, like that somehow made the guy more capable of protecting anyone.
“But yeah, that about sums it up. Diego is digging into it further, but I guess this Everett kid is a fucking genius with one of those eidetic memories. He has a thing with numbers and patterns and figuring out connections.” Mav shrugged and took a sip of his water.
He must’ve had a chance to shower and change because he was wearing dark jeans and a black T-shirt that strained over his muscles, rather than the workout gear he had been in when we’d left.
I knew from experience that he would smell faintly of mangoes, and I was really tempted to clear the desk and sit in his lap.
Brooks and I were out running some errands when Luca had called.
When we’d gotten home, Mav had given us the quick and dirty rundown.
Then Brooks had gone to Diego’s office to help his brother.
We knew he’d be in research mode, trying to fill all the gaps that we had, and Brooks was the best person to help with that because he had the most experience with Diego’s system.
I’d followed Maverick to assist him in handling the rest of the bullshit. Tag team effort.
“Anyway,” Mav continued, “Luc said that once Everett’s parents figured it out, they home-schooled him because they were afraid he would get taken advantage of after an incident with one of his teachers during a conference where she casually mentioned that he could make a lot of money gambling when he got older.
Everett had overheard the conversation where they admitted that maybe it was paranoia, but it would be worth it to protect their kid.
Luca implied the kid is really fucking innocent and maybe a little too trusting.
Then his parents died when he was ten and his aunt and uncle got custody. That’s when everything went to shit.”
Maverick then told me that the aunt and uncle had done exactly what the parents had always been afraid of and had exploited Everett.
We still didn’t know all the details, but somehow his aunt and uncle had discovered that with Everett’s help, they did really well at gambling.
It had started online only but had escalated as he’d continued to make them more and more money, and they’d ended up getting involved with the wrong people who became suspicious of their winnings.
The Longwoods had ended up indebted to several mafia families and many of the other heavy hitters when it came to shady organizations with a lot of reach.
They’d forced a thirteen-year-old Everett to do the dirty work for them.
I still wasn’t perfectly clear on what he’d done, mainly because my brain couldn’t comprehend, but I guessed that didn’t matter.
The results were the same: he’d seen a lot of shit that could be used against said shady people and had the brain to remember every fucking detail. In short, he was fucked.
The Crimson Rose had then gotten wind of him and had essentially held him for the last six years, using him as their personal computer.
The Crimson fucking Rose. It was hard to believe they were real, but if Luca and Wes were convinced, then so was I.
They were supposedly an elite shadow criminal organization compiled of all the biggest players in the underground.
Cartel, mafia, the triads, Yakuza, you name it.
And Everett had information on all of them.
“So once the kid turned eighteen, his shitty ass guardians began to panic,” Maverick continued.
“They were smart enough to realize that the only reason they had been kept alive was because Everett was a minor and needed someone to look after him.” He wasn’t looking at me anymore, instead focusing on the monitor in front of him.
His ability to multitask without missing any details had always been impressive to me.
I whistled. “So that’s why his guardians went to the feds? Because they were afraid they’d be killed?”
Maverick grunted. “Looks like. The fuckers tried to pin it all on Everett, like he was the mastermind, but it didn’t take long for the FBI to realize that was bullshit.
Luc said after spending just five minutes with the guy, he knew there was no fucking way he’d be in charge.
Especially since he was only thirteen when things got really heavy. ”
I was dying to see Everett for myself. Luc and Wes could read people better than anyone I knew, so I trusted their instincts about him, but it didn’t sate my curiosity.
They’d agreed to help, but it would probably be a few more days before they came home with him.
The situation was complicated over there, and they had to make sure everyone was safe.
“What else do you know?” I prompted when Mav drifted off. He had more or less told me all this already, but it was good to hear it from beginning to end.
Mav’s lips pursed in annoyance, but he started to talk again.
“Like I said, Everett has an eidetic memory, so everything he’s ever been shown by these criminal organizations, he fucking remembers.
The FBI agreed to put him into WITSEC in exchange for information, but they never got that far.
” Maverick scrubbed his face, exhaustion kicking in.
“His aunt and uncle were taken out before they even made it to the first safe house. They were hit on the road and the agents protecting them were killed.”
“Ambush? Were they compromised?”
“According to Ramirez, yeah. The agent who got Everett out of the second safe house was his best friend. They were college roommates back in the day or some shit. He was severely injured, but he managed to get himself and Everett out alive and made a call to Ramirez before he died.” The guy on the payphone.
“But yeah, it seems he believed there are both FBI agents and marshals who are on the payroll of some of these organizations that are trying to get their hands on Everett. This was all but confirmed when two of the agents assigned to his last safe house turned on the other ones, killing them.”
“I’m still confused on why he’d get Ramirez involved. Dude’s an accountant.” It was worth reminding them that this poor kid’s safety had come down to a guy who spent his life at a desk, staring at numbers all day. Fucking shudder.
Maverick’s lips twitched in amusement. He knew my aversion to anything to do with math. Accountant was literally my nightmare job, and even though I understood their importance in our society, I’d rather have my eyes gouged out with a rusty spoon than trade places with them.
“He called Ramirez out of desperation. He was dying and didn’t know who else to trust after his team betrayed him.”
I couldn’t fucking imagine being in that situation.
That was why I was so glad I worked on the team I did.
The thought of the people you were supposed to trust and rely on more than anyone else betraying you was awful.
Dying on the job was a risk for anyone in this line of work, whether it was government sanctioned or not.
We all knew every time we left for a job that it could be the last, and I was sure this agent had known that as well.
But for the life-ending injury to come from your team was the worst form of betrayal I could imagine.
Maverick seemed to understand the dark turn my thoughts had taken because he opened his arms for me, and I gladly did The Dukes of Hazzard slide across the desk and into his lap. He pinched my thigh, but his other arm tightened around me. I nuzzled his neck, and yup, mangoes. Fucking delicious.
“I hate that the guy had to go through that.”
Maverick’s fingers flexed around my stomach. “I know. That’s why he called Ramirez, even though he knew he wasn’t trained. He knew that his best friend would do everything he could to fulfill his final job. They barely got to Ramirez before he died.”
I wondered what had happened to his body, but Mav kept talking.
“I’m not totally clear why Ramirez thought of Wes immediately and was sure enough that he was trustworthy to steal his records and essentially leave a trail for him to follow.
But here we are. I’m sure we’ll get more info once they get a handle on everything. ”
I sunk into Mav’s hold, enjoying the security of his arms.
“So what now?” I asked after a few minutes of silence and cuddling. Maverick had the business calendar that Diego had made for us, moving things around and planning our schedule for the next couple of weeks.
“Well, it’s going to at least be a day or two before Luc and Wes are back with Everett, likely longer. And we can’t just bring Matty back here without understanding the situation fully. We might have to split up for a bit, but we’re hoping to avoid that.”
That would fucking suck. It was even harder being apart from each other these days than it used to be. After the job that had brought Matty into our lives, we’d done our best not to be separated for long-term assignments.